In this post we:
- Examine the effects of MLB trade-deadline wheeling and dealing in the EFL. Did it matter? It’s hard to say — but there is considerable evidence a team can be over-Joed.
- Look for consolation in intra-divisional races involving EFL teams. Is there any? Yes, there should be, for almost every EFL team. Maybe not the Rosebuds.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 83 | 34 | .710 | — | 666.2 | 425.6 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 77 | 40 | .656 | 6.3 | 619.2 | 446.6 |
| D.C. Balk | 74 | 43 | .633 | 9 | 671.3 | 510.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 74 | 43 | .631 | 9.2 | 583.7 | 449.2 |
| Kaline Drive | 71 | 45 | .615 | 11.3 | 628.1 | 497.0 |
| Haviland Dragons | 66 | 50 | .573 | 16.2 | 594.5 | 528.4 |
| Cottage Cheese | 66 | 52 | .563 | 17.1 | 679.1 | 614.2 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 64 | 53 | .549 | 18.8 | 600.8 | 542.1 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 63 | 54 | .535 | 20.5 | 596.8 | 573.7 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 62 | 55 | .526 | 21.6 | 511.3 | 483.9 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 54 | 63 | .465 | 28.7 | 615.2 | 663.1 |
Old Detroit: W, 5 – 2. (53 PA, .261, .321,.391; 14.3 ip, 5 er 3.15 ERA). Walker Buehler faced off against the Cheese’s Taijuan Walker. Walker went 7 innings, allowing only 1 earned run on 4 hits, three walks, and and 10 strikeouts. One of those 4 hits was a homer driven by Drive Michael Conforto. Walker, on the other hand, pitched 6.7 innings, allowing 1 earned run on 2 hits, 3 walks, and 8 strikeouts. One of those two hits was a home run by Wolverine Will Smith.
No wonder the EFL is doing so well as a group this year. We’re in all the good plays.
Walker (B.) had, according to Baseball Reference, the third best start of the day, with a 72 game score. (T) Walker came in at #4, with a 71 game score.
Luis Garcia politely kept his stinky 0 for 4 in AAA Toledo, which bumped the W’s slash line up to .273, .362, .429, enough to plate 5 runs on the day. If only JP Crawford, Austin Riley and Marcus Semien could have had the same courtesy…
Also, please note that the Wolverines’ season total for runs scored is not 666. It’s 666.2. That’s a big difference. There are no decimals in the Bible.
Flint Hill: W, 10 – 8. (52 IP, 347,.365, .612; 7 ip, 6 er, 7.71 ERA) After the Wolverines made a simple little deal last month with Cottage (Adolis Garcia and Sherten Apostel for Marcus Semien), the Tornados swept through the league, shredding rosters right and left, girding themselves for the pennant race. John Nogowski went for Bellingham’s Justin Dunn — a shrewd trade for both teams, I thought, the kind I appreciate for its art and utilitarian efficiency. Dunn was immediately flipped for Harrison Bader, a good outfielder. Then Jamie sent three players to the Balk for three Joes: Joey Gallo, Jose Berrios, and Joe Musgrove, which I think set an EFL record, and possibly an MLB record, for guys named Joe acquired in a single transaction. Feeling a little over-Joed, Jamie traded Joe Berrios for two prospects, including Austin Martin. And having acquired Bader, Jamie could afford to sent Austin Meadows with Austin Martin to Canberra for Alex Bergman and Eric Haase.
I had been proud of my deal for Semien. But it looked kind of small and forlorn next to the whirlwind kicked up by the Tornados.
Yesterday Joey Gallo had the third best day at the plate of any MLB player, according to Baseball Reference: 2 for 4 with two homers and a walk. Just the kind of thing I feared. On the other hand, Joe Musgrove struggled: 5 ip, 6 earned runs, dooming the Flinties to a 7.71 team ERA on the day, despite two innings of scoreless relief.
Fortunately Joey Gallo got help from Harrison Bader and Eric Haase (both going 2 for 4), and even some guys the T’s already had before last month, like Jarred Kelenic (a homer) and Jed Lowrie (3 for 4). But even with help from non-Joes, the lesson is clear: if you try to live by the Joe, you will also die by the Joe. Yesterday, the net effect of newly-acquired Joes on Flinty fortunes was a 0.3-game slide in the standings.
DC: W, 7 – 1. (42 PA, .257, .381, .571; 13 IP, 6 ERL 4.15 ERA). DC, on the other hand, after having been almost completely de-Joed when the Tornados came through, quietly and efficiently executed a convincing win . Matt Chapman homered twice in four trips to the plate to lead the offense. Xander Bogaerts went 3 for 3 with a double and a HBP, and newly-acquired Enrique Hernandez nearly matched him, going 2 for 3 with a double, a walk, and a HBP. The other two players acquired from Flint Hill, James Kaprelian (5.3 ip, 3 er) and Sean Murphy ( 0 for 4 at the plate) didn’t help much, but the Balk still outperformed the Tornados, and gained 0.4 games on Flint Hill (and 0.1 on Old Detroit).
Peshastin: W, 6 – (-1). (38 PA, .306, .342, .528; 8.7 ip, 1 er, 1.03 ERA) The Pears surged 0.4 games up in the standings despite the W’s win, thanks to the offensive leadership of Ozzie Albies (3 for 5 with a triple and a homer), and excellent starting pitching by Zach Thompson (6 ip, 1 er) Of course, those two could not do this by themselves. Thompson got strong relief for 2.7 shutout innings split among three relievers. And every hitter except Tom Murphy reached base safely.
I know it’s easy for EFL owners to look only at the EFL standings when evaluating their teams. But, as Jamie pointed out a while back, we really ought to also look at how our teams are doing against the rest of MLB.
Peshastin is 9.2 games out in EFL-land. But in the tough NL West, they are 1.1 games behind the Giants, and 2.9 games ahead of the mighty LA Dodgers. DC is way ahead in the NL East: 11. 3 games ahead of … the Canberra Kangaroos! And 13.1 games ahead of the supposedly-tied-for-first Braves and Phillies. Flint Hill periodically moans about being so far behind the Wolverines — 6.3 games today — and I would be moaning even more if we traded places. But the Tornados are 5.8 games ahead of the Rays, and 9.8 ahead of the for-some-reason-revered Boston Red Sox, including the Sox’ best hitter per OPS, Wolverine Rafael Devers.
Kaline: W, 10 – 2. (55 PA, .298, .382, .638; 6.3 ip, 1 er, 1.43 ERA) Wow! Another great day in the heartland of the EFL standings. Aaron Judge went 3 for 4 with a double and a home run, and Conforto, Hunter Renfroe, and Mitch Moreland all contributed dingers of their own, to fuel the Drive’s offensive outburst. Meanwhile, Max Fried was pitching in some quiet meadow somewhere, completing 6 serene innings with only 1 earned run allowed. The Drive gained 0.3 games in the EFL standings, and even padded their lead by a tenth of a game over the Astros, who won their game yesterday.
Haviland: W (-1), L 2; (-1) – 13. (30 PA, .074, .133, .111; 3 IP, 6 ER, 18.00 ERA). This was not a good day in Kansas. The Dragons were two-hit; Jake Cronenworth was one of the Padres no-hit in Arizona by that other rookie Gilbert in his first major league start. In fact, no Dragon other than JT Realmuto and Brendan Rodgers reached base safely. JT and Brendan each had a hit, and they each had one of the D’s two walks.
While responsibility for the offensive debacle is distributed across nearly the entire lineup, there’s only one person to blame for the defensive conflagration: Justin Topa, who managed to get two outs, but not before allowing 5 earned runs to score in the Brewers’ 14 – 4 shallacking at the hand of the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of their double header. Topa was more pecked to death than shelled: four of the five hits he gave up were singles, the other was a double (one of 4 in that 7-inning game by Kevin Newman). But they all ended up scoring, to the dismay of the Chiefest of Calamities.
Cottage: W 1, L 1; 10-7. (48 PA, .370, .396 .522; 12 ip, 3 er, 2.25 ERA). The Cheese got a win, and took a loss, but overall kept pace with the Wolverines yesterday. They got the win because of Taijuan Walker’s great work in his face off with that other Walker from Old Detroit, and from Kevin Newman’s 4 doubles for 5 AB work for the lowly Pirates, along with Alex Verdugo’s singles-only 4 for 5 work for the Nats . They got a loss because, other than another Shohei Ohtani home run, there wasn’t much to cheer about from the hitters. And because Mitch Keller was their other starter. (Actually, Mitch was better than usual, allowing only 2 earned runs, but only lasted 4.3 innings.)
The net result of all that was officially matching the Milwaukee Brewers’ split doubleheader yesterday, but doing it enough better to gain 0.3 games on the NL Central Division leaders.
Pittsburgh: W, 12 – 4. (32 PA, .345, .406, .862; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Here we have clearly the best hitting in the EFL yesterday. Dansby Swanson led the MLB in daily hitting, according to Baseball Reference, and it’s easy to believe this time: 3 for 5 with 2 home runs. The great hope of Allegheny fans, Bobby Dalbec, chipped in two more homers, and a fifth came off the bat of first-round rookie pick Luis Robert. Somehow Anthony Bender earned a save in a 12-4 contest by pitching a 1-2-3 inning — another thing you will see only in the EFL. The A’s gained 0.4 games on the Wolverines, and a whopping 1.3 games on the White Sox in the AL Central — despite Robert’s homer counting for both teams.
Canberra: L, 3 – 9. (31 PA, .241, .290, .276; no pitching.) I explained yesterday how to win without any pitching, using the Drive as my poster team. The Kangaroos paid imperfect attention, apparently. You don’t do it by laying a foundation of 6 singles and building onto it only 1 double, 1 walk and 1 hbp. It doesn’t help when Vlad Guerrero Jr has 3 of your six singles. He can’t drive himself in. I’m shocked they got 3 runs out of that effort. Nine runs scored against is also a little shocking… it was really only 8.8, but that doesn’t lessen the shock significantly. The ‘Roos have only used 8 pitchers so far this month, so they are carrying 9 penalty innings with 9.00 ERA attached to them.
Perhaps more than any other EFL team, the Kangaroos could benefit from looking at their standings in MLB’s National League East. Sure, they’re 10.6 games behind the Balk — but they are 2.5 games ahead of Philadelphia and Atlanta. The ‘Roos would be first in the NL East if a) MLB would just recognize and acknowledge them, and b) if it weren’t for the Balk.
Bellingham: L, 5 – 13. (35 PA, .281, .343, .375; 12.3 ip, 15 er, 10.98 ERA). The hitting wasn’t terrible — just low on power (6 singles, 3 doubles) and free passes (2 walks, 1 hbp). While relievers Minter, Williams and Chafin did their jobs well, combining for 3.7 shutout innings, the other three Cascade hurlers struggled. Trevor Richards fueled the Mariners comeback against the Jays last night, allowing 2 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning for a nice sextuple chulk. Brett Anderson fueled the Pirates’ route of the Brewers yesterday by allowing 6 earned runs in 3 innings. And Michael Wacha topped it all off with 5 innings, in which he coughed up 7 earned runs.
Bellingham started Friday 20.3 games behind Old Detroit and 0.6 games behind Canberra. Any kind of a win would have caught Canberra, which is now 20.5 games behind Detroit. But this big loss left the Belles 21.6 games out of first, and 1.1 games back of the Kangaroos. On the other hand, Bellingham is just 2.8 game behind the Alleghenys and 6.5 games behind the White Sox in the AL Central.
Portland: “L”, 10 – 7. (27 PA, .261, .370, .870 — wow! 6 ip, 5 er, 7.50 ERA) Well, the pitchers pitched like replacements. But the hitters hit much better than they would have against replacements, so it’s pretty good on the whole. Tyrone Taylor — who is he? — had a double and a homer in three plate appearances, and Max Kepler, Ryan Jeffers, and CJ Cron added home runs to power the Rosebuds to a real win despite the loss assigned to them.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 83 | 34 | .710 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 77 | 40 | .656 | 6.3 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 71 | 46 | .607 | 12.1 |
| Boston Red Sox | 68 | 51 | .571 | 16.1 |
| New York Yankees | 64 | 52 | .552 | 18.6 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 62 | 54 | .534 | 20.6 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 38 | 77 | .330 | 44.1 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 74 | 43 | .633 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 63 | 54 | .535 | 11.5 |
| Atlanta Braves | 61 | 56 | .521 | 13.1 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 61 | 56 | .521 | 13.1 |
| New York Mets | 59 | 57 | .509 | 14.6 |
| Miami Marlins | 50 | 67 | .427 | 24.1 |
| Washington Nationals | 50 | 67 | .427 | 24.1 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 68 | 49 | .581 | — |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 64 | 53 | .549 | 3.7 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 62 | 55 | .526 | 6.5 |
| Detroit Tigers | 58 | 61 | .487 | 11 |
| Cleveland Indians | 56 | 59 | .487 | 11 |
| Minnesota Twins | 51 | 66 | .436 | 17 |
| Kansas City Royals | 49 | 66 | .426 | 18 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 71 | 47 | .602 | — |
| Cottage Cheese | 66 | 52 | .563 | 4.5 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 63 | 55 | .534 | 8 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 60 | 56 | .517 | 10 |
| Chicago Cubs | 52 | 67 | .437 | 19.5 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 42 | 74 | .362 | 28 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 71 | 45 | .615 | — |
| Houston Astros | 70 | 46 | .603 | 1.3 |
| Oakland A’s | 68 | 49 | .581 | 3.8 |
| Haviland Dragons | 66 | 50 | .573 | 4.9 |
| Seattle Mariners | 63 | 55 | .534 | 9.3 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 58 | 60 | .492 | 14.3 |
| Texas Rangers | 41 | 76 | .350 | 30.8 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| San Francisco Giants | 75 | 42 | .641 | — |
| Peshastin Pears | 74 | 43 | .631 | 1.1 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 71 | 46 | .607 | 4 |
| San Diego Padres | 66 | 53 | .555 | 10 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 54 | 63 | .465 | 20.6 |
| Colorado Rockies | 52 | 65 | .444 | 23 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 38 | 80 | .322 | 37.5 |