1968 Detroit Tigers Single-Team Replay Results

After three years and four months, I finally finished my 1968 Detroit Tigers single-team replay. Coincidentally, I finished the regular season as I heard of Al Kaline’s passing. As is the case with anyone doing an APBA replay, time is your most important commodity. Life has a habit of getting in APBA’s way, but with the recent Coronavirus pandemic, I’ve had plenty of extra time.

As a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, my main reason for taking on this replay was to learn more about this legendary team. That’s the wonderful thing about APBA, each APBA card is its own rabbit hole. I was able to play with the final cards of Hall of Famers like Mickey Mantle and Eddie Mathews. I was able to roll for two statues on the leftfield concourse of Comerica Park in Detroit, Willie Horton and the late, great Mr. Tiger. More than anything, I was able to lead the Tigers to the American League pennant.

In 1968, the Detroit Tigers finished 103-59, twelve games ahead of the second-place Baltimore Orioles. They were the only team in all of baseball to win 100+ games. In my replay, the Tigers finished 109-53, which would have put them eighteen games in front of the pack.

You might be thinking, “boy, he probably rolled really well.” That wasn’t the case. In actuality, the Tigers hit .235 as a team. My Tigers? They managed an anemic .216 average. However, as they did in real life, the Tigers led the league in home runs. In 1968, Detroit’s 185 homers were 52 more than the Orioles hit. In my replay, the Tigers bombed 203, which included five players with 20+ and one with 19. When the Tigers got a hit, they made it count.

On the surprising side, Willie Horton outperformed his 36 homer season by hitting 46 dingers. This gave him two more than Frank Howard’s 44. With his long-ball barrage, Horton also managed to tie Ken Harrelson for the AL lead in runs batted in with 109. The extra homers also allowed Horton to push ahead of Howard in slugging percentage, with a .556 mark to the Senator’s slugger’s .552.

In the year of the pitcher, Dick McAuliffe led the AL in runs scored with 95. However, in my replay, he only scored 80. Hitting .222 for the season made it hard to touch the plate. This also helped Mickey Stanley only hit into 15 double plays instead of his league-leading 22. You’re less likely to hit into a double play if the guy in front of you isn’t on base. Yet, a Tiger did lead the league in runs scored in my replay; it was Jim Northrup with 100 on the dot. Finally, catcher Bill Freehan led the AL in hit by pitches in 1968 with 24. In my replay, he took a beating, getting beaned 31 times. However, Freehan managed to finished tied for second with Brooks Robinson in the AL in doubles with 36, one short of Reggie Smith. All in all, the Tigers produced runs when they needed to, scoring just nine fewer than they did in real life. One final offensive surprise was Don Wert’s 19 home runs, despite his .186 batting average. Wert’s totals were helped by a four homer game.

Anytime someone replays the 1968 season, one of the questions at the top of the list is whether or not Denny McLain won 30 games. Well, in my replay he did. Actually, his numbers are remarkably similar to his actual season. In McLain’s first Cy Young Award-winning season, he was 31-6 with a 1.96 ERA. In my replay, he was 31-7 with a 1.85 ERA. In his actual season, McLain struck out 280 batters. In my replay, he fanned 277. For Mayo Smith, McLain had 6 shutouts; in my replay, he tied Luis Tiant with nine. The biggest difference between real life and my replay was McLain’s two no-hitters he threw for me. In this career, McLain never tossed a no-hit game.

With a 2.36 team ERA, several other Tigers pitchers did well in my replay. Mickey Lolich finished 17-5 with a 2.36 ERA; Earl Wilson was 19-8 with a 2.45 ERA. He also hit seven home runs, just like he did in the actual season. Fred Lasher made 17 relief appearances and produced a 0.81 ERA as a C*. My biggest issue was realizing after the replay was complete that Roy Face only pitched one game for the Tigers. I thought he’d worked 45 games for Detroit because that’s what his APBA card says. However, that’s what he’d worked for the Pirates before coming over to the Tigers in a trade. I guess I should have done some additional research. However, I’ll make the excuse that this season occurred four years before I was born, so it’s not like it was something I lived through, like the 1984 Tigers. Anyway, that easily could account for the extra 6 wins the Tigers managed to win in my replay.

When I do a single-team replay, I use the actual starting lineups. However, I manage the game as it unfolds. If a pitcher is doing well, I keep him in the game. If a relief pitcher is in order, I bring him in for either the Tigers or their opponent. However, I believe too often I might have brought in better than average relief pitchers for the Tigers opponents. I’d only use a D*, or even a C* when the game was lopsided. In hindsight, this isn’t the way things work in real life. An MLB manager isn’t as lucky as an APBA manager by knowing the grade of all of his pitchers. In the end, I think facing better-graded relief pitchers contributed considerably to the Tigers’ low team batting average. In future replays, my next being the 1908 Detroit Tigers single-team replay, I plan to correct this issue.

Obviously, my next task is to replay the classic 1968 World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals look very formidable. When that series is complete, I share my results with the APBA community. In the meantime, feel free to peruse my replay’s statistics (pictured first), which I kept through iScore.