Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Cardinals first team since the 05 White Sox to win 50 of their first 74 games. Ridiculous how with Wainwright out, Holliday out, Adams out, they just chug along like nothing's happening.
It's looking real good for them right now and I can see them running away with that division with no letting up. It's basically now a battle for second place.
And how's this for a possible World Series matchup: former NL Central rival Houston against the Cards? If the Astros somehow win the AL pennant this year, then don't count it out.
There have been 42 complete games pitched in 2015, a pace for 90 complete games for the season.
If we view 2007 as an anomaly, the next four seasons saw an average of 156.5 complete games per season. Then things fell off the table in 2012 and rather than recovering, has continued to plummet. If this season ends with 90 complete games, that makes the '12 thru '15 four year average 115 complete games per season, a decline of 26% from '08 thru '11.
If the next four seasons sees another 26 % decline, the average will be down to 85 complete games '16 thru '19, which would be fewer than three complete games per team per year.
I hope John Hart, President of Baseball Operations for the Atlanta Braves, thinks differently than you.
I doubt very much that he does or he wouldn't have fire-saled the team to begin with. We'll see in about four weeks, but I don't see where Hart has the pieces to go adding "a slugger and pitching upgrades."
I doubt very much that he does or he wouldn't have fire-saled the team to begin with. We'll see in about four weeks, but I don't see where Hart has the pieces to go adding "a slugger and pitching upgrades."
Agreed. The Braves are going to act like buyers leading up to the deadline, based on comments that Coppolella made to the media. However, that will just be to drive up the price for some of their pieces. The fact that the Braves have been playing as well as they have during a rebuilding phase is amazing, but we are still rebuilding. To be able to field a .500 ballclub while retooling the farm and preparing for 2017 is great, but Hart and Coppy aren't going to mortgage the future to make a run this season. There are too many glaring weaknessess to this team that won't make it past a wildcard playoff.
I sure hope the Braves look to move Chris Johnson, Grilli, Uribe, Kelly Johnson, AJ, and hell, even 1-2 starting pitchers (Perez, Teheran, or Wood) and get more prospects for the future. Save salary space to make a splash in the international signing period and be able to go after a Price or Greinke in the offseason.
The Oakland A's have the unwanted distinction of being the only team in baseball with a plus run scoring differential (+49, 4th best in baseball) yet have a losing record.
The A's are at 38-47, 10 games behind Houston in the division. By Pythag expectation, a team which has played 85 games and has outscored their opponents by a total of 49 runs, should have a 48-37 record. If the A's were distributing their runs and run prevention in a more even manner, they would be but a single game behind Houston.
When a team is performing so far below its expectation, the first thing one looks to is how they did in one run games. Unsurprisingly, the A's are a dismal 6-21 in such contests, losing another today to Seattle.
When a team is doing really crappy in one run games, the first suspicion is a leaky bullpen. That suspicion is well founded in this case.
The A's team ERA of 3.38 is the best in the American League. The A's starters have a collective 3.00 ERA, also tops in the AL.
The bullpen?
Meltdown City.
The relievers for the A's have compiled a collective 4.41 ERA, dead last among the 15 AL teams.
I would be writing that the lousy performance in one runs games was the product of bad luck and that we should be looking forward to that luck changing in the second half. I'm not going to be writing that because the same thing happened last season. The 2014 the A's had a plus 157 run scoring differential, the best in all of MLB, and projected to a 100-62 record. Instead they were 88-74. The 2014 team was bad in one run games, 21-28, though not nearly as bad as they have been in 2015.
It makes me wonder, is there something about the way the A's are put together which makes them less than the sum of their parts? Such inefficiency in run distribution seems beyond the explanation of luck when the A's have such extremes of inefficiency in back to back years.
The Oakland A's have the unwanted distinction of being the only team in baseball with a plus run scoring differential (+49, 4th best in baseball) yet have a losing record.
The A's are at 38-47, 10 games behind Houston in the division. By Pythag expectation, a team which has played 85 games and has outscored their opponents by a total of 49 runs, should have a 48-37 record. If the A's were distributing their runs and run prevention in a more even manner, they would be but a single game behind Houston.
When a team is performing so far below its expectation, the first thing one looks to is how they did in one run games. Unsurprisingly, the A's are a dismal 6-21 in such contests, losing another today to Seattle.
When a team is doing really crappy in one run games, the first suspicion is a leaky bullpen. That suspicion is well founded in this case.
The A's team ERA of 3.38 is the best in the American League. The A's starters have a collective 3.00 ERA, also tops in the AL.
The bullpen?
Meltdown City.
The relievers for the A's have compiled a collective 4.41 ERA, dead last among the 15 AL teams.
I would be writing that the lousy performance in one runs games was the product of bad luck and that we should be looking forward to that luck changing in the second half. I'm not going to be writing that because the same thing happened last season. The 2014 the A's had a plus 157 run scoring differential, the best in all of MLB, and projected to a 100-62 record. Instead they were 88-74. The 2014 team was bad in one run games, 21-28, though not nearly as bad as they have been in 2015.
It makes me wonder, is there something about the way the A's are put together which makes them less than the sum of their parts? Such inefficiency in run distribution seems beyond the explanation of luck when the A's have such extremes of inefficiency in back to back years.
Haven't they missed Doolittle and Chavez most of the season?
Looks like, not including Ike Davis, they've already used 17 different pitchers in relief roles. That's absurd. Seems most of the worst of the bunch are no longer with the big club, with exception of O'Flaherty, who's having by far the worst season of his career.
I'd expect them to do better, but probably not regress back to the norm at a typical rate.
Haven't they missed Doolittle and Chavez most of the season?
Looks like, not including Ike Davis, they've already used 17 different pitchers in relief roles. That's absurd. Seems most of the worst of the bunch are no longer with the big club, with exception of O'Flaherty, who's having by far the worst season of his career.
I'd expect them to do better, but probably not regress back to the norm at a typical rate.
In most past seasons, the A's bullpen was always a strength. Beane seemed to be able to go out back and shake a few quality arms from the Relief Tree whenever they were needed. Apparently the drought has had a negative impact on this year's yield. The Starter Tree must not require that much water because it has continued to bloom.
So the Giants have really gotten SCREWED here in the scheduling department the past 3 weeks.
first time: Giants were in Queens to play the Mets at 4:05 pacific time Thursday (7:05 Eastern time). They have a game at home at 7:15 pacific time Friday night (10:15 Eastern time). The Giants left right after the Mets game, got back at about 4 AM local time (7 AM Eastern). The Giants preceded to get swept at home by Arizona that weekend.....who was already in California playing the Dodgers and IIRC they even had Thursday off!
This time: Giants are in Washington to play the Nats at 5:05 Pacific time (8:05 Eastern). The next time they had a game in San Francisco at 7:15 Pacific time (10:15 Eastern time). The Giants spent Sunday in DC and flew back west today but like the first time the Mets are already in California as they spent the weekend in LA against the Dodgers.
This is exhibit A for why I've ALWAYS hated the ESPN Sunday night game (not to mention the announcers are horrible, but that's a different story). I know MLB teams don't get many days off, teams wouldn't want to waste those days and I believe you can't play more than 28 days in a row but something really has to be done in regards to these teams on Sunday night baseball, which on some nights the game might not end until close to 12 in the morning and you have to play 17 hours later??
Option A I've come up with: Any road team OR home team that is on the road next series that has to play the Sunday night game gets the following Monday (i.e. next day) off. This should be fairly easy to accomplish since on average (27 weeks) no team should appear more then twice however since ESPN likes to shove specific teams down our throats and makes other teams invisible this is a lot more difficult then it really should be to implement.
Option B I've come up with: Any team playing the Sunday night game can't play more then 500 miles away the following day. I.e. if the Yankees/Sox is the Sunday night game the Sox can play at home, @ the Mets, @ the Phillies, @ the Nationals or @ the Orioles. Meanwhile the Yankees the following day can play: at home, @ Mets, @ Blue Jays, @ Nationals, @ Pirates, @ Phillies, @ Orioles or @ Indians. With the way ESPN hoards teams this isn't very effective either.....however it could be if teams only made 2 appearances every year.
Whatever the case you CANNOT play a Sunday night game in Washington and play the following night in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Giants probably have the best offense in the NL so far in 2015, but its quality is being masked by AT&T Stadium being a particularly low scoring environment this season.
Overall the Giants have scored 346 runs, 4th in the NL. (Arizona leads with 374)
At home the Giants have scored 145 runs, 14th among the 15 NL clubs. At AT&T their slashline has been .257/.318/.377 for a .696 team OPS.
On the road they have scored 201 runs, second best in the NL behind the Nationals. The club's road slashline is .277/.333/.429 for a 767 OPS. All of those figures lead the NL in road performance.
The stadium has helped the Giants pitchers, they have posted a 3.26 ERA at home, 7th in the NL, but have been hammered on the road for a 4.59 ERA, 13th in the league.
Looking at the Park Factors we see that so far in 2015 AT&T has suppressed run scoring by a factor of 0.755, ranking it 28th among the 30 ML fields. (Oddly enough the 29 and 30 slots are occupied by the two Chicago stadiums.)
AT&T has been the hardest place to hit a home run in 2015, suppressing homers by a 0.555 factor, easily the worst in baseball.
(Park Factors are on a 1.000 scale. Any park at 1.000 would represent a neutral run scoring environment, favoring neither offense nor defense. Above 1.000 means the park helps the hitters. Below 1.0000 means the pitchers are being helped.)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
