STANDARD EARLY MONTH CAVEAT: Results from the first day of a month have always been highly questionable. Until our rotations rotate, our pitching is likely to be skewed. This is especially true now that we incur penalties until we have had 10 active pitchers and 1 LHP appearance. The following results are for entertainment purposes only. You should not make investment decisions bases upon them. Although you really should memorize the Commissioner’s Office opinion on which EFL owner should be in your trade sights.
This is the quickest transition from one month to another we have had in a long time, maybe forever. I announced the meeting time a mere 28 hours before it was to begin. We did the entire FA list update (including Debs, trades, and Waiver Wire players) in 4 hours. We held our draft, and then had an allocation deadline 28 hours after the draft began. We got everyone’s allocations by this morning, and I am sitting down to write up the first update, covering the first of the month, less than 12 hours after the allocation deadline.
All of you were heroic in prepping so fast and making yourselves available for the draft (or via proxy)… except Rob, who is being heroic as a family man camping in the Oregon mountains. Dave was heroic in getting the month set up so fast this morning.
I added a little quick thinking (I hope) when the stats update function balked because neither the Wolverines nor the Rosebuds had any pitching on the 1st of July. The database does not like to divide anything by 0 innings. So I gave Walker Buehler one-third of an inning scoreless for the Wolverines, and Eric Lauer the same scoreless inning for the Rosebuds. I am counting on Dave being able to erase that third of an inning — or I can just deduct it from these pitcher’s next appearance. I considered it a small price to pay to make if possible to give you this update.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 58 | 24 | .709 | — | 482.0 | 307.9 |
| Peshastin Pears | 53 | 27 | .666 | 3.9 | 398.8 | 285.6 |
| D.C. Balk | 51 | 25 | .669 | 4.3 | 430.7 | 304.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 54 | 28 | .653 | 4.6 | 441.2 | 323.6 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 53 | 29 | .646 | 5.2 | 401.0 | 298.0 |
| Haviland Dragons | 50 | 32 | .611 | 8 | 408.6 | 335.3 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 46 | 30 | .607 | 9 | 385.8 | 316.3 |
| Cottage Cheese | 42 | 40 | .518 | 15.7 | 462.9 | 459.3 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 41 | 39 | .514 | 16 | 401.7 | 389.1 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 38 | 42 | .476 | 19.1 | 323.5 | 343.9 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 35 | 45 | .432 | 22.6 | 405.0 | 472.7 |
Old Detroit: W, 15 – 9. (40 PA, .412, .500 , .794; 0.3 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA— pitching stats are fictional, working around the database’s hangups about dividing by zero.) The Wolverines sent 10 men to the plate. All ten got at least one hit. Two got single singles. The other 8 either got extra bases, or more than one hit, or walked or (in the cases of Rafael Devers and Jurickson Profar) did all three. Devers and Austin Riley homered.
This is all great and all, especially since it produced a win despite almost 9 runs from penalty and replacement innings. But it could have been even better if the Woeverine General Manager weren’t such a dunce. (See below, Canberra comment).
Peshastin: L, 6 – 8. ( 16 PA, .429, .500, .429; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). That was a real inning pitched by real pitcher with a made-up name: Chasen Shreve. Four out of five Pear hitters got hits, and the fifth walked. Mitch Haniger had the best day: 2 for 4 with a walk. But there were no extra bases, and there were lots of replacement PAs, so the Pears did not earn a win. They slid 0.4 games off the Wolverines’ pace, but are still in second place.
DC: DNP, 0 – 1. (33 PA, .250, .364, .536; 13.4 ip, 6 er, 4.03 ERA). That sneaky Balkan braintrust figured out the perfect way to avoid dangerously skewed first-day-of-the-month results: don’t play a game! The Balk have no penalty or replacement innings, no unrepresentative 27.00 ERAs because a relief pitcher surrendered a homer in his third of an inning, etc. Joey Gallo homered for the 5th straight day, making all my crowing about snagging Byron Buxton seem embarrassingly premature. The pitching was ok, quality-wise, but great penalty-avoidance-wise since the B’s start the month with 4 pitchers having appeared, including lefty Garrett Crochet. DC slipped only 0.3 in the standings, and are now all alone in third place.
Kaline: “W”, 5 – 11. (43 PA, .243, .302, .459; 2/3 ip, 2 er, 27.00 ERA). Wilmer Flores and Jose Altuve each hit homers, accounting for 75% of the extra bases produced by the Drive offense. But Mark Melancon messed up the day by pitching 2/3 of an inning while serving up 2 earned runs on 3 hits (including a home run) and 2 walks. In a way, Melancon’s work was super impressive, adding stats so much worse than the replacement and penalty innings we get saddled with early in the month. And that he did this working solo was extra exquisite, since he only filled one of the 10 mandatory appearances, thus minimizing the reduction of the penalty for fewer than 10 pitchers.
For most of us the early-semester pitching penalties will all be gone within in week. But an actual pitcher sextuple chulking is forever.
Flint Hill: W, 7 – 4. (29 PA, .286, .310, .536; 17 ip, 8 er, 4.24 ERA). The Dragons got three pitchers out on the mound, which is a good start at erasing penalty innings for too-few pitchers. If I remember aright, Carlos Rodon is a lefty which means the lefty-pitcher penalty is gone for the month already. That was enough to allow the offense to shine, taking the T’s to the clubhouse with a valuable early- month win, allowing the T’s to keep pace with the W’s.
I hope and pray this will calm the T’s down a little. Last night the Nationals/Dodgers game in DC was delayed and then declared final after only 5 innings due to a Tornado warning in the DC area. DC is not part of Tornado Alley. Renegade Tornados ranging so far afield in an apparent attempt to storm our nation’s capitol is a deeply troubling image so soon after January 6.
Haviland: L, 4 – 7. (29 PA, .296, .345, .444; 3 ip, 1 er, 3.00 ERA). Haviland tamped down the pitching penalties a bit with two pitchers appearing and doing well, but it wasn’t enough to enable the offense to claim a win. Brendan Rogers led the offense with a homer, a single and a walk in four PA, but you probably need three or four performances like that to overcome 7 runs allowed.
Canberra : DNP, 0 – 1. (17 PA, .214, .353, .714; 4 IP, 0 ER, 0.00 ERA). The reason I call the Old Detroit General Manager a “dunce” was this: On Wednesday evening, after the draft, he offered Nate Lowe to the Kangaroos for Brandon McKay, so desperate was his search for a reliable left handed pitcher. The Oldie GM assured the super-aptly named Canny GM the offer would stay open until the allocation deadline was nigh.
According to Baseball Reference, the #1 hitter in all of major league baseball yesterday was… Nate Lowe. Lowe went 2 for 4 with a walk and two home runs. Not long after that I heard from Canberra. “Let’s do this.”
I could speculate that Lowe was celebrating his liberation, but no one besides me and the Captain Kangaroo knew about the proposed deal — unless it leaked out of the Canberra front office somehow. And anyway, it could just as easily have been Lowe’s way of saying “thanks” to Wolverine management and entire fandom for his brief time in the promised land. But, again, I don’t think Lowe knew about the trade while he was driving the baseball all over.
I am more confident attributing the timing of Lowe’s career game to the fates and their famous anti-Wolverine malice.
Lowe was almost the entirety of the Canberran offense yesterday. He was 1/4 of the lineup with just under 30% of the plate appearances, 33% of the walks, 67% of the hits, and 86% of the total bases. (JBJ had the other hit, a double). Nate Lowe’s personal slash line yesterday was .500, . 600, 2.000, for a 2.600 OPS that was 244% of the team’s excellent 1.067 (pre-replacement PAs) OPS.
I am, once again, mystified. Why isn’t every EFL owner camping out on the Wolverine’s front porch with trade offers? It must be your Christ-like charity inducing you to care for the helpless chumps in your midst.
Cottage: L, 6 – 6. (18 PA, .353, .389, .588; 11 ip, 9 er, 7.36 ERA. ) The Cheese trotted out three pitchers. Tony Gonsolin did fine (1 er in 3 ip), and Ryan Weathers was ok, I guess (4 ip, 2 er). But JC Mejia tanked — 4 ip, 6 er — to leave the Cheese with a near-replacement ERA.
Actually I just looked it up: the Cheese cleverly left Mejia on the bench to start the month. So that’s what smart managers do!
The offense was similarly sparce, but more definitely good, mostly thanks to new All-Star Marcus Semien, whose 3 for 4 with a double and a homer was rated by Baseball Reference as the 8th best offensive performance of the day in MLB.
Pittsburgh: L, 5 – 7. (28 PA, .259, .250, .630; 4.7 ip, 2 er, 3.83 ERA). Wil Crowe pitched just well enough to dampen the effects of penalty innings a little and give the Alleghenys a chance for an early-month win. And Dominic Smith had the second-best day at the plate (according to BR) with his two homers in four plate appearances. But there was too little support from the rest of the offense to get the team up to the 7 runs scored they needed.
Bellingham: L, 4 – 9. (18 PA, .308, .500, .462; 0.7 ip, 0 er, .00 ERA). “Do no harm” seems to have been the mantra in Bellingham yesterday. So Devin Williams only covered 2/3 of an inning, but he did not let anyone reach base. The offense put up a very nice (and unusual) slash line, but that was mostly thanks to Jonathan India’s 2 for 3 with 2 doubles, 2 walks and a hbp, accounting for 50% of the team’s hits and hits by pitch, 67 % of the team’s walks, and 100% of the team’s extra bases. Everyone else was pretty gentle with the baseball.
Portland: “W”, 3- 9. (34 PA, .214, .353, .250; 0.3 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA— pitching stats are fictional, working around the database’s hangups about dividing by zero.) The Rosebuds went 6 for 28 at the plate, the only extra base being Tyler O’Neill’s double. They did add 6 walks to get that healthy .353 OBP.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 58 | 24 | .709 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 53 | 29 | .646 | 5.2 |
| Boston Red Sox | 51 | 31 | .622 | 7.1 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 47 | 34 | .580 | 10.6 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 41 | 38 | .519 | 15.6 |
| New York Yankees | 41 | 39 | .513 | 16.1 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 27 | 54 | .333 | 30.6 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 51 | 25 | .669 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 46 | 30 | .607 | 4.8 |
| New York Mets | 41 | 35 | .539 | 9.9 |
| Washington Nationals | 40 | 39 | .506 | 12.4 |
| Atlanta Braves | 39 | 41 | .488 | 13.9 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 37 | 41 | .474 | 14.9 |
| Miami Marlins | 34 | 45 | .430 | 18.4 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 48 | 32 | .600 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 42 | 36 | .538 | 5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 41 | 39 | .514 | 6.9 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 38 | 42 | .476 | 10 |
| Detroit Tigers | 36 | 45 | .444 | 12.5 |
| Minnesota Twins | 33 | 46 | .418 | 14.5 |
| Kansas City Royals | 33 | 47 | .413 | 15 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 49 | 33 | .598 | — |
| Chicago Cubs | 42 | 39 | .519 | 6.5 |
| Cottage Cheese | 42 | 40 | .518 | 6.5 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 40 | 40 | .500 | 8 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 40 | 42 | .488 | 9 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 29 | 51 | .363 | 19 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 54 | 28 | .653 | — |
| Haviland Dragons | 50 | 32 | .611 | 3.4 |
| Houston Astros | 49 | 33 | .598 | 4.5 |
| Oakland A’s | 48 | 35 | .578 | 6 |
| Seattle Mariners | 43 | 39 | .524 | 10.5 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 39 | 41 | .488 | 13.5 |
| Texas Rangers | 32 | 49 | .395 | 21 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 53 | 27 | .666 | — |
| San Francisco Giants | 50 | 30 | .625 | 3.2 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 50 | 31 | .617 | 3.7 |
| San Diego Padres | 49 | 34 | .590 | 5.7 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 35 | 45 | .432 | 18.7 |
| Colorado Rockies | 35 | 47 | .427 | 19.2 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 23 | 60 | .277 | 31.7 |