League Updates

All Hail the Rosebuds, 2018 EFL Champions!

Ok, the season, including it’s October 1 bonus session, is over. And, as was first foretold in these pages last January, the Portland Rosebuds have won their first ever EFL championship!

This is a victory for the little people of the league.  The hated Triumvirate (or Duumvirate lately) is ousted, finally.  No more will we hear, as I have heard for the last six years or so, how it will be good for the league if  “someone new” wins.  Someone new has won!  All of you wishing for this day have  gotten your wish, and it’s up to you to make the promised Golden Age come about.  I’ll be over here licking my wounds.

But something else also happened at the very end of this season, less thoroughly anticipated but also a thing of beauty:  the DC Balk edged out the Peshastin Pears and escaped finishing in the basement for the first time in franchise history.  The margin was close, pretty much no one saw it coming until yesterday, and everyone (possibly excepting said Pears) is likely to find it a cause for rejoicing.  We have all appreciated Rob Bohall’s steadfast cheerfulness despite the gradual pace of his team’s improvement.  If this is truly the last season for the Balk, it ends in a moment of small but significant triumph.

So two standing ovations, for teams that give us all hope that we may not be locked into our fates:

One for the mighty Portland Rosebuds, the league’s liberators from the long dark years of Triumvir Tyranny!

And another for the spunky D.C. Balk, who pulled off the surprise of the year by slipping into 10th place on the last day of the regular season and defending it on the day after!

 

EFL FINAL STANDINGS,  2018
EFL
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB RS RA
Portland Rosebuds 108 55 .661 912.8 635.6
Old Detroit Wolverines 102 60 .631 5.1 795.1 600.1
Canberra Kangaroos 91 71 .560 16.6 754.2 670.9
Brookland Outs 88 75 .542 19.5 848.9 790.2
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 88 74 .541 19.7 855.5 793.9
Flint Hill Tornadoes 86 76 .530 21.5 763.1 714.1
Haviland Dragons 79 83 .488 28.3 778.1 797.1
Kaline Drive 76 86 .469 31.3 714.9 763.1
Cottage Cheese 76 87 .469 31.3 775.5 824.1
D.C. Balk 72 90 .447 34.9 689.0 770.6
Peshastin Pears 72 91 .443 35.6 693.4 783.2
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Portland:  W, 7 – 4.  (0 PA; 4.7 ip, 2 er, 3.86 ERA).  The dominant Rosebuds ended the season coasting to victory in their 163rd game, finishing about 0.7 games behind the Red Sox in the race for the best record in baseball. German Marquez was the only Rosebud to appear Monday.  He didn’t have a super game, but one was not needed.  The Rosebuds led the league by a huge margin in run production, scoring 912.8 as compared to the second-best Allegheny’s 855.5.
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Old Detroit:  DNP, 1 – (-4). (9 PA, .222, .222. 556; 6.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Walker Buehler surrendered a single hit in 6 2/3 innings, allowing no runs, and Max Muncy homered. The Ws ended up giving up just a sliver over 600 runs on the season, to lead the league in run prevention by 35.5 runs ahead of the Rosebuds. The W’s ended the season on a little surge that would have brought them to within about 4.5 games of the lead had the Rosebuds not benefitted from playing a 163rd game. I’m pretty sure the Wolverines won October. And we beat the Yankees, even though they won 100 games!  So all is well.
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Canberra: DNP.  The Kangaroos neither had a 163rd game, nor any players in either of the two tie-breaker games.  They held onto their third place finish, finishing with a 2.9 – game margin over the Outs.  Kangaroo fans might be disappointed their team didn’t stay in the EFL pennant race to the end, as their team might have done.  But their fine September, recovering 3rd place in the EFL, also means they won the National League East, edging out the upstart Braves by 0.8 games.  MLB management being as backward as it is, the Kangaroos will not be playing in the post season, but they deserve to be.
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Brookland: L, 3 – 7. (12 PA, .167, .167, .419; no pitching). The Outs continued their end-of-season sag, taking on some replacement relief innings. Cody Bellinger’s homer was the only bright spot of the day in Brookland.  No doubt some Out fans are put out by Bookland’s late swoon, but in retrospect I believe  they will find tremendous satisfaction in their expansion team’s ability to stay relevant in the pennant race until August, and finish in fourth place ahead of the legendary Pittsburgh Alleghenys.  I consider the soaring Outs to be the one of the biggest stories in the EFL this summer.
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Pittsburgh: DNP.  Like Canberra, the Alleghenys didn’t play a game and had no players involved in Monday’s games.  Instead they had to watch raptly while the Outs came crashing down toward them — only to halt their collapse a mere 0.2 games ahead of the Alleghenys. So close! Oh, well. Next spring there will be consolation as the A’s get to pick in the first round of the rookie draft just ahead of the Outs.
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Flint Hill: DNP, 0 – (-1). ( 0 PA, 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  The Tornados’ sole contribution to October 1 baseball was a scoreless inning by Corey Knebel.  This left them solidly in 6th place, the pivot point of the standings, with a final record very close to the mean of the league.  The Tornados would have had the most boring season in the EFL except they went through a flurry of dramatic trades to help cement themselves in the center of the standings this year and position themselves for a better season in 2019. .
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Haviland: DNP, (-1) – 0.  (5 PA. .200. .200, .400; no pitching).  The 2018 defending champions suffered through a painful season that saw them as low as 10th in the standings.  Fortunately for Dragon fans, the team rebounded somewhat to finish 7th.  Drama from Yasiel Puig and Bryce Harper spiced the season, but perhaps the biggest story was debutant Juan Soto.  His .920 OPS  (.292, .406, .517 ) as a 19-year old were thrilling in themselves — and doubly so because they so closely resembled 20-year-old Ronald Acuna’s 917 OPS (.293, .366, .552 ).  Who was the greatest of the phenoms?  Looking beyond OPS, Acuna stole 16 bases, caught 5 times. Soto stole 5 — three of those in a single game — and was caught twice. Acuna blasted 25 homers, Soto 22. Soto generated 3.7 fWAR.  Acuna? Also 3.7.  In terms of Baseball Reference WAR?  Acuna: 4.1.  Soto: 3.0.  Baseball Prospectus WAR? Soto: 4.5.  Acuna: 4.1.
I don’t know which is better.  I cannot remember two such similar sparkling very young outfield prospects making such a big splash in one season. Wouldn’t it be best if the competition between Soto and Acuna played itself out inside the EFL?  But the computer will probably snag both of them before any of us have a chance.  Perhaps we should let them stay with their current teams, as a special dispensation.  I think the Dragons and Wolverines would be willing to undertake this burden, even in exchange for their first round picks, maybe.
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Kaline: DNP, 2 – 0. (11 PA, .500, .636, .500;  0 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  There actually was a Drive pitcher active Monday: Xavier Cedeno.  He walked a guy and surrendered a hit, but got no outs and allowed no runs. I’m not so sure the Wolverines won October, not with Orlando Arcia going 4 for 4 for the Drive. It was enough for them to sneak back past the Cheese into eighth place, by the slimmest of whiskers.
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Cottage: W (-1), L 2; 2 – 8. (8 PA, .125, .125, .250; 0 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  Scott Alexander had an even lighter impact on the world than Xavier Cedeno: one hit allowed, and that was it. But Joc Pederson’s double was all the Cheese got out of their 8 plate appearances.  That and seven more innings of replacement pitching was enough to send the Cheese tumbling to a two-loss collapse and into ninth place.
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DC: DNP. The Balk hunkered down.  They didn’t play a 163rd game and sent no players into action. They did not move a muscle.  And it was enough! The 10th Place Ship has sailed, and they have successfully stowed away on it.  This team with so many promising players got a tiny taste of success. Will it be enough to lure Rob back from the brink of team extinction?
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Our rules do provide for suspending EFL teams for up to one season — keeping the roster intact (except for expiring contracts). This would not be a punitive suspension (not “how dare you leave your closet under the cellar stairs!”).  It would be an accommodation for a year that looks extra busy.
Peshastin: L, 4 – 7. (4 PA, .250, .250, .250; no pitching). The Pears, desperate to escape the cellar, undertook to play a 163rd game, hoping for a big win.  They didn’t get it. Only Javier Baez showed up to play.  He’s widely recognized as a baseball magician, but he had no magic powerful enough to win a game all by himself. You need more than a single single and a handful of spectacular tags, as it turns out.  Barring an expansion, Peshastin will be our icebreaker next spring, cutting our swath through the pack of rookies. But they will do it after 5 or 6 computers have taken their plums.
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NOTE:  This completes the sort-of-daily updates for the 2018 season.  I’ll publish a few more notes as a sort of clean-up (draft order for next year, for example, and some final trivia for this season).  But otherwise this is a sort of sign-off for the season.  The Wolverines did better than I expected, not quite as well as my hopes at their highest, but it was a fun season to own the W’s.  It was also a fun season to observe and comment upon the league.  Really, writing these things is mostly a blast!
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I am finding myself extra busy this year so far, what with new co-chair duties and a difficult year ahead for the school board (conducting a search for a new superintendent while dealing with finances that have left us with a skeleton staff at the top levels of district administration).  Perhaps things will ease by the spring.  But one of  my goals for this offseason is to find ways to streamline, share, or shift the Commissioner’s tasks so they consumes less of my time, especially in April when I may be swamped with other duties.
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Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2018
AL East
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Boston Red Sox 108 54 .667
Old Detroit Wolverines 102 60 .631 5.8
New York Yankees 100 62 .617 8
Tampa Bay Rays 90 72 .556 18
Flint Hill Tornadoes 86 76 .530 22.2
Toronto Blue Jays 73 89 .451 35
Baltimore Orioles 47 115 .290 61
NL East
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Canberra Kangaroos 91 71 .560
Atlanta Braves 90 72 .556 0.8
Washington Nationals 82 80 .506 8.8
Philadelphia Phillies 80 82 .494 10.8
New York Mets 77 85 .475 13.8
D.C. Balk 72 90 .447 18.4
Miami Marlins 63 98 .391 27.3
AL Central
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Cleveland Indians 91 71 .562
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 88 74 .541 3.4
Minnesota Twins 78 84 .481 13
Detroit Tigers 64 98 .395 27
Chicago White Sox 62 100 .383 29
Kansas City Royals 58 104 .358 33
NL Central
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Milwaukee Brewers 96 67 .589
Chicago Cubs 95 68 .583 1
St. Louis Cardinals 88 74 .543 7.5
Brookland Outs 88 75 .542 7.7
Pittsburgh Pirates 82 79 .509 13
Cottage Cheese 76 87 .469 19.5
Cincinnati Reds 67 95 .414 28.5
AL West
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Houston Astros 103 59 .636
Oakland A’s 97 65 .599 6
Seattle Mariners 89 73 .549 14
Los Angeles Angels 80 82 .494 23
Haviland Dragons 79 83 .488 24
Kaline Drive 76 86 .469 27
Texas Rangers 67 95 .414 36
NL West
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Portland Rosebuds 108 55 .661
Colorado Rockies 92 71 .564 15.8
Los Angeles Dodgers 91 72 .558 16.8
Arizona Diamondbacks 82 80 .506 25.3
San Francisco Giants 73 89 .451 34.3
Peshastin Pears 72 91 .443 35.6
San Diego Padres 66 96 .407 41.3