League of Justice

You will note in the heading for today’s standings that they are “adjusted.”  The root word here is “just” as in fair, square, true, rightful.  The prefix “ad” means  “to” or “towards.”  So these standings have been moved toward truth, justice and the American way.  Well, the American way according to America’s espoused values, whatever its operative values might be.

In what way did our standings need to be moved to begin to be just?  Well, somehow this month our database has developed a glitch. Players who had not appeared in July were being credited with their June statistics.  We discovered this two days ago, as I told you in the update “Our somewhat plain but very genteel sister.”  You remember, of course, that the Flint Hill Tornados had shown admirable dedication to the Laws of the EFL and the Spirit of the Game by alerting us that Dustin Pedroia was getting credit for AB in July that he could not be getting while on the DL.  We fixed that and assumed it was an isolated case of something misfiring in Pedroia’s records in the database.

But then yesterday Haviland alerted us that the same thing was happening for Kyle Blanks and Carlos Peguero for the Dragons.  I guess the tree does not grow too far from the acorn!   So I investigated the Wolverines and discovered they had been benefiting from June stats for Giancarlo Stanton and Jackie Bradley.  Ouch!

With our entire IT department vacationing at a remote Oregon beach, where the internet supports email but not browsing (or so the absconded IT department tells me), I had to devise a way to work around the problem.  I have now looked at all nine teams.  No team went untouched by the Phantom Players Glitch. Here is a list of all the players who, up until this morning, were being given credit for their June stats in July, without ever appearing in July:

Haviland:  “L”,  7 – 3.  .289, .300, .447;  1.3 ip, 1 er.  Maybe you noticed one little difference between Flint Hill’s brave honesty and the honesty of the Dragons: Pedroia’s .900+ OPS were painful for the Tornados to lose, while getting rid of Blanks’ numbers helps the Dragons.  I do not hold this against the Dragon management.  Facts were facts, and the D’s aren’t responsible for where the chips may have landed.

Old Detroit: L, (-5) – 2. .205, .319, .231;  11.7 ip, 3 er.  Madison Bumgarner did sort of OK (5.7 ip, 2 er) but once again the Wolverines relied on the heroic efforts of the resurrected Erasmo Ramirez (6 ip, 1 er), this time to mitigate a little bit the effects of losing Stanton’s phantom stats.

Cottage: W,  8 – 4.   .366, .435, .537;  10.3 ip, 6 er.  The Cheese don’t seem to have been affected that much by the Phantom Players Glitch.  They got about the number of runs they should have out of such a fine day of hitting.  The main benefit to the Cheese was the collapse of the Wolverines once their false props had been removed.

Peshastin:  W,  6 – 2.   .237, . 341, .421;   8.7 ip, 0 er.  Danny Salazar reveled in the downfall of his former Wolverine employers,  pitching his best game of the year in celebration.  Losing Cozart and Rendon numbers had to hurt, but at least the Pears had some decent offense to mask some of the loss.

Flint Hill: W, 4 – (-1).  .270, .308, .405;  15 ip, 3 er.  The Tornados took their lumps already, so they could enjoy the full benefit of an ok day at the plate and a stellar one from the mound, thanks primarily to Carlos Rondon’s 6 shutout innings.

Pittsburgh:  W (-1), L 2;  2 – 10.   .286, .359, . 486;  22.7 ip, 20 er.  The Alleghenys join the Ws as teams taking the adjustification on the chin.  With a great day at the plate, one which should have produced at least 6 runs, the Alleghenys’ loss of Freeman’s stats had a clear negative effect.  The demoralization of the pitching staff was even starker:  Shelby Miller (5 ip, 5 er) was bad, Lance Lynn ( 4 ip, 5 er) was worse, and Cole Hamels (3.3 ip, 9 er) almost triple chulked!  Only young Noah Syndergaard seemed to be mercifully oblivious (8 ip, 1 er).

Kaline:  “L”,  5 – 4.  .206, .206, .471;  6 ip, 2 er.  Leave it to the Wizard to find a way to benefit dramatically from the adjustification. Aoki had a pretty good June (.338, .384, .353) but Colon was terrible (.067, .125, .133 in 15 AB).  So getting rid of them may have boosted the Drive  — they got 6 runs on a day that would otherwise have been lucky to produce 3.

Canberra:  L, 3 – 8.  .172, .314, .172;  7 ip, 5 er.  At the end of May I faced a terrible dilemma — do I keep Erasmo Ramirez, newly-discarded to the W’s by the Kangaroos, or do I trade him for Mike Montgomery, a similarly busted prospect pitching for Tacoma? Ramirez had shown early signs of recovery from his disastrous first few starts in 2015, but Montgomery had tantalizing stats at AAA.  I kept Ramirez, who kept on pitching very nicely.  Montgomery soon thereafter came to Seattle and started pitching even better.  I mostly quelled my remorse, and actually had the charity to celebrate a little with the ‘Roos when they snagged Montgomery as a debutant.  I was getting to practice rejoicing with those who rejoice even though I was a little bit envious of them.

Well, my spiritual growth will now go back to its regular indiscernible pace.  On the same day that Remirez went 6 ip, 1 er — oh, did I tell you that already? I’m sorry — Montgomery went 5 ip, 5 er.

Portland:  W, 3 – 1.  .212, .278, .333;  22.3 ip, 7 er.   Of all of us, the Rosebuds felt the adjustification the least. Jorge Polanco had only gone 1 for 3 with a walk in June, so cutting that back to 0 for July is barely a blip. Getting back to within 25 games of first place probably doesn’t mean anything in reality but it’s still got symbolic value.