2023 Landis, Huntsville vs. Indy: Something New & Old

[aaronweiner]

Quick Info:

Indy Record: 105-57
Indy Run Differential: 834/613

Huntsville Record: 90-72
Huntsville Run Differential: 695/638


Head to Head:

Indy lost a lot of series to multiple JL teams this year, but one of them was not Huntsville; the Grasshoppers won the only series played between the two ballclubs by a 2-1 count, outscoring the Phantoms 13-7 in an April series, losing only a one-run game. Hard to find a lot of meaning in this one unless you like to attach lots of things to the favorite.


Previously In The Playoffs:

Huntsville took the wild card round against California, took out the favored Omaha Barnstormers decisively, then got by the Valencia Stars in six games after splitting the first two. Indy won seven-game series against New Orleans and Atlantic City, and both in dramatic fashion. In the Cartwright, Indy had to tie the game up in the eighth inning before winning a massive fifteen-inning marathon.


Special: Odds Based on MY simulations

I’d set the odds for this series at 4:7 Indy and 3:2 for Huntsville, based on obvious metrics, but I'd also put the over-under on games at 6 and not 5.5 - I think that 6 is the most likely outcome.



Overview:

So, let’s say we had a Delorean and we went back to the year 2019, just four years ago. You announced that you were from the future and you put down a bet in Las Vegas that the Indy Grasshoppers would play the Huntsville Phantoms in the 2023 Landis Memorial Series. They would have returned your bet with a puzzled look and told you that you were insane – because neither one of those teams existed in 2019.

In 2019, Huntsville was the Chicago Black Sox, and Indy was the Marquette Suns. And you’d have still gotten really good odds on THOSE franchises back then – because neither team has won a single title in the last twenty-five years, not a pennant, nothing, and the teams had combined for over 200 losses that season. These were two of the powerhouse franchises at the beginning of the modern ERA of the MBWBA, but neither team has won a pennant in this century.

Indy has had quite an impressive run in the last three years, as they became the first team to unseat New Orleans in the FL Midwest in 2021 and have now won three consecutive division titles. They’re searching for the prestige and credibility that comes only with a MBWBA title. Huntsville is attempting to win the franchise’s third title in the modern era, but just the first one since 1996.

Can Huntsville be the JL first team since 2017 to win an MBWBA title? Can the favored Grasshoppers maintain the FL dominance? Will I manage to use hyperbole to describe both teams (spoiler alert: yes)? Let’s get to the preview!

Hitting:

Indy led the MBWBA in runs scored this year, and had the most prolific home run trio in the league in Sergio Ramos, Doug Glover, and Chad Lawrence; no other teammates could match their 110 homers combined. The Grasshoppers led the league in batting average, OBP, AND slugging percentage, and stolen bases. The head-to-head numbers aren’t going to be instructive of much, but Sergio Ramos and Newman Watson, good hitters both, had solid numbers against Huntsville in the small sample size. The rest were okay.

Huntsville’s offense all about the Moneyball, decisively first in the league in walks drawn (100 more than second-place Brooklyn) and second in extra-base hits (just behind Halifax), including fourth in home runs, while just ninth in batting average and stolen bases. Huntsville doesn’t have a stunning offense, but they do have a solid, consistent group that hits homers and gets on base. Huntsville is in a position to take advantage of Indy in all the right places; Indy was just average in walks allowed and two of Indy’s top starters are walk-prone. Again, in stupid small sample sizes, Fernando Moreno, Paul Holden, and Ruben Schutters all had strong numbers against Indy, though the rest weren’t very good.

Huntsville isn’t likely to run at all, but Indy’s running game could play into this series. They stole ten bases against the Gamblers in the last round, and Peter McClure will have to do a good job of containing the Indy running game. For the most part, that did happen against Valencia, but the Stars did steal four bases in six tries, basically McClure’s average. Indy has one of the stronger defensive alignments in the game, while Huntsville’s is very solid also, so most of the issues that occur there aren’t likely to be huge.

Pitching:

Indy was in a virtual three-way tie for the league lead in runs allowed. Indy’s top three starters, Kevin Lee, Eduardo Lopez, and Alfredo Salazar, were all outstanding this season for the Grasshoppers. Their weakness is in their bullpen, which has shown up quite a bit in the playoffs; they’ve had to come back from a lot of wins. I’d turn off pitch counts for the Landis if I were them – just let ‘em throw as long as they can. Again, in a small sample size, Lee and Salazar combined for a very impressive ZERO earned runs allowed against Huntsville this year with 15 Ks in 15.1 innings and just 12 baserunners.

Huntsville has done a lot of work on their pitching staff, and it paid off very nicely this year, as the rotation finished with the third best ERA in the Johnson League. They have a lot of 1A starters without a legitimate #1 ace, but there isn’t a hole in the rotation at all. Their bullpen is very hittable, but there isn’t a terrible pitcher in the bunch. Huntsville let up a .298 BABIP this year (7th in the JL), which could be a big deal in this series with so many good contact hitters on the Grasshoppers.

Overall:

I honestly think that Huntsville was pretty lucky to not draw Atlantic City, which would have been a much, much worse matchup for them: Atlantic City was second in the league in both walks and homers allowed. As it is, the Grasshoppers’ offense is a good matchup against anyone; people don’t think of them this year, but Indy is really an offensively-oriented team, but they also neutralize the Huntsville advantage of allowing very few walks as they don’t really try to draw that many. In fact, all those control pitchers in the pen might be serving up snacks to the Indy bats.

With that in mind, I like this one to be a surprisingly high-scoring series. That ought to favor the Grasshoppers, who actually led the MBWBA in runs by a fairly significant margin and was probably the best offense in the league by a fairly strong margin, especially down the stretch. Indy’s runs scored were 16.5% higher than average in the Frick League, while Huntsville was more like 5%, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that they might have the best pitcher in the series in Kevin Lee.

Huntsville certainly has enough horses and consistency to take a couple, but Indy’s definitely the favorite here. By how much is anyone’s guess, but I’m gonna have them winning this one in less than the maximum.

Prediction: Indy in ten. (Or maybe six.)

[agrudez]

Can't argue much with this prediction other than I'm not sure I agree that AC would've been a worse matchup. CAR has the hands down best offense (AC and mine look similar, as currently constructed, 1-9 on paper) and the fact that they are, probably, the only team in the league that will throw a Southpaw for more than half the games in a series (and their RH'd #4 has reverse splits, to boot) obviously plays against me. Plus, when you talk about home field advantage, I don't think any team played better in their confines than Indy.

That said, I think I match up favorably with their rotation 3-4 and reasonably equitable 1-2, so that is... something. I've already mentioned the tangible deltas in our offense, though our lineup has been really hot if we're scraping for something positive. The only area where I appreciably stand above them is in the 'pen - and with two of their starters having '6' stam and my lineup's penchant for working counts, that is really what I'm hanging my hat on. If I can chase some starters in 6 and get to face the "gauntlet" of Rosser, Holloway and Estever (a combined .1 WAR on the season) then I'll definitely have a chance to come back (presuming, of course, that I'm habitually trailing after 6, haha) in some games and steal them.