2012 Season Review

FINALLY!

Here is your order of finish for the 2012 season by way of playoff seedings.  Please remember that nothing is official until you see it on the league website.

And the playoff pools....

The Dusty Cleats have finished in 15th place. (CLOSED)

The Banshees have finished in 14th place. (CLOSED)

The Dog Catchers finished in a tie with the Hurtin' Units but lose the head-to-head tie breaker.  Dog Catchers finish in 13th place. (CLOSED)

The Hurtin' Units finished in a tie with the Dog Catchers and win the head-to-head tie breaker.  Hurtin' Units finish in 12th place. (CLOSED)

 The Hot Tub Woody's finish in a tie with the Lucky Stiffs, Rusty Rebels and Tap Masters.  The Hot Tub Woody's own no tie breakers against any of these teams.  Therefore the Hot Tub Woody's finished in 11th place.  (CLOSED). 

 The Rusty Rebels finish in a tie with the Hot Tub Woody's, Lucky Stiffs, and Tap Masters.  The Rusty Rebels win the tie breaker over the Hot Tub Woody's but lose the tie breaker to the Lucky Stiffs and Tap Masters.  Therefore the Rusty Rebels finished in 10th place. (CLOSED).

The Lucky Stiffs finish in a tie with the Hot Tub Woody's, Rusty Rebels and Tap Masters.  The Lucky Stiffs own the tie breaker against the Hot Tub Woody's and the Rusty Rebels but lose the tie breaker to the Tap Masters.  Therefore the Lucky Stiffs finish in 9th place. (CLOSED) 

The Tap Masters finish in a tie with the Hot Tub Woody's, Rusty Rebels and Lucky Stiffs.  The Tap Masters own the tie breaker against all of these teams.  Therefore the Tap Masters finish in 8th place.  

The Gruesome Devils have finished in 7th place. (CLOSED)

The Grisslies have finished in 6th place. (CLOSED)

The Beer Bros. have finished in 5th place (CLOSED)

The Dodge City Rounders have finished in 4th place. (CLOSED)

The Dislocated Joints finish in a tie with the Red Dogs.  The Red Dogs win the tie breaker on runs scored, therefore the Dislocated Joints finished in 3rd place.  (CLOSED). 

The Red Dogs finish in a tie with the Dislocated Joints.  The Red Dogs win the tie breaker on runs scored, therefore the Red Dogs finished in 2nd place. (CLOSED).

The Brew Jays have finished in 1st place. (CLOSED)

How We Got Here

First off....lets look at how the league predicted the teams would finish through a series of pre-season polls.

Good Job on nailing the Rounders, Red Dogs, Beer Bros .... but WAY off on the Cleats, Stiffs, Banshees, Brew Jays, Joints, Grisslies and Devils.  Everyone else was "at or about" predicted.  The league missed the Brew Jays, Dislocated Joints and the Grisslies in the top 6.  

And now my personal prediction of how the top 6 would finish and you can read the actual BLOG from April 29th by Clicking Here. 

Brew Jays - I'm off the board on this one.  I like the returning core of Bo (c), Rod (c) and the Foerster brothers.  In a "fantasy baseball league" sense, I think there are some good steals in this draft.  Look at it this way, take any draft ranking - #5's for instance.  Someone is the best of those.  Which means a lot of people would say that player is as good as at least half the #4's on any given day.  I think the Brew Jays got several of those guys.  We know Tito can pitch and there are some solid smart baseball brains on this team.  A top six finish with the usual array of Brew Jay fence crashing seems like a solid bet to me.
5 months later:  My best prediction of the year

Dog Catchers - And this one is 'nearly' off the board.  The top end with Curran and Glecoff couldn't be a better 1 and 2 combination of good ball players + nice guys.  I really like the Savvy consistent hitting and quiet leadership of Jimmy Mac and Cal Russell, Larry Turner (c) Bob Pearce and Don Swabuk are very good ball players who offer the perfect amount of "smart ass" that every team needs.  Randy's (c) pitching is great and his bat is getting better and better.  And you guys might not think much of this, but; Randy, Larry, Jimmy Mac, Pearce and Glecoff missed one game between them all of last year.  There is something to be said for consistency.  
5 months later:  Well, they can't all be perfect can they?

Hot Tub Woody's - Another border line pick, but my money is on the voting being a little off on this one. Brooks / Larkin / Cragg / Stike might be the best infield I've seen so far in this league.  There are lots outfield options.  I think Brad Moye will emerge as a lock down center fielder this year with a top 25 average.  DeLand had great for the Woody's last year, I don't see that changing.  Plus he can give you a corner outfield or 1st base defense.  They have bats to score, but could have elite defense overall.  Dancey (c) and Hopkins (c) have no serious issues positionally to contend with.  People play better when they know where they'll be.  There could be 14 teams looking up the HTW's when its all said and done.
5 months later:  The Woody's were quite obviously hurt by Jeff Dancey's injury and still they hovered between the 3rd and 5th spots in the standings before fading a bit in week 14.  I still think they have the potential to be a really dangerous playoff team.

Red Dogs - I'm with the masses on this one.  Power, power and more power.  Young, Kolson, Mike Candy (c) and McCarron can all launch bombs.  Very steady and reliable infielders with Cox, Rouleau and Hjelholt surround Brad at short.  Bob Candy (c) can play anywhere and likely will.  Richards is likely in the outfield where he continues to play well and his bat steadily improved last year.  Mr. McCarron will settle down Mr. Quadrini's feet in no time and have hitting like a champ.  I think the only thing that will keep this team from having a "2011 Dusty Cleats" year getting the right rhythm with people in and out of the line up due to work.  I still see 18 wins as a worse case scenario.  
5 months later:  Pretty accurate I'd say.

The Dusty Cleats Dynasty - I'm picking another favourite. Joseph seems back to his healthy self.  He looked good at the draft and didn't miss a single game last year.  Add that to Barton and Doyle who are perennial top 25 hitters and you have some great offense.  And that doesn't even count Mr. Boston.  He had a sub par 1st half last year but lit it up when the weather got warm and especially down the stretch.  Defense looks solid in the outfield with Joseph, Radar, Rene Simard and Timmy Sullivan as regulars with others who can parachute in and out. Doyle at short will likely be throwing to the all-star of Wayne Caldwell at first.  The Doyle Barton combo in the middle of the diamond is one the majority of teams would be jealous of.  There's a lot to like here plus Dane (c) and Pully (c) have lived through a 3 win season and a 22 win season.  They don't rattle.
5 months later:  At least I wasn't alone in this pick.  I still look at this roster and find it doesn't equate to the record.  Not even close.

The Dodge City Rounders. They garnered the most votes.  There has to be a reason.  So why is everyone so enamored with the The DCR?  To be honest....they do have a couple of holes.  For example they don't have a league proven short stop.  But by all accounts, they have a rookie to play that spot.  Looking at the roster, I'm not sure who's at 2nd either.  Beyond that, there's lots write home about.  Starting on the mound, they have the steady and consistent pitching of Wayne Bickford.  Balls hit to the outfield will be swallowed up by the combination of Scott Peters, Adrian Barry, Mark Bickford, Al Fry (c), Ed McDowell (c) and returnee Luc Schryer.  Mason and Beechey should elevate this team.  How far and how fast will depend on how they adapt to a very different game.  But this is a roster full of guys who know how the game is properly played in this league.
5 months later:  I like the line about not having a proven Short Stop or 2nd baseman.  LOL,

I missed the Grisslies, Beer Bros. and Dislocated Joints in my top 6

PLAYOFF WEATHER!

We're 5 days from the playoffs, there is always the fear of losing games with the compacted schedule, but it looks like we once again have the good fortune of mother nature smiling on us!  Here is the 2 week trend for you worry warts.  No day over 23 degrees, no night under 13 degrees and no rain....ahhhh, playoff baseball weather!

Final Stats
These now include all recorded games for the regular season. 

Team Stats

 The Joints were the leaders to the half way mark with the Red Dogs, Rounders and Jays all 2 games back of the lead.  These teams would end up being the top 4 at the end of the year. 

 The Grisslies would lead the league in the 2nd half for the second year in a row.  The Brew Jays and red dogs would again finish second.  Huge improvements by the Gruesome Devils and Rusty Rebels and the Beer Bros. managed to be in 5th place at the 1/2 way mark and and the end. 

 Well, if you believe in this little table, the Beer Bros. and Tap Masters are better than their standings.  the Rounders and Red Dogs are worse and everyone else pretty much stays the same.

Player Stats

Lets start here.  How about that?  Ricky Bobby ends up leading the entire league in improved average and that's after going the whole season without being the leader any single week!  Wow!  This list shows ever one who is 100 points or more improved.  Special congrats to Rick, John and Rick who somehow managed to climb +200 points  remarkable season to everyone on this list. 

 40 or more runs?  They said it couldn't be done!  Well, no.  They didn't.  I don't even really know who 'they' is.  Rookies, veterans, all-stars, #1's, Captains .... this list is a great cross section of the league. 

 No change since the last time.  Mark Kolsen didn't get his 12/12 in the final game so the list stays as is.  My congrats to great season Scott, Rick, Kevin and Clayton.  Although Mooner almost got taken down by Red last night!  Close call.

 Tough to beat Scotty's 1.000, but I guess we're kinda getting used to it.  Once Scott went on sabbatical, we were able to see other guys having fantastic years too.  Mason's 24/25 is pretty damned ridiculous too by the way. 

 Some perspective.  There are 180 guys in the league.  68 of them (more than a 1/3 for those of you scoring at home) didn't score as many runs this season as Al, Winston and Scott did in a quarter of the year.  Man.

 I included all the rookies with enough at bats (48) to qualify this time around.  Personally, I couldn't be happier with our rookie crop this year.  Their respect for the league and the sheer enjoyment they seem to be having and have brought to the park has been a pleasure.  Forget the averages and the catches ... we scored with this batch.  Well done guys.

 No changes here either ....

 Or here.....

 If you need any convincing that offense is down in the league, this is the stat that will help prove it.  Last year we had 20 players with 100 or more at bats.  This year we have 3.  Interestingly, two of our guys with 99 (Scott and Hugh) were left on deck as their season ended.  Had the player ahead of them reached, we wold have got 5.  Still a massive drop off.  Incidentally, Schrank, Routledge and Beechey would have tied for 30th last year with 96 abs.  Offense is down!

 Hits are down too, but not as appreciably due to some scoring changes.  Scott Peters led the way in hits and seemingly tied for the team lead in average with Scott Mason.  I say seemingly tied.... A closer look reveals:

Peters:  0.797979797979798%
Mason:  0.797872340425532%

Congratulations to Scott Peters, winning the Dodge City Rounders batting title crown with a convincing victory of just over one 10,000th of a point (.0001074575543%)

But who's counting.