(Written Thursday, updating from Wednesdays’ games)
I know it’s too early to draw conclusions about how the 2017 season will come out. That’s what they all say, anyway. But I am having trouble believing what the experts say. Eleven days into the season, some things are looking pretty clear to me. I’m ready to make some judgments.
Let’s warm up with some easy ones. The Mariners should do it. Not only are the 2 – 8, they keep losing the same way: crummy defense, crummy hitting, and Paxton being the only pitcher who can come through in a pinch. One guy can go 0 for 30 and it might just be a slump. But if one guy goes 0 for 300, it’s not a glitch. 10 guys going 0 for 30 is the same as one going 0 for 300.
The M’s have 10 hitters stinking it up, and NO hitters having good seasons on the same scale. The argument for random variation is getting very thin already. So:
- The Mariners are going to lose 100 games this season.
- Jerry Dipoto got way too cute with his offseason moves, acquiring a bunch of players who were available for cheap because of how much you had to squint to see them as being really good. Only one of them looks like he might be as good as Dipoto thought he’d be — Mitch Haniger. The rest have glaring flaws, like an inability to pitch, hit, or field. Or all three.
- The M’s vaunted core — Cano, Cruz, Seager, Hernandez — are all struggling (Felix the least of the four). The odds are that three of those four will struggle all season.
- Dipoto will trade at least two of his four core players, plus some other guys (Iwakuma? Valencia? Ruiz? Segura? Edwin Diaz, if he recovers his form) for prospects. He’ll start in June and still be going strong at the trade deadline.
- Scott Servais will be gone by then.
- Dipoto will be gone by Christmas.
Wow! That went further than I expected. But once you get on a roll…
EFL Standings for 2017
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Peshastin Pears | 7 | 3 | .725 | — | 42.7 | 26.3 |
| Cottage Cheese | 6 | 3 | .720 | 0.3 | 49.5 | 30.9 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 5 | 2 | .729 | 0.6 | 34.7 | 21.2 |
| Kaline Drive | 5 | 4 | .601 | 1.3 | 32.4 | 26.4 |
| Haviland Dragons | 5 | 4 | .572 | 1.6 | 51.4 | 44.5 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 5 | 4 | .557 | 1.7 | 45.6 | 40.6 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 3 | 5 | .387 | 3.1 | 29.9 | 37.6 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 4 | 6 | .375 | 3.5 | 36.7 | 47.4 |
| D.C. Balk | 3 | 6 | .327 | 3.8 | 40.2 | 57.8 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 1 | 6 | .188 | 4.4 | 17.5 | 36.4 |
Peshastin: L, 1 – 4. (.190, .292, .381; 15 ip, 4 er.) Pear fans are probably aghast at that awful hitting, even though the Pear OPS is .100 points higher than Old Detroit’s season line. With the Pears in first place for over a week straight, the signs are all pointing to the best Peshastin season ever. They’ll be in the race until late September for sure. Time for a Premature Judgment (PJ): if the legendary trio of Khris Davis (1.159), JT Realmuto (1.193) and Trey Mancini (1.046) can keep it up, they’ll win the EFL championship.
Cottage: “L”, 5 – 4. (.211, .333, .474; 7.3 ip, 3 er). Let’s see: Mike Trout is hitting .294, .359, .735. Bryce Harper is going .344, .488, .594. But look at this: Wil Myers is doing .400, .419, .825. So you can pay $25,000,000 for 1.094 OPS. Or $2,000,000 for 1.082. Or $1,000,000 for 1.244. One of these, at least, is a brilliant investment. Maybe two of them… Time again for a PJ: If all three of these investments turn out to be brilliant, the Cheese will be the 2017 EFL champions.
Flint Hill: W, 5 – 3. (.194, .306, .290; 1 ip, 0 er). The Tornados weren’t supposed to be contenders this year, but look at them: within 0.6 games of the lead, and rising. How are they doing this? Look at the heart of their lineup — the three guys smack in the middle, all with last names beginning with “M”: Margot (1.022 OPS), McCann (.983) and Murphy (1.188). Look at all the pitchers not named Straily, all of whom are at or below 3.18 ERA. Those six pitchers have combined for an ERA under 2.00. This is only a rough estimate, but I think those six pitcher have a FIP of about 4.10. So there’s a rumble of uncertainty about whether they can keep that pace. Straily will be better than his current replacement ERA (7.56) but… Here’s my PJ: The Tornados will be looking for pitching. If they find enough of it, look out Pears and Cheeses.
Kaline: W, 3 – 0. (.225, .340, .400; 26 ip, 9 er) The Drive are HOT. They have ascended dramatically from an abject last place the first two or three days of the season. Every former EFL champion is now behind them. They have a winning percentage above .601. Ready for my PJ? Apologies to the Pears, Cheese, and Breeze: if the Drive are in the heat of things in September, it will be hard not to root for them. I mean, hard for most people. The Commissioner is strictly neutral, of course, as to every team in the EFL. Except cellar-dwellers. The Commissioner always roots for last place teams. Exhibit #1: The Drive were in last place. The Commissioner started rooting for them. Now they’re in 4th and still rising.
Haviland: L, 6 – 7. (.320, .433, .440; 6 ip, 5 er.) The Chief Dragon basically admitted to me the other day that he didn’t really believe all those rookies he got were going to carry Haviland to their third straight championship. You all know how careful I am with confidential communications. I’d never tell anyone he said that. So I cannot explain how his players heard about it. I certainly didn’t leak anything. It was probably the Russians. PJ: The demoralized Dragons, no longer convinced they can fly with that fairy dust Haviland uses instead of WAR, will crash. And burn. Being Dragons and all. See, eg., Vincent Velazquez (5 ip, 5 er).
Canberra: W, 9 – 6. (.350, .395, .650; 6 ip, 4 er). Dan Altavilla had not allowed an earned run all year. Last night he surrendered 3 in a single inning, a key moment in the Mariners’ latest meltdown, and the only thing keeping the Kangaroos from passing the Dragons. On the other hand, Alex Bregman helped sink the M’s, too, with a key double: but this time, the ‘Roos benefited as well. Either way, it looks like the M’s are doomed. Both Kangaroo fortune and Kangaroo calamity comes at a cost to the Mariners. PJ: The Kangaroo Monsters, Inc. plan to power their pennant push on the screams and the cheers of the Mariners fans will ultimately fail — because there will be fewer and fewer M’s fans paying attention as the season progresses. A critical strategic miscalculation.
Pittsburgh: W, 9 – 5. (.405, .436, .730; 2.7 ip, 1 er). I’m so dumb, dumb, dumb dumb! How do I keep falling for the wily ways of the Alleghenys? They bamboozle me into taking Moore instead of Trout five year ago. They swindle me out of Altuve and Miller (and thus Swanson, Inciarte — who hit TWO HOMERS yesterday — and Blair). And still, yesterday when the Top Allegheny sidles up to me and pretends to sympathize about our teams’ fates — even saying our teams “share the same profile” — I trusted him. I thought he and I could be in solidarity as ex-EFL champions in exile in (or in his case, near) the EFL cellar. I thought we were buddies.
But, noooo, at the very moment he was talking so sweetly about the trials of those used to the upper tiers of society falling on hard times and living like hobos, his team was clobbering the ball and leaping up the standings. PJ: I will be forever defenseless against the Allegheny charm.
Portland: L, 1 – 8. (.175, .195, .300; no pitching again today). I am not in a good position right now — sitting in a SW Portland parking lot waiting out Sam’s soccer team practice — to check on this, but I am curious about how the Rosebuds could have two straight days without any pitching? Are the pitchers on strike? Is there a glitch in our system? In the Rosebud front office? PJ: The ‘Buds are just sandbagging, preparing to spring forward on foes unawares when pent-up pitching suddenly appears. It’s a cruel game. So a team sporting thorns is going to be extra good at it.
DC: DNP, 4 – 5 (.229, .317, .400; 2 ip, 0 er). The Balk have no one OPSing over 1.000. They do have three regulars OPSing over .900. Can you guess who they are?
Corey Seager? CORRECT: .914.
Welington Castillo? WELL, DUH: .935. He’s a EWIE, after all, if we treat catchers as infielders.
Mitch Moreland? Yep. .948. Another EWIE. Sure, only the “briefly during the offseason” kind of EWIE, just like Altuve, but it still counts. You got all three right. PJ: You’re smarter than the entife Wolverine management team put together. Although in this case the “premature” part of PJ doesn’t really apply.
Old Detritus: L, 0 – 6. (.158, .170, .184; 1 ip, 1 er.) After Wednesday’s games, there had been 11 days of stats this season. In only one did the W’s approach an OPS of .800. The rest of the time the W OPS stank. Thursday morning the Old Detroit Wolverine team batting line was .192, .270, .294. That’s an OPS of .563. Yesterday’s OPS was .354. But it’s not just yesterday’s 39 plate appearances. That .563 OPS was built up over 355 Wolverine plate appearances. If that was one player’s output — .563 OPS in 355 plate appearances — you’d send that guy to the minors, or cut him. I can’t send the W’s to the minors. PJ: the W’s will be sellers this year.
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 5 | 2 | .729 | — |
| Baltimore Orioles | 5 | 2 | .714 | 0.1 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 5 | 4 | .556 | 1.1 |
| Boston Red Sox | 4 | 4 | .500 | 1.6 |
| New York Yankees | 4 | 4 | .500 | 1.6 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 1 | 6 | .188 | 3.8 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 1 | 7 | .125 | 4.6 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| New York Mets | 6 | 3 | .667 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 5 | 4 | .557 | 1 |
| Washington Nationals | 5 | 4 | .556 | 1 |
| Miami Marlins | 4 | 4 | .500 | 1.5 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 3 | 6 | .333 | 3 |
| D.C. Balk | 3 | 6 | .327 | 3.1 |
| Atlanta Braves | 2 | 6 | .250 | 3.5 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Detroit Tigers | 6 | 2 | .750 | — |
| Minnesota Twins | 5 | 3 | .625 | 1 |
| Cleveland Indians | 4 | 4 | .500 | 2 |
| Chicago White Sox | 3 | 4 | .429 | 2.5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 3 | 5 | .387 | 2.9 |
| Kansas City Royals | 2 | 6 | .250 | 4 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Cincinnati Reds | 7 | 2 | .778 | — |
| Cottage Cheese | 6 | 3 | .720 | 0.5 |
| Chicago Cubs | 5 | 3 | .625 | 1.5 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 4 | 5 | .444 | 3 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 3 | 5 | .375 | 3.5 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 3 | 6 | .333 | 4 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Los Angeles Angels | 6 | 3 | .667 | — |
| Houston Astros | 6 | 4 | .600 | 0.5 |
| Kaline Drive | 5 | 4 | .601 | 0.6 |
| Haviland Dragons | 5 | 4 | .572 | 0.9 |
| Oakland A’s | 5 | 4 | .556 | 1 |
| Texas Rangers | 3 | 5 | .375 | 2.5 |
| Seattle Mariners | 2 | 8 | .200 | 4.5 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 7 | 3 | .725 | — |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 7 | 3 | .700 | 0.2 |
| Colorado Rockies | 6 | 4 | .600 | 1.2 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 5 | 4 | .556 | 1.7 |
| San Diego Padres | 5 | 5 | .500 | 2.2 |
| San Francisco Giants | 4 | 6 | .400 | 3.2 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 4 | 6 | .375 | 3.5 |