Jackie Bradley Jr. disappeared on May 8. That was the first day, apparently, that I copied his stat line from Baseball Prospectus to the top line of my spreadsheet, overwriting the column headings that were supposed to be on the top line. I didn’t notice the mistake at the time. Since Dave’s database was programmed to skip the top line of column headings and start reading stats on line 2, it was as if Bradley had gone on the DL, or had been kidnapped, or raptured or something. His stat line stayed what it had been on May 7.
I didn’t notice — it’s normally hard to pick out the effects of one players’ efforts on the standings — until Sunday evening, late, when I began my draft prep by looking for where I might be accumulating replacement at bats. That’s when I noticed Bradley only getting credit for 20 AB in May. Dave patiently helped me spot my error.
So here are the standings as I posted them yesterday, without three weeks of JBJ:
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 30 | 18 | .624 | — | 236.9 | 180.2 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 30 | 19 | .615 | 0.3 | 268.9 | 212.5 |
| Haviland Dragons | 29 | 19 | .603 | 1 | 224.5 | 184.2 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 26 | 21 | .560 | 3.1 | 238.3 | 210.7 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 27 | 22 | .553 | 3.4 | 227.6 | 204.9 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 28 | 23 | .550 | 3.4 | 229.7 | 207.3 |
| Peshastin Pears | 24 | 27 | .471 | 7.4 | 206.0 | 219.3 |
| Cottage Cheese | 21 | 26 | .437 | 8.9 | 208.9 | 236.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 21 | 27 | .430 | 9.3 | 227.5 | 263.6 |
| D.C. Balk | 13 | 35 | .271 | 17 | 175.3 | 289.3 |
As of this morning, when I updated only the Wolverines (with JBJ back where he belongs) and Kangaroos and not the other MLB or EFL teams, the W’s were up by 1.4 games.
Actually, let’s just say it was all in the interests of science. Because we just ran a little experiment. We ran three weeks of standings without Jackie Bradley, and the W’s were 0.3 games back. Then we ran the same three weeks WITH Jackie Bradley, and the W’s were 1.4 games ahead. That’s a 1.7 game swing in the standings caused by one person. Whose line for those three weeks was:
| Name | AGE | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | HBP | SO | SB | CS | SH | SF | DP | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | TB |
| Jackie Bradley | 26 | 21 | 76 | 14 | 31 | 7 | 0 | 6 | 22 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .408 | .500 | .737 | 1.237 | 56 |
So, yeah, one person can make a difference. At least as long as he’s on pace to have only the second .400, .500, .700 + season ever. (Also, the second ever by a Red Sock, since the only other one was Ted Williams in 1941). And JBJ’s numbers would be even better if his 29-game batting streak hadn’t ended the very day I first mentioned it on this blog. Not that I jinxed him or anything.
Here are the standings as they stand today. You’ll see another thing that makes a difference: how may games your team has played (based on the vagrancies of MLB teams’ standings in your division):
| Team | Wins | Losses | Pct. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 32 | 18 | .645 | — | 288.7 | 214.2 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 31 | 20 | .605 | 1.9 | 251.2 | 199.3 |
| Haviland Dragons | 29 | 21 | .588 | 2.9 | 233.5 | 198.6 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 30 | 22 | .568 | 3.7 | 238.9 | 207.5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 27 | 20 | .575 | 3.8 | 240.5 | 206.1 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 27 | 23 | .535 | 5.5 | 230.6 | 214.9 |
| Peshastin Pears | 24 | 28 | .466 | 9 | 211.3 | 226.9 |
| Cottage Cheese | 21 | 27 | .434 | 10.4 | 209.2 | 238.5 |
| Kaline Drive | 22 | 28 | .431 | 10.7 | 238.7 | 275.9 |
| D.C. Balk | 14 | 37 | .270 | 19 | 187.5 | 309.9 |
Let’s highlight some outstanding individual performances from Sunday’s games:
- Old Detroit: “W” 2, L (-1). (.176, .282, .176; 13.3 ip, 7 er). Jackie Bradley went 0 for 2 — but with 3 walks.
- Canberra: W 1, L 2. (.244, .319, .415; 10.3 ip, 7 er). Jonathan LuCroy went 2 for 2 with a triple and a walk.
- Haviland: W 0, L 2. (.179, .303, .357; 6 ip, 7 er) Paul Goldschmidt went 2 for 3 with a double and a walk.
- Portland: W 2, L (-1). (.286, .432, .600; 20.3 ip, 5 er — the best day by an EFL team.) Kole Calhoun went 2 for 4 with a triple, a homer, and 3 walks.
- Pittsburgh: W 1, L (-). (.375, .444, .469; 22 ip, 5 er — a close second to the Rosebuds.) Jose Altuve went 4 for 6.
- Flint Hill: (.265, .297, .324; 11.3 ip, 10 er) Doug Fister completed 6 innings, allowing 1 earned run. (But Nate Jones went 0.3 ip, allowing 3 earned runs, for a nonuple chulk.)
- Peshastin: L. (.258, .303, .613; 12.7 ip 8 er). Anthony Rendon went 2 for 4 with a homer. Not all THAT outstanding, maybe, but this is the Anthony Rendon who looked like a superstar in 2014 but like a benchwarmer last year, so any spark of the old Rendon returning is an outstanding performance.
- Cottage: L. (.094, .211, .219; 14.3 ip, 4 er): Jay Bruce went 1 for 3 with a homer and a walk. Like Rendon, only more so. And he had 4 of the team’s cheesy total of 7 total bases — more than half the team’s offense!
- Kaline: W 1, L 1. (.297, .458, .378; 4 ip, 0 er). Jonathan Villar went 2 for 2 with 2 walks and a stolen base.
- Franklin Gutierrez went 1 for 3 with a homer and a HBP. The Balk had a good day (.269, .367, .538) with 3 scoreless innings in relief, but they didn’t have anyone who stood way out, so I picked Gutierrez. Given his medical history, any really good day is an outstanding one.
ONE FINAL NOTE: This “difference one person can make” has another angle: Jackie Bradley came to the Wolverines as a sort of add-on t0 the Salazar for Bauer trade. As Salazar for Bauer, the trade turns out to be lopsided in favor of the Pears. But when you add in the add-on — the guy thrown in makes the trade look entirely different. He turns out to be the centerpiece (in retrospect) (so far) (if I’m done jinxing JBJ by talking about him).