The other day, the Athletic ran an article based on a list of “under the radar indispensable players” (UTRIPs) for each MLB team:
AL East: TBR: Joey Wendle; BOS: Garrett Whitlock TOR: Jordan Romano NYY: Chad Green BAL; Cedric Mullins.
AL Central: CWS: Michael Kopech CLE: Emmanuel Clase KCR: Scott Barlow MINN: Taylor Rogers DET: Robbie Grossman.
AL West: OAK: Mark Canha HOU: Luis Garcia SEA: Kendall Graveman LAA: Jared Walsh TEX: Ian Kennedy.
NL East: NYM: Taijuan Walker ATL: Austin Riley PHI: Odubel Herrera MIA: Miguel Rojas WAS: Daniel Hudson.
NL Central: MIL: Kolten Wong CHC: Willson Contreras STL: Tommy Edman CIN: Jesse Winker PITT: Richard Rodriguez.
NL West: SFG: Mike Yastrzemski SDP: Jake Cronenworth LAD; Chris Taylor COL: Ryan McMahon ARI: Josh Rojas.
Of course, this overlook of indispensable players overlooked the EFL. Here’s how we should have been mentioned:
0 UTRIPs: BC, FH, PA, PR
1 UTRIP: CK (Clase); CC (Walker); DC (McMahon); PP (Graveman)
2 UTRIPS: HD (Green, Kopech); OD (Edman, Riley)
3 UTRIPS: KD (Whitlock, Contreras, Winker).
I need to confess at this point my own record of overlooking important things. It is a human trait, carrying labels like “confirmation bias”, “recency bias”, the “interocular inference” (ie, what I see is assumed to be the entirety of reality), etc.
So let’s do our own overlook of players and plays we may have overlooked.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 45 | 19 | .709 | — | 371.7 | 238.2 |
| Peshastin Pears | 42 | 20 | .683 | 2 | 302.4 | 206.4 |
| Haviland Dragons | 43 | 22 | .662 | 2.8 | 310.7 | 222.9 |
| Kaline Drive | 43 | 22 | .662 | 2.8 | 345.8 | 245.1 |
| D.C. Balk | 36 | 19 | .662 | 4.4 | 287.0 | 205.7 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 41 | 23 | .636 | 4.7 | 295.9 | 227.1 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 33 | 22 | .599 | 7.9 | 301.2 | 249.3 |
| Cottage Cheese | 33 | 30 | .530 | 11.5 | 341.9 | 332.9 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 33 | 30 | .530 | 11.5 | 312.0 | 293.7 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 28 | 34 | .458 | 16 | 310.5 | 341.5 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 28 | 35 | .441 | 17 | 244.3 | 276.1 |
Old Detroit: “L”, 7 – 5. (50 PA, .200, .280, .467; 7.7 ip, 4 er, 4.68 ERA). Ross Stripling tossed 5 sparkling innings last night, allowing only 1 run. When I put that together with Old Detroit two K-class relievers, Kimbrel and Kittredge, and their fine pair of no-hit, no-walk, one K, no-run innings, I thought the W’s had 7 innings, 1 er. Add my Dodger hitters’ Gavin Lux and Will Smith twin 2 for 4 lines (each with a double and a homer), I went to bed thinking the W’s had another strong win.
I knew I was overlooking Nate Lowe’s 0 for 4, and 65% of Jurickson Profar’s 0 for 3, because they were sitting on the bench 100% and 65%, respectively. That improved the W batting line to something more like .237, .302, .553 — even though my UTRIPs Riley and Edman went a combined 1 for 9.
This morning I discovered I had overlooked the last 2/3 of an inning Stripling pitched, in which he surrendered 3 earned runs, raising the team’s ERA from 1.29 to 4.68, transforming the W’s W to an “L”. He’s Ross Stripling. I should have expected it.
Peshastin: L , 3 – 7. (32 PA, .222, .313, .259; 5.3 ip, 5 er, 8.49 ERA). Not being inside Phil’s head, I cannot say for sure what he overlooks while overseeing his Pears. He might wish he could just skip Blake Snell’s 4 ip, 3 er. He surely would like to pretend Genesis Cabrera didn’t execute a small sextuple chulk (1/3 of an inning, 2 earned runs.) He would rue his UTRIP Graveman’s failure to appear to right Genesis’ wrongs.
And I believe he would regret his batters’ poor performances, including studs Victor Robles, Juan Soto, and Ryan Mountcastle going a combined 0 for 9 without a walk. They are the main reasons the Pears slipped 0.4 games further from first place.
At least Jazz Chisholm kept hitting like the next shortstop superstar: 2 for 4 with a walk.
Haviland: W, 13 – 5. (37 PA, .400, .432, .886 !!; 8 ip, 4 er , 4.50 ERA). What a day! The Dragons came out in force, their fiery breath finally ablaze. Amed Rosario: 4 for 5 . Joc Pederson: 3 for 4 with a homer and a double. Four other Dragons also hit home runs: Brandon Lowe, Brendan Rodgers, Jake Cronenworth and Nelson Cruz.
Both UTRIPs Michael Kopech and Chad Green are pitchers whom the Dragons could have used to spruce up their mediocre pitching line. Even without them, though, Haviland heaved a half-inning off their standings deficit.
Kaline: W 2, L (-1); 8 – (-5). (46 PA, .256, .370, .438; 17 ip, 3 er, 1.59 ERA) Aaron Civale is usually overlooked. He couldn’t even catch enough attention to make the list of UTRIPs. But he loomed very large to the Mariners last night, completing 8 innings while allowing 1 hit (to JP Crawford, thankfully) and 1 walk. Building on that foundation, it was easy for Jose Urquidy and UTRIP Garrett Whitlock to finish with 9 more nice innings.
Kaline leads the EFL with 3 UTRIPs. The other two were in the thick of Kaline’s offensive outburst, especially Willson Contreras who homered and walked in 4 PA’s. I do have one little beef: how could the Athletic possibly consider Jesse Winker to be “under the radar”? Unless Cincinnati is essentially invisible from the Athletic’s San Francisco headquarters?
Anyway — the Wizard’s great day acted like floo powder, magically transporting the Drive a full game up the standings, into the Dragons’ living room.
DC: L, 4 – 4. (30 PA, .185, .267, .370; 3 ip, 1 er, 3.00 ERA). It was a quiet day in DC, befitting the city’s early days when it really was a sleepy town on the Potomac. The indispensable Balk, Ryan McMahon, carried on being indispensable, hitting the team’s only homer, and combining with Matt Chapman (3 for 4 with two doubles) to provide 90% of the team’s total bases.
The Balk’s main oversight was not providing enough pitching. Only three pitchers appeared. Chris Rodriguez failed to get an out before he had surrendered 2 runs — only one of which, fortunately, was earned. Drew Steckenrider rode out a scoreless inning, and Garrett Crochet stitched together 2 scoreless frames, to rescue a tie for the day, almost keeping pace with the Wolverines.
Flint Hill: “W”, (-1) – 2. (44 PA, .146, .205, .220; 2.7 ip, 1 er, 3.33 ERA). According to the Athletic, the Tornados do not have any overlooked indispensable players. Does this mean all the Tornados that matter are national celebrities? Or does it mean no Tornado is indispensable?
Yesterday’s results do not provide a clear answer. The offense sucked, despite 11 players batting, so perhaps one or more of the ones who didn’t appear (Grayson Greiner, Brad Miller, Sean Murphy, Keibert Ruiz) is indispensable? None of those made the Athletic’s list, but clearly Flint Hill dispensed yesterday with some indispensable hitting. Probably the Tornados should spend their June allocation moves cycling those 4 through the lineup, one at a time, to find the one (or two?) whom they cannot do without.
On the pitching side, volume is needed if the Tornados want to stop drifting away from first place … no, wait! The T’s didn’t drift at all away from first place despite recording a fake win! So what mysterious indispensable thing keeps the Flinties afloat despite a flop of a day?
Canberra: W, 5 – 4. (34 PA, .241, .324, .483; no pitching). We’ve caught the Kangaroos in the midst of a fascinating experiment, testing to see whether anyone among the pitchers is indispensable. I don’t think the Captain Kangaroo should trust today’s results, in which they won (and gained 0.1 games on first place) without any pitching. Sure, Vlad Guerrero went 4 for 4 with a double and a homer, and that was enough despite lackluster results from the rest of the lineup.
But the Athletic has spoken: Emmanuel Clase is indispensable. The ‘Roos cannot win the pennant without LOTS of Clase. Your strategy is clear: Keep it Clase, Canberra.
Cottage: “L”, 7 – 6. (30 PA, .370, .433, .481; 5 ip, 2 er, 3.60 ERA). The database designated the Cheese outcome as a loss, even though we can plainly see they outscored their foes. Shohei Ohtani is THE indispensable Cheese, going 2 for 4 with a double while pitching well for all 5 of the Cheese innings. But he is not under anyone’s radar, so he didn’t make the Athletic’s list. Nor did Marcus Semien (2 for 4 ) or Alex Verdugo (3 for 4 with a double) because, apparently, they are not indispensable.
If it’s any consolation, the Cheese still gained a 0.1 game notch on the Wolverines despite an apparently worse score. So there is some magic at work here, too.
Pittsburgh: W, 6 – 2. (31 PA, .250, .323, .500; 3.3 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA) I wouldn’t get too comfortable, though, if I were the Cheese. Despite the neat trick of gaining on a team using a worse score, Cottage finds itself this morning in a tie with the mighty Alleghenys. Without any identified indispensable players, and only 3.3 innings of pitching, the A’s gained 0.3 games on the lead, and 0.2 games on the Cheese. Dansby Swanson, no doubt stung by the lackluster reviews he got in Thursday’s sweeping shortstops comparison, led the team with a double and a single in 4 plate appearances. Homers from Jose Altuve and Max Muncy helped.
I suspect the indispensable Allegheny isn’t a player. I think it’s their cagey owner. I suppose in a league where every team has to have an owner this might not appear to be much of an insight. But all three of those players I just mentioned represent some slick move, at the cost of the Wolverines. Dansby (indirectly) and Jose (directly) became Alleghenys because of a single exceptionally foolish trade by Old Detroit. And while the Wolverines discovered Max Muncy (or at least, outbid the Cheese for him when he first emerged), it was the A’s who grabbed him just in time for Max to elevate his game to new heights.
Portland: W (-1), L 2; 3 – 13. (29 PA, .154, .241, .192; 4.7 ip, 7 er, 13.40 ERA). To be frank, I recognize the Athletic’s article as a meaningless piece of fluff produced by staff scraping ever deeper into the barrel for something to write about. As you can tell by my posts, I can empathize. But consider this: of the 4 EFL teams without an identified UTRIP, three are in the last three places in our standings. Is there any other stray stat out there that so powerfully correlates with position in the standings (other than RS:RA ratio, of course)?
Portland, like Pittsburgh, possesses no UTRIPs. They also had the worst day of any team in the EFL, for the second straight time I have written our update. Dylan Carlson hit a double. That was the team’s offensive highlight. Mike Foltynewicz coughed up 7 earned runs in 2.7 ip, a rather large chulk. He got 8 outs but gave up 7 earned runs — and an unearned run, too, to make things even! He also left two runners on base.
In Folty’s defense — and surely someone should come to his defense in the face of this beatdown he’s getting — this only raised his season ERA to 5.61. He has had much better days. But when our attention is focused on indispensability, it is perhaps not wise to seem so uberdispensable, kind of single-handedly costing your team 0.8 games in the standings.
Bellingham: “W”, 3 – 5. (30 PA, .250, .300, .321; 22 ip, 13 er, 5.32 ERA). Newly-acquired Anthony DeSclafani made a strong bid for reconsideration for UTRIPy by completing 9 shutout 2-hit innings for the Cascades yesterday. But his case was obscured by three other Bellingham starters who combined for 13 ip and 13 earned runs, Justin Dunn having done the worst of the three (5 er in 3 ip). Always-on-the-radar-Ron Acuna Jr. did his indispensable stuff (2 doubles and a walk — and a stolen base — in 5 PA), of course, but every other Cascade hitter treated indispensability like an unwanted virus, collecting singles singly, if they got on base at all.
Too bad every pitcher can’t be a DeSclafani, and every hitter can’t be named Ron.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 45 | 19 | .709 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 41 | 23 | .636 | 4.7 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 40 | 24 | .625 | 5.4 |
| Boston Red Sox | 39 | 25 | .609 | 6.4 |
| New York Yankees | 33 | 30 | .524 | 11.9 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 31 | 30 | .508 | 12.9 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 22 | 40 | .355 | 22.4 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 36 | 19 | .662 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 33 | 22 | .599 | 3.5 |
| New York Mets | 31 | 24 | .564 | 5.4 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 30 | 31 | .492 | 9.4 |
| Atlanta Braves | 29 | 32 | .475 | 10.4 |
| Miami Marlins | 28 | 35 | .444 | 12.4 |
| Washington Nationals | 25 | 34 | .424 | 13.4 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 39 | 24 | .619 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 33 | 27 | .550 | 4.5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 33 | 30 | .530 | 5.6 |
| Kansas City Royals | 30 | 32 | .484 | 8.5 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 28 | 35 | .441 | 11.2 |
| Detroit Tigers | 26 | 37 | .413 | 13 |
| Minnesota Twins | 25 | 38 | .397 | 14 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 36 | 27 | .571 | — |
| Chicago Cubs | 36 | 27 | .571 | — |
| Cottage Cheese | 33 | 30 | .530 | 2.6 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 32 | 31 | .508 | 4 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 23 | 31 | .426 | 8.5 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 23 | 39 | .371 | 12.5 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Haviland Dragons | 43 | 22 | .662 | — |
| Kaline Drive | 43 | 22 | .662 | — |
| Oakland A’s | 38 | 27 | .585 | 5 |
| Houston Astros | 36 | 27 | .571 | 6 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 31 | 32 | .492 | 11 |
| Seattle Mariners | 31 | 34 | .477 | 12 |
| Texas Rangers | 24 | 40 | .375 | 18.5 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 42 | 20 | .683 | — |
| San Francisco Giants | 39 | 23 | .629 | 3.3 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 38 | 25 | .603 | 4.8 |
| San Diego Padres | 37 | 28 | .569 | 6.8 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 28 | 34 | .458 | 14 |
| Colorado Rockies | 25 | 39 | .391 | 18.3 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 20 | 44 | .313 | 23.3 |