September Stats Roundup

The regular season is over and the playoffs are underway, but it's not too late to dig through the September stats to see what gems we can pull out.

If momentum means anything, Santa Barbara (20-2) and Metropolis (19-3) look like they're headed to a World Series matchup.  Cook County will be a hurdle for the Outlaws, as they also finished September 19-3.  On the other end of the spectrum, playoff teams Fleetwood, California and Superior all muddled through September at 11-11.




Why was Lancaster's Chris Valaika intentionally walked two times?  Probably because he hit .750 as a pinch hitter in September.

Fleetwood's Miguel Cabrera was easily the best hitter this month, going .420/.505/.765 and leading the league in hitting by 52 points over Springfield's Hunter Pence.  He also collected nine RBIs on September 18th vs. Schaumburg.

Santa Barbara's playoff rotation ended the regular season on fire - Jeremy Hellickson: 3-0, 0.73; Jered Weaver: 5-0, 1.23; Justin Verlander: 5-0, 1.33.

Hessville's Carl Pavano had a tough month, as he lead the league in hits allowed, steals allowed and was seventh in walks allowed.

Why were Santa Barbara, Metropolis and Cook County so great this month?  Home runs.  They hit a bunch and allowed very few.  Home runs hit and allowed: Santa Barbara 29-8, Metropolis 31-7, Cook County 31-6.


North Georgia Yellow Jacket Livan Hernandez deserves a restful off-season after giving up 23 hits and 21 runs in a complete game loss to Metropolis on September 22.



Simi Valley ace Clayton Kershaw deserved a win on September 15, but got a no decision, despite throwing 10 innings and allowing just one hit while striking out 13.




Elvis Andrus continued his bunting clinic, laying down nine sacrifices this month.

Tinley's Nick Punto should ask for a new glove this Christmas - he booted nine balls in September.  Amazingly, a first baseman was right behind him with eight errors - North Georgia's Adam LaRoche.

Schaumburg center fielder Skip Schumacher led all outfielders with four outfield assists.


David Robertson locked down the ninth inning for Latrobe.  He pitched 9 innings and gave up just a single hit and three walks on the way to ten strikeouts and seven saves.

Parkland had a disappointing year, but stars Dustin Pedroia and Joey Votto had very good and nearly identical Septembers: Votto - 86 AB, 26 H, 4 2B, 4 HR, 14 RBI.  Pedroia - 85 AB, 26 H, 5 2B, 4 HR, 12 RBI.

SoCal's Jonathan Sanchez struck out 36 guys in 25 2/3 IP, but also surrendered 10 walks and four homers on his way to a 5.26 ERA.

NL Hitter of the Month: Fleetwood's Miguel Cabrera - .420/.505/.765, 81 AB, 5 HR, 19 RBI, 14 BB.



AL Hitter of the Month: Cook County's David Ortiz - .364/.417/.773, 88 AB, 9 HR, 22 RBI, 8 BB.



NL Pitcher of the Month: Metropolis's C.C. Sabathia - 5-0, 2.62 ERA, 33 1/3 IP, 26 H, 41 K, 10 BB.

AL Pitcher of the Month: Santa Barbara's Justin Verlander - 5-0, 1.33 ERA, 40 2/3 IP, 23 H, 45 K, 9 BB.

2012 Brassball All-Stars - Pitchers

My earlier post discussed the 2012 Brassball All-Star hitters.  Various challenges, including position difficulty, playing time differences and team representation can make the hitters a very difficult All-Star puzzle.  The pitchers shouldn't be as difficult, however.  You don't need to weigh the difference between a slugging first baseman and a defensive star catcher.  Sure, you need to have a bunch of starters and a couple relievers, but that's about it. 


So, let's take a look to see how this year’s All-Star pitching rosters stack up.


Similar to the Weighted OPS (wOPS) I used to rank the hitters, I’m going to use a simple calculation that will give pitchers credit for both the number of innings pitched and the quality of those innings.  Let’s use youngster Jeremy Hellickson and veteran Roy Halladay as examples.


Hellickson has pitched 138 2/3 innings with a sparkling 2.14 ERA.  Halladay, however, has pitched many more innings – 174 1/3, but his ERA is also significantly higher at 2.58.  Are Halladay’s innings more valuable than Hellickson’s superior ERA?  If we divide a pitcher’s innings by his ERA, we’ll get a Weighted ERA (wERA) that gives credit for both innings and ERA.  Doing the calculation for Halladay and Hellickson shows that, by wERA, Halladay’s quantity was more valuable than Hellickson’s quality.

Halladay: 174.33/2.58 = 67.57
Hellickson: 138.66/2.14 = 64.80

Those wERAs rank Halladay #2 and Hellickson #5 in all of Brassball.  Although drawing lines between players at the very top of the game may be difficult, that’s what I’m here to do.
Here are the top 15 starting pitchers, ranked by wERA.  Eight of the 15 will be making the trip to the midsummer classic.

	NAME	ERA	IP	wERA
1	C.Kershaw	2.52	175.33	69.58
2	R.Halladay	2.58	174.33	67.57	All-Star
3	T.Lincecum	2.37	159.67	67.37	All-Star
4	J. Verlander	2.73	181.00	66.40	All-Star
5	J.Hellickson	2.14	138.67	64.80	All-Star
6	J.Weaver	2.64	170.67	64.65
7	J.Shields	2.73	174.67	63.98	All-Star
8	Y.Gallardo	2.61	158.67	60.79	All-Star
9	M.Cain	2.64	160.33	60.73	All-Star
10	C.Sabathia	2.73	164.67	60.32
11	C.Carpenter	2.93	168.67	57.57	All-Star
12	M.Bumgarner	2.76	156.67	56.76
13	C.Hamels	3.18	169.67	53.35
14	M.Garza	2.57	136.33	53.05
15	J.Vazquez	2.80	141.67	50.60

Amazingly, wERA leader Clayton Kershaw won’t be at the All-Star game.  Springfield’s Tim Lincecum ranks third overall, but first in the NL and will be that league’s starter.  Santa Barbara’s Hellickson is the fourth best starter in the AL but got the starting nod, likely because of his 14-1 record, as much as his great ERA. 


Looking at the chart above makes it easy to identify Kershaw and Outlaw Jered Weaver as the two starters who most deserved a nod but were left home.  What about the starters making the trip that were further down the list?  Parkland’s Jon Lester ranked just 33 with a 41.59 wERA.  Cook County’s Anibal Sanchez also made the team with a 42.98 wERA, good for #28 in Brassball.  Sanchez made the team despite throwing just 104 innings, but he was a nearly perfect 12-1 in his 15 starts.


Now, let’s turn to the relievers.  Here it can be a little trickier, as many voters like to reward big save totals as opposed to the best pitching.  Every year, it seems that some of the most effective relief pitchers are somewhat hidden in the seventh and eighth innings, as opposed to the more glamorous role in the ninth.  I re-ran the wERA leader board limiting it to pitchers that made 10 or more relief appearances this season.  Here are the top 15, including saves for good measure:

	NAME	ERA	IP	SV	wERA
1	M.Belisle	1.02	44.00	1	43.14
2	J.Lopez	0.79	34.00	1	43.04
3	J.Venters	1.30	55.33	17	42.56	All-Star
4	S.Marshall	1.24	51.00	2	41.13
5	D.Oliver	0.95	38.00	6	40.00
6	K.Farnsworth	1.14	39.33	1	34.50
7	C.Martinez	1.74	57.00	5	32.76
8	F.Salas	1.55	46.33	28	29.89
9	P.Humber	3.18	93.33	2	29.35
10	S.Cishek	1.66	48.67	1	29.32
11	A.Alburquerque	1.24	36.33	2	29.30
12	S.Romo	1.13	32.00	2	28.32
13	J.Peralta	1.70	47.67	6	28.04
14	S.Casilla	1.52	41.33	3	27.19
15	T.Clippard	2.61	69.00	3	26.44

Amazingly, just one of the top 15 relievers, ranked by wERA is in the All-Star game.  Even more amazingly, it’s not the guy with 28 saves – Superior’s Fernando Salas.  A couple of names jump out from this list.  Obviously Lancaster’s Matt Belisle and Santa Barbara’s Javy Lopez have had standout seasons., even if they don’t get the chance to close for their teams.  Phil Humber, however, has been an absolute workhorse for the Maulers, throwing 93 innings in 41 games.  Given how hard he's been worked so far, Humber may actually prefer a three day vacation to a trip to the All-Star game. 

So, where did the All-Star relievers come from?  Here’s where they rank on the wERA list of pitchers with 10 or more relief appearances.  

Rank	NAME	ERA	IP	SV	wERA
3	J.Venters	1.30	55.33	17	42.56	All-Star
42	J.Smith	2.23	36.33	12	16.29	All-Star
50	B.Sanches	2.91	43.33	3	14.89	All-Star
57	S.Elbert	1.59	22.67	0	14.26	All-Star

Not surprisingly, Hessville, Brew City and Boston did not have many candidates for the All-Star team.  As such, their best choices (Smith, Sanchez and Elbert, respectively) were middle relievers.  Although he has been effective for the Tea Party, Elbert is likely the single least deserving All-Star this year.  He has by far the fewest innings of any All-Star and has only appeared in ten games.  All that said, I’d put my money on Elbert to win the game’s MVP, because that’s just the sort of thing baseball would do to surprise everyone.

2012 Brassball All-Stars

Baseball fans love to debate.  It doesn’t really matter what it is – we can debate, or even flat-out argue, about it.  We’ll debate who should be in the Hall of Fame, who should be the MVP and, of course, who should be on the All-Star team.  This year is no different. 

Some of the All-Star selections seemed like no-brainers.  Of course Mike Stanton and his 32 homers and Brassball leading 98 RBIs will be starting, just like Jacoby Ellbsury and his 27 homers and 51 stolen bases.  But what about Justin Upton?  And how do we have an All-Star game without Albert Pujols?  Let’s take a look at who deserved to make the team and who didn’t.

First, we need to establish some ground rules.  How do you compare a player like Carlos Gonzalez, who has 383 plate appearances, and Matt Kemp, who has 485?  Rather than break out the heavy Sabermetric tools, we’ll settle for something quick and dirty.  Let’s use Gonzalez and Kemp as an example:

Gonzalez has 383 plate appearances and a .992 OPS while Kemp has 485 plate appearances and an .890 OPS.  Multiplying those two numbers will give Kemp credit for all his extra plate appearances and Gonzalez credit for his much higher OPS. 

Gonzalez: 383 x .992 = 387.0

Kemp: 485 x .890 = 435.0

For this article, I’ll call that Weighted OPS (wOPS) and use it as a simple measure to identify those surprising All-Star starters, subs and snubs. 

Miguel Cabrera leads all of Brassball in wOPS and by a wide margin.  He signed a huge contract in the offseason to stay with Fleetwood and has not disappointed.  So far, Cabrera has earned his $7,000,000 his starting spot at 1B for the National League. 

Across baseball, the four highest wOPS hitters are all starting the game:

1.     Miguel Cabrera – 512.6

2.     Jacoby Ellsbury – 464.1

3.     Melky Cabrera – 457.3

4.     Adrian Gonzalez – 449.0

Let’s look at the starters for each league and see how their wOPS ranks in all of Brassball:

National League

C – Miguel Montero – 370.5 wOPS – #34 overall

1B – Miguel Cabrera – 512.6 – 1

2B – Robinson Cano – 382.0 – 26

3B – Pablo Sandoval – 391.2 – 19

SS – Jose Reyes – 373.8 – 32

LF – Alex Gordon – 404.0 – 15

CF – Jacoby Ellsbury – 464.1 – 2

RF – Mike Stanton – 425.9 – 9

DH - Mike Napoli – 405.4 – 14

American League

C – Wilson Ramos – 244.2 – 130

1B – Adrian Gonzalez – 449.0 – 4

2B – Michael Young – 395.9 – 17

3B – Adrian Beltre – 372.2 – 33

SS – Troy Tulowitzki – 379.0 – 28

LF – Carlos Gonzalez – 387.0 – 21

CF – Matt Kemp – 435.0 – 7

RF – Melky Cabrera – 457.3 – 3

DH – Victor Martinez – 365.9 – 37

So, six of the top ten and 11 of the top 25 were voted to start the game.  Not too bad.  Among starters, the one name that sticks out is Cook County’s Wilson Ramos, who is ranked 130 in Brassball.  A big part of his ranking is Ramos’s relatively small number of plate appearances, as his .825 OPS is very strong.  As a catcher on a juggernaut offense, Ramos gets regular days off, which pushes his wOPS down quite a bit.  With that exception, every other All-Star starter is in the top 37 players in the league, based on wOPS.

Who are the big snubs?  The line starts behind Superior’s Justin Upton and Glen Allen’s Albert Pujols.  Those two are ranked #5 and 6 in all of baseball, but will get extra time with their family instead of an all-expense trip to Florence. 

Although Pujols clearly deserved a spot on the team, it would be hard to make him the NL first baseman ahead of Miguel Cabrera.  That’s not true for Justin Upton, who not only deserved to be on the AL’s squad but should also have been a starting outfielder.  Upton has been at least as good as Cook County’s Matt Kemp and much more valuable than Carlos Gonzalez due to CarGo’s missed time.  

Only two other hitters in the top 20 failed to make the game:  North Georgia’s Mark Teixeira (#13), Metropolis’s Andrew McCutchen (#18) and Hessville’s Gaby Sanchez (#20).

Among the All-Star reserves, Springfield’s Hunter Pence and Metropolis’s Jose Bautista have the best argument to be starters and not reserves.  Pence is ranked #8 and likely should have Alex Gordon’s spot in left field. 

Bautista is ranked #11 and comes in ahead of Glen Allen’s Pablo Sandoval.  That might be surprising, as Sandoval has hit a league-leading .358 so far, which is 90 points higher than Bautista.  However, Bautista has a higher on base percentage due to his 63 extra walks.  Bautista also played nearly every day and has nearly 70 more plate appearances. 

In the end, the reality may just be that while Joey Bats is a good nickname, Kung Fu Panda is a great nickname.  It is the All-Star game and sometimes that makes all the difference.