Warehouse Wire 2040.05 - Contender?
Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 8:41 pm
It's May 19th and the Jimmies find themselves as one of the early surprises in the BBA. Sitting at 26-16, the team has lead the Atlantic for most of the young year, falling a half game behind yesterday in a loss in Rockville in game 1 of an early, big 4 game series.
Powered by the best offense in the JL, the question has been coming up lately if Charm City is legit or not. The offense overall should stay one of the better ones in the league but has to come back to the pack a bit. A .341 BABIP as a team isn't sustainable. It leads the BBA by a wide margin. The pitching has been another story.
While the bullpen has been solid, the rotation has been bad. It has some talent but they can't seem to get it together. Jorge Nevárez has picked up where he left off, picking up JL Pitcher of the Month while starting 7-1 in 9 starts with a 3.28 ERA. His K/9 is up while BB/9 is down. His HR/9 is a little up and could stand to drop some. While his 4.70 may point to regression, the though is his BABIP being so low and HR/9 being up had lead to that and believe he should stay in the mid 3's ERA. After him, it's bad. Starter ERA is 5.36 when you include Nevárez. When you remove him, it's 6.15. And when you remove rookie Ray Verhoeve and his 4.17 ERA, it spikes to 7.03. That won't get it done no matter how good of an offense you put out there. Someone has to step up. With David Márquez optioned to AAA, the team hopes Luis Rojas can provide better innings. The bar isn't high.
Back to the positive. Joaquin Hebner looks like an All-Star candidate. He leads the league in 2B's. Batting behind him is offseason acquisition Eliseu Satino. He leads the BBA with a .383 batting average. Right behind him hitting .382 is rookie Quinton Lara. Carlton Winson is hitting like it's the early 2030's to a slash of .311/.462/.825 (1.287 OPS). We could go on with names. The offense has been great.
The hot start includes a 10 game win streak. They made hay in April on a fairly soft schedule. Though they beat tough teams, winning the only game against Las Vegas (game 2 rained out), sweeping New Orleans on the road, and a split with Calgary. May hasn't been as good but nobody expected it to be between the tougher schedule and just a team that was riding high eventually having to cool off. Going .500 in May would keep them 12 games over .500 heading into June which also looks tough with 2 in Edmonton, 8 against New Orleans (4H, 4A), 4 at home against San Antonio, and 4 at Jacksonville, a month after dropping 3 of 4 to them in Baltimore. They've actually been better on the road (15-7, .682) than at home (11-9, .550), something that will probably flip at some point.
So will the team continue to be in the mix for a division title? At this point, it's probably still a little early. Some players have room to improve but more probably have room to regress. Rockville, Jacksonville, and New Orleans are all formidable teams who were projected to finish 1-3 in the Atlantic for a reason. It'll be tough to hang in there. The team will probably have to look into some pitching help. But they seem poised to not be given a seat at the table, but take it.
Powered by the best offense in the JL, the question has been coming up lately if Charm City is legit or not. The offense overall should stay one of the better ones in the league but has to come back to the pack a bit. A .341 BABIP as a team isn't sustainable. It leads the BBA by a wide margin. The pitching has been another story.
While the bullpen has been solid, the rotation has been bad. It has some talent but they can't seem to get it together. Jorge Nevárez has picked up where he left off, picking up JL Pitcher of the Month while starting 7-1 in 9 starts with a 3.28 ERA. His K/9 is up while BB/9 is down. His HR/9 is a little up and could stand to drop some. While his 4.70 may point to regression, the though is his BABIP being so low and HR/9 being up had lead to that and believe he should stay in the mid 3's ERA. After him, it's bad. Starter ERA is 5.36 when you include Nevárez. When you remove him, it's 6.15. And when you remove rookie Ray Verhoeve and his 4.17 ERA, it spikes to 7.03. That won't get it done no matter how good of an offense you put out there. Someone has to step up. With David Márquez optioned to AAA, the team hopes Luis Rojas can provide better innings. The bar isn't high.
Back to the positive. Joaquin Hebner looks like an All-Star candidate. He leads the league in 2B's. Batting behind him is offseason acquisition Eliseu Satino. He leads the BBA with a .383 batting average. Right behind him hitting .382 is rookie Quinton Lara. Carlton Winson is hitting like it's the early 2030's to a slash of .311/.462/.825 (1.287 OPS). We could go on with names. The offense has been great.
The hot start includes a 10 game win streak. They made hay in April on a fairly soft schedule. Though they beat tough teams, winning the only game against Las Vegas (game 2 rained out), sweeping New Orleans on the road, and a split with Calgary. May hasn't been as good but nobody expected it to be between the tougher schedule and just a team that was riding high eventually having to cool off. Going .500 in May would keep them 12 games over .500 heading into June which also looks tough with 2 in Edmonton, 8 against New Orleans (4H, 4A), 4 at home against San Antonio, and 4 at Jacksonville, a month after dropping 3 of 4 to them in Baltimore. They've actually been better on the road (15-7, .682) than at home (11-9, .550), something that will probably flip at some point.
So will the team continue to be in the mix for a division title? At this point, it's probably still a little early. Some players have room to improve but more probably have room to regress. Rockville, Jacksonville, and New Orleans are all formidable teams who were projected to finish 1-3 in the Atlantic for a reason. It'll be tough to hang in there. The team will probably have to look into some pitching help. But they seem poised to not be given a seat at the table, but take it.