League Updates Uncategorized

What a pleasant surprise!

Yesterday I noticed that Haviland’s Chris Coghlan clouted two homers.  Boo!

Then I noticed they were both of Haviland’s Jeff Samardzija, adding to his woes on a day he surrendered 6 earned runs in 6 innings.  Yay! Oh how delightful that was to contemplate.

So I wrote John a note, gloating about  his mixed results.

Then I had a sad thought: what if John didn’t allocate Samardzija?  So I looked. Samardzija’s allocation for August is:  0 %.   Booo.  And too late.  I’d already written the taunting message.

So in the space of about one minute I experienced the entire range of EFL emotions.

 

I thought today I might try to focus on the positives for each team, this time in the form of the players, batters and pitchers, who have done the most to carry their teams in August.  We’ll start by identifying the common-wisdom favorites to be the team’s biggest contributor, according to the personal opinion of the Commissioner. (Why his lousy opinions? Well, he’s handy to me here, and he’s cheap. If you want me to get someone who knows what he’s doing, it will cost you more.)

Second, we’ll identify the person who the team owner apparently feels should be mos valuable, since he’s paying that player more than anyone else.

Then we’ll find the players with the best August WAR according to Fangraphs, ranking pitchers and hitters separately.

Who will be the biggest  pleasant surprise of the first half of August?

EFL
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB RS RA
Haviland Dragons 77 39 .662 583.1 413.4
Old Detroit Wolverines 73 41 .637 3.2 568.3 426.9
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 68 47 .587 8.8 547.7 459.3
Cottage Cheese 62 53 .540 14.2 492.3 450.7
Peshastin Pears 62 54 .535 14.7 491.1 458.2
Flint Hill Tornadoes 60 54 .527 15.7 544.3 515.1
Canberra Kangaroos 51 65 .438 26.1 588.4 668.9
Kaline Drive 50 66 .435 26.4 454.2 522.0
Portland Rosebuds 43 73 .371 33.8 453.8 596.4

 

Haviland: W, 3 – 2.   .114, .200, .364;  7.7 ip, 6 er.

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Paul Goldschmidt

Follow the Money Pick: Steven Souza ($8,250,000)

August WAR leader: Kyle Schwarber (0.8 WAR, 10th in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Jeff Samardzija

Follow the Money Pick: Johnny Cueto ($8,250,000 — apparently this is the Dragons’ internal salary cap. )

August WAR leader: Johnny Cueto (0.6 WAR, 10th in MLB)

 

Old Detroit:   W (-1), L (-1); (-13) – (-11). .255, .305, .418;  9 ip,  1 er.  The weather in Old Detroit was hot, muggy, and confusing. It always seems to be that way for negative doubleheaders.

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Giancarlo Stanton

Follow the Money Pick:  Justin Upton ($9,000,000)

August WAR leader: Anthony Rizzo (0.9 WAR, 5th in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick:  Madison Bumgarner

Follow the Money Pick:  Madison Bumgarner ($10,250,000 — the OD franchise record.)

August WAR leader: Madison Bumgarner (1.1 WAR, 1st in MLB)

 

Pittsburgh: “W”, 4.3 – 4.4; .275, .310, .400; 3 ip, 2 er.

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick:   Mike Trout

Follow the Money Pick:  Michael Brantley ($7,250,000)

August WAR leader:  Michael Brantley (0.6 WAR, 31st in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Cole Hamels

Follow the Money Pick:  Lance Lynn ($7,750,000)

August WAR leader: Hisashi Iwakuma (0.7 WAR, 4th in MLB)

 

 

Cottage:  W, 10 – 4; .433, .471, .667;  5 ip, 1 er. 

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick:  Yasiel Puig — well, either him or Arismendy Alcantara.

Follow the Money Pick: Jorge Soler ($11,000,000 !!)

August WAR leader: Kris Bryant (0.7 WAR, 14th in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Sonny Gray

Follow the Money Pick:  Clay Buchholz ($7,000,000)

August WAR leader:  Drew Pomeranz (0.5 WAR, 27th in MLB)

 

 

Peshastin:  W (-1), L 2;  0 – 9.  .120, .167, .200;  10.3 ip, 9 er. (Scherzer chulked!)     

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick:  Anthony Rendon

Follow the Money Pick: Javier Baez ($11,000,000 !!)

August WAR leader:  Michael Taylor (0.3 WAR, 73rd in MLB)  *

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick:  Chris Sale

Follow the Money Pick: Max Scherzer ($9,750,000)

August WAR leader: Garrett Richards (0.4, 32d in MLB)

 

 

Flint Hill:  W (-1), L (-1), (-8) – (-9).  .333, .400, .500; 9.7 ip, 7 er.     The Tornados weathered the Negativity Storm better than the Wolverines because they had a well-timed Edgar Martinez Day and… they’re Tornados!

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Dustin Pedroia

Follow the Money Pick: Joc Pederson ($11,000,000 !! — wait, now I remember why all these guys are getting $11,000,000 — that was the price of a first round pre-emption pick.  I had forgotten since the W’s didn’t have a first round pre-emption pick.)

August WAR leader:  Chris Davis (1.1 WAR, 2d in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Tyson Ross? (No one stands out as a true ace by reputation, even though there are plenty of good  Tornado pitchers.)

Follow the Money Pick: Collin McHugh or Aaron Harang ($5,250,000)

August WAR leader:  Collin McHugh (0.6 WAR, 13th in MLB)

 

 

Canberra:  W (-1), L 2;  1 – 14.  .148, .226, .333;  12.7 ip, 14 er. (Mike Montgomery nearly quadruple chulked!)

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Bryce Harper

Follow the Money Pick: Jose Abreu ($11,000,000)

August WAR leader: Marcus Semien (0.8 WAR, 11th in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Rick Porcello (?) (See comment, above, for Flint Hill)

Follow the Money Pick: Shane Greene ($11,000,000)

August WAR leader: Martin Perez (0.6 WAR, 7th in MLB)

I think we have our winner for the franchise with the most pleasant surprises in August. Let’s check the ‘Roos August record to see the wonderful results to the team’s fortunes:

 

Canberra:  7 – 8,  .478,  66.6 – 69.7

That’s good for 6th place! For a seventh-place team that’s a pleasant result, right?

 

Kaline:  “L”, 6 – 2.  .281, .333, .469;  8 ip, 2 er.

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Yoenis Cespedes

Follow the Money Pick: Rajai Davis ($5,500,000)

August WAR leader:  Brad Miller (0.5 WAR, 32d in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Marcus Stroman

Follow the Money Pick: Rajai Davis ($5,500,000)

August WAR leader: Matt Boyd (0.5 WAR, 22d in MLB)

 

 

Portland:     W 2, L 1; .205, .262, .333;   14.0 ip, 2 er. 

Hitters:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Starling Marte (see comment, above, for Flint Hill pitchers)

Follow the Money Pick:  Mookie Betts ($11,000,000)

August WAR leader:  Kole Calhoun (0.5, 38th in MLB)

Pitchers:

Commissioner’s Pre-season Pick: Doug Fister

Follow the Money Pick: Doug Fister ($5,750,000)

August WAR leader: Jimmy Nelson (0.5, 25th in MLB)

 

 

NOTES:

* Here is a franchise-by-franchise list of EFL hitters who have contributed more August WAR than Peshastin’s best (Michael Taylor)

HD
10 Kyle Schwarber 0.8
21 Carlos Correa 0.7
46 Neil Walker 0.4
60 Jason Heyward 0.4
61 Jake Lamb 0.4
64 J.D. Martinez 0.3
OD
5 Anthony Rizzo 0.9
15 Gregory Polanco 0.7
22 Manny Machado 0.6
30 Justin Upton 0.6
43 Adeiny Hechavarria 0.4
49 Yan Gomes 0.4
61 Kevin Kiermaier 0.4
70 Jackie Bradley, Jr. 0.3
PA
31 Michael Brantley 0.6
59 Dexter Fowler 0.4
CC
14 Kris Bryant 0.7
23 Matt Duffy 0.6
47 Jonathan Schoop 0.4
FH
2 Chris Davis 1.1
16 AJ Pollock 0.7
29 Francisco Lindor 0.6
66 Joc Pederson 0.3
71 Xander Bogaerts 0.3
CK
11 Marcus Semien 0.8
35 Bryce Harper 0.5
KD
32 Brad Miller 0.5
34 Yoenis Cespedes 0.5
53 Jace Peterson 0.4
67 Mitch Moreland 0.3
PR
38 Kole Calhoun 0.5

 

 

1 Comment

  • I really think that your “follow-the-money” stat ought to be consistently applied. Sometimes you skipped right over the first-round $11 mil rookie pick – other times you expressed amazement that a team (such as the Cheese, just to pick a random example) might commit such foolishness.

    Those rookies should be considered a bargain: their average salary over five years works out to $3 million/year.