May 2013 - Stats, Stories and Surprises

Brassball month two is in the books.  With that, some interesting stats and stories may be hidden by multiple months of results.  Thanks to Doug, I took a look at the stats for just the month of May to see which players and teams had the most interesting stretch of 28 games.  

• Fleetwood rookie Mike Trout led all of Brassball in hitting (.426), on base percentage (.522) and slugging (.734) and still couldn't win Strat-O-Matic's MVP voting.  He lost a close race to Metropolis's Andrew McCutchen (.333/.389/.642).  McCutchen did have more RBIs, which probably explains the vote.  He had 27 to Trout's 26.
• The Portland Steelheads were not quite ready for May, as they were one-hit by Simi Valley aces Clayton Kershaw and David Price in the first two games of the month.
• Parkland's Casey McGehee had himself quite a month - going .368/.467/.842 and also coming through in the clutch with two pinch hit home runs.
• Brooklyn won a 19 inning marathon game vs West Hills, but that couldn't match the 1-0 pitchers' duel (or batters' failure) that Simi Valley won in 20 innings at Metropolis.  
• Plaza was a scorching 25-3 in May and two of its losses were by a single run.
• Lancaster's Austin Jackson legged out seven triples in May.
• Outlaw Elvis Andrus got his bunting practice in, laying down 13 sacrifices in 14 attempts.  The only other team with more was Cook County, with 16 successful bunts in May.
• Metropolis pitchers and catchers shut down opposing base runners, allowing just one stolen base on three attempts.
• Butte County infielder Joaquin Arias was a threat off the bench, collecting five hits in eight pinch hit at bats.  
• On the other side of the coin, Plaza and California each had only three pinch hit attempts all month.
• Plaza hitters compiled an amazing .307/.373/.522 line on the month in nearly 1100 plate appearances.  
• With a batting line like that, Plaza should probably give up the bunt - they were successful in just half of their 10 attempts.
• Santa Barbara was by far the most reliable team in the field, making only five errors all month.  The next best was the Outlaws' long-time AL rival Cook County, with twice as many.
• The Outlaw bullpen was another key to their 19-9 month, as they allowed just six of 47 inherited runners to score (12.8%).
• Sacramento's Ross Detwiler had a fantastic month, going 4-1 in six starts with a 0.53 in 33 innings.  
• Detwiler didn't even get a vote SOM's Cy Young vote, however.  Plaza closer Wilton Lopez took home the hardware after recording 13 saves in 14 appearances.  
• Several pitchers had four wild pitchers (including staff anchors Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum), but Hophead Jason Marquis uncorked five.  
• On the other hand, no Avenger pitcher threw a wild pitch and the team had only one passed ball.
• SoCal's Ramon Santiago booted the most balls last month, totaling eight errors.
• Not surprisingly, Plaza had the most players on SOM's all-star rosters.Joe Mauer, Alex Rios, Wilton Lopez and CJ Wilson made the first team while Aaron Hill and Jarrod Parker on the second.
• Three batters went 5-5 in a game: Brandon Belt, Craig Gentry and Alejandro De Aza.
• Superior might be in the market for a new baserunning coach after getting thrown out 10 times in just 21 steal attempts.
• Amazingly, Portland was thrown out just once while stealing 24 bases this month.
• Here's a baserunning tip - don't run on Dwayne Wise or Josh Hamilton.  They both gunned down six runners.
• Only once did Metropolis allow more than five runs.  Glen Allen gave up 10 or more runs five times.
• North Georgia's Chris Davis struck out 43 times in just 117 at bats.  If he doesn't turn that around, he might be out of the league by this time next year.
• Latrobe rode their new ace, Justin Verlander, like a horse.  He went 4-2 in seven starts and tossed 60 1/3 innings.  No one else threw even 50 innings.
• Springfield "batters" compiled a .192 average in May, nearly 30 points behind Hessville's .227.

Building a Better Bullpen - Part II

Having already added Kenley Jansen and David Herndon to my bullpen, I decided it was time to go all-in and targeted the best relief pitcher in baseball – Craig Kimbrel.  His Schaumburg team has recently relocated to Butte County and the new owner indicated a willingness to make deals.  I started discussions and they quickly grew to include ace starter R.A. Dickey in addition to Kimbrel.

Initially, I didn’t think I was too interested in Dickey.  My rotation was strong enough and Dickey was unlikely to even make my playoff rotation, but he was quite intriguing due to his sterling 2012 MLB season for the Mets.  Of course, the question is whether Dickey will be able to maintain his current MLB pace or if he will tail off and become merely useful as opposed to dominating. 

Our talks quickly focused on my two best minor league prospects – Miguel Sano and Anthony Rendon, my 2013 first-round pick and a replacement reliever (Chris Resop).  That’s a lot of future value to surrender in one deal and I wavered for a couple of days.  The real wild card was Dickey, as I just wasn’t sure how to value him.  If he maintained his first-half production, the deal would be good.  However, given the unpredictable nature of Dickey’s knuckleball, it is possible that he would have an ERA closer to 6.00 than to 3.00 for the remainder of his contract.

The new Butte County owner and I went back-and-forth; with neither seemingly ready to pull the trigger.  He kept insisting that I include a third top youngster, first baseman Matt Adams.  I was reluctant and decided that including Adams was simply too much future value when factoring in Dickey’s unpredictable future.  Butte County refused to budge on Adams and we put the entire deal on hold for another day or so. 

During that time, I started chatting with the California GM about a number of role players who could help me in the playoffs.  California was quite busy at the trade deadline – acting both as buyer and seller in different deals.  We had some good discussions, but didn’t find a deal that could help me.  That was fine, as the players I was looking for were mostly spare parts, such as a platoon 1B that would replace the recently departed Jed Lowrie.

It turned out, however, that California was also looking for a good starter for their playoff run.  Although I didn’t expect much to come of it, I tossed out Dan Haren’s name.  Haren has a very good card for the current Brassball season and I was counting on him for the playoffs and the next couple of years.  However, once I really looked at it, I realized I probably could deal Haren, as he was only slightly better than Kyle Lohse and neither would be likely to make more than a single start in a playoff series. 

California was interested in Haren and we quickly settled on players that would be involved in a deal.  I would send Haren in exchange for a 2013 #3 pick, prospect Eddie Rosario and Jerry Sands, who could help me against left-handed pitchers in the playoffs. 

Once California and I agreed on the deal parameters, I returned to Butte County to see where our Kimbrel/Dickey trade stood.  We agreed in principle to a deal as outlined above and including Matt Adams (from me) and a 2013 #2 pick (to me).  Before I pulled the trigger on both trades, I had to put them together into one transaction so I could weigh the pros and cons. 

Here’s how it looked (with contract savings included):

Metropolis Receives:

Craig Kimbrel

R.A. Dickey

Jerry Sands

Eddie Rosario

2013 #2

2013 #3

$10,000,000

Metropolis Sends:

Dan Haren

Miguel Sano

Anthony Rendon

Matt Adams

Chris Resop

2013 #1

Although dealing Sano and Rendon really hurts, putting the trades together made it easier to justify.  Adding Rosario helps restock my prospect stable and the $10,000,000 that I save in moving from Haren to Dickey will give me an even bigger bank account to use in free agency.  Both are signed to deals expiring after the 2014 Brassball season and Dickey has outpitched Haren by a wide margin in 2012, so like that swap going forward.   The draft picks likely work out in my favor, too, particularly because I’m hoping my own pick will be near the end of the first round.

Of course, this all started because I wanted to add Craig Kimbrel to my bullpen, and he remains the key to these two deals.  He is under team control for a very low salary for five seasons in addition to this one, so I hope to match him with new Avenger Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman to make my bullpen a real strength for the next five seasons.

I had assumed I was done after the two trades above, having added David Herndon, Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel to my bullpen and R.A. Dickey to my rotation, but I decided to see if I could another lefty to my pen.  In looking at the rosters, I focused on Boston’s Jeremy Affeldt.  He is extremely tough on left-handed hitters and Boston was willing to move him for some salary relief ($800,000 for each of the next two seasons).  I sent him David Carpenter and we quickly agreed on the deal.

Finally, I also dealt Fernando Rodriguez to Myrtle Beach, as I no longer needed his innings.  I only got $100,000 for him, but it helps.

In the end, this is how all my deals shake out.  I’ve added the general contract details, to help get a full picture of the trades.

Metropolis Acquires:

Craig Kimbrel (Under control through 2016 MLB season)

Kenley Jansen (2016)

R.A. Dickey (2013 @ $666,666/year)

Jeremy Affeldt (2013 @ $800,000/year)

Jerry Sands (2016)

David Herndon (Likely cut after this season)

Eddie Rosario (first six MLB seasons)

2013 #2 Pick

2013 #3 Pick

$100,000

Metropolis Trades:

Dan Haren (2013 @$4,022,000/year)

Jed Lowrie (2014)

Matt Adams (2017)

Chris Resop (2016)

Miguel Sano (first six MLB seasons)

Anthony Rendon (first six MLB seasons)

David Carpenter (2017)

Fernando Rodriguez (2016)

2013 #1 Pick