TCWBA NEWSLETTERsliding

April 1, 2018

 

NEWS

 

apbacardFirst I want to introduce our new manager, Michael Manning. He'll be taking over the Jamestown crew and from now on they shall be known as the Jordan Mules. Michael is a friend of Andy Jeschke and resides, in Jordan, near Minneapolis in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. I also need to report that Chris Uhlhorn (Cinci) has left us. Hopefully we will have a new manager for those guys before next month. All of the data files for last season are now posted. League Leaders, team vs team wins, team stats, all player stats, records. It's all done and on line. The lottery is done and draft slots are posted. The playoffs have been setup. Great Lakes and Southern getting the byes. Welland at Syracuse & Buffalo at Virginia. As I get reports about the series' I'll post them on standing web page

 

grlPrince Division: Great Lakes took the pennant by a rather easy 12 games, winning 113 games. The Mashers posted got 62 of them at home while winning 20 home series and being tied twice and racked up 51 away wins and won 16 road series. There pitching staff posted a near record team ERA keeping the opponents to some 60 less runs than anyone else. Virginia checked in with 101 wins with 55 coming at home but it still left them 12 back of Great Lakes and out of division loses made the difference. They featured some mighty fine pitching finishing second in staff ERA which might have been helped by all the errors. Ohio with 84 wins grabbed third some 29 games out. The Buckeyes were right about in the middle of league hitting and pitching. Curtis under 500 with 79 wins finished fourth and were 34 out of first. The Engines hit a lot of bombs but also hit into a lot of doubleplays. In 5th Cinci won 70 and ended up 43 behind Gr Lakes and their woeful offense was the major factor. Tied for worst team average and the defense was equally awful. In the basement was Jamestown with just 60 wins and 53 games out. A decent hitting team but dismal a pitching staff that put a little over 2000 runners on base

 

suCaray Division: Syracuse picks up the flag on 107 wins which put them eight on top. The Orange also won 62 home games and twenty series but they did lose two. They collected 65 wins within their division to doom Buffalo. They banged out 282 homers which tied for league best and had the 3rd best team ERA. Buffalo kept the pressure on Syracuse all year and grabbed second place with 99 wins and 56 of those at home. They hit a ton of doubles, right up there in homers and then hit into more doubleplays than anyone else. Iron City was a long way back in third. The H'Rockers only won 75 and finished 32 out of first and a good road record. Their pitching was one of the best with and ERA just under 4.00 but nobody hit less homers. Wayside was right behind them 34 out with 73 wins. They slipped up on the road, losing 8 more than Iron City. The Pioneers had one of the best hitting attacks, in top five team for averages and hardly ever hit into doubleplays but pitching wasn't as good. In fifth was Rochester five back of the Pioneers with 68 wins. The Parrots hitting wasn't pretty. One of the worst in average and to make matters worse, almost a league best at hitting into doubleplays. Bloomington finished below the basement. They only had 39 wins all year, meaning they had the 2nd worst record in league history, were 29 back of Rochester and 68 out of first. The Mitts only won two home series. Their offense or pitching wasn't a league worst but pretty close.

 

racerAllen Division: Southern seemed like they won the pennant sometime in early October and eventually posted 118 wins to win by 23 games. Sixty of those wins came at home while winning 17 series and won an amazing 68 games in their division. The Racers had the leagues best hitting posting a 279 team average, on base & slugging and had a stellar defense committing a league low errors. They also were one of five teams with a staff ERA under 4.00. Welland took second with 95 wins but never really got remotely close to the Racers. They ran a lot, didn't hit a lot of homers and they pitched pretty good too. In third Philadelphia stayed over 500 with 82 wins, 40 at home, 42 on the road and were 36 out of first. They had a solid offense, decent power but the pitching let them down. Reedley was tied for third. The B'Grooms worked pitchers for walks better than all the rest, ran crazy on the bases when they got on but had little or no pitching. They picked up 46 home wins but only 36 road. In fifth, Oviedo finished well under 500 and 16 behind Philly/Reedley. The Orca offense was just about as middle of the road as you can get. It was pitching that got them in trouble. Leland was at the bottom and you can, for the most part, point at pitching. They had the worst staff ERA and gave up over 200 more hits than any other staff giving up nearly six runs a game. Their offense was nearly as bad tied for worst team average while the defense did it's best to hurt the pitchers with a ton of errors. They only won 47, got clobbered on the road with only two series wins and finished 19 back of the Orcas and a horrific 71 games behind Southern.

 

Wildcard: Virginia was the best of the rest beating out Buffalo by two games for the #4 slot. The third ticket into the playoffs, four back of the Blizzard, went to Welland. Ohio ended up first out, 11 behind Welland and the Philly/Reedley combo was 13 out.

 

roarkmaxTanner Roark (Vir) takes down the big guns and claims the ERA title. He was 13-6 in his 29 starts over 200 innings and tossed a league best 4 shutouts. We ended up with four 20 game winners. Bart Colon (Sth) was 22-5 and Max Scherzer (Syr) checked in at 22-7 and the 2nd best ERA plus a league best WHIP. David Price (Sth) & Justin Verlander (Buf) won 20 games. Jake Odorizzi (GrL) finished best in WL% with a 14-3/824 and Kenta Maeda (Syr) had a nice 18-4 record. In the pen Zach Britton (GrL) saved a league best 55 games with a 1.41 ERA. Mike Pineda (Jam) claimed the K crown with 286 but he pitched like a piñata. He was one of the five worst in ERA, walked over 100 batters while posting a 7-15 record. As long as we are on bad items, Tom Koehler (Ovi) put 286 batters on base in 162 innings and ended up with the league worst ERA of 7.08 which is really ugly. Mike Wacha (Blo) had the absolute worst WL% of 100 on his 2-18 record. altuvefreddieWade Miley (Lel) actually lost more (19) but he won 5..... Jose Altuve (Jam) won the batting title on his 338 average which just a little better than Daniel Murphy's (Ree) 332. Altuve also had a league best 233 hits. Freddie Freeman (Sth) finished 3rd at 328 and was 3rd in OBP but number one in SLG at 619 and OPS at 1019. Wait he not done yet. Freddie was tops in RBI with 146, tops in Total Bases with 379, best at scoring with 125 runs, 3rd in HR with 47, 2nd in hits with 201. Nellie Cruz (Way) & Mark Trumbo (Cin) shared the HR title with 50. Mike Trout (Ree) was best in OBP at 419 which was greatly aided by his 121 walks. Billy Hamilton (Ree) was easily tops in steals with 81. Willing to forget this season ever happened is Todd Frazier (Ohio) who hit 168. Can you feel the breeze? Chris Davis (Ree) whiffed 214 times. Victor Martinez (Phi) banged into 26 doubleplays. Brad Miller (Cin) & Manny Machado (Vir), a 3B5 committed 30 errors. More info can be found on the STAT page.

 

And Then There's This: Not much left to expose with the expanded leader board..... Ken Pillar (Wel) & Kolten Wong (Wel) had 5 bunts. David Ortiz (Buf) & Kris Bryant (Ohi) has 7 sac flies. Three guys had 7 caught stealing but lets pick on Logan Forsythe (Ohi) who only managed 2 steals in 9 tries. Three guys hit 667 for the year with Orlando Arcia (Wel) doing it 4 hits. Mitch Haniger (Vir) never got a hit in 5 at bats but Mallex Smith (Jam) could be judged worse with his 3 for 41. There were 10 hitters that never appeared in a game of 369. Sean Doolittle (Syr) has the absolute best ERA at 0.50 in 18 innings. Keone Kela (Ohi) was at the other end with a 9.84 in 46.7 innings. He did whiff 70 batters. Raisel Iglesias (Vir) was 8-0 on the year. Shane Greene (Blo) was 0-10. Nick Goody (Blo) got in 96 games with 147.7 innings. Two pitchers never got in a game out of 301.

 

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