2046-1 What's Calgary's Identity

[indiansfan]

What’s Calgary’s Identity?

For years Calgary was known as a power hitting team. Then, for a while, they were the team with a top rated farm system and still later a team with a great rotation. The team has always had good hitting, a few good starters and a decent closer. However, the last few years the Pioneers have been a team without a real identity, a team with few stars or players that stand out. This team of very good but not elite players has managed to stay in the playoff hunt, but for how long can they keep it up and who are they really?

Let’s start with some very Un-Calgary batting stats. The team is 12th in the JL in home runs and 1st in strikeouts. Now by first we mean that the team has struck out fewer times than any other JL team. The team The Pioneers have 329 strikeouts, only 4 other JL teams are under 400. On the other hand the team is living up to it’s legacy placing 16th, dead last, in walks. So while the team isn’t hitting dingers, or walking a lot, they aren’t whiffing. Somehow the team ranks 9th in AVG and 12th in OPS, but is 6th in runs scored. The manager must be a genius.

Back to that amazing lead leading strikeout rank. We need to remember that some of the biggest windmills in BBA history graced the Calgary diamond. Rupert Grant, #3 overall, played 7 seasons for the team and struck out over 200 times in 4 consecutive years. Bryan Vogel, tied for #5, played parts of 6 seasons in Calgary, began and ended his career here and is the team’s hitting coach at AAA. Finally Terry Cochran, #7 on the all time list, played his entire career for the team and has been the manager here since 2031. So 3 of the top 7 all time and 2 of them are coaches today. Has Rod Serling made an appearance in Calgary or what?

Now on the pitching side the team is 3rd in walks and 5th in strikeouts, pretty nice positions to be in. The bullpen is ranked 4th in the JL but then we have the ugliness of 10th ranked rotation. Making matters worse, the team has given up 99 homers, vs hitting 87, to rank 14th in the JL. One of the things Calgary always prided itself on was hitting more homers than it gave up. The stats this year defeat the purpose of having a hitter’s park.

If this article isn’t strange enough so far, now let’s look at fielding. Calgary has always been willing to put offense above defense. To show you how poor the team has historically been at shortstop, only 1 Calgary shortstop has ever won a Zimmer Award and that was Wallace Holmes in 2002 and 2004. Three Calgary players have won the Zimmer in center field Thad Douglas in 2013, Roland Carroll in 2002 and Johnnie Iraq in 1998 and 2001. It should be noted that GM Kevin Dickson took over the team during the 2004 season so Holmes last Zimmer happened his first year and only 1 of the center field Zimmers happened after he took over the team.

Well this year they are 5th in ZR and a week ago were 3rd. This off season the team traded for Ignacio Venegas whose +8.8 ZR currently leads all JL shortstops. The team drafted center fielder Jeffrey Tate last year and put him in the starting lineup this season. Despite missing a few weeks with an injury, Tate’s ZR is currently +5.2 which is good enough for 4th place only .7 ZR behind 2nd place. We will have an in depth look at the team’s defensive revival in a future article, but it looks like this might be what is keeping the team above .500….for now.

So who are these Pioneers and are the good enough to compete? Well who the fuck knows because they really don’t even look like a Calgary ball club.