Season Recap - Aaron Division(Back in early March, after the draft, I did 12 auto replays of the season, and recorded the results. It’s an interesting comparison with how our teams actually did this year, so I’ll use that in the recaps, giving the average record forecast by the replays, and the actual record.)
CRP: Forecast: 87-75.
Actual: 91-71. As solid as you get: 10 games over .500 in the first half, 10 over .500 in the 2nd half. 3rd in offense, 4th in ERA, 6th in defense. Millwood was the only 20-game winner in the league, and new addition Moises "Urine Good Hands" Alou clubbed the ball to the tune of .328/.388/.669.
Factoid: CRP had the worst luck at the hit-and-run: it attempted the strategy only 22 times, the lowest in the league, managed to advance the base-runner only half that time, and got a whopping three hits.
Outlook: Probably the best-managed team in the league, constantly replacing players in decline (in past years, Sosa, Javier Lopez) with youngsters like Jose Reyes, Jered Weaver, and Matt Cain. No accident that they've made the playoffs each of the past four years. They'll have some work to do on their rotation, though, with the 2007 seasons Vince Padilla and Kevin Millwood actually racked up.
Top Rookies: Ubaldo Jiminez.
MMM: Forecast: 88-74.
Actual: 88-74. Solid defense and pitcher's park allowed them to yield league-low 3.96 runs per game, but also put them in bottom half of offensive rankings. Jeff Francouer, converted to part-time duty, responded by hitting 73 points above his real-life average, and Fernando Nieve pitched in with a 10-2 record and sparkling 2.32 ERA in 18 starts.
Factoid: Opponents hit only .218 against Maui in June.
Outlook: AJ Burnett was hurt and got only 165 innings this year, and Doug Davis was marginally effective, so Maui has some work to do on their rotation, too. Still, I can think of worse players to build a team around than Ryan Howard, David Wright, Roy Oswalt, and Orlando Cabrera.
Top Rookies: None.
CAQ: Forecast: 84-78.
Actual: 79-83. After winning the most games and the league championship in 2006, the Quakes missed the playoffs. The reason isn't hard to figure: after scoring the 2nd-most runs in the league in 2006, Castaic tumbled all the way to 9th this year. Most of that decline can be traced to one player, Andruw Jones: in 2006, he hit .302 and knocked in 163 runs for the Quakes, while this year he hit .242 with only 117 RBI's, and 14 fewer homers. With the season he actually had in 2007, Castaic's going to have a big hole to fill.
Factoid: Poor bullpen work also cost the Quakes: they saved only 64% of their chances, worst in the league. On the positive side, this is the easiest thing to remedy in the draft: Westpark went from having the second-worst percentage in 2006 (61%) to the best (81%) this year.
Outook: They have some major work to do in the off-season. Jason Schmidt and Jones formed the core of the team, and Schmidt's season made Jones look like an All-Star. Still, they've got Cole Hamels and Ryan Zimmerman to build around.
Rookies: No help there, at least for next year; highly touted prospects Felix Pie and Homer Bailey fizzled in their major league debuts.
BEL: Forecast: 82-80.
Actual: 79-83. From the stats, it looks like this club should've finished a lot worse: lowest batting average in the league at .246, no speed (39 SB's; only Marriottsville had fewer), 7th in pitching, 10th in fielding... But the Dodgers did finish 3rd in HR's and 6th in runs scored, so their offense was better than it might appear. In fact, with a bit more luck the Dodgers would have made the playoffs: there was no one who outperformed their real life stats, and several who seriously underperformed them.
Factoid: Whatever chance Bell Heights had of making the playoffs vanished in September, when they went 13-14 despite a sparkling 3.57 ERA. Reason? A team batting average of .219. Chief culprit: Lance Berkman, with a .205 BA, 2 homers and 3 RBI.
Outlook: Some good selections in the draft should put Bell Heights in the playoff picture. They have a solid core on both sides, with a rotation of Francis, Verlander, and Maddux, the emergence of Takashi Saito as a lights-out closer, plus a power trio of Guerrero, Berkman, and Khalil Greene.
Rookies: Yovani Gallardo is an emerging force. Carlos Marmol, while not a rookie, had a standout season and will add real depth to the Dodgers' bullpen.
WAC: Forecast: 84-78.
Actual: 76-86. Pitching cost them a playoff spot. Despite hitting only .256 as a team, they scored the 5th-most runs in the league, mostly on the strength of a league-leading 233 homers, with nine players finishing in double figures. But they finished 9th in pitching, giving up 42 more runs than they scored. Chris Carpenter was their best pitcher, with a 3.16 ERA, good for 2nd place, but finished only 12-10 because of a paltry 3.91 run support. The bullpen was a disaster, finishing with a 4.91 ERA; only Richmond, at 4.96, was worse.
Factoid: Another late-season fade: 12-15 in September, with a .219 BA, led (?) by another unlikely candidate, Albert Pujols, with a .227 BA, 3 HR's, and 7 RBI.
Outlook: Rotation is a shambles, with Carpenter injured this season, and the implosion of Dontrelle Willis and Chris Capuano; that's slightly offset by the huge improvement of Josh Beckett, but the Cheesewedgers are going to have to scramble for starting pitching. Emergence of Manny Corpas this year should settle down the bullpen.
Rookies: Some good news there. Alex Gordon may give West Allis room to move Adrian Beltre. The flyer that the Cheesewedgers took on Josh Hamilton paid off, and a bevy of hot pitching prospects -- Andrew Miller, Phillip Humber, and Franklin Morales -- indicate that West Allis should only be a year away from contention again.
ROS: Forecast: 65-97.
Actual: 71-91. Sometimes stats lie, but here they don't: The Aliens finished 11th in runs scored and ERA. They got shut out a league-leading ten times, and opposing teams knicked them for ten or more runs in a game twenty times; only Richmond was worse in that latter category. Nobody of any consequence overperformed, and several players fell substantially below their real-life stats.
Factoid: Actually, the Aliens were killed by three teams. Against the rest of the league, they finished .500, but they were 3-9 against Virginia Beach, 4-8 against Marriottsville, and a ghastly 4-14 against Conn River.
Outlook: Good news and bad news. Mike Lowell and Adam Dunn had substantially better years in 2007, and both underperformed for the Aliens this year. Brad Lidge got back to some semblance of normalcy, and isn't likely to give up a homer every four innings, as he did for the Aliens. On the other hand, Rafael Furcal's deterioration is a serious problem: it's questionable whether you want to spend $13 million on a hitter with a .688 OPS. The roster's pretty thin after that. With a good draft and a bit of luck, the Aliens should be able to contend two years from now, but it's hard to see them making a run at it next year.
Rookies: Tom Gorzelanny is a major addition, and Daric Barton could turn into a big plus in another year.
