The EFL’s One Flaw

I’ve finally put my finger on what’s missing in the EFL.

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Now calm down. Stay with me here.  I need you to regain your composure.  I know this is a shock. You’ve gone all this time thinking the EFL is perfect, especially when its patented error-correction system is working well. (Step 1: Commissioner makes a mistake. Step 2:  Owner alerts Commissioner.  Step 3: Commissioner fixes mistake. Step 4: Repeat.) Disillusionment is hard and painful, but how else can we improve? If we face this together, we’ll get through it stronger than ever.

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I will tell you about my epiphany in due course. In the meantime, let’s see if you can guess what the flaw is.

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Pittsburgh: W, 3 – 1. (.257, .316, .371; 4.7 ip, 1 er)    I see those hands. Many of you think we’ve found the flaw already: some doofus invited Branch Weinert to play. And he’s too good for us! He’s going to win this year by more than 10 games!  Our diets are 100% dust. Just look at how much more exciting the EFL pennant race would be if it weren’t for the Alleghenys!

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But, my friends, stop and think. If Branch is too smart for us, where does the imperfection lie? Wouldn’t the Commissioner have to purge the league of all owners with inferior intellect (including the Commissioner himself) and replace them with Branch’s peers, if any can be found? Isn’t it more sensible to ignore the topic of members’ mental capacity — just rule it out as an issue in the perfection of the league? Trust me.  We’ll all be happier.

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Flint Hill: W, 3 – 0. (.158, .220, .289; 28 ip, 5 er).  I am sitting in a discussion of income inequality in America. We have that in the EFL, too. When the season is over, the top 10% of our league will have 50% of the championships, and the next 20% of the league will have the other 50%.  Is this a flaw?

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I am of the opinion that inequality is not inherently a problem, under two conditions. Everyone should start with the opportunity to succeed, on as equal a footing as possible.  And success should be a consequence of quality of performance rather than privilege or mere luck.  There are some issues here for the EFL. If we believed the Alleghenys are winning merely because they were lucky, the league would be kind of pointless except as a social experience.  They WERE lucky but the effects are marginal rather than central.

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The more difficult question relates to privilege and opportunity.  We all started at an expansion team’s disadvantage. I would guess it gets harder to overcome that disadvantage as the number of already-established teams gets bigger. I hope not, but I worry…

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The Tornadoes are our second-newest team. They were in the race until the very moment the race was over (whenever that was). They’re ahead of every established team except the A’s. The A’s are apparently so good that, even in the fairest league possible they will win half the time, at least given the current  EFL  membership. The Tornadoes’ season doesn’t prove the EFL is an opportunity league, but it gives us hope that we aren’t plagued by lack of opportunity.

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Haviland: W, 6 – 1. (.229, .275, .479; 10.7 ip, 10 er).   Of course, my whole “Tornadoes are exemplars of hope in the EFL” narrative will be weaker if the Dragons regain second place before the season is over. But then, the Dragons are the fifth-newest team…

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Cottage: W, 5 – 2. (.280, .321, .420; 17 ip, 2 er).  Cottage fans might be muttering about now about the flaws in the EFL revealed by the Cheese’ failure to take the championship despite their success at getting both Harper and Trout into the same lineup (along with plenty of of other stars).  But rather than a bug, I see this as a nice feature of the league: you have to win. Nothing is handed to you even when you can roll out twin superstars.

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Portland: W 2, L (-1); 10 – 4. (.375, .423, .667; 11.7 ip, 6 er).   I am having trouble identifying any potential league flaws connected to the Rosebuds.

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Peshastin: L, 1 – 8. (.167, .239, .262; 2.3 ip, 2 er).  Ok, before the suspense kills you, here is the flaw in the EFL: we don’t get exhilarating, heart-stopping defensive plays.  Like Kevin Kiermaier’s yesterday.  See it here . At the time it prevented the tying run from scoring.

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We don’t get this in our league. We get Kiermaier’s defensive excellence pureed: all its good ingredients mixed together, all the nutritional quality, but without any granular context. Kiermaier never saves a game for us with a specific play. He never flies and dives and hops up to throw a 300-foot strike.  Kiermaier’s owners win extra games — two or three a year — because Kiermaier  is in their outfield, but we don’t know which ones.

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I wish we could fix this, our fates hanging in the air while our fielder races to make his line intersect the arc of the ball out at the very end of his range. I just don’t know how.  More video links, maybe?

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Kaline: “L”, 8 – 8.  (.326, .375, .535; 4.3 ip, 3 er).  It’s not the EFL’s fault that James Paxson returned from the DL so miserably (1.3 ip, 3 er). It’s not the EFL’s fault that the Mariners’ chances of reaching the wild card are sinking so fast. It’s not the EFL’s fault that Mike Zunino’s mightiest blast of the day yesterday hit the roof at Minute Maid Field and turned into a meaningless foul ball.

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Old Detroit: “L”, 0 – (-1).  (.118, .231, .118; 15 ip, 5 er).  The Wolverines finally got some strong pitching, especially Alex Wood’s 6 ip, 0 er. But this arrived while the W’s hitters were in a down-cycle. I wish I could blame this lack of timing on the EFL. But I think it would be worse if everything always worked out.

 

Or as Matisyahu puts it in “Silence”, making a different but parallel point:

Your silence kills me;

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Canberra: W, 3 – 5. (.185, .290, .222; 3.3 ip, 0 er). Maybe some might think it a flaw if a team can compete in the EFL for 14 years without ever finishing first. The Pears and the Kangaroos are both in that unfortunate state. How can a game require a 14-year attention span without rewarding its participants with a win every now and then?  But this happens in reality. The Mariners, for example, are in their 41st year of existence without ever appearing in the World Series, let alone winning it. To see these two brave owners from different generations and sides of the continent enduring year after year is so inspiring…  How can this be a flaw?

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DC: “W”, 5 – 6. (.229, .289, .514; 6.3 ip, 3 er).  So now I am in a session on immigration.  I wish they were talking more about how immigrants enrich our society. As they have in the EFL. All of us are immigrants to the EFL, of course but we tend to forget this in daily practice after a while. DC is our latest immigrant. Our league would be poorer without the Balk.

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ORIGINAL ORDER	CURRENT ORDER 1st RD	Draft Pos
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	Peshastin Pears	30
Flint Hill Tornadoes	Flint Hill	29
Haviland Dragons	Portland Rosebuds	28
Cottage Cheese	Old Detritus Woeverines	26
Portland Rosebuds	Old Detritus Woeverines	24
Peshastin Pears	Peshastin Pears	22
Kaline Drive	Kaline Drive	21
Old Detroit Wolverines	Peshastin Pears	17
Canberra Kangaroos	Canberra Kangaroos	11
D.C. Balk	DC Balk	2