Crusaders News! 2035.34 - For Your Consideration

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Crusaders News! 2035.34 - For Your Consideration

Post by Ted » Fri Aug 24, 2018 1:23 am

Boy Do We Have Some Award Candidates!
October 10th, 2035
Offen Sichtlich der Kunstgriff


Offie here! Our beloved California Crusaders the best team in the Frick! That's happened before I think ... Let me look ... errrr ... I don't think I know how to do this ... Well, it's probably happened before! But usually when we're good, we only compete for one individual award, the Steve Nebraska Golden arm award. We DO have a candidate this year, but we have some other players who could take home some hardware. Let's start with that award we are all so familiar with though.

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Luis Gracia had one heck of a year. The thirty year old lefty posted a 19-7 record over 214.2 innings in 33 starts. He compiled a 2.93 ERA, 71 FIP-, while striking our four times as many batters as he walked, and only allowed 17 homers. Let's see where he sits on the Frick leaderboards. Tied for first in wins. Well, I wish I could say I felt more stronlgy about this but I can't. Pitching wins look nice, but they are a pretty noisy stat. Second in era though. I like that! Sure, there's some defensive impact and batted ball luck, but when it comes down to it, having allowed runs at the second best rate in the Frick is a pretty big deal. Fifrth in WAR. Well, pitcher WAR pretty heavily overvalues strikeouts, being that it's just FIP x innings, and FIP overvalues strikeouts. I mean, maybe I shouldn't say overvalues. FIP is supposed to be predictive, right? And being able to strike guys out is more predicitve of being able to get outs in the future than getting other types of outs. Still. It's annoying how it consistently undervalues guys who don't rack up big "K" totals. Some good names there though. Ken Walter, Lawrence Columbus Laloosh, Cristobal Hernandez, Alfredo Contreras (first in ERA by the way). Gracia isn't top ten in innings pitched. Some of those previous names are. You've got Contreras all over the strikeout totals, LaLoosh all over opponent hitting. Walter's there over and over. Offie's as much of a homer as the next team blogger, but Gracia might not have the case these other guys do. If there's anywhere he truly excelled, it was limiting damage via the home run. He had a very very good, Nebraska worthy year. But some of these other guys do too. We'll just have to see how the voting goes.

If that gets you don a bit, don't worry! We have TWO possible Zimmer Diamond Glove Award Winners. I

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Bryan Robson is the best defensive center fielder in baseball. Niccollo Machivelli from Madiosn may think he has a case, base on his zone rating of 16.9 to Robson's 12.4, but he'd be wrong. Robson had a nagging injury to his throwing elbow and played only 103 games in center to Machiavelli's 150. On a rate base he crushes him. You want more stats? Robson leads in efficiency 1.053 to 1.040. Robson made likely plays 85.1 percent of the time to Machiavell's. He made plays the game considered "even" at a 71 percent rate. Balls the game called "unlikely"? 61.5 percent. Remote? An astonishing 33.3 percent. Captain Marvel indeed. The same rates for Machiavelli were actually slightly better, with one glaring exception. (84.1, 74.2, 64 percent for likely, even, unlikely) But on remote plays? Machiavelli was at 18.5 percent on 27 chances. Robson was TWICE as good in 24 chances. On a rate basis they are about the same in putouts and outfield assists. But Robson runs down balls Machivelli doesn't. It's even more remarkable considering Machivelli is among the fastest players in the game and Robson is has middling speed, and towers over most outfielders at 6'8".

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Jesus Flores could win win the Zimmer at short. It's either him or Dong-soo Chon of Des Moines. Flores leads in ZR 13.1 to 12.3, but in a reverse the situation above has played a quarter of a season more than Chon. He trails Chon's 1.077 efficiency by .030. His converted even plays at a 61.9 clip, unlikely at 42.1, and remote at 2.9% Chon on the other hand was 51.7%, 35.1%, and 7.1%. The two were negligibly different on routine and likely plays.

Let's throw in one more guy for a defensive nomination.

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Chip Saunders has a case to win his third straight Zimmer at catcher. His caught stealing percentage of 29.9 isn't that impressive, until you realize only the very best basestealers even tried on him. The Crusaders only faced 177 stolen base attempts all year. The second place team faced 218. The league average was around 260. His 3.39 cERA is about half a run lower than teammate Ippolito Basaglia's 3.97. Basaglia is widely regarded as an average game caller and pitch framer.

All right, last one I promise,

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Reynaldo Garza should get some consideration for the Egan. At one award for top reliever. At one point, he was lapping the field in innings pitched by a reliever, had a sub two era, and an ERA+ in the 260's. Then September happened, in which he posted a 7.45 ERA in 9 innings, while losing four games. I guess you can't just throw a 39 year old out there for 2 and 3 innings stints indefinitely. Still, it was a remarkable year for the veteran. I'm of course, wasting words here because all the votes will go to guys who pitched 40-50 innings (60 at most) and racked up a stat proving they got the three easiest outs in a game a bunch of times.

Whew! That was a lot of words and numbers. Sorry if I got boring folks. Schmidt tasked me with writing up a summary of our players to send to the votes, and I thought I'd excepts of it for our loyal fans. Anyway, there you have it. The award candidates for your 2035 Frick-leading 98 win California Crusaders, pitching and defense up the middle.
Ted Schmidt
Twin Cities Typing Nightmares(2044-present)
California Crusaders (2021-2038)
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