Movin' On Up?

Beat articles, power rankings, statistical analysis, etc. goes here.
User avatar
RonCo
GB: JL Frontier Division Director
Posts: 19814
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:48 pm
Has thanked: 1982 times
Been thanked: 2901 times

Movin' On Up?

Post by RonCo » Sun Aug 25, 2019 12:05 pm

Here is a fact. With one sim left in the season, only 6 BBA teams are mathematically eliminated from the post season. Oh, sure, the fancy pants StatsPlus guys say eight teams have zero percent shot, and another six or seven are such longshots as to consider them done. But, still, a fact is a fact, and the fact is that we are one week from the end of the season, and 24 teams in the 30 team BBA have not yet had one of those “Schlunks Out of Time” articles that OOTP generates to tell you the plug has been pulled on your team.

This of note because last season saw the opposite cycle—a handful of mega-teams ran away from the crowd and hid, thereby setting the division titles by roughly April 12th. Okay, I exaggerate. But not by much.

When I talked to Jacksonville GM Tyler Simmons on the latest GM's Corner, I asked the question of whether he thought the situation this year was one where the best had gotten worse, or the worse had gotten better. Some of this could also be simple regression to mean that we see in a lot of real sports teams, too, but I didn’t ask him that. He answered (summarizing) that it was mostly the later, and that the overall level of GMs in the BBA means teams will not be down particularly long. Afterward, I got to wondering about the bottom teams and how they’ve bounced back.

Here’s an interesting list of teams:

You almost have to start with New Orleans, who won 70 games last year at the tail end of a soft rebuild that saw them as a barely below .500 team for two earlier seasons. Fans were angsty, because New Orleans fans are not use to losing, but they saw the Jim Roberts was doing, and when he went out and opened the pocketbooks to bring Jared Gillstrom in, the floodgates opened. The Crawdads jumped from a 70-win team to winning the Southeaster division going away.

In what is looking like a miracle job, Brooklyn, who won 61 games last season in what was thought to be year one of a total teardown, has found a way to turn a -70 run differential into a 76-78 record. Call it luck if you want, or acts of random kindness, but no one suspected anything close to the 78-80 win season Brooklyn has pulled off, and the fact is that Alan Ehlers is one of the tricksiest GMs in the league. We should all probably learn to never count his clubs out.

Louisville won 63 games last year, their third season in a row in which they failed to crest 70 victories. They had a GM change in the mix, bringing Stephen Swan into the cockpit, and that new GM went on an immediate quest to change the brand of the team to younger and more dynamic. Of course, he had the advantage of having some rebuild material left over from Nigel Laverick’s work. Result: with a week left, the Sluggers have already won 74 games, and look to have the arrow pointing the right way.

Ed Murphy’s Des Moines club was discounted by about everyone, and for good enough reason. It won only 68 games last year—which was a major step up from the 56 the year before. But the team is essentially a young club with a couple aged vets in the mix, and for a long time that combination worked well enough that the Kernels led the Heartland through its first month or two, and they stand at 74 wins with a week to go—another fairly bold step up the ladder, despite what will be a record 30st straight season without a post season appearance. It will be interesting to see if people project a 31st or not.

Charm City has been in a four season hibernation while they rebuilt, and during those four seasons they averaged 62 wins a year, including 67 in 2039. With GM Brandon Slouck adding some kids and a name free agent or two, this season was year one in the deep thaw. It went about like you’d expect--flashes of brilliance, but you can see the wheels still aren’t quite in alignment. The club is finishing big, though, posting another winning month in September and giving their fans something to talk about over the hot stove. As of this writing, they’ve upped their game to 74 wins, and there’s more to come.

Brett Golden’s Nashville club is setting at 77-77 and staring at what could be their first .500+ season in its franchise’s history. Unlike some of the others, the Goat’s are coming from a expansion team’s history that includes going into hock up to their neck in new stadium fees. Perhaps as a result, its build (the infamous “Plan”) has been of the slow-burn variety. Apparently content with the job he’s done creating Nashville, Golden announced he would be stepping down to take a new expansion club in Charlotte this coming season, but the barrels are at least partially loaded for new GM, the legendary Las Vegas guru Matt Rectenwald. Regardless, the jump from 71 wins to what is currently a .500 club that is still almost in the wild card chase is notable.

Wichita, another expansion club, won 72 games under the Genius’s guidance last year. Today they sit at 76-76, guaranteeing them a franchise record in victories, and matching them with Nashville as long-shot contenders for the wild card. Yes, they sit at the bottom of the Sunbelt, but the bottom of the Sunbelt would be second place in a couple other divisions. The fact of the matter is that the team has won 71 games a year for four seasons, and 2039 represents a 10-game jump that came as a result of a series of classic Genius deals that stocked the rotation, and a rumored series of team edicts that required victories under duress of cutting the team’s buffet table and putting atomic balm in the players’ cups if the failed.

# # # # #
The league, of course, has seen some teams drop in the process. Sports, being a zero sum game, means that ever win one team gains is one that another team loses. And, there are the Montreals and Vancouvers of the world who are still in the midst of rebuilds, and whose win totals are not yet growing. We have the Madisons, who have struggled despite (or because of?) inventive attempts to bring ideas into the game that, in their case, has not seemed to pan out. That’s the nature of the game, though, right?

Being competitive, under at least one definition, does not always equate to winning.

But the bottom line here is that in each of these cases, you see teams that are working with what they’ve got, executing their plans, stepping up and making a nuisance of themselves.

So, yeah, I think there’s regression to mean going on (on both sides of the mean), and perhaps there are teams at the top and the middle that have made a mistake or two and taken a step back. But at the end of the day, I look at what’s happening around the league and I see a collection of teams that have been at the bottom of the pile who are Movin’ On Up.
GM: Bikini Krill
Nothing Matters But the Pacific Pennant
Roster

User avatar
RonCo
GB: JL Frontier Division Director
Posts: 19814
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:48 pm
Has thanked: 1982 times
Been thanked: 2901 times

Re: Movin' On Up?

Post by RonCo » Sun Aug 25, 2019 12:23 pm

You could add a conversation about Hawaii and Boise in there, too--particularly Hawaii, who, with a big final sim could see its win total rise by 9 or 10 games from last year's 74.
GM: Bikini Krill
Nothing Matters But the Pacific Pennant
Roster

udlb58
Ex-GM
Posts: 3553
Joined: Sat Jan 23, 2016 8:46 pm
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 70 times

Re: Movin' On Up?

Post by udlb58 » Sun Aug 25, 2019 8:45 pm

I just want to point out that, with a week left in the season, New Orleans hasn't technically wrapped up the division yet.
Image
Greenville Moonshiners/Jacksonville Hurricanes GM: 2026-Present
Jacksonville Hurricanes GM: (1251-1018); 2029, 2031, 2034-38 Div. Champions
Paris Patriots GM: 2025 (79-83)

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “League Features”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests