OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty, Year 2: One Flew Over the Pale Hose

cknox0723 · 03-15-2006, 02:43 AM

I have always been curious as to why the All-Star break takes place at the fifty-five percent mark of each season, and a little digging gave me one of those little trivial nuggets that can be handy to throw down, so I thought I'd share. Thanks to this link, I found that the first All-Star game was initiated to coincide with Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition. Funny that nearly a century has passed in this universe since one ballclub from Chicago has made any progress in winning le grande exposition.

In any case, thought I might give you a quick look into the universe in which I am immersed at this natural break in the season. It will be tough not to spend hours, though, so I will try to be brief.

The Mets, bless their $92 million hearts, have overcome the early-season struggles of three-fifths of their rotation with solid bullpen work, a deep and dynamic lineup, and the yeoman efforts of former Pale Hose fan favorite Dmitri Young (.331 avg/.404 obp/.484 slg, 26 2B) to sneak into first place, likely for good. This ballclub is not like the Yankees of recent vintage, paying serious bread for talent that is no better than what is already in the system, but it is worth noting that off-season pick-up Matthew LeCroy was as much an answer to their catching problems as Darren Baker was to pinch-running for SF in the 2002 World Series. 29 year old Rhode Islander Danny Wheeler has done a hell of a job in his first stint as a closer, saving 16 and winning 6 in 40.2 innings, and allowing but two runs per nine. Interestingly, his six wins are second on the club, behind the Triple-H starting trio of Hudson, Hernandez, and Heilman, all of whom have 7.

I still like the second New York club as a serious contender for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, but they do still have a division to win. Atlanta is right in the thick of things, just three-plus back, and that ballclub is riding an offense that is third in the league in runs scored despite ranking 17th in batting average. The key to that is the combination of power and patience that thumpers Ryan Klesko (.263 avg), Chipper Jones (.251), Carlos Beltran (.224), and JD Drew (.220) all possess. To a man, they can swat the ball over or between the outfielders or they can work a walk. That's a hell of a lot better than carrying a sap like Juan "Out-Sucking Machine" Uribe or "Hacktastic Julio" Lugo or Joe "Beet Soup" Borchard in the everyday lineup. Having three solid contributors at normally light offensive spots helps quite a bit, too, and the Braves are enjoying a career year from backstop John Estrada (.276/.336/.424, which goes to show how the 31 year old's career has transpired in this universe) to go along with an outstanding sophomore campaign from last year's top rookie, 2B Jake Gautreau (.329/.399/.476) and the typical acrobatic work from shortstop Raffy Furcal (36 steals, a .280 average), whose contract expires at the end of next season.

I would also be remiss to leave out the success of one-time Pale Hose minor leaguer Chin-Feng Chen, who was sent over to the National League back in early June in a seemingly minor deal for Jack Wilson, ostensibly our backup shortstop. "c.f. chen" singled in a pinch-hit appearance in his first at-bat with the Braves and of the season, and got a start against San Francisco a few days later and went 0-4. He also started in two of the Braves' last three games before this here All-Star break and contributed mightily to two heavy losses to the other Chicago team, going oh-fer-three and 0-4. Betwixt those two periods was a display of hitting that the 29 year old journeyman outfielder could spend a career trying to re-create. From June 15 to July 3, Chen batted at an incredible .414 rate, twelve for twenty-nine, swatting five home runs and slugging over .700. On June 22, with the ballclub having lost three of four, he blasted a two-run bomb off of countryman Hong-Chih Kuo in the sixth to put the Braves ahead of Los Angeles for good, and Chen single-handedly beat the Padres three days later, going 3-3 with a home run, two runs scored and two batted in. All this doesn't mean trading him for a good-field, no-hit shortstop in Jack Wilson was a bad idea; those thirty-five or so plate appearances don't mean anything, really. I simply thought that not mentioning them would be unjust, in a way.

The same cannot be said for the Braves' pitching staff, which I have conveniently ignored up to this point. All the pre-season negatives have come to pass and then some, as ace starter Carlos Zambrano will be making just his thirteenth start of the season when the real games kick in again, having spent plenty of time on the DL with "leg imbalance" or "tomahawk chop syndrome" or what have you. 26 year old control artist Brett Evert (8-6, 3.51) has carried the torch well enough in his absence, and a consortium of mostly unappreciated journeymen like Josh Fogg (7-6, 3.71, this is from a six-year veteran so appreciated by smart baseball men that he is still making just $600K) and Lance Cormier (6-1, 4.37, and here is a man with a 6-16 record entering the year) have turned in far more quality starts than anyone could reasonably expect. And 36 year old right-hander Dan Miceli has done a fine job converting most of those quality starts into wins, nearly doubling his career save total in the process. The trouble has been the handling of the torch in between, with undistinguished 33 year old Will Cunnane far and away the club's most reliable middleman.

Yet Atlanta is still just three-and-a-half back, while Montreal has faded after a nice early-season started and Philadelphia has disappointingly never gotten anywhere at all. Why? Well, while the Braves have gotten mostly decent starts from unknowns, the Phils have seen veteran name pitcher (Jon Leiber) after veteran name pitcher (Darren Dreifort) after veteran name pitcher (Mike Hampton) get whiplash from turning and watching that little white pill fly. Throw in the combined 2-7 mark from greenhorns Tim Stogner and Cole Hamels and that's an awful lot of losses that ace right-hander Vinny Padilla can't make up for on his own, and not even with the surprising ten-win contribution from 26 year old Brett Myers, whose 4.01 ERA this year represents his best major league work to date. Interestingly, the club is tenth in runs scored despite these facts:

-16th in the league in batting average at .253, thanks to the "contributions" of SS Rollins at an atrocious .210 (.188 vs RHP) and LF Burrell (.212)
-tied for twenty-seventh in home runs, with Burrell's 16 far and away the team lead, as Bob Abreu (10) is the only other player with a double-digit home run total
-speaking of the right fielder, just as he was really heating up in June, Abreu was disabled with an inflamed hip muscle, and the at-bat he has in the first inning on July 16 in Arizona will be his first since June 27. The multi-talented outfielder was enjoying his best year, largely in part to a .360/.455/.558 June line that raised his overall average to .295, his highest mark in four years. He was a target in trade talks, but the Phils value him even more highly than I do.

I might also mention that they are no real base stealing threats in the Philly lineup, either, save for Jimmy Rollins who is on base about as much as the title character in that TV show set in the City of Brotherly Love. (You know the one!) There are a few .300 hitters sprinkled about the lineup, with journeyman backstop Josh Paul the most surprising and consistent center fielder Marlon Byrd his polar opposite, but that doesn't explain why the club has scored even more than New Jersey's own Quincy Douby, nor really does the team's fourth-place ranking in walks. The BB is nice, but ain't goin' do much good when you don't hit the ball, right? The answer is that the club thumps a whole load of two-baggers, with second baseman Chase Utley's 21 leading the way, and all of the other everyday players in double digits save for fat, old, slow first baseman Jim Thome. The triple may be the most exciting play in baseball, but if Adam Kennedy's scintillating April didn't allow you to appreciate the two-bagger, perhaps the otherwise moribund Philadelphia offense will. Or not; they're still in last, anyway.

However, they may crawl out of their hole if Montreal gets hit any harder with the SARS virus. Bad joke, I know (though I am mixing Canadian cities), but how else to explain the six pitchers currently accruing time on the disabled list? And even the healthy are not without unsightly warts and blemishes. Take 25 year old Luke Lockwood, a strapping young lefty with a rather indistinguishable minor league line and half-decent three-start cup of coffee last season; he's seen it all enveloped in an 11-start nuclear mushroom this year, with more walks than strikeouts, 67 hits in 50 innings, and a fine, dandy 7.33 ERA, only three-and-a-half runs above league-average. And the parade of unfortunate souls continues with 27 year old right-hander Seung "Sung" Song, who has carved out a nice niche as a pitching pinata, allowing any old left-handed batter to let 'er rip and watch the little foil-wrapped candies pop out. Hell, you could probably go deep on this guy, and you're reading the incoherent ramblings of some guy on a baseball text sim message board.

Left-handers are batting .472/.525/.764 against him this season in 72 at-bats. Sample size and all that, but four-freakin'-72! The opposite handers could go up there sans bat, and I bet his record would still be 1-6.

Not all has gone awry for Montreal, who has had the reverse curve of our season, starting out fast and then slowly spiraling downward. 26 year old right-hander Darrell Rasnar has emerged from obscurity to lead the team in wins with eight, and if young ace Frankie Butto ever returns from injury, you are looking at a half-decent rotation when you mix in efficient, crafty veteran Ryan Drese (7-4, 2.56). The lineup also has a solid nucleus, as 28 year old first baseman Hee Seop Choi has finally lived up to the minor league billings in his first real shot at the bigs (.292/.424/.545 in 154 AB), creating a nice middle-of-the-order punch with similarly talented outfielder Brad Wilkerson (.280/.372/.468) and free-swinging, position-drifting 25 year old Vic Diaz (.305/.327/.481). But this small-market ballclub (26th in payroll) just doesn't have the resources that others do, and even unexpected surprises like the emergence of Rasnar and the mild renaissance of 35 year old offseason pick-up Jorge Posada (.282/.384/.377 vs. .242/.333/.366 last year) can't cover up other deficiencies, like the fact that the club has started seven different third basemen this season (and not because of injuries) and that the bullpen has one pitcher with more than 10 innings and an ERA below the league average of 3.96. And as luck would have it, that man, superb Mexican right-hander Luis Ayala, is currently on the DL along with apparently all other comers in the organization. With what was diagnosed a few weeks ago as a torn tricep muscle, he'll likely be there a while.

Montreal will suffer the same fate in the standings if their minor league system is any indication, and since they can't outspend even the Pale Hose, the fact that they have just one prospect to speak of means, as the French say, je ne voudrais pas etre a sa place. (Feel free to pretend the accents are there if it makes it sound a little less like Ted Nugent to you) Even worse is that right-hander David Gibbs looks like a supernova, with a 3-0 record and sparkling 0.28 ERA in four double-A starts...yet he's just nineteen years old, with plenty of time to blow out his arm three times, and even worse, his A-ball lines from the last year-plus suggest that his idea of the strike zone is just rudimentary. If he flops, same as 2005 1st rounder Don Larios did (granted, he is still 24, but his AA record was 6-19 last year!) and same as this year's #1 pick, Frank Corbett is likely to do...(OK, that is jumping the gun, as the third base prospect is all of 19 years old, with 118 professional at-bats. But he's hitting .153!!)...with an organization with that kind of track record, you can't say anything but "Mon dieu, avoir pitie au Montreal."

03-15-2006, 02:43 AM	#715
cknox0723 All Star Starter Join Date: May 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 1,957	nl ea I have always been curious as to why the All-Star break takes place at the fifty-five percent mark of each season, and a little digging gave me one of those little trivial nuggets that can be handy to throw down, so I thought I'd share. Thanks to this link, I found that the first All-Star game was initiated to coincide with Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition. Funny that nearly a century has passed in this universe since one ballclub from Chicago has made any progress in winning le grande exposition. In any case, thought I might give you a quick look into the universe in which I am immersed at this natural break in the season. It will be tough not to spend hours, though, so I will try to be brief. The Mets, bless their $92 million hearts, have overcome the early-season struggles of three-fifths of their rotation with solid bullpen work, a deep and dynamic lineup, and the yeoman efforts of former Pale Hose fan favorite Dmitri Young (.331 avg/.404 obp/.484 slg, 26 2B) to sneak into first place, likely for good. This ballclub is not like the Yankees of recent vintage, paying serious bread for talent that is no better than what is already in the system, but it is worth noting that off-season pick-up Matthew LeCroy was as much an answer to their catching problems as Darren Baker was to pinch-running for SF in the 2002 World Series. 29 year old Rhode Islander Danny Wheeler has done a hell of a job in his first stint as a closer, saving 16 and winning 6 in 40.2 innings, and allowing but two runs per nine. Interestingly, his six wins are second on the club, behind the Triple-H starting trio of Hudson, Hernandez, and Heilman, all of whom have 7. I still like the second New York club as a serious contender for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, but they do still have a division to win. Atlanta is right in the thick of things, just three-plus back, and that ballclub is riding an offense that is third in the league in runs scored despite ranking 17th in batting average. The key to that is the combination of power and patience that thumpers Ryan Klesko (.263 avg), Chipper Jones (.251), Carlos Beltran (.224), and JD Drew (.220) all possess. To a man, they can swat the ball over or between the outfielders or they can work a walk. That's a hell of a lot better than carrying a sap like Juan "Out-Sucking Machine" Uribe or "Hacktastic Julio" Lugo or Joe "Beet Soup" Borchard in the everyday lineup. Having three solid contributors at normally light offensive spots helps quite a bit, too, and the Braves are enjoying a career year from backstop John Estrada (.276/.336/.424, which goes to show how the 31 year old's career has transpired in this universe) to go along with an outstanding sophomore campaign from last year's top rookie, 2B Jake Gautreau (.329/.399/.476) and the typical acrobatic work from shortstop Raffy Furcal (36 steals, a .280 average), whose contract expires at the end of next season. I would also be remiss to leave out the success of one-time Pale Hose minor leaguer Chin-Feng Chen, who was sent over to the National League back in early June in a seemingly minor deal for Jack Wilson, ostensibly our backup shortstop. "c.f. chen" singled in a pinch-hit appearance in his first at-bat with the Braves and of the season, and got a start against San Francisco a few days later and went 0-4. He also started in two of the Braves' last three games before this here All-Star break and contributed mightily to two heavy losses to the other Chicago team, going oh-fer-three and 0-4. Betwixt those two periods was a display of hitting that the 29 year old journeyman outfielder could spend a career trying to re-create. From June 15 to July 3, Chen batted at an incredible .414 rate, twelve for twenty-nine, swatting five home runs and slugging over .700. On June 22, with the ballclub having lost three of four, he blasted a two-run bomb off of countryman Hong-Chih Kuo in the sixth to put the Braves ahead of Los Angeles for good, and Chen single-handedly beat the Padres three days later, going 3-3 with a home run, two runs scored and two batted in. All this doesn't mean trading him for a good-field, no-hit shortstop in Jack Wilson was a bad idea; those thirty-five or so plate appearances don't mean anything, really. I simply thought that not mentioning them would be unjust, in a way. The same cannot be said for the Braves' pitching staff, which I have conveniently ignored up to this point. All the pre-season negatives have come to pass and then some, as ace starter Carlos Zambrano will be making just his thirteenth start of the season when the real games kick in again, having spent plenty of time on the DL with "leg imbalance" or "tomahawk chop syndrome" or what have you. 26 year old control artist Brett Evert (8-6, 3.51) has carried the torch well enough in his absence, and a consortium of mostly unappreciated journeymen like Josh Fogg (7-6, 3.71, this is from a six-year veteran so appreciated by smart baseball men that he is still making just $600K) and Lance Cormier (6-1, 4.37, and here is a man with a 6-16 record entering the year) have turned in far more quality starts than anyone could reasonably expect. And 36 year old right-hander Dan Miceli has done a fine job converting most of those quality starts into wins, nearly doubling his career save total in the process. The trouble has been the handling of the torch in between, with undistinguished 33 year old Will Cunnane far and away the club's most reliable middleman. Yet Atlanta is still just three-and-a-half back, while Montreal has faded after a nice early-season started and Philadelphia has disappointingly never gotten anywhere at all. Why? Well, while the Braves have gotten mostly decent starts from unknowns, the Phils have seen veteran name pitcher (Jon Leiber) after veteran name pitcher (Darren Dreifort) after veteran name pitcher (Mike Hampton) get whiplash from turning and watching that little white pill fly. Throw in the combined 2-7 mark from greenhorns Tim Stogner and Cole Hamels and that's an awful lot of losses that ace right-hander Vinny Padilla can't make up for on his own, and not even with the surprising ten-win contribution from 26 year old Brett Myers, whose 4.01 ERA this year represents his best major league work to date. Interestingly, the club is tenth in runs scored despite these facts: -16th in the league in batting average at .253, thanks to the "contributions" of SS Rollins at an atrocious .210 (.188 vs RHP) and LF Burrell (.212) -tied for twenty-seventh in home runs, with Burrell's 16 far and away the team lead, as Bob Abreu (10) is the only other player with a double-digit home run total -speaking of the right fielder, just as he was really heating up in June, Abreu was disabled with an inflamed hip muscle, and the at-bat he has in the first inning on July 16 in Arizona will be his first since June 27. The multi-talented outfielder was enjoying his best year, largely in part to a .360/.455/.558 June line that raised his overall average to .295, his highest mark in four years. He was a target in trade talks, but the Phils value him even more highly than I do. I might also mention that they are no real base stealing threats in the Philly lineup, either, save for Jimmy Rollins who is on base about as much as the title character in that TV show set in the City of Brotherly Love. (You know the one!) There are a few .300 hitters sprinkled about the lineup, with journeyman backstop Josh Paul the most surprising and consistent center fielder Marlon Byrd his polar opposite, but that doesn't explain why the club has scored even more than New Jersey's own Quincy Douby, nor really does the team's fourth-place ranking in walks. The BB is nice, but ain't goin' do much good when you don't hit the ball, right? The answer is that the club thumps a whole load of two-baggers, with second baseman Chase Utley's 21 leading the way, and all of the other everyday players in double digits save for fat, old, slow first baseman Jim Thome. The triple may be the most exciting play in baseball, but if Adam Kennedy's scintillating April didn't allow you to appreciate the two-bagger, perhaps the otherwise moribund Philadelphia offense will. Or not; they're still in last, anyway. However, they may crawl out of their hole if Montreal gets hit any harder with the SARS virus. Bad joke, I know (though I am mixing Canadian cities), but how else to explain the six pitchers currently accruing time on the disabled list? And even the healthy are not without unsightly warts and blemishes. Take 25 year old Luke Lockwood, a strapping young lefty with a rather indistinguishable minor league line and half-decent three-start cup of coffee last season; he's seen it all enveloped in an 11-start nuclear mushroom this year, with more walks than strikeouts, 67 hits in 50 innings, and a fine, dandy 7.33 ERA, only three-and-a-half runs above league-average. And the parade of unfortunate souls continues with 27 year old right-hander Seung "Sung" Song, who has carved out a nice niche as a pitching pinata, allowing any old left-handed batter to let 'er rip and watch the little foil-wrapped candies pop out. Hell, you could probably go deep on this guy, and you're reading the incoherent ramblings of some guy on a baseball text sim message board. Left-handers are batting .472/.525/.764 against him this season in 72 at-bats. Sample size and all that, but four-freakin'-72! The opposite handers could go up there sans bat, and I bet his record would still be 1-6. Not all has gone awry for Montreal, who has had the reverse curve of our season, starting out fast and then slowly spiraling downward. 26 year old right-hander Darrell Rasnar has emerged from obscurity to lead the team in wins with eight, and if young ace Frankie Butto ever returns from injury, you are looking at a half-decent rotation when you mix in efficient, crafty veteran Ryan Drese (7-4, 2.56). The lineup also has a solid nucleus, as 28 year old first baseman Hee Seop Choi has finally lived up to the minor league billings in his first real shot at the bigs (.292/.424/.545 in 154 AB), creating a nice middle-of-the-order punch with similarly talented outfielder Brad Wilkerson (.280/.372/.468) and free-swinging, position-drifting 25 year old Vic Diaz (.305/.327/.481). But this small-market ballclub (26th in payroll) just doesn't have the resources that others do, and even unexpected surprises like the emergence of Rasnar and the mild renaissance of 35 year old offseason pick-up Jorge Posada (.282/.384/.377 vs. .242/.333/.366 last year) can't cover up other deficiencies, like the fact that the club has started seven different third basemen this season (and not because of injuries) and that the bullpen has one pitcher with more than 10 innings and an ERA below the league average of 3.96. And as luck would have it, that man, superb Mexican right-hander Luis Ayala, is currently on the DL along with apparently all other comers in the organization. With what was diagnosed a few weeks ago as a torn tricep muscle, he'll likely be there a while. Montreal will suffer the same fate in the standings if their minor league system is any indication, and since they can't outspend even the Pale Hose, the fact that they have just one prospect to speak of means, as the French say, je ne voudrais pas etre a sa place. (Feel free to pretend the accents are there if it makes it sound a little less like Ted Nugent to you) Even worse is that right-hander David Gibbs looks like a supernova, with a 3-0 record and sparkling 0.28 ERA in four double-A starts...yet he's just nineteen years old, with plenty of time to blow out his arm three times, and even worse, his A-ball lines from the last year-plus suggest that his idea of the strike zone is just rudimentary. If he flops, same as 2005 1st rounder Don Larios did (granted, he is still 24, but his AA record was 6-19 last year!) and same as this year's #1 pick, Frank Corbett is likely to do...(OK, that is jumping the gun, as the third base prospect is all of 19 years old, with 118 professional at-bats. But he's hitting .153!!)...with an organization with that kind of track record, you can't say anything but "Mon dieu, avoir pitie au Montreal."