Pool B - Synopsis

To read about Pool A, Click Here

The Group

Another pool that has question marks, don't they all....

• The 1st seeded Red Dogs team has a .500 record against the pool and a negative +/-.  You wouldn't think that would make for a great draw. 
• The only team the Red Dogs were swept 2-0 by, The Hot Tub Woody's have the best record in the pool. 
• The Red Dogs scored the fewest runs of the 5 teams and have given up the fewest.
• The Beer Bros. are also .500 in the 2nd spot.  
• They have one win in their only game against the Red Dogs, otherwise have split elsewhere.
• They have the best +/- in the pool. 
• The Beer Bros. have held their opposition to 10 or fewer runs in 5/7 games. 
• The Tap Masters have the 3rd seed and are tied with the Red Dogs for the 3rd best record. 
• The Tap Masters lead in runs scored AND runs allowed by a country mile.  
• Every game they've played has been decided by 5 runs or fewer, 4 were tied or 1 run games. 
• The Hot Tub Woody's are the 4th seed and have the best record in the pool by far at 5-2 for 10 points.  
• They have held their opponents under 10 runs in 5/7 games. 
• They are pretty much guaranteed to get into a 12-7 game with the Red Dogs
• The Banshees have to consider themselves fortunate with this draw.  In the 5th spot there is no one that really had their way with them.

Teams are reviewed by order of finish

By the time week 4 rolled around the Red Dogs wouldn't see anything worse than 5th place overall for the balance of the year.  They averaged being in 3. 1/2 place at the end of each week.  These guys were frighteningly consistent.

 

The long and the short of the Red Dogs are that they keep on coming.  There are no real breaks in their lineup.  Their season mirrored the Brew Jays, to a great extent.  Rough start, quick recovery and smooth sailing.  What you'll see evidenced in the stats below is the balance, like the Jays, that made this season possible.

There was never any real doubt about Mike Candy, and Rob McCarron's ability to hit.  Rob was .742 on the season with 66 hits and 43 runs (4 runs off the league lead!).  Mike was .714 on 55 hits and was tied for second on the team with 38 runs.  

Now here is the completely staggering stat about the Red Dogs in my opinion.  Candy and McCarron despite fantastic seasons were the ONLY players on the team to have their averages go down from last year to this.  Every single other player went up.  Hjelholt, Richard, Rouleau and Cox all went up by over 100 points.  How exactly do you defend that?  Quadrini, Koslen, Bob Candy and Hipken all went up too.  Bob hit .700 for god sakes!  Kolsen improved .717 from 2011 to .778 in 2012.  

And I haven't even talked about their rookies!  Jon Hardy has been a pleasure to watch this season as he has gained an understanding for the game, progressing at an unbelievable pace.  And he's integrated in the league seamlessly.  And their other rookie....what's his name....oh Brad Young.  Brad is a fantastic character who also happens to be one hell of a short stop.  I'm sure the ranking of short stops will be a fun bar room discussion over the next few years and Brad is right in that mix.  Brad hit .624 on the season.  Good, but if your just looking at the average, perhaps not great.  However, behind the average, Brad produces.  When he gets on he scores at a 70% clip.   Good enough for fourth overall in the league in that category.  

For the Red Dogs to do well:  The Red Dogs probably have the best club in the pool but not a terribly lucky draw.  They are 6th in the league in defense, but teams #3 & #4 are in their pool and not surprisingly they are 0-3 against those two teams.  The Red Dogs can mash with anyone, but if they can play defense with the best of our defensive squads, there's not stopping them. 

This team ranks high on my list of clubs that scare me.  If its not on yours, you might want to rethink that. 

Its hard to build an argument for more consistent play than the Beer Bros.  5th place in the 1st half of the year.  5th place in the second half of the year.  5th place overall.  In the power rankings they are rated...wait for it....wait for it....3rd!  Wait, 3rd?   Oh you bet they are.  They have the 4th best offense, 4th best defense and 3rd best plus/minus.  This is not a team to be trifled with.

Let's start this story with one of their two rookie of the year candidates, Winston Gayle.  Winston went through the 1st twelve games hitting .585 and scoring 11 runs.  That's okay!  In the second half of the season he went from okay to holy crap, hitting .766 and scoring 27 runs!!!  Yowza!

Or maybe you'd like their other Rookie better.  Peter Holmann hit .787 (7th in the league) on 70 hits (8th in the league and scoring 41 runs (10th in the league).  Tough to pick, huh?

Oh, how about this.  Put those two studs in the outfield with Neil Pendlebury and Paul Piellusch and you have the best defensive outfield in our league too.  Seriously.  Find me a better one.  Geez.

Now what you can see from the chart above is that there is a LOT of Holmann with some Pendlebury and Piellusch sprinkled in.  It doesn't look like there's lots of balance.  You can think that, but this is a line up with some punch.  The "just get on" guys tend to just get on and then the boppers do the damage.  Personally, I flip a coin between these guys and Dodge as to who I've had the most fun watching this year.

For the Beer Bros. to do well:  I don't believe that defense really slumps.  A bad inning, sure.  But not a slump.  I think they just need to avoid any bad news on the offensive side of the ball and really that just means everyone staying in their role.  As a side note, Lou Conforti has gotten better as the year has gone on.  Very nice rookie P1 campaign. 

Six weeks in the Tap Masters were in 3rd place.  12 weeks in the were still in 5th.  Then the air seemed to come out of the sails. 

The Tap Masters were hit hard by injuries this year.  Almost right out of the gate they lost Mike Roche to a hamstring problem and if you ask him he'd probably still say he's not quite 100%.  Paul Doyle was hurt, Tim Osmond too plus a couple of players on extended holidays and the Rookie Captains were left trying to integrate subs into a depleted squad.  It isn't always easy.  However through it all they managed to put together the second best offensive squad in the league.

This team certainly does have offense!  Routledge for starters is a scoring machine. It seems like every week when I'm doing the stats I'm putting in another 3 runs scored for Dan. After Dan you have Paul Doyle who fought through some injuries to post his second consecutive +700 season.  Bowers, Esau and rookie Dwyane Comer all contributed offensively.  Dwayne is another player who showed steady progression this season and who really seemed to embrace the spirit of the league. 

Roche seems to be a top of the order guy for this club, and that's okay, he's hit well all year despite being hobbled.  Hell, they all hit well.  But the offense, at the end of the day revolves around two guys and they are Keogh and Schrank.  .726 and .750.  And its not just the averages with these two, its the production.  They seem to always be driving runs in and they are both very difficult to defend. 

Only the Stiffs, Rebels and Cleats gave up more runs than the Tap Masters this year, but despite that they still had a positive +/-.  Go figure.  Not sure about the reasons for the defensive woes.  Mike Roche is great at third.  Sandy is great pitching.  They have one of the better, more consistent short stop arms in the league.  The outfield looks good too. 

For the Tap Master to do well:  They have the same problem as everyone else in that they need to be hot, healthy and sober on the weekend.  The healthy part might be a question mark.  Defense is actually simple.  See the ball, catch the ball, throw the ball.  If you mess up one of those, don't try and recover by doing, more....just slow down.  Its slow pitch...teams are supposed to hit, get on base and score runs.  If you can make them work harder to get around the bases and prevent most of the gift runs, you're in the game.

The  Hot Tub Woody's might be the easiest team to overlook.  And Dancey and Hopkins will give you the "aw shucks, we're just happy to be here" speech while you order your 3rd beer and wonder where you went wrong against them. 

Its records like the Woody's that make me glad I do these things or I wouldn't have known what to look for.  The Woody's are the 4th seed in the pool.  I would have to say that makes them decided underdogs. 

However, despite some good teams in this pool, the Hot Tub Woody's are the ONLY team to have a better than .500 record against their competition.  They are the only team to take 2 from the Red Dogs.  They have the second best +/- and second best defense. 

Normally I'd look at the chart and start making smart ass comments about Chuck not sharing the hits. .  Actually, it hurts me not to do that. 

Injuries have been a big part of the Woody's year.  Starting with Doug DeLand missing 7 of the first 8 games of the season with a leg issue.  And of course we all know about Jeff Dancey's injury and now it seems that Jeff Handley is hobbled somewhat as well.  However, for the record, the 70+ year old 1st baseman seems to be playing well, uninjured and legging out base hits. 

I like this team from the stand point of people knowing their roles on offense.  There are true table setter / OBA guys and there are people who need to be run producers.  Everyone seems comfortable in their assignments. 

But the real tale of this squad is on defense.  Only the Grisslies and Dislocated Joints had better defensive years, and not by much.  They have Larkin and Brooks both on the team.  There are probably 10 other teams that would take either of them and they'd be starting at 3rd for them tomorrow.  Stike and Chuck up the middle is about as solid you could want.  And their outfield, while it may not have Pendlebury speed, has a steadiness to it and an ability consistently and repeatedly execute the routine play.  It may not seem like much, but it is why they are among the top defense clubs.  Its why they have the best record in the pool.

For the Hot Tub Woody's to do well:  Don't get into slug fests.  The defense on this squad can be trusted and their track record shows that they can recover from loses.  Even an early setback wouldn't bother me much with this team.  However, they can't afford an extended slump by one of their big hitters and that doesn't just mean Chuck.  The averages thin out quickly so they need to deliver on opportunities.

This was a tale of two seasons.  The Banshees got out of the gate well and were nicely positioned in 7th place with a 6-6 record at the halfway point.  However the second half was tough.  Like, worst record in the league rough at 1-10-1. 

The Banshees record against their opponents in this division is 2-4-1 for a .400 winning percentage.  Considering that their season winning percentage was .319, you'd have to consider this to be a decent draw.  They are a -9 against these teams, or -1.28 runs per game.  that's half a run better than the regular season.  The Banshees played only 7 "close" games this year but there figures to be higher percentage based on their scores against the pool

How excited are the Banshees for the playoffs?  Well don't tell anyone, but Craig Beatty showed up a full week early for the 1st game at Coventry this week!  That is dedication.  

This team has some stud players.  Beatty had his second consecutive crazy hitting year.  He makes it to about 70% of the games, but he just comes out and mashes.  Brian Richards was down in average this year to .667 but still was only 3 off the league leaders for runs scored with 44.  John Tessier was a huge spark for the team surpassing last year's average by .206 points and knocking on the door of the .800 mark!  What a great year for John. Saunders was once again over .700 and the worst average on the team was .559 which is remarkably consistent.  Only the Tap Masters and Brew Jays had better low averages (if that makes sense). 

The defense on this team is ranked 7th and really it could be higher.  This is the difference between balanced teams (Beer Bros., Brew Jays) and those that aren't.  The offense is ranked 13th for the Banshees and that drags down your defense just by the pressure put on it to not give up runs.  7th is good though and the infield is really solid with Koolhaas, Coopman, Lester and Tessier around the horn.  The outfield is great with 4 guys who can legitimately play Center Field in Chiasson, Saunders, Muirhead and Richards.  

For the Banshees to do well:  Another team that would be well served to keep the games under 10 runs.  Not rattling with a bad inning is paramount because this is a club that should have consecutive bad innings against any team.  The Banshees were tied for 7th in average but only ranked 13th in runs scored.  They are getting enough runners on to be at least average in offense, but they need to spend the next week taking advantage of  some of those opportunities.  It won't take too many hits with runners on to make the difference.