2012 Landis Memorial Preview

[aaronweiner]

The New Orleans Crawdads and the Madison Wolves weren't the most likely teams to find their way into the Landis Memorial Series in 2012, but one of these teams will be the 2012 MBWBA Champions. Let's take a closer look at the series and how the matchup breaks down.


Overview

Madison was the wild card in the Johnson League, and had to fight their way through two road series to get into the title round. New Orleans won their division, but tied for the worst record of any team in the playoffs with a meager 87 wins. The teams played a series this year, as Madison went 1-2 in a three game set in New Orleans in April.

Madison took control of both series in the Johnson playoffs early with road wins, and while they were pushed to six games against Vancouver and seven against Baltimore, they were at no point in danger in the Vancouver series and only faced elimination in Game 7 of the Cartwright Cup.

New Orleans looked much more dominant winning their series, going up 3-1 in both series and also facing just one elimination game, Game 7 of the Cartwright against Long Beach. The Crawdads had the harder path to the title round, as they had to eliminate 102-win Seattle before facing 92-win Long Beach.

New Orleans will be helped by having home field advantage in the Landis Memorial Series; though New Orleans was equally strong on the road and at home, Madison was five games better at home than on the road.


Hitting Comparison


New Orleans Crawdads

Other than Long Beach, who hit 244 homers this season, nobody was close to New Orleans' 215 homers in the Frick this season. But New Orleans is a one-dimensional team offensively. And when we're talking one-dimensional, we really mean one-dimensional: New Orleans was tenth in batting average, had the highest number of strikeouts of any team, and despite all the home runs were in the bottom half in slugging and were only 7th in team walks. Their .332 OBP, seventh in the league, was closer to 11th than it was to 6th place. In other words, if the team isn't hitting home runs, there's a good chance they're not on base.

Veteran OF Al Jones brings it all together for the Crawdads, but the team's biggest lift came from rookie OF Steven Welch, who posted a .972 OPS against right-handed pitching this season and 24 homers in just 89 games. Veteran Marcos Moore also hit 38 homers for the Crawdads in the regular season.



Madison Wolves

By contrast, Madison is a pure Moneyball team. Madison was fourth in walks and first in home runs in the Johnson, and while the Wolves' Johnson League numbers weren't much higher than New Orleans', their .336 OBP was good enough for third in the Johnson, and their .434 slugging percentage was second place. Madison's second-place finish in home runs is made more impressive by the fact that their park is just average for left-handed home run hitters but far, far below average for right-handed batters.

The Wolves offense is one of the most veteran squads in the league, and it shows: other than C Cam Adams, their 1-5 hitters average 37 years of age. Madison is led offensively by two future Hall of Famers, 3B Charles Puckett, who posted his 13th consecutive season of a .300 average or (usually much) better, and SS Bopper Kengos, who had his streak of fifteen consecutive seasons with 30 homers or more broken this season...by hitting 29 homers. Let's also not leave out 1B Robert Jowers, who posted a .400 OBP, or Adams, who hit 36 homers this year.


Analysis:

Given that the Wolves' offense was outstanding relative to their league, that they can match the Crawdads' home run output and given that the top of their order is likely to be more consistent than the Crawdads, Madison has the advantage offensively in this series.



Pitching/Defense Comparison


New Orleans Crawdads

New Orleans' pitching staff is perhaps one of the best groups 1-5 in the MBWBA. Given how bad the Crawdad's fielding stats were - they may have the worst defense in the Association - the pitching staff's second place finish this year is even more outstanding. If great pitching beats great hitting, New Orleans could have the advantage immediately in the rotation.

Led by Jimmy McCabe and rookie Doug Davis, there isn't a weak spot on the Crawdads' entire pitching staff. What's interesting about the staff is that while the Crawdads have a home-run friendly park, leading in part to their second place finish in home runs, they allowed the lowest number of home runs in the league by a wide margin over the #3 team (Long Beach was close) while allowing the third-least walks. Their pen is almost as solid as the rotation, with superstars like Gary Wilson and Carlos Altavista.



Madison Wolves

Madison, on the other hand, has a bit of a conundrum against New Orleans. Yes, the pitching staff's job is mostly to keep the ball in the ballpark against New Orleans, and if they can do that against the Crawdads they'll probably win the series. However, staff ace Ramon Ayala, who went 21-3 with a 2.86 ERA this year, historically doesn't keep the ball in the ballpark. The veteran righty just set his personal best for homers allowed in a qualifying season with 25 allowed this year - normally the flyballer's in the 30s, including two seasons of over 40. So counting on Ayala is a problem. That presents an even bigger problem, because after Ayala the rotation really falls apart. Julio Feliz is a solid starter, but nobody thinks he's a star. After that they have Pat Hughes (5.85 ERA) and Harold Crothers (5.02 ERA) and not a lot else.

The good news is that their bullpen is quite solid and not at all home-run prone - many of their pen members are extreme groundballers. So, if they can get into the late innings with a lead, there's a good chance that the Wolves will win any games where they have a late-game lead...it will be getting there that's the problem.


Fielding:

Defensively both teams are fairly defensively challenged, but New Orleans' defense is far worse than Madison's. Madison's defense was about average this year, nothing special but hardly noteworthy either way. But New Orleans' was epically terrible. They committed the most errors in the league, had an atrocious -50 zone rating, were third worst in defensive efficiency and their catchers couldn't stop Cecil Fielder from stealing.

To put this another way: New Orleans' FIP was 3.83, and their team ERA was 4.10 - which means that New Orleans' fielding cost them a ridiculous 44 runs this year. So fielding could play a role in this series.


Pitching/Fielding Analysis:

Here's where New Orleans really has an advantage over Madison. New Orleans seems to have nothing on the mound except studs, and even if the Wolves keep the ball in the ballpark, it's possible that New Orleans will win a lot of 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 type games. That said, in a small sample New Orleans' fielding could seriously factor into the final result and could even cost them a game in the series. So stay tuned.


Who's Going to Win?

This is going to be a wildly difficult Landis to call, with some very wildly varying factors involved. Will the ball go over the fence for the Crawdads or fall just short? Will Madison's Moneyball offense be able to handle New Orleans' vastly superior pitching staff? Will New Orleans boot every ground ball hit from the Wolves?

New Orleans has to be favored in this series because their pitching is just that good; they could win it in as few as five games. If Madison wins this series, it will be a long, drawn out slog and will likely go seven.


Prediction: New Orleans in 6.

[Al-Hoot]

Great preview, Aaron.

[trmmilwwi]

awesome preview! Love the info on the Dads power hitters against Moneyball Madison. Good stuff..

[nerfHerder]

Nice preview. I tend to agree. I think pitching will decide it. I'm rooting for my division mate though. Pretty cool how quick Chris has turned it around, even if it is at my expense.

[aaronweiner]

They're such a Moneyball team. I even forgot to post that they had like 20 SB all year. TWENTY!

[JimBob2232]

Fair writeup. New Orleans definitely scoured our team, and found the same issues with respect to low OBP, High K's and -50 ZR.

So we made a few changes near the end of the season to address these issues. Maybe these are manifesting some now in the playoffs.

1) We benched Carver. He lost his IF ratings towards the end of the season, and his -14.6ZR was a major factor in our fielding problems. He was also hitting just .226, so benching him wasnt that hard of a decision.

We made 2 post deadline deals.

2a) One brought in C Avila who has a .382 OBP this year. Not much of a defensive catcher, but in a platoon with Rogerson, it gives us an improvement in OBP and a reduction in Strikouts
2b) The other was Raul Hurta, and his .351 OBP. Huerta also was MUCH better defensively than Carver, even though we put him at 2B instead of 3B.

3) Villarialcame back to be our everyday SS, replacing Paco Torres in that role. Villarial was out for nearly 5 months this season, and Torres was hitting just .219.

4) Arturo Martinezwas moved from SS to his more natural 3B after we benched Carver. Martinez had a -12.7ZR at SS, but a +3.7ZR at 3B.

Old Lineup (ZR)
2B Paco Torres (+2.0) .211/.302/.309
SS Martinez (-12.7) .258/.338/.396
3B Carver (-14.6) .229/.334/.375

New Lineup (ZR)
2B Huerta (+3.1 in 2011) .273/.351/.396
SS Villarial (+0) .269/.298/.358
3B Martinez (+3.72) .258/.338/.396

All these changes happened after the trade deadline...so they may be manifesting themselves now. At least I hope so!

[7teen]

Fair write up. I didn't think Madison would get this far so to say we are an underdog again is a very fair prediction.

The only case I can make for this club is we've played to our strengths. Our great bullpen was used a ton. Starters were on a strict pitch count and pulled at the first sign of trouble. Our offense gets on base then hope for a hit from someone to get the runs in. Our steal slider is as low as possible.

[njherdfan]

Very good writeup. I'm looking forward to this series; I've been in mourning over Seattle so I hadn't looked to hard at this series until now.