Sat Sep 21, 2024 6:45 pm
Mid-Season Review
Except for Barry Bonds, the 2000s draft seems less important than in other decades. Even now, there are plenty of high-priced free agent hitters and relievers. The 13 highest-priced relievers are currently available and most have never been tried. The highest priced reliever on any team is Jason Isringhausen (3.99M), and his 4.79 ERA is one of the worst on his team. So for the players in the Mystery Finals, the most expensive relievers aren’t worth the money. Except for starting pitchers, there doesn't seem to be a shortage at any position.
The other observation is that this league has surprisingly few transactions. So far just 244 cut players and no trades. This can be compared with last year’s finals using the 90s set which saw 418 cuts over the full season.
At the halfway point, there are 5 teams that are either leading or within 4 games of the division lead; three teams 8 or 9 games back, and 5 teams that are 12 or more games back.
The team most likely to make the playoffs is sphilipp’s No More with an 8 game lead in the West. No More is lead by first round pick Arod (26 hr, 70 RBI). The staff is lead by Kevin Brown (12-3) and Joaquin Benoit (1.23 whip) and 17 saves split between Scot Shields and Francisco Cordero. The pitching staff has a ratio of righties to lefties of 10:1 in a neutral park (Cellular Field). The other stars are Jorge Posada and Josh Hamilton. Not surprisingly for a perennial tournament favorite , sphilipp has found several bargain players – Eduardo Perez, Fernando Vina, Junior Spivey (12 hr in 84 AB), and Marc McLemore (.385 obp in 187 PA from a .88M salary). I’m guessing that late season retread Jeremy Giambi is not going to be a big hit.
In the Central, taxchiefs’ Bohemians and hallerose’ Heroes have been within 2 games of each other since Game 28. The Bohemians hit the jackpot with first round pick, and current League MVP, Jim Edmunds. Midseason numbers of 26 doubles and 28 homers along with 48 of 49 x-chances in center make Edmunds the best player in the league. The other great player is starter Javier Vazquez (13-3, 3.12 ERA, 1.09 whip and a no-hitter). Taxchief has also gotten great years from Mussina (10-4) and Sheets (10-3, 1.10 whip). Free agent pickup Brian Roberts has proven to be a great addition (.342 BA, .500 slg). Second Round pick Troy Tulowitski was another great pick with 8 triples so far. Excellent starting pitching, stellar fielding and good offensive production (4th overall) looks to be a ticket to the playoffs.
Q: Who would have guessed that hallerose’s Heroes would be the league leader in runs and homeruns? A: Anyone who has been paying attention. A lot of money has gone into starting pitching – Lincecum, Smoltz, Mulder, and Hamels but this has not paid off with great pitching stats. Bonus question – who would have guessed that hallerose would have mediocre fielding in the outfield? This is not a finesse team. The strategy here, as usual, is to bludgeon everyone into submission. Five players have over 20 homers: Ortiz, Palmeiro, David Wright (currently 2nd in MVP voting), Luis Gonzalez, and bargain player Carl Everett.
My team, the Macaques, spent heavily on the first three draft picks – Bonds, Jeter, and J Drew. That’s 27 mil for 3 players. The rest of the draft and season has been spent on trying to find cheap players to fill out the lineup. This hasn’t been very successful but Bonds is good enough to carry an otherwise mediocre team. I’m hoping that my catcher Chad Moeller will get injured. His lefty/righty walk ratio tells me it must be his best year (projected .946 OPS) but his actual terrible results (.679 OPS) and the fact that HAL sometimes pinch hits for him versus righties tell me that he is on one of his four crappy years. I need him to get injured but, at this point, I don’t have enough money for a decent replacement anyway. What would gritch do?
The surprise of the Tournament is der geist’s Skull Splitters. Der geist is the least experienced Mystery player in the Finals. He qualified for the semi-finals by winning the world series of regular season 00s and then needed to win the world series of the semi-finals to be the last to qualify for the Finals. Will he make it three-in-a-row to win the Tournament? The Splitters are a good overall team – 4th in team pitching, 5th in hitting. Very straightforward approach – draft solid players up and down the lineup and stick with them. Just 6 cuts in the first half of the season. Jason Giambi, Berkman, Bret Boone, Moises Alou (league-leading .353 BA), Granderson, Ethier. The team is saving money on relievers with six sub-one mil pitchers. Will the Splitters get hot and win the East?
There is a pretty big gap between the top 5 teams (above) and the mid-tier teams.
Djkalle’s Woodchucks are 39-39 but 8 games back to the scary No More seems to make winning the division a dim hope. The problem with the Wild Card is that they are 6 back and they will have to catch either the Bohemians or the Heroes and those teams are looking great. The Woodchuck’s leading hitter is 4th overall draft pick Albert Pujols. Pujols and Miguel Cabrera are the only players in double-digits in homeruns, but S Drew (9 hr, .502 slg) and J Hardy (9 HR, .660 slg) form an amazing value platoon at shortstop. Overall run production is decent enough to rank sixth. Three very solid starters – Zambrano, Hudson, Wainwright. Maybe if closer Brian Wilson starts playing up to his card this team just might make the playoffs.
Rigged Split’s hard-luck Poltroons lead the league in injuries (75 days) and seem to have gotten mostly bad luck on player’s years. The leading hitters are Aramis Ramirez (12 hr, 42 rbi) and Garciaparra (8 hr, 35 rbi). The team is ranked #1 in pitching led by Travis Harper (6-1, 2.48 ERA, 0.94 whip). Wait. What? Who is Travis Harper? Also, starter James Shields is 7-5 with a 3.85 ERA and 1.17 whip. James Shields? How can a team that gets stellar production from .75 mil Harper and .84 mil Shields be just 37-41? I’m kinda mystified by the poor offensive production on this team. Is it the injuries – is this team going to stay healthy and start hitting?
The other team in the middle tier is barrmorris’ Retirees. I’ve been watching this manager for a while now. His style is to draft consistently good players and play’em. He’s made a few more free agent moves than usual but still just 8 (just 2 pitching changes). Barrmorris made probably the most surprising move of the draft taking Ichiro 2nd overall and his numbers have been underwhelming - .306 BA, .331 obp, .382 slg. The best surprise is Darryl Kile (12-2, 2.61 ERA). This team is the mirror image of the Heroes with incredible fielding in the outfield (Ichiro and Andruw Jones) but only 71 homers. Although barrmorris ranked second in overall points heading into the Finals, I think he got poor luck in player’s years and I suspect his hold ‘em strategy is not going to work out this time.
To be continued (I ran out of time to review the remaining teams but will try to get back to it)
