Sy Young Tracker; Vol.1

The Sy Young tracker will be a monthly article highlighting pitchers that are in the conversation for winning the Cy young award. Although I’ll try to provide a perspective for when the votes are going to be cast (hopefully w’ll have voting on awards this year), there is no claim of objectivity here. Different people interpret stats and performances their own way, and this is what I see to be the field of Cy Young candidates so far:

National League

1. Phil Hughes (7-0 , 2.04 ERA) – Atlanta Braves  : National league has been dominated by Atlanta pitchers and Hughes leads the cause. He has the most wins in the league and no losses. In fact, of the 10 games he has taken the mound, Atlanta has only lost one, in which he threw 4.2 shut out innings. the thing that will most likely send him lower in the list is that he’s averaging only 5.7 innings per start, courtesy of low stamina.

2. Kris Medlen (2.66 ERA, 0.7 BB/9IP) – Atlanta Braves : At this rate, Medlen is projected to have a 7.1 WAR, which equals his 2013 Cy Young winning season. His strikeout rate is the same as last season. What’s changed is that on average he’s allowed half as many home runs and one third as many walks, which puts him at a whopping 11.80 K/BB, twice better than anyone else in the national league.

3. Tony Cingrani (2.50 ERA, 72 Ks, 3-5) – Cincinnati Reds :  It’s hard to find any pitcher enjoying less run support than Cingrani (1.18 per game).  To realize how little the Reds’ offense has helped him, We have to look at his 3 wins, where he’s had to shut out opponents over 7,8,8 innings respectively. In other words, Tony Cingrani has 0.00 ERA over 22 Innings in the games he has won.

4. Jon Niese (1.93 ERA,  6-1) – New York Mets : Although some of his success may be attributed to playing in a pitcher’s park and having the Mets’ great defense behind him, Niese has still done enough to attract the attention of Cy Young voters. his BABIP is .201, down from .307 the previous season. Although it’s hard to imagine it staying that way.

5. Craig Kimbrel (0.36 ERA, 0 blown saves) – Atlanta Braves : It’s never easy comparing relievers to starters, but Kimbrel forces his way onto this list by giving up only 1 run in 22 appearances (he still got the save in that game). If he keeps it up, I can easily see him climbing up the ranking.

honourable mentions: Henderson Alvarez (MIA), Johnny Cueto (CIN) , Chad Billingsley (CHC)

American League

1. Stephen Strasburg (1.67 ERA, 102 Ks, 1.26 BB/9IP) – Seattle Mariners : Coming into the season, his most formidable opponent to win the award looked to be teammate Felix Hernandez, and with the king being a lowly shadow of himself, Strasburg is cruising to add the AL Cy Young award to his resume. He leads the league in ERA (1.67), Innings Pitched (86.0), Ks (102), WAR (3.8), FIP (2.03), WHIP (0.86) and K/BB (8.50). The WAR and FIP stats are especially telling. this year’s Strasburg would have been the best AL pitcher in any ballpark.

2. Yu Darvish (2.53 ERA, 5-1) – Texas Rangers : One of the hardest things to do in baseball is pitching in Rangers ballpark. Yet over the course of 6 home starts Darvish has put together a 2.54 ERA. All of his 11 appearances have been quality starts, an honor he shares with no one in the majors. Rangers are leading a weak western division and Darvish is the main reason why.

3. Zack McAllister (2.39 ERA, 7-2) – Cleveland Indians : McAllister has more than doubled his ERA+ from last year. and the key to his Cy young numbers are consistency. From his 11 starts, He has earned more than 2 runs only once, a 5-2 loss to rejuvenated Royals. He doesn’t give up home runs and makes good use of his varied arsenal of pitches. If the tribe want to be in the playoff picture, they need him to keep it up.

4. Kevin Gausman (2.94 ERA, 8-1) – Baltimore Orioles : Gausman’s been one the most pleasant surprises in the league this year, and at only 24 years, he’s showing a potential that could make him one of the most sought after pitchers in the game. 7.3 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and 0.5 HR/9 make him a plus pitcher across the field, while not being necessarily superb in any category, at least not yet.

Honourable Mentions: R.A Dickey (TOR), Brett Anderson (OAK), Drew Smyly (DET)

this concludes this edition of Sy Young Tracker. Please make your opinion heard in the comments.

2014: A Season Recap, Part 2

With the off-season well underway, It’s time to document our last impressions of the season we had and close the book on it. Here’s the second half of my two part personal take on how the season played out. you can read part 1 here.

AL Surprise Team: Toronto Blue Jays

To be more accurate, Toronto Blue Jays’ offense. After a 75 win season in 2013, Blue Jays came into 2014 with a whole new philosophy: Screw Defense, Let’s hit home runs. During the regular season they scored 855 runs, 60 more than any other team in AL, and hit 234 home runs to lead the league. But they weren’t done. Blue Jays averaged 5.3 runs per game in their Pennant winning play-off run. To get a clear perspective of just how good the Toronto offense was, we have to look at Edwin Jackson’s record. The starter posted an ERA of 5.24, a disappointing mark by any standard, and still had a 10-6 winning record.

With all things said and done, Blue Jays were thankful the regular season ended when it did. They struggled through September as Boston was getting closer by the day, finally beating the red sox by just 1 game.

NL Surprise Team: San Diego Padres

They led the race almost wire to wire, but prior to the season I doubt many people gave the Padres much chance of winning the star studded NL West. It wasn’t done by splashy moves or magic tricks, just making small improvements and tweaks, and this attention to detail paid off for Tim in the regular season. A look at Padres’ transaction log shows how closely the minor leagues are monitored, in fact the team’s first trade in 2014, the one that brought in star OF Jason Hayward, didn’t happen until late June. The Padres however were just able to achieve one play-off win before falling to Braves 3-1.

 Greatest Avoided Disaster: Overtrading

Not hard to imagine that in a one-day sim league, where there’s a lot of in-between time, people can get bored and tend to fight that boredom by moving pieces around just for the fun of it. This I believe can be a plague on a league’s house. Soon teams become unrecognizable and realism is out the door. I feel like I have no choice but to point at MLB-PRO as an example of this happening.

It didn’t happen here. Part of it is many GMs throughout the course of the season weren’t active at all, let alone overactive. But the good part, was that the GMs who were active, felt better off enjoying the subtleties of a realistic league than trading their superstars just because of the rush. I distinctly remember hearing Shane once saying that He feels a personal connection to his players which makes it not easy for him to trade them on the first impulse.  That’s the kind of philosophy most GMs handled business in the league, granted with a couple of exceptions here and there. Moves were conducted with great consideration and solely for the purpose of changing one’s team for the better. Whether we can continue the trend in this young season remains to be seen.

Best Mid-Season Addition: Ben

A number of active and dedicated GMs joined the league mid-way through the season. No team gained more from the change in the front office than the Boston Red Sox. While a non-factor for most of the season, a number of smart trades close to the deadline shifted the momentum in their favor completely. Acquisition of Max Scherzer, Craig Stammen, Josh Johnson and Matt Carpenter, all for pretty good prices, changed the direction of a team that was already written off, at least by me. BoSox went on a tear in September, winning 21 out of 27, not only  tying the A’s for the second wild card spot, but seriously challenging Toronto for the AL East title, eventually falling short just 1 game. It’s not hard to imagine that if the season of baseball was 164 games instead of 162, We’d have seen the Sox play a 5-game series this season.

Most Talked About Trade: Chris Sale Goes to St. Louis

The Jason Hayward trade might’ve had more influence on the baseball side of the league. It was after all a deal between two teams that made the playoffs, involving a player that ended the season with a .400+ OBP, but the trade of the year honors go to White Sox-Cardinals trade, because of its franchise defining nature. Jess, the white Sox GM, was showered with offers after he announced his intentions to trade Sale. The left hander was the biggest name to be made available in the off-season and people immediately started coming up with packages that could lure Jess.  It may have been possible to interpret Jess’s decision to trade his ace as just a  new GM demonstrating inexperience. But as the season went on the vision behind the trade became much clearer. To be a contender in the near future, he needed more than just one great pitcher. So he decided to trade sale for a group of young promising talent. It’s turned out well so far, Kolten Wong won the AL rookie of the year award and Wacha and Rosenthal are very likely to show improvement in the upcoming season. On the other side of the deal Sale continues to pitch great, being part of Cardinals’ league leading rotation, and now that Wainwright  is gone probably headlining it for years to come.

Best friend: CBL

While not technically part of this league, the creation of CBL was another big event in the past season. Commissioned by Tim, CBL’s inaugural cast of GMs were all part of the MMB. The 16 team continues to thrive, and now has an identity of its own. A look at their website shows the high level activity.  While not a member of the league for some time now, I still thoroughly enjoy reading the in-depth blog articles from time to time. Only downside? It’s reduced Tim’s presence in our league.

Best Sight on the Horizon: 2015

MMB is starting this season in much better shape than it did the last. There are already a good number of established GMs in place and the trials and errors of 2014 have turned the league into a better experience. For me the new season resolution is to enjoy the whole league as an alternate reality and find the drama in it, not just in my own team, but entire league. That’s what I’ve tried to practice by writing this article. The current state of the league leaves you nothing but optimistic about 2015. Of course there are many areas that can see further improvements and we can all do more to make this an enjoyable experience for each other, let’s hope that we will.

 

2014: A Season Recap, Part 1

What follows is my personal account on how Max Modern Baseball’s 2014 season played out, which will be presented to you in 2 parts. where possible I’ve tried to stay objective, but this is not in anyway trying to be an end of the season award article. It’s long and may lack any hints of journalistic flair, but is written to be an acknowledgement of the presence of culture and history in our young league. If you think there were any particular moments or emotions during the season, please feel free to comment. 

Best Hitter: Tyler Colvin (Colorado Rockies)

Who else? Colvin won the national league triple crown and did it with style. He led the league in at bats (648), Hits (212), Total bases (407), batting average (327), RBIs (133), Home Runs (45) and many more categories. His only regret?  Not being able to crack 1.000 OPS. He finished the season with 0.999.

Best Pitcher: Stephen Strasburg (Washington Nationals)

With only 3 SPs in the whole league having a less than 3 ERA, which is a bit odd, Stephen Strasburg stands out from the pack. He led both leagues in ERA, Ks, opponent average, WHIP, and innings pitched. And oh yeah, He was the ace for the eventual champions.

Most Controversial Moment:  Liriano Trade

Let’s quickly recap what happened. It’s end of June in game time. Francisco Liriano has easily been the best national league pitcher with a 2.31 ERA in 100+ innings, and Pirates and Cubs have just gotten new GMs. In their first order of business the two GMs agree to a trade that sends Liriano along with Russell Martin (one of the best defensive catchers in the game) to the Cubs in exchange for three arguably average players. Perhaps more surprisingly, this all happens with Liriano not spending one minute on the trading block, which would have most likely led to better offers.

Although It wasn’t the first time overeager new GMs rushed into deals they’d eventually come to regret, the trade sent waves around the league. A number of people were asking for the deal to be called off, hostilities were building up in chat and Phillies’ Noah was trying to figure out – in a not so subtle way – whether the new Cubs and Pirates GMs were in fact a singular entity. The deal initiated heated discussions over trade rules. The reactions were not uncalled for, as such trades could hurt the league’s greatest asset, Realism. But in retrospect, with the emotions flying high, the aftermath of the Liriano trade could have gone better.

Greatest New Features: Radio Show, Live sim, twitter feed

All of these improvements were so significant that I couldn’t pick just one. While different in nature, they all work towards the same goal, to defy the notion that this is an isolated experience. All three of these features encourage us to not just care about our teams, but enjoy the whole show. The Radio program, a brainchild of Shane and Richie, has been both fun to listen to and participate in, Whether it was an interview with Jess, or Richie and Charles breaking down a trade. It became better with every episode. It’s hard to imagine the league without live sim now, there was no greater joy than to see both sides of a game present during a live sim, and the twitter feed works in great sink with trade rumors and league’s progression. All these features can and will see improvements for the next season, but even with their flaws, these were huge steps into making MMB a top notch league.

Most Underappreciated event: Dillon Gee’s perfect game

In case you weren’t aware, it happened on August 12^th in a home game against Washington. What makes it more amazing ( as if a perfect game needs such a thing), is that Gee had thrown 7 shutout innings against Washington just 5 days earlier, in a game the Mets went on to lose 4-1. But this time, Gee stayed in to finish the job. He threw out 27 consecutive batters with 9Ks, 11 GBs and 7 FBs for MMB’s first ever no-hitter. Tony Cingrani and Matt Moore each threw a no-hitter of their own later in the season, but Gee’s would remain the only perfect game.

Greatest Loss: Nigel

Those who were part of the league when Nigel was here know that no one was more passionate about the game than the retired Englishman. He was our agent in Europe, and his unique managerial style had us all predicting great things for his Mets. Nigel was one of the most active GMs, if not The most active. He regularly published blog posts and was often the first to read other GMs’ entries.  Now I know this is starting to sound like a eulogy, but this is where credit is due. His Mets started the season with a lot of optimism and led the challenging NL East for a month or so before experiencing what would be the most colossal collapse of any team in the MMB season. That and some disappointments with the state of the league caused Nigel to start fading away, and after a couple of months quit the league.

Proudest Moment: MMB becomes the go to OOTP online league

It was never a particular goal of this league to compete with other online leagues or surpass MLB-PRO as the most active one. But at some point in the middle of the season, it was hard not to notice that MMB was home to more GM presence, more blog posts and more lively and friendly discussions than any other OOTP league on the face of the earth.  It just happened. Between August 15^th and September 15^th there are 22 entries on MMB blogs. We’ve cooled down since then but nevertheless it speaks to the league’s potential to be a dynamic community.

Most Depressing Fact: Oscar Taveras leading all hitters in Wins above replacement

Do you really need an explanation?

Best Division : NL East

Good argument can be made that I’m biased here, but it’s hard to ignore NL East’s impressive accomplishments. The Division sent 3 teams to the playoffs, 2 to the NLCS, and eventually won the World Series. 4 teams had winning records and all 5 teams had winning records against other divisions (Mets went 44-42 against non-division opponents). Aside from being strong, the  NL East race was the most entertaining in MMB. Going into last week of the regular season 4 teams had a decent chance of taking the division. At the end the Braves, who had spent most of the year stuck at number 4, came from behind to win the division title.

Most influential figure: Max Boyer

When I joined, the webpage looked nothing like this, it changed, and it changed, and then it changed a little more. All for the better. It’s no secret that the success of the league is in no small part a result of Max’s constant stream of tweaks and ideas. More importantly, he has established a culture of dialog in the league. Even after transferring most Comish duties to Ryan and Richie, He remains to be an essential part of his league, Max Modern Baseball.

To be continued …