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JACKSONVILLE vs. CHARM CITY
Unlike Sleeping Beauty, though, Jacksonville, who in some shamed fashion managed to make it through Mexico City unscathed, finds itself up against some stronger magic this time around. It’s the 120-win behemoth of a baseball team in the form of the Charm City Jimmies. Yikes.
When you see a team like Charm City, you know you’re dealing with a Black Hole kind of thing. I mean. 120 wins in one place just warps the field, right? Where did these things come from? Is it truly that good of a team, or is the Atlantic just really horrible. This situation, though, gives us an interesting natural experiment. Jacksonville own 90 games, after all. That’s pretty good. How can well look at these two teams to get an idea of their relative powers?
Well, let’s try it this way.
Let’s remove the games they played against each other and compare their performances.
First, let’s look inside the division:
| Jacksonville | W | L | Charm City Jimmies | W | L | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlantic City Gamblers | 10 | 4 | 11 | 3 | |||
| Brooklyn Robins | 7 | 7 | 10 | 4 | |||
| Charlotte Cougars | 10 | 4 | 12 | 2 | |||
| Charm City Jimmies | |||||||
| Montreal Blazers | 9 | 5 | 9 | 5 | |||
| New Orleans Crawdads | 7 | 7 | 8 | 6 | |||
| Rockville Pikemen | 11 | 3 | 12 | 2 | |||
| 54 | 30 | 0.643 | 62 | 22 | 0.738 |
Interesting, right? Both teams were quite strong against their division rivals. So, maybe Jacksonville is a real contender, eh? Maybe their puncher’s chance is legit.
Now let’s go to their matches against the Frontier:
| Jacksonville | W | L | Charm City Jimmies | W | L | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boise Spuds | 4 | 4 | 7 | 1 | |||
| Calgary Pioneers | 3 | 5 | 6 | 2 | |||
| Edmonton Jackrabbits | 5 | 3 | 7 | 1 | |||
| Las Vegas Hustlers | 5 | 3 | 7 | 1 | |||
| Mexico City Aztecs | 1 | 7 | 6 | 2 | |||
| Phoenix Talons | 5 | 3 | 6 | 2 | |||
| Rocky Mountain Oysters | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | |||
| San Antonio Outlaws | 3 | 5 | 6 | 2 | |||
| 30 | 34 | 0.469 | 50 | 14 | 0.781 |
Woah, Nelly!
The Jimmies destroyed the Frontier to the tune of a 78% winning record, while Jacksonville faded to a sub-.500 team.
Sure, it’s just one metric. But this metric says that while both teams’ records have been bloated by playing against the Atlantic division, only Charm City has been able to sustain it. So, the verdict here is that it’s an And World, meaning that the Jimmies ae winning for both reasons: (1) they are a great team, and (2) the Atlantic is horrible.
And yet, three of the four teams left standing are Atlantic Division teams.
Weird, right?
Regardless, this study is good enough for me: Charm City in five.
MONTREAL vs. ROCKY MOUNTAIN
The Blazers torched the Boise Spuds in decisive fashion in their Geoghegan matchup, finishing out that series with a 13-3 drubbing that left the answer in no doubt. Shortstop Dick Walton clubbed five hits that last game to go with the five he’d already clubbed in the earlier games. The only reason he didn’t get six was that he only came to the plate five times.
Having dispatched their first Frontier foe, Montreal finds the Oysters of Rocky Mountain blocking their way.
Talk about an unsavory sight.
If there’s good news here it’s that the team’s pitching staff, which was a little gassed after the sacking of Boise, should be recovered.
If there’s bad news it’s that almost all those pitchers are right-handed, and for whatever reasons the baseball gods have, the Oysters mostly RHB OPS .872 against RHP and only .832 vs. lefties. Hmmm. Whatever. It’s also probably not good news that the best player on the field is going to be Oyster CF Resurrection Santos III, who, at 23, could be the face of baseball for a long time (30 HR, 16 seals, and an +18 Zone Rating will do that), or that the best pitcher in this era of baseball might well be Alaric Wullenweber, and even with him aging out a little, the idea of facing him twice can’t be good. And, finally, it’s probably not good news that the Oysters have a chip on the shell of their shoulder, that being that this is their third-straight time in the postseason, but their first as a division winner.
They’re going to be hungry.
Third time, they say is a charm.
Of course, the same might be said for Montreal, who lost to the Boise team last season and made it this far their second go-around. And at the end of the day this is a grudge match of a sorts: can a 95-win second place finisher in an under-developed Atlantic Division take down the towering winner of the Frontier?
I’m thinking the answer is no, but it will be close. Montreal may well crush the Rocky Mountain’s Oysters while in Canada, but the Colorado altitude will get to the Dragons otherwise.
Let’s say Rocky Mountain in seven.