Off Topic
Theories Abound
Keith Williams Showing Kids How Not To Keep Their Eyes on the Ball
April 13, 2065: The Atoll— The Bikini Krill celebrated their first home game of the season by posting a 5-3 victory against the visiting Sacramento Mad Popes. Krill bats collected 15 hits, including homers by middle infielders Keith Williams and David Ackerman, and a heart-pumping 4-for-4 breakout day from their new first baseman Augusto Pérez.
This outburst supported Paul Worboys, who threw 77 pitches in nearly six innings to gather his first victory of the season. Winston Morris followed a pair of relievers to notch his third save of the season.
The win has not served to remove the sense of dread that has been edging over the fanbase ever since the end of spring training. Something, they feel, is wrong. There’s something missing, though some can’t quite put a finger on it. It’s something deeper than the fact that the club sits with a tepid 5-6 record. Yes, everyone knows it’s early in the season. Everyone gets that it’s way too early to be pushing any panic buttons. And yet as fans file out of Forever Park, some can’t help but feel a winsome pang of something tinged with angst.
#
Perhaps it’s the fact that the club’s official band continues to be Kill Clone, and that their mega-“It’s Time to Thrill With the Krill,” which was a hit two seasons ago, is perhaps in need of a revamping? Perhaps it’s that the Doors Into Summer have become so standard they they’ve lost their pull. It could be those things and more. But mostly it’s seems to use that the problem is that we’ve seen this before. Mostly, we posit, it’s because the Bikini Krill have had a love-hate relationship with a single stat since the first moment they arrived on the atoll, and all hints point to the fact that this silent-killer of a stat is still a serious, serious problem.
That stat is (he whispers with a serious fear for his life), BABIP.
Pick A Side, Any Side
After the team’s eleven games, the Bikini Krill’s bats have blasted 116 home runs, which is second to only Long Beach in the Frick Pacific. Their offensive BABIP ,however, is .254, which is not only worst in the division, abut worst in the entire Frick League. But let’s not stop there. The team’s defensive BABIP is .325, which is, say it with me, last in the Frick League this time by a serious margin.
We’ve already noted that the vaunted defensive upgrade that the team’s front office has been touting all off-season has run aground on the back of Zimmer Winner Keith Williams, who added a 5th error to the mix last week, so the gloves are in the mix, of course. But this seems to be a team-wide pandemic. At the end of the day, a lot of opponent balls in play are finding holes that really shouldn’t be there, and a lot of Krill bats are missing the ones that should.
Go figure.
Did the Commissioner’s Office Mess With the Balls?
To put this in context, the league’s average BABIP is .291 (which is, by far) the lowest it’s been in a very, very long time. Mathing the math, though, says that the Krill’s offense is 36 points below average. The club’s pitching is 24 points off.
Damned math.
The discrepancy is enough that rumors are suggesting that the team could well be hiring independent experts to chase down data that would prove that the Commissioner’s Office (who ignored an earlier team request to expand reserved roster sizes), might be fiddling with the baseballs.
There are, of course, some problems with this theory, not the least is that there have been, again, only a dozen games played on the season’s schedules, and the weather is still cold, and the moons do not appear to be aligned Jupiter, and last we checked no one has walked past a black cat as they stepped on a crack. Add to those items, the fact that home runs are still stable across the league (.031/AB).
Still, it’s curious that overall BABIP is down so far, and that dip could well be an issue for clubs on the shorter end of the BABIP stick.
“We think it’s likely the umpires are being given different baseballs when the Krill are batting than they are when the Krill are in the field,” one anonymous source responded.
It is, we suppose, possible.
Are We In a Sudden Defensive Zenith?
Another thought that might be worth spending a bit of brain power on is that idea that, perhaps, team’s rosters have suddenly been filled with such sure-handed defenders that more balls that stay in the park are being turned into outs (Williams withstanding).
Could that be the cause of the league-wide drop in BABIP? Is every defender the club is facing a candidate for a Zimmer award?
I suppose there’s a chance of that, too.
Or Is the Answer Much Most Simple?
Alas, I ponder if the scenario is deeper than even that. I ponder if, gasp, the Bikini baseball club is simply hexed by the BABIP Gods that be. This is probably the answer—probably the reason why young hitters come to the atoll to be devastated in development, why pitchers blossom the moment they leave the club. It’s the simplest answer, of course. And it makes other things simple because if it’s the reason, there’s no fighting it with anything resembling strategy or logic.
A hex is a hex.
You have to fight fire with fire. And magic with magic.
This outburst supported Paul Worboys, who threw 77 pitches in nearly six innings to gather his first victory of the season. Winston Morris followed a pair of relievers to notch his third save of the season.
The win has not served to remove the sense of dread that has been edging over the fanbase ever since the end of spring training. Something, they feel, is wrong. There’s something missing, though some can’t quite put a finger on it. It’s something deeper than the fact that the club sits with a tepid 5-6 record. Yes, everyone knows it’s early in the season. Everyone gets that it’s way too early to be pushing any panic buttons. And yet as fans file out of Forever Park, some can’t help but feel a winsome pang of something tinged with angst.
#
Perhaps it’s the fact that the club’s official band continues to be Kill Clone, and that their mega-“It’s Time to Thrill With the Krill,” which was a hit two seasons ago, is perhaps in need of a revamping? Perhaps it’s that the Doors Into Summer have become so standard they they’ve lost their pull. It could be those things and more. But mostly it’s seems to use that the problem is that we’ve seen this before. Mostly, we posit, it’s because the Bikini Krill have had a love-hate relationship with a single stat since the first moment they arrived on the atoll, and all hints point to the fact that this silent-killer of a stat is still a serious, serious problem.
That stat is (he whispers with a serious fear for his life), BABIP.
Pick A Side, Any Side
After the team’s eleven games, the Bikini Krill’s bats have blasted 116 home runs, which is second to only Long Beach in the Frick Pacific. Their offensive BABIP ,however, is .254, which is not only worst in the division, abut worst in the entire Frick League. But let’s not stop there. The team’s defensive BABIP is .325, which is, say it with me, last in the Frick League this time by a serious margin.
We’ve already noted that the vaunted defensive upgrade that the team’s front office has been touting all off-season has run aground on the back of Zimmer Winner Keith Williams, who added a 5th error to the mix last week, so the gloves are in the mix, of course. But this seems to be a team-wide pandemic. At the end of the day, a lot of opponent balls in play are finding holes that really shouldn’t be there, and a lot of Krill bats are missing the ones that should.
Go figure.
Did the Commissioner’s Office Mess With the Balls?
To put this in context, the league’s average BABIP is .291 (which is, by far) the lowest it’s been in a very, very long time. Mathing the math, though, says that the Krill’s offense is 36 points below average. The club’s pitching is 24 points off.
Damned math.
The discrepancy is enough that rumors are suggesting that the team could well be hiring independent experts to chase down data that would prove that the Commissioner’s Office (who ignored an earlier team request to expand reserved roster sizes), might be fiddling with the baseballs.
There are, of course, some problems with this theory, not the least is that there have been, again, only a dozen games played on the season’s schedules, and the weather is still cold, and the moons do not appear to be aligned Jupiter, and last we checked no one has walked past a black cat as they stepped on a crack. Add to those items, the fact that home runs are still stable across the league (.031/AB).
Still, it’s curious that overall BABIP is down so far, and that dip could well be an issue for clubs on the shorter end of the BABIP stick.
“We think it’s likely the umpires are being given different baseballs when the Krill are batting than they are when the Krill are in the field,” one anonymous source responded.
It is, we suppose, possible.
Are We In a Sudden Defensive Zenith?
Another thought that might be worth spending a bit of brain power on is that idea that, perhaps, team’s rosters have suddenly been filled with such sure-handed defenders that more balls that stay in the park are being turned into outs (Williams withstanding).
Could that be the cause of the league-wide drop in BABIP? Is every defender the club is facing a candidate for a Zimmer award?
I suppose there’s a chance of that, too.
Or Is the Answer Much Most Simple?
Alas, I ponder if the scenario is deeper than even that. I ponder if, gasp, the Bikini baseball club is simply hexed by the BABIP Gods that be. This is probably the answer—probably the reason why young hitters come to the atoll to be devastated in development, why pitchers blossom the moment they leave the club. It’s the simplest answer, of course. And it makes other things simple because if it’s the reason, there’s no fighting it with anything resembling strategy or logic.
A hex is a hex.
You have to fight fire with fire. And magic with magic.
