Newsletter for games through 6-27-18

COMMENTARY

In the NL, the Dodgers and Reds were each 5-1, with the NL East going a collective 18-12, and all 5 teams are now in positive WOR territory…Atlanta inched forward while the Brewers made some decent ground, but the Dodgers picked up 4 games in the west in one week to make it a serious race…Puig and Bellinger each had solid weeks, as might be expected, but Muncy added some more unexpected punch with 3 HR while hitting .333…Despite that mammoth week out o Los Angeles the Padres still set the pace for the NL WOR at +5…Miami checked in at 4-2 and is now +1 WOR…Deitrich and his .571 batting average on the week probably accounted for much of that…Cleveland got serious in the AL by picking up 4.5 games to lead the AL central by 4 and, much like the actual club, post the only winning record in the division…Bauer, Kluber, and Clevinger allowed 1 run in 35.33 innings last week…the Chisox are 6.5 back but are the only serious threat to the Orioles in the WOR standings at +8…Bosox gain a toehold in the east…the Astros pick up a game to force the AL west into a dead tie…Kinsler, Trout, and Upton all hit. 348 or better…Trout had the lowest average of the three on the week but the most walks…Gurriel of Houston hit .480 and also robbed 4 hits last week…the trade acquisition Nelson Cruz hit .333 for the Rays last week…Cam Bedrosian — whom I had predicted earlier this season would be out of the majors by the start of 2019 — threw 8 scoreless innings for the Halos and stranded all 6 inherited runners…Dylan Bundy, chastised in this space earlier this season for allowing 4 homers in a single inning, threw a complete game shutout this week..

FEATS AND FAILURES

STL and PHI played 14.5 innings on 6/18/2018
Shane Bieber of CLE had 14 strikeouts against CWS on 6/18/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 12 strikeouts against TBR on 6/18/2018
Denard Span of TBR struck out 4 times against HOU on 6/18/2018
Nomar Mazara of TEX had 6 RBI against KCR on 6/18/2018
Brett Gardner of COL had 5 hits against NYM on 6/18/2018
Justin Bour of MIA struck out 4 times against SFG on 6/18/2018
MIA and SFG played 15.5 innings on 6/18/2018
Max Scherzer of WAS had 13 strikeouts against BAL on 6/19/2018
Sean Newcomb of ATL had 13 strikeouts against TOR on 6/19/2018
Albert Almora of CHC struck out 4 times against LAD on 6/19/2018
Derek Dietrich of MIA had 5 hits against SFG on 6/20/2018
J.T. Realmuto of MIA had 6 hits against SFG on 6/20/2018
Tyler Austin of NYY struck out 4 times against SEA on 6/21/2018
Addison Russell of CHC struck out 4 times against CIN on 6/21/2018
Trevor Bauer of CLE had 12 strikeouts against DET on 6/22/2018
Alex Wood of LAD had 10 strikeouts against NYM on 6/22/2018
Yasiel Puig of LAD had 5 hits against NYM on 6/22/2018
Josh Rogers of NYY had 11 strikeouts against TBR on 6/22/2018
Nelson Cruz of TBR struck out 4 times against NYY on 6/22/2018
Yuli Gurriel of HOU robbed 3 hits against KCR on 6/22/2018
Matt Carpenter of STL struck out 4 times against MIL on 6/22/2018
Jabari Blash of LAA struck out 4 times against TOR on 6/22/2018
Didi Gregorius of NYY robbed 3 hits against TBR on 6/23/2018
Yangervis Solarte of TOR had 6 RBI against LAA on 6/23/2018
Chris Taylor of LAD struck out 4 times against NYM on 6/24/2018
LAD and NYM played 13.5 innings on 6/24/2018
Charlie Morton of HOU had 11 strikeouts against KCR on 6/24/2018

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Newsletter for games through 6-17-2018

COMMENTARY

Footsteps….Nationals quietly moved into second place in the NL East; best record in the divisions…Cubs roared to a 5-1 mark…that included a 3-game series with the division-leading Brewers…DBacks climbed back into first in the NL West…Bosox actually inched forward in the AL East…up by 5 over the Yankees…Cleveland and Chisox inched forward in the air-tight AL central…Anaheim had a huge 5-1 push to displace Oakland in the AL west, where those two teams and the Astros are all 1 game apart….Miami, Texas, Colorado, and Cincinnati are all scrapping but all had winning records…Rockies were huge at 5-1…5 trades this week, and the Atlanta A.J. Minter and Julio Teheran to Texas for Cole Hamels was the most eyebrow-raising deal…Trever Bauer struck out 25 guys in 17 innings last week…Zack Duke stranded all 5 inherited runners…Mike Trout hit .538 last week….pretty accurate….Cal State Fullerton alum and ASFBL Brave Kurt Suzuki hit .520…the former is more likely to last than the latter…Daniel Descalso of the DBacks clubbed 5 homers…and had all of 6 RBI….Trevor Story had 14 RBI with his more modest 3 homers…Nelson Cruz knocked in 14 with only 2…only 6 pitchers have double-digit wins…two are Brewers, two are Indians…Among the leaders, Brent Suter of the Yanks has the most wins (8) with the highest ERA (4.10)…Nobody has inherited more runners than Tony Watson of the Giants with 29…you can’t accomplish that without the help of your starters…

FEATS AND FAILURES

Pablo Sandoval of SFG had 6 RBI against MIA on 6/11/2018
Luis Severino of MIL had 13 strikeouts against CHC on 6/11/2018
Trevor Bauer of CLE had 11 strikeouts against CWS on 6/11/2018
Yan Gomes of CLE had 6 RBI against CWS on 6/11/2018
Trevor Story of COL had 6 RBI against PHI on 6/12/2018
Adeiny Hechavarria of TBR had 5 hits against TOR on 6/12/2018
Nelson Cruz of TBR had 8 RBI against TOR on 6/12/2018
Jose Pirela of SDP robbed 3 hits against STL on 6/12/2018
Nick Kingham of PIT had 11 strikeouts against ARI on 6/12/2018
Chad Pinder of OAK had 6 RBI against HOU on 6/12/2018
Max Scherzer of WAS had 16 strikeouts against NYY on 6/13/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 14 strikeouts against OAK on 6/13/2018
Matt Olson of OAK struck out 4 times against HOU on 6/13/2018
Dylan Covey of CWS had 13 strikeouts against CLE on 6/14/2018
Yan Gomes of CLE struck out 4 times against CWS on 6/14/2018
Drew Smith of NYM had 12 strikeouts against ARI on 6/14/2018
Billy Hamilton of CIN struck out 4 times against PIT on 6/15/2018
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 11 strikeouts against ARI on 6/15/2018
Aaron Hicks of SEA robbed 3 hits against BOS on 6/15/2018
Trevor Bauer of CLE had 14 strikeouts against MIN on 6/16/2018
Ozzie Albies of ATL struck out 4 times against SDP on 6/17/2018
Charlie Culberson of ATL struck out 4 times against SDP on 6/17/2018
Austin Riley of ATL struck out 5 times against SDP on 6/17/2018
Cory Spangenberg of SDP struck out 5 times against ATL on 6/17/2018
SDP and ATL played 17.5 innings on 6/17/2018
Aaron Judge of NYY struck out 4 times against TBR on 6/17/2018
Kevan Smith of CWS had 5 hits against DET on 6/17/2018
DET and CWS played 15.5 innings on 6/17/2018
Nomar Mazara of TEX hit 3 home runs against COL on 6/17/2018
Kenta Maeda of LAD had 11 strikeouts against SFG on 6/17/2018

Newsletter for games through 6-10-18

APOLOGIA

I am about to enter a hell week of 16-hour days, and have prepared for it with a series of 12-hour days.  Think of it like the Yankees playing a night game, traveling, and then playing a double-header, but without baseball.  I mention this not to complain (too much) but to let you know if I become incommunicado what the likely reason is.  Also, I forgot to click the waiver update button last week and tried to make the changes manually.  If you see issues, let me know.

WAYBACK MACHINE

In the second installment of reality-imitating-fantasy, there I was in 1992 trying to code without the internet and figure out how to do pitcher fatigue.  I started APBA-style with innings, but it became clear that was too blunt an object and that sometimes pitchers who generally made it 7 strong would crap out in the 3rd.  So I turned to pitch counts, which weren’t published anyway, and spent 2 weeks copying them out of the USA Today box scores to come up with some averages (18 pitchers per inning) I could convert to an average number of pitches.  It turned out that good pitchers could get past 100-110 pitches pretty regularly, although there were games where Nolan Ryan would do something absurd like throw 144 pitches.  Now, of course, pitch counts are sacrosanct and published everywhere…

NOMENCLATIVE ABSURDITIES

The Reds lead the league in letters per name at 12.4…only 3 teams average more than 12 combined letters in a players’ name…Chisox have the shortest average at 11.2…The Dodgers have the largest number of total vowels at 404 but the Angels are right behind at 403…both were 4-2 this week…Eugenio Suarez has an especially impressive vowel-to-consonant ratio…

THIS WEEK

It belonged to the Reds, with the best NL record at 5-1…and pushed them to +3 WOR….8 NL teams finished the week within 3.5 games of first…Padres hang on the best WOR…nobody in the top 3 spots of any division gained or lost more than 1.5 games…the AL took the average to new middles, with all clubs but one running between 2-4 and 4-2…the Yankees, Twins, and Angels got toeholds to inch forward a little bit…Baltimore still dominates the league-wide WOR…only one trade this week but 27 rosters submitted…JD Martinez is on an active 20-game hitting streak….don’t know what your facebook feed is like, but if you can sent some positive wishes to Rick Wynne’s Dad, who had some hospital time this week…

FEATS AND FAILURES

Matt Kemp of LAD struck out 4 times against COL on 6/3/2018
Denard Span of TBR robbed 3 hits against SEA on 6/3/2018
Eric Hosmer of SDP robbed 3 hits against CIN on 6/3/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 14 strikeouts against BOS on 6/3/2018
Andrew McCutchen of SFG robbed 3 hits against ARI on 6/4/2018
Ross Stripling of LAD had 11 strikeouts against PIT on 6/5/2018
Christian Bergman of NYY had 14 strikeouts against TOR on 6/5/2018
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 16 strikeouts against BAL on 6/5/2018
Corey Kluber of CLE had 11 strikeouts against MIL on 6/5/2018
Mark Canha of OAK struck out 4 times against TEX on 6/5/2018
Mike Zunino of SEA struck out 4 times against HOU on 6/5/2018
J.T. Realmuto of MIA robbed 3 hits against STL on 6/5/2018
Jabari Blash of LAA struck out 4 times against KCR on 6/5/2018
Jay Bruce of BAL robbed 3 hits against NYM on 6/6/2018
Trevor Bauer of CLE had 12 strikeouts against MIL on 6/6/2018
Chris Sale of BOS had 12 strikeouts against DET on 6/6/2018
Frankie Montas of OAK had 11 strikeouts against TEX on 6/6/2018
Blake Snell of TBR had 11 strikeouts against SEA on 6/7/2018
Ryon Healy of SEA struck out 4 times against TBR on 6/7/2018
Gerrit Cole of HOU had 15 strikeouts against TEX on 6/7/2018
KCR and OAK played 16.5 innings on 6/7/2018
Max Scherzer of WAS had 10 strikeouts against SFG on 6/8/2018
Austin Jackson of SFG struck out 4 times against WAS on 6/8/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 15 strikeouts against TEX on 6/8/2018
Daniel Castro of TEX struck out 4 times against HOU on 6/8/2018
John Lamb of DET had 12 strikeouts against CLE on 6/9/2018
Francisco Lindor of CLE struck out 4 times against DET on 6/9/2018
Jose Ramirez of CLE hit 3 home runs against DET on 6/9/2018
Aaron Nola of PHI had 10 strikeouts against MIL on 6/10/2018
Ji-Man Choi of MIL struck out 4 times against PHI on 6/10/2018
Ross Stripling of LAD had 13 strikeouts against ATL on 6/10/2018
ATL and LAD played 13.5 innings on 6/10/2018

Newsletter for games through 6-3-18

RAREST FEAT OF ALL: 

David Fletcher of the Angels hit for the cycle against Toronto on 5/22/2018!  At least, it’s more rare than a no-hitter…and probably seems less rare considering Nicholas Castellanos of DET did the same thing this week on 6-3…and, of course, when you have 2 in the same time period, that makes it a bi-cycle…

COMMENTARY:

I don’t get the Yankee scheduling gripes about playing 3 games in 30 hours…the ASFBL Yankees play 7 games in like 10 minutes every week and they’re fine…Mark Chen sent me a note about the actual Met/Oriole series, noting that each team was carrying a massive losing streak…the playing like Seaver was pitching against Palmer and by a 2-1 margin only the Mets kept their streak alive…Every team in the NL East is at or above .500 WOR…it’s the only division where that’s true and it was greatly aided by the actual Met 2-8 slide…Rick Wynne’s Dodgers were the class of the ASFBL this week, posting a league-best 6-1 mark…in face, DBacks, Giants, Padres and Dodgers all had winning weeks in the NL west…Chris Zewiske’s Brewers had the best record in the division to move into first place…Alan Minsky’s Tampa Bay club had the best mark in the AL East….Tony’s Bosox still hold the best record in the league…Detroit still leads the AL central with the only over-.500 record, but the Indians and Twins each inched forward…John Weerts’ Oakland club remains the story of the AL west, but 4 of the 5 teams are over .500….no other division has more than 3…only 2 trades this week, but 26 lineups were submitted…JD Martinez of the Bosox has the longest hitting streak in the league so far, 20 games and ending on 5/13…Erik Gonzalez of Cleveland has the longest active streak at 17…Brandon Morrow of the Cubs leads pitchers in the longest scoreless inning streak at 19, and it’s currently active…Jeremy Jeffress of the Yanks is current at 17….although they are second in their division, Astros have the best run differential in the league at +91…Washington is in 3rd place in their division but 3rd in ASFBL run differential at +49…Boston and the Yanks are the other 2 teams in the top 4…of the 38 trades so far this year, the biggest one in terms of ASFBL productivity might be this one: New York (NYY) David Robertson and Luis Severino to Milwaukee for Jeremy Jeffress, and Brent Suter…all those players have been productive….I’ve got a rough index of post-trade productivity, and according to that the biggest winners so far are Seattle with their 10 trades and Milwuakee with their 2…Angels are 4th with their 4 trades….average return-per-trade really favors Milwuakee, but Arizona has made 1 trade that worked out well…look for the interleague stuff next week…

FEATS AND FAILURES:

Matt Kemp of LAD struck out 4 times against COL on 6/3/2018
Denard Span of TBR robbed 3 hits against SEA on 6/3/2018
Eric Hosmer of SDP robbed 3 hits against CIN on 6/3/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 14 strikeouts against BOS on 6/3/2018

Xander Bogaerts of BOS struck out 4 times against ATL on 5/26/2018
Brandon Belt of SFG hit 3 home runs against CHC on 5/26/2018
Brett Gardner of COL struck out 4 times against CIN on 5/27/2018
CIN and COL played 14.5 innings on 5/27/2018
Mike Zunino of SEA struck out 4 times against MIN on 5/27/2018
Max Scherzer of WAS had 19 strikeouts against BAL on 5/28/2018
Sean Newcomb of ATL had 10 strikeouts against NYM on 5/28/2018
Blake Snell of TBR had 17 strikeouts against OAK on 5/28/2018
Wade LeBlanc of SEA had 10 strikeouts against TEX on 5/28/2018
Alex Bregman of COL had 6 RBI against SFG on 5/28/2018
Joe Musgrove of PIT had 12 strikeouts against CHC on 5/29/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 11 strikeouts against NYY on 5/29/2018
Didi Gregorius of NYY struck out 4 times against HOU on 5/29/2018
Garrett Richards of LAA had 10 strikeouts against DET on 5/29/2018
Whit Merrifield of KCR had 5 hits against MIN on 5/29/2018
Jose Mujica of TBR had 13 strikeouts against OAK on 5/29/2018
Jed Lowrie of OAK struck out 4 times against TBR on 5/29/2018
Robinson Chirinos of TEX struck out 4 times against SEA on 5/29/2018
Corey Kluber of CLE had 11 strikeouts against CWS on 5/30/2018
Michael Wacha of STL had 12 strikeouts against MIL on 5/30/2018
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 11 strikeouts against ATL on 5/30/2018
Ozzie Albies of ATL struck out 4 times against NYM on 5/30/2018
C.J. Cron of TBR robbed 3 hits against OAK on 5/30/2018
Trevor Bauer of CLE had 12 strikeouts against MIN on 5/31/2018
Jonathan Schoop of BAL struck out 4 times against NYY on 6/2/2018
Ozzie Albies of ATL struck out 4 times against WAS on 6/2/2018
Joey Gallo of TEX struck out 4 times against LAA on 6/2/2018
Dereck Rodriguez of SFG had 11 strikeouts against PHI on 6/2/2018
Blake Snell of TBR had 11 strikeouts against SEA on 6/2/2018
Mitch Haniger of SEA struck out 4 times against TBR on 6/2/2018
Nicholas Castellanos of DET had 5 hits against TOR on 6/3/2018