Thursday, June 28, 2012

Post Break Updated

The Baltimore Baybirds are doing what they do every season, and that is win at a clip of north of .700%. Former CY winner, Vladimir Olivares getting injured might sting a bit, but they have enough pitching to still so keep up their winning ways. As always, they are the best hitting team in the world.

The El Paso Silverbacks have been right with the Baybirds this season and even better numbers in pitching. Amp Bevil has been lights out and Pedro Lopez has been great as a number two.

Those two teams are the best of the AL and will not be easy to beat come post season time.

The Sacramento Renegades are tied with the Triple Bs for the best record. They have had every single Pitcher of the Week so far this season and have been amazing on the mound. Matt Burns has moved up to 4th all time in saves this season. The 1-5 pitching staff has been giving them a chance to win every time play. Davey Fick, so far, has not played very well this season. If he balnace out his poor first half with a strong second half this team could really take off.

New York Midtowners have been the second best team in the NL. They are another team that has pitched very well this season. Del Vallarta is having career season and finally living up to his price tag. Branch Mitchell has been great this season as well. The heart of the line-up is still very strong and holds up with the other top teams in the world.

Those are your NL top Two

This seasons pitching has been great all around so far. Back in season 21, I posted about the historic significants of finishing the season with a sub 4 ERA. In season 21 only 19 teams had ever finished with a sub 4 ERA. Since then (including season 21 because that was a mid-season report) 12 more teams have finished the season under a 4 ERA.  AL teams are currently under that mark this season. So the AL went from averaging less than one a year to 4 a year. Those same three seasons, have also seen the flip side of that show up in the hitting. Are the days of AL OPS north of .800 over? Have owners decided to not put the money into hitting and focusing more on fielding? I believe so. Looking over the +/- plays season average, you can see a huge trend shift starting in season 14. Season 1 and 2 were both upside down in +/- but season one had 44+ plays and 2 had 39+ plays. We did not see a + play average above 22 till season 14, and were upside down for all but one season in the first 13. Season 14 gave us the first truly positive number in +/- plays and since that season we have also seen a decline in OPS. The Juiced Ball Era is over and we may never see another 70 homerun season, but have owners traded in sexy hitters for slick gloved fielding? That is what the numbers show to me.