June / July report:
Updated Goal: My son expects to move into first place by September and then try to make it past the first round in the playoffs.
He wants to earn an extra 3000 points this season to help with future player purchases.
I have been trying to teach the kids more about the various stats and we continued reading some of the baseball metrics books.
I am happy to report that more and more discussions between them are starting to be about the various numbers instead of
trying to focus on just a single data point like ERA for pitchers.
They are also trying to develop their own check-mark system. I am still a bit confused on the inner workings (two kids with
different methodologies and plenty of subjective criterias) but they want to use it to
a. select future players
b. gauge performance of players during the season
Essentially, they questioned some of the ranking lists that you can get that help rank players.
Example, a pitcher with high stuff/high movement and very low control may be ranked higher than
a player with average ratings across all three areas.
So they started to apply a negative towards players that are too unbalanced (too many HR/9 or BB/9).
A lot of it still seems subjective and players seem to get double credit for the same performance but this is not my team and
I am trying to avoid looking too much over their shoulders. Instead, I will try to let them continue on their path and mention some areas of concern
without guiding them towards my decision making process.
Grades up to month of July (last two month):
Starters:
SP1 Bob Gibson - Grade A. You can't ask for more than what he delivered. Dominant performances and 15 Quality starts (.833 %).
He is the ace on the team with a 2.47 ERA/170 ERA+. 12 wins - 3 Losses. As my son put it: "We should find some videos of him pitching in real life".
Note to self: Make sure to get a Gibson baseball card for his birthday next month.
SP2 Zack Greinke - Grade B. Some of his last starts were below 6 innings but he kept the team in the game.
My son wants to up the number of pitches he is allowed to throw (105) to see if he can consistently finish 6 innings without giving up additional runs.
Most of the damage came at the very beginning so it was not an issue of lack of stamina. 2.77 ERA/151 ERA+. 8 Wins - 5 Losses.
The kids really like his average ratings across the board: 70 Stuff/72 Movement/77 Control.
I suggested to look at Corey Kluber (82/67/72) but I was told "we can't add him to the same team as Felix. He won the Cy Young when Felix
should have won that same year". Wow....they really seem to pay attention when AM sports radio is playing in the car or on their Nucleus (great video intercom system with Amazon
Alexa functionality).
SP3 Felix Hernandez - Grade C. Several games of 4-5 earned runs in June until he turned things around in July and pitched several
consecutive quality starts with just 1-2 ERs. He dropped his ERA to 3.98/105 ERA+.
SP4 Paul Splittorff - Grade B. 8 Wins - 4 Losses. 7 of his 10 starts were quality starts with just 1-2 earned runs. ERA at 3.05/138 ERA+.
He is almost on par with Bob Gibson in terms of Quality starts (11). At 1/3 the cost of Gibson, he is becoming a fan favorite for the kids.
The kids have identified Brett Anderson as the next purchase as his ratings are very similar. Unfortunately, he is not listed in the Auction House.
They asked me for more data about him but I have no record of him in the database yet as we only captured data from Perfect level.
The kids asked to once again record all player results for all levels and make them searchable in a db.
-SP5 Tommy John - Grade D. As the #5 pitcher on the team, he had fewer starts and did not deliver consistent results.
As a result, my son decided to move on and add Claude Passeau to the team. It was essentially an even trade in points.
+SP5 Claude Passeau - He was added at the end of July so no data is available yet.
His Stuff is low (55) but he has good Movement (74) and Control (76). He is a low velocity pitcher so my son hopes that he can pitch into the 8th inning in some of his games.
Relievers:
The boys do not have a reliable way to distinguish their relievers yet. The bullpen seems to be reliable so far and
with contradicting views on how to move forward and rate relievers, everthing is set on hold for now.
The kids have a wish list of top closers but given the lack of points, they want to make the most of their existing silver-level relievers.
Only Steve Howe received a small adjustment. He was given the Left-handed specialist assignment with a Middle Relief secondary role.
RP Trevor Hoffman - no grade yet.
RP Steve Howe - no grade yet.
RP Bobby Jenks - no grade yet.
RP Kent Tekulve - no grade yet.
RP Ryan Brasier - no grade yet.
CL Blake Treinen - no grade yet.
Catchers:
Talking about a short leash. The Smokey Burgess experiment has come to an end already and
Mike LaValliere has been added to the roster. Burgess was cold as a hitter and did not fit the long term goal
of building a defensive team. Essentially, an expensive gold card was sold in favor of a much cheaper top defensive catcher.
C Ivan Rodriguez - no assessment yet. He played too few games.
+ Mike LaValliere - added to the roster. No assessment yet.
Batters:
1B Keith Hernandez - Grade A. If it was not for the late start, he would probably challenge Goldschmidt and Rizzo for a Golden Glove award.
My son expects to see his name on the Batting and Fielding Leaders list before the end of the season.
He had a terrific June/July with an AVG of .324, OBP of .379 and OPS close to .900.
2B Travis Jackson - Grade A. Defense already climbed to 94 at 2B. OPS of .934. He is leading the team in bringing in runners (RBI: 64).
2B Cecil Travis - Grade C. Reliable supportive cast member. Defense at 2B is rising at a slow pace (25). When given an opportunity, he delivered great results (134 OPS+).
-2B Pete Runnels - no Grade. He was moved to the reserves and will be sold in the future.
+Infielder 2016 All-Star Francisco Lindor. Points from the sale of Smokey Burgess were used to aquire the 87 Gold Lindor card. He will be trained at all Infield positions before a
final decision is made on his final location in the lineup. His defense at SS is 103 so he should be a top notch defender at all other positions.
3B Johnny Pesky - Grade C. Defense at 3B climbing at a good rate (89) but he started slow and is just starting to hit for average consistently.
My son expected him to be much better vs. the league competition.
SS Larry Bowa - Grade A. Outperforming expectations. .305 AVG, good defense, and good base running. Stealing is still too aggressive and
adjustments to global strategy and individual player strategy still needs to be completed for all players.
LF Tony Gwynn - Grade A. .981 OPS while climbing in LF defense (56).
LF Pete Rose - Grade D. Has not met expectations. Average just .250. Has taken care of business when it comes to LHPs but he was expected to
also do well against RHPs. But to be fair, he has not played enough to really make an impact. July numbers were better than June.
CF Paul Blair - Grade C. Defensive superstar. ZR of 8.4 and going up quickly. He won't be able to catch up to Kiermaier but should be
runners-up for the Golden Glove in CF. His offense has not taken of yet. If his offense picks up, he should be a Grade B soon.
RF Ichiro Suzuki - Grade A. He brings top defense (8.0 ZR) and offense (.340 AVG, .849 OPS). He may be able to catch up and win a Golden Glove in RF.
RF Babe Herman - no Grade. He is not in the long term pland and just holds a spot for a future player.
+DH Tommy Holmes - Grade A. He was added to bring some needed Contact+Power against RHPs. .382 AVG after 21 games and 1.066 OPS.
- Matty Alou - Grade B. He did more than expected but was removed from the DH spot and moved to the reserves. Hit for contact .335 before getting pulled.
His HR Power (5) and positional rating (36 CF) was too low to justify keeping him for the long term. He will stay on the reserves for now.
Overall assessment:
Team is too good for Bronze and it shows. They are winning most of the games but there is a long term concern.
About 1/3 of the games are high scoring against much weaker competition. Good F2P teams are keeping up and winning games.
At this point my son wants to wait 2-3 more month (days) to see if this is due to the lack of defense at two infield (2B and 3B)
and one outfield (LF) position.
PPs: 5,752 due to sale of Smokey Burgess and Tommy John and one 1,500 PP award (win streak of 10 games).
Future purchases:
SS - Lou Boudreaux. Joe Cronin is also on the list of candidates but he is #2. Too expensive at this point.
SP - Low priority. Current lineup is reliable and good enough. Brett Anderson is a candidate but hard to find.
RP - Low priority. A long term Setup and Long reliever is on the wishlist. But without a reliable way to evaluate existing staff I don't see any investment coming this season.
LF - Medium priority.
Team owner: He wants to keep Gwynn but give him a RHB with top notch defense and make LF a platoon. Top candidate: Roberto Clemente (LF defense: 95)
Brother: He is suggesting to move on from Gwynn (won't go higher than mid-70s defense in LF) and add a single player to LF. Top candidate: 89 Ken Griffey Jr (LF defense: 93).
Dad: I stayed out of the conversation but I can see that there is more to be discussed. There will be a big hole in CF with no player being able to fill in
when Blair takes a breather. Neither Rose, Griffey, or Clemente are great in CF.
Other plans:
Once Pesky and Travis Jackson are fully trained, they will swap positions so they can train and eventually play 2B, 3B, and SS.
The goal is to have at least 3 players with 100+ Defense at the positions.
Similar swaps will happen in the outfield, Ichiro will have to learn LF while Paul Blair will need to learn LF and RF.