2023 JL Cartwright, Huntsville vs. Valencia: Smoke & Mirrors

[aaronweiner]

Quick Info:


Valencia Record: 90-73
Valencia Run Differential: 680/637

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


Head to Head:

Huntsville won the season series between the two 90-win clubs 5-4 while outscoring them 45-38 (and the two clubs were dead even over their last six games). Huntsville lost an August series to the Stars but the teams didn’t play in September.

Previously In The Playoffs:

Valencia took out the Brooklyn Robins in the last round without much fanfare, dropping them in five games while outscoring them 23-16 and winning two one-run games. Huntsville took out favored Omaha in five games, only two of which were decided by more than one run (and none by more than 3).


Special: Odds Based on MY simulations

No superstars to take over the series, no huge swing players. Huntsville's favored a little bit but not extraordinarily much; let's say the same 4:5 Huntsville and even odds Valencia I have in the other series.


Overview:

Welcome to a much more even series than anyone might have thought. Huntsville will swear up and down that they are the favorites in this series, but nothing about anything suggests that there is a clear favorite here. Wins? Both teams have 90. Playoff success? Both teams took care of their first round opponents in five games, though Huntsville’s was clearly better. Run differential? Hardly different enough to even notice. Injuries? Other than Eugene Russell, neither team has any significant injuries.

Both teams have equal amounts of rest. They scored nearly the same number of runs and gave up nearly the same number of runs. The teams play a similar style of baseball, though Huntsville seems to do it better. Can Drew Zod defeat his biggest fan in Huntsville owner Kyle Stever? Will the Stars make it back to the Landis for the second time since 2014, or will Huntsville make it there for the first time since 1998?


Hitting:

Valencia’s offense was turned around this year by the presence of Drew Zod, who was so bad in 2022 and looked so lost at the plate in April that he was waived by Halifax. However, in 131 games for Halifax, Zod hit 35 homers. Valencia’s free-swinging ways led to a league-leading 204 homers this year, and while the team wasn’t especially good at anything else offensively, they were at least average at everything. They also stole 152 bases, second most in the Johnson League. Zod didn’t hit Huntsville at all this year, putting up a ghastly .330 OPS in 46 at bats, and Jason Dunn wasn’t great against Huntsville, but much of the Valencia lineup did hit Huntsville very well.


Huntsville’s offense was, as you’d expect, all about the Moneyball. The Phantoms were 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. They’ve had a huge amount of success this year against the Valencia starters, and only Ezechiele Mariotto has had any success against them this year. Their on-base propensity has come in especially handy (a stunning 26 walks in 39 innings against Valencia’s top starters): other than Lucio Vazquez’s otherworldly numbers against Valencia this year and injured Eugene Russell, a lot of Huntsville players just didn’t hit the Stars this year. Chris Workman in particular had a shocking .349 OPS against Valencia.


Valencia actually has a slight advantage defensively in this series, though you wouldn’t know it from the scoreboard; the Stars tied for the largest margin between their team ERA and their runs allowed, allowing about a third of an unearned run per game. In a seven game series, that’s about two runs; not enough to swing the series...probably. Both teams were in the middle of a solid pack defensively this year and there shouldn’t be a huge problem defensively in the series.


Pitching:

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 which will matter a lot in a playoff series. Jesus Feliciano and Gustavo De La Torre had success this year against Valencia, and Luis Freitas didn’t pitch against them. Alejandro Ramos and Cesar Sandoval, however, gave up seven and five homers respectively to the Stars. Their bullpen is very hittable, but there isn’t a terrible pitcher in the bunch.


The Stars also have a fair amount of talent in their rotation. Jose Leon is still a star, and Valencia also has a rising star in Ezechiele Mariotto, who they might want pitching a little more often in this one. Tony Suarez lost a little bit of command due to a back injury earlier this year, but he’s still serviceable. Suarez didn’t throw against Huntsville this year, and few of the starters that did pitch fared especially well. Valencia does have the single best reliever in this series with superstar closer Skip Glendenning, who led the team in wins this season with a massive 17 and continued his possible run towards the Hall of Fame (he absolutely has my vote at this point). However, the rest of the Valencia pen isn’t that bad either.


Overall:

This is basically a superstar-free series. There’s plenty of talent on both teams, but not a single player on either side was particularly remarkable in any way this season other than perhaps Zod, and, well, on that note the phrase “you have to be kidding” doesn’t quite cover it. There’s nobody either team can clearly lean on, and none of these guys are likely to win a Steve Nebraska or a Sawyer Silk.

Huntsville has a slight talent edge, but it’s hardly enough to clearly recommend them. They do look like the better team, they did beat a far superior opponent to Valencia’s foe in the last round, and they do have the more complete team. And I did say something about last round being the real Cartwright Cup, so I’m sticking with that prediction. I don’t know how either team is going to beat Atlantic City or Indy in a seven-game series, but Huntsville ought to accomplish the impressive feat of going to their first Landis in over two decades.

Prediction: Huntsville in 7.

[agrudez]

A lineup that lives and dies by the long ball vs. a pitching staff that doesn't give up HRs. Here's a stat that doesn't show up on conventional sheets... batting average when *not* hitting a HR:

Zod: .203
Murillo: .189
Morgan: .17
Thomas: .219
The entire Valencia team: .23

So if you keep the ball in the park, you also pretty much keep them from getting on base through a ball in play as well - and being in the bottom half of the league in walks drawn won't help supplement that.

Conversely, they have a pitching staff that hemorrhages HRs (204) and I'm not too shabby at making them (187) - and have a very high walk drawn rate and OBP. Statistically our pitching staffs are fairly equal, but I get a game to tee off against Bidet and their ace is one of the reasons their HRs given up are so high.

We've had enough conversations about how painfully random baseball playoffs can be, so I'm sure I'm setting myself up for some embarrassing karmic roll of the die by saying this, but on paper this looks as favorable *for* me as a Indy-HSV Landis would look *against* me.

[aaronweiner]

Kyle, just so you know, you should be glad I didn't sim this one myself. No more information than that except to say that the series was pretty damn ugly.