If you remember yesterday’s class, we were reviewing our responses to Tom’s request for our secrets to winning in the EFL. While it would be possible to take Tom’s question as an innocent expression of friendly curiosity, I took the much more suspicious view that Tom was preparing an uprising against the socio-competitive order.
We’ll take up today where we left off yesterday.
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Haviland Dragons | 10 | 4 | .710 | — | 67.2 | 42.9 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 8 | 5 | .630 | 1.2 | 71.4 | 54.7 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 7 | 5 | .543 | 2.4 | 67.1 | 61.6 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 7 | 6 | .502 | 2.9 | 58.4 | 58.1 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 7 | 7 | .468 | 3.4 | 51.9 | 55.2 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 6 | 6 | .466 | 3.4 | 46.4 | 49.7 |
| Cottage Cheese | 6 | 8 | .425 | 4 | 51.2 | 59.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 6 | 8 | .403 | 4.3 | 56.5 | 68.8 |
| Peshastin Pears | 5 | 9 | .372 | 4.7 | 49.3 | 64.0 |
| D.C. Balk | 2 | 11 | .148 | 7.5 | 35.7 | 85.9 |
Haviland: W, 5 – 0. (.214 .306, .452; 13 ip, 4 er). Another solid winning effort from the good players the Dragons managed to find. Like Neil Walker, who clouted two homers yesterday. Or Carlos Carrasco who delivered 6.3 innings with 1 earned run… oh, wait, that was against the Mariners, so it’s no indication one way or the other about whether Carrasco is a good player.
Canberra: L, 9 – 10. (.313, .368, .688; 10 ip, 9 er). Kangaroo hitters and pitchers are on different pages. The hitters are secret admirers of Tom “Bernie” Johnson’s ideas about the revolution of the competitive proletariate. The pitchers, on the other hand, cling to the traditional Kangaroo practice of never finishing above 3rd place. This internal schism left a murky result: Shane Greene’s 4.3 ip, 7 er performance was supposed to deliver the ‘Roos back to third place, but mighty efforts by the hitters to compete with the Dragons
Old Detroit: “W”, 6 – 7. (.235, .333, .471; 15 ip, 10 er.) Manny Machado and Mark Reynolds each hit a homer and a double (with Reynolds throwing in a walk) — but they were the only studs for the Wolverines. They are needed apparently, but any other studs that may be hiding on the Old Detroit roster are still biding their time, awaiting that crucial moment.
Pittsburgh: W, 4 – 1. (.188, .257, .406; 9 ip, 1 er). So far the Peak Allegheny has not responded publicly to Tom’s request for a release of confidential team strategy documents. We are reduced to guesses from observers, like “Be the last one drafting” or “From time to time, skip the rookie draft entirely — it’s overrated” or “Go into July with the most money so you can sign veteran stars on expiring MLB contracts to long-term cheap EFL deals” or “Be willing to purge your entire roster from time to time, except for Mike Trout and Jose Altuve, of course.” These are all good, but I happen to know the REAL secret to Allegheny success: every couple of years help the Wolverines talk themselves into passing on drafting Trout or giving you Altuve in an absolutely horrendous trade.
Portland: L, 0 – 8. (.128, .171, .256; 13.3 ip, 9 er). We heard from the Top Rosebud yesterday, but I admit I heavily edited his actual advice for comedic effect. So, to be fair to the Rosebuds, here are all the words I left out:
1) Plan for the future, but… 2) decide your goal for the year (compete…)…it 3)…all…covered.
There you have “it…all…covered.”
Flint Hill: W, 3 – 0. (.222, .263, .389; 16.3 ip, 0 er.) The Tornados have not issued an official response to Tom’s request, so all we have is one eyewitness to their CEO’s off-the-record comments which focused on not over-allocating players so your strongest players’ efforts aren’t diluted by plate appearances and innings from weaker players. Ironically, I also heard him complaining that he hadn’t allocated any innings to Mat Latos, whose ERA on the season at this point is 0.49. Latos was joined yesterday by four other Tornado hurlers who, among them, surrendered the same number of earned runs as Latos did: 0.
Cottage: W, 5 – 3. (.244, .311, .439; 10 ip, 0 er). Wow. Drew Smyly pitching 8 innings of one-hit shutout baseball, with 11 strikeouts! The Head Cheese hasn’t revealed any of his “best practices” but apparently it involves bilking others in trades. As Exhibit B, let me direct your attention to Jay Bruce: .278, .298, .519. That OBP is low, but the entire package is OPSing .817 so far, which is not that bad.
Kaline: W 2, L (-1); 10 – 2. (.343, .477, .514 — Happy Edgar Martinez Day!; 10 ip, 3 er). Tom himself has not offered to share any of his accumulated EFL wisdom, which is what originally aroused my suspicion about his motives. You don’t earn the title “Wizard of Whidbey Island” unless you have shown some Wiz (dom). Nor do you uncork a day like yesterday if you’re totally clueless. So let’s look at the people who made the Drive’s great day possible, for clues to the Wizard’s Way:
- Yoenis Cespedes (1.933 OPS: 1 for 3, homer, two walks): Shrewd drafting.
- Chris Owings (1.750 OPS: 2 for 3, double, walk): Shrewd drafting.
- Michael Saunders (1.350 OPS: 2 for 4, double, walk): Bilk the Wolverines in a trade.
- Dexter Fowler (1.267 OPS: 1 for 3, double, 2 walks): Shrewd draft from the Assassin’s Guild.
- Carlos Perez (1.167 OPS: 1 for 2, walk): Shrewd drafting.
- Jonathan Villar (1.000 OPS: 2 for 4): Shrewd drafting.
- Marcus Stroman (7 ip, 3 er): Shrewd drafting and calm endurance during tragic setbacks.
There you have it: as much shrewd drafting as possible with an occasional ruthless trade with the reliably gullible Wolverines. Plus, of course, lulling your opponents into revealing their most potent secrets.
Peshastin: L, 2 – 7. (.150, .227, .325; 4 ip, 3 er) I found it endearing, and even inspiring, the way the Pears — on the express train to the EFL cellar (or what used to be our cellar until we expanded by building a new sub-cellar) — still felt confident others would want to know his secrets for success:
Spend liberally on quality rookies, since you’ll get most of the money back next year. You might not be sure which rookies will be great, so buy lots of them, following Ron’s rule.
That’s actually really good advice (Justice WEINERT, dissenting) considering…
HEY! What’s this about “f0llowing Ron’s rule”? Who said you could sully my name by associating it with a 9th-place team’s secrets for “success”?
D.C.: L, 1 – 6. (.053, .217, .053; 2.7 ip, 0 er). Ok, I admit it. It’s not so much a sub-cellar as it is a dungeon. But honestly, in all candor, I assure you we are not punishing you for joining the league. Consider it more like an office in the basement, or the Workhouse where Niggle gets off the train. A few eons painting boards and you’ll be ready to move up into the sunshine.
Yesterday, in a closed door meeting, I told my pitchers they had to pick up the slack for our horrible hitters, and they responded. But I told they couldn’t tell the hitters I was talking so badly about them, lest their confidence be destroyed. They countered, “Why do they have confidence when they put up such pathetic lines?” The Latos started bad-mouthing every single hitter since Drake LaRoche is no longer around (he was trying really hard to be a good role model for him). I told Mat that yes, he is right, but that those words don’t go beyond these closed doors. Then he started bad-mouthing me because he’s using all of these amazing innings in AAA. So now I not only have inept hitters, but I have what we all feared – a subversive Mat Latos (And a commissioner who tells the entire league about my ineptness as a manager). From now on, Flint Hill only cares about Flint Hill – that’s my only wisdom for all of you – only care about Flint Hill.
As Rob can verify, I did share some “wisdom,” but does it count as wisdom from a team that aspires to mediocrity, and that has often failed to achieve even that? Contrary to Jamie’s strategy, I pretty much fully allocate to avoid replacement players, even then, as one can see by my stats, replacement innings/and ABs show up anyway. I also liked Ryan comments about assiduously studying every available player and then spending money like it was burning a hole in my wallet, which is why I have always admired (and never imitated) Mark W’s strategy of saving money to the end of the draft and beyond (and he’s always in the hunt). I don’t find John’s strategy – “draft good players” – very helpful, just as he intended it not to be. 🙂 It is the right advice, for sure, but the vicissitudes of baseball life often impinge non-serendipitously on the attempts to execute it. (We all have our little list of players for whom we had high hopes, and that’s what they left us with, limping along with broken legs, TJ-surgeried arms, oblique strains, and children so annoying in the clubhouse that they quit the team, uzw.) I did save Dave Votaw’s list of don’ts, like being wary of Rockies pitchers (given their ballpark for 81 games), but then I went ahead and drafted Kyle Kendrick anyway (2015 ERA, 6.32). So, if you ask for advice/strategy, caveat emptor, especially if you’re not paying for it.