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pm129 · 01-30-2014, 01:16 PM

The Season in Detail- Liege Bulls

The first thing a lot of people notice about the Liege Bulls is the seats at Jupiler Stadium. There are 2 reasons for this, the first is that they are the same angry red colour as their sponsors logo and the team’s uniforms, the second is that on any given night of the 2013 season you could see at least 3,000 of them during a game. Liege is, in Belgian terms, a big town. It has one of Belgium’s top soccer teams, it has a population approaching 200,000 and the surrounding area has many smaller cities and towns that are in easy reach of the park, but still, the Bulls only manage to attract roughly 7,000 fans a night to their games.

In our post-season roundup at the end of last year (in which Liege went 40-50), we remarked that the Bulls biggest challenges were the aforementioned attendance and the woeful pitching that placed 2nd last in the LW and was as bad as the offence, powered by on base machine Ian Leurink and the 66 RBIs of Frits Maeyer, was good. So how have the Bulls effected the turnaround that sees them firmly in the playoff hunt with two thirds of the season played out?

On the surface, not much has changed... The team is still in the upper reaches for runs produced with 300, projecting out at 450, against last season’s total of 458, on base percentage has improved somewhat to .349 compared to last years’ .336 and the loss of last year’s champion in that category has been mitigated by the emergence of Erwold Baggerman (.301/.369/.866) from triple A and the improvement of Laurent Bernard who’s line has climbed from last years .321/.348/.799 to the heady heights of .336/.373/.855. The next highest BBC average on the team is .286, but in terms of OBP, the Bulls have a great supporting cast with Klaas Bosman (2B) notching .414 and Edouard Gabriel (1B) at .378. The upshot of these metrics is that the team leads the LW East in AV, OBP and hits and is sitting 2 games back from the division leading Seraing Mecrales.
These stats, however, only tell half a story. If a team is leading it’s division in runs, hits average and OBS, why is it currently in a 3 way fight with the Red Devils and Meracles for the division lead with only 2 games separating them all after 60 games? The answer to that lies in the pitching problems that Liege’s great offence masks.

Last year, only the Bastogne Generals ranked worst for defensive metrics than the Bulls in the LW and that was a close run thing. The teams tied in giving away an average of 5 runs per game, Liege may have allowed 14 fewer hits than Bastogne, but they also gave up 22 more home runs and struck out 60 fewer batters. Their best pitching performers were Stuart Duhamel and Raphael Auger, both of whom had ERAs over 3.60, not top of the rotation numbers in a pitching heavy league.

Fast forward to 60 games played in 2014 and Liege are on course to give up just over 450 runs against last years’ mark of 448, they project to give up 5 more home runs even than the 112 they surrendered in their 2013 campaign and they look set to strike out 605 batters against last years 698. Their top pitchers for ERA are Gray Wirenga and Yves Jean with 4.63 and 4.82 respectively against a league average of all teams of 4.18 and a divisional average of 4.30. This is a disaster. If any other team sees it’s near league worst pitching drop off a cliff in this manner whilst paying its players around the league average (Liege ranks 9th in payroll for 2014), an angry mob is descending on the crowd and the GM is being run out of town on a rail. Now, I know that you have two questions to all this. Firstly, can the city of Liege credibly produce enough fans to constitute a mob and secondly, how the heck did their team get to a winning record at this point in the season?
The answer is not, as you may suspect, defense. And yes, I know that a lot of what we log as pitching is actually defence, but in the infield, the Bulls haven’t really done anything different this year. 2013 saw them produce 65 errors, a fielding rating of .981 and fielding efficiency of .684, taking the final metric as our benchmark, that turned out 5th in the LW ahead of the Generals, the Monks and perhaps most surprisingly the Emperors. This year, they haven’t really done anything different, they project 3 fewer errors, a .983 rating and a .694 fielding efficiency rating. To rate 3rd in the LW against a climbing average.

In short, the Bulls turnaround this season has been built upon getting guys on base and driving home runs (265 so far, 12 more than Bruxelles and 1st in the LW East). Can this last in the face of a weak and, by the looks of things, still declining rotation with nothing special in the field to back it up? Especially now last year’s OBP Champion has traded to Gent for a prospect Closer? Not if there’s any justice.

01-30-2014, 01:16 PM	#15
pm129 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Sep 2012 Posts: 24	The Season in Detail- Liege Bulls The first thing a lot of people notice about the Liege Bulls is the seats at Jupiler Stadium. There are 2 reasons for this, the first is that they are the same angry red colour as their sponsors logo and the team’s uniforms, the second is that on any given night of the 2013 season you could see at least 3,000 of them during a game. Liege is, in Belgian terms, a big town. It has one of Belgium’s top soccer teams, it has a population approaching 200,000 and the surrounding area has many smaller cities and towns that are in easy reach of the park, but still, the Bulls only manage to attract roughly 7,000 fans a night to their games. In our post-season roundup at the end of last year (in which Liege went 40-50), we remarked that the Bulls biggest challenges were the aforementioned attendance and the woeful pitching that placed 2nd last in the LW and was as bad as the offence, powered by on base machine Ian Leurink and the 66 RBIs of Frits Maeyer, was good. So how have the Bulls effected the turnaround that sees them firmly in the playoff hunt with two thirds of the season played out? On the surface, not much has changed... The team is still in the upper reaches for runs produced with 300, projecting out at 450, against last season’s total of 458, on base percentage has improved somewhat to .349 compared to last years’ .336 and the loss of last year’s champion in that category has been mitigated by the emergence of Erwold Baggerman (.301/.369/.866) from triple A and the improvement of Laurent Bernard who’s line has climbed from last years .321/.348/.799 to the heady heights of .336/.373/.855. The next highest BBC average on the team is .286, but in terms of OBP, the Bulls have a great supporting cast with Klaas Bosman (2B) notching .414 and Edouard Gabriel (1B) at .378. The upshot of these metrics is that the team leads the LW East in AV, OBP and hits and is sitting 2 games back from the division leading Seraing Mecrales. These stats, however, only tell half a story. If a team is leading it’s division in runs, hits average and OBS, why is it currently in a 3 way fight with the Red Devils and Meracles for the division lead with only 2 games separating them all after 60 games? The answer to that lies in the pitching problems that Liege’s great offence masks. Last year, only the Bastogne Generals ranked worst for defensive metrics than the Bulls in the LW and that was a close run thing. The teams tied in giving away an average of 5 runs per game, Liege may have allowed 14 fewer hits than Bastogne, but they also gave up 22 more home runs and struck out 60 fewer batters. Their best pitching performers were Stuart Duhamel and Raphael Auger, both of whom had ERAs over 3.60, not top of the rotation numbers in a pitching heavy league. Fast forward to 60 games played in 2014 and Liege are on course to give up just over 450 runs against last years’ mark of 448, they project to give up 5 more home runs even than the 112 they surrendered in their 2013 campaign and they look set to strike out 605 batters against last years 698. Their top pitchers for ERA are Gray Wirenga and Yves Jean with 4.63 and 4.82 respectively against a league average of all teams of 4.18 and a divisional average of 4.30. This is a disaster. If any other team sees it’s near league worst pitching drop off a cliff in this manner whilst paying its players around the league average (Liege ranks 9th in payroll for 2014), an angry mob is descending on the crowd and the GM is being run out of town on a rail. Now, I know that you have two questions to all this. Firstly, can the city of Liege credibly produce enough fans to constitute a mob and secondly, how the heck did their team get to a winning record at this point in the season? The answer is not, as you may suspect, defense. And yes, I know that a lot of what we log as pitching is actually defence, but in the infield, the Bulls haven’t really done anything different this year. 2013 saw them produce 65 errors, a fielding rating of .981 and fielding efficiency of .684, taking the final metric as our benchmark, that turned out 5th in the LW ahead of the Generals, the Monks and perhaps most surprisingly the Emperors. This year, they haven’t really done anything different, they project 3 fewer errors, a .983 rating and a .694 fielding efficiency rating. To rate 3rd in the LW against a climbing average. In short, the Bulls turnaround this season has been built upon getting guys on base and driving home runs (265 so far, 12 more than Bruxelles and 1st in the LW East). Can this last in the face of a weak and, by the looks of things, still declining rotation with nothing special in the field to back it up? Especially now last year’s OBP Champion has traded to Gent for a prospect Closer? Not if there’s any justice.