Stats - Week 1

NEW FOLKS PLEASE READ!!!!

Okay, there are a few things that you need to know about this league.  1.  for whatever reason people are kinda stat crazy.  They pretend not to be, but the stat BLOGs every weekend seem to have the most hits.  Go figure.  2.  we don't keep many stats.  But I find different ways to carve them up and combine them to give a few different views.  3.  People seem to dig getting mentioned.  There are couple who don't so I'll use initials or a nickname.

Now this is probably the most important part....if you reach base, by hit, walk, fielders choice, interference or error, its considered a "time on base".  They reflect positively on your 'average'.  That means that if you come up in first inning with the bases loaded and no one out and you bounce one to the pitcher who starts a pitcher - to - catcher - third (1 - 2 - 5 if you're scoring at home), you'll now be standing at 1st base with a team mate at 2nd.  There will now be 2 out and no runs in.  But your 1 for 1!!!!

Its the way that it goes.  When you look at the average, the best hitters tend to have the best averages, however, everyone acknowledges that all averages are inflated by force outs and errors.  Its okay and its the same for everyone.  Also it takes away the judgement for scorers, We just count it all.

Oh, FYI for you all.  I call 'times on base' 'hits'.  I do it a lot.  That's because I write a lot and 'hits' is 7 less key strokes.

I will always try to acknowledge perfect nights, 5/5; 4/4, 3/3 or scoring 4 or more runs in a game.  I'll endeavor to do that in the scrolls at the top of this page on game nights.  If you hover your cursor over either of the scrolls at the top, they should stop running. I try and have the STATs BLOG ready for every Saturday morning so people can read with their coffee and Cheerios.

Cheerios are good.    

EVERYONE PLEASE READ!!!

Hey gang.  Week one is officially in the books but we've only had 8 of our 15 teams play games.  There is obviously very little value in these stats other that to show what it will look like going forward.  One thing that I'm going to include this year is the winner of each category from the previous year to give a bit of a target to shoot for.

And for the umpteenth time, let me be perfectly clear....the official book of record for all things league related, statistical or otherwise is the league website www.tottehnhamoldtimers.ca  The stats found here are best effort and meant for fun and gambling purposes only!  Good luck to all!

STATS!

Lets start with Team Statistics.

These are the standings that you'll see on the league website, they are updated every week on the website and replicated here.  

These are what I like to call "My Standings".  Considering that we're a baseball league, I like having one look that appears like baseball standings rather than friggin' hockey points.  BTW, are the Leafs out yet?  Anyway, last year someone (Radar?) suggested that I add in a 'streak' column, so I did.  Any ideas are welcome, if they're achievable I'll do them.  Some take extra work or planning so I set them up in the off season, but if I can add on the fly I will.  Clearly these standings don't mean much now, but you'll see later in the year that team's positions will change between the two standings.  I always count the one below as the true reflection of where a team is.  But that's me.  

The rest of the team ones aren't worth even posting yet, but here's the descriptions:

1.  After the 1/2 way point of the season I'll post 1st and 2nd half standings so that you can see trends, but also so that teams with crappy 1st halfs can look at it as a "do over" in the second half.  It's pretty much the same as the regular standings so I won't bother posting an example. 

2.  The Elimination chart:  This usually pops up in the final month of the season....here's how last years finished.

These columns represent the 3 playoff pools.  Pool A has the1st, 6th, 7th, 12th and 15th place teams in it.  what I'll when get toward the end is put all the teams that could finish in each position in the every box and eliminate them every night as games go by.  Its kinda interesting for your into that stuff.  If you're not, you'll spend a lot of time going, WTF?

3.  Then, again probably toward the last month of the season or as soon as someone can no longer finish 1st overall.  This is fun to watch.  Here's how it played out last year.  By the way, this one is called "The Tragic Number".

Not complicated....if you're number is a zero or a negative you can't finish in 1st.  With 2 games left the Brew Jays were in need of 1 win or one Red Dog loss to clinch.

4.  Lastly we have Power Ranking.  Yeah, Power Rankings.  I'll start this up in a few weeks.  What I do is rank each team from 1 to 15 in point earned (hockey standings), runs scored, runs allowed an run differential, then sum up the category totals.  Low score wins.

Now those of us who are statistically minded were not at all surprised to see the Beer Bros. in the final last year.  They finished 5th overall (look back 3 charts) barley edging the Grissles.  But every other statistic was better than their 5th place position rank.  3rd in offense, 4th in defense and 2nd in +/-.  Where as the Grisslies who were only a point back had the look of doing it with mirrors as 2 of their categories were worse than their 6th place point rank.  10th in runs, and 7th in +/-.   This is the tell tale chart for me.

Okay, individual stats.

First I'll tell you about a couple that are way, way, way too early to publish.  The first one consecutive games with a hit.  As that number starts to dwindle I'll publish who's left.  Chances are we'll have several left standing at the end of the season.  I don't know for sure, I haven't keep record of it before.  The second is consecutive games scoring a run.  Last year's champ in that category was Jens Lepa who scored in the first 14 games of the year.  Again, I'll start posting when it gets interesting.

Then we have the top 25 hitters.   This is another thing that you can find on the league website.  You can also find everyone elses average there too.  Here, I track more the "batting race" which is the only individual award we have in our league.  This is the Way Too Early look at it.

Last year and two time Champ Scott Barton has set a high standard to attain!  My money is on Bill Clouthier, but I'm biased. 

Next up is runs scored.  I usually do top 10 + ties in the tenth spot unless it gets too big. 

Fry, Mason and Gaudet were demons last year and I see Al's already up to his old tricks.  Way to go Idaho.  I think the Draft Kings are shaping up to dominate some offensive categories this year though.  47 is the number to hit boys!

Next up are total hits and total at bats.  Both are kind of a combination of ability and participation.  Guys that miss more than 3 games are rarely in either list unless their seasons are off the charts spectacular.  Obviously its a muddled list at this point but it will sort out as the year goes on. 

 79 hits is a big number to chase, but we have lots of guys out to a great start. 

Jens never misses, he's a prime candidate to be back at the top.  It came down to him and Jerry Muirhead (who doesn't have an internet so I can make fun of him here) last year and might well happen again. 

Now the next two are two of my favourites.  First is the Rookies.  I peel out all the rookie averages and sort them.  If makes for some fun amongst the newbies. 

Of course, if any of you match Mason you'll probably be moved to a #1, so I might suggest that those Brew Jays slow down a little. 

Then its most improved.  This is a pain to setup but now that its working it doesn't hurt so bad.  It looks at everyone's average from the previous year and compares to this year.  Its kind of cool to acknowledge guys that are having an above average season or maybe recovering from injury. 

Last year Ricky Bobby beat John Tessier by .001 of a point to win this category!  Its obviously ridiculously early but we have some guys off to fantastic starts!  Sadly Ricky would have to hit 1.030 to duplicate last year.  I don't like his odds.

The next two I've toyed with ditching, but i'm going to give them another year to see if they tell us anything more. The first is runs scored per hit.  And the second is runs scored per at bat.  I was hoping that the first one would show us people who might not get on frequently, but when they did they tended to score.  It didn't.  Both stats showed us that Roger Gaudet scores.  A lot. 

Once we get past the quarter poll of the season I'll start keeping track of runs and average leaders per quarter of the season.  That shows some interesting stuff, like Scott Mason and Kevin Moon who had torrid quarters last year after slow (not BAD - relax Scott!) starts. 

And there you have it.....that's the stats pack with many suggestions and ideas from Scott Peters, Kevin (Radar) Boston and Marky (Mark) Doyle over the year.  If you have one there is a comment page below.

Next fun BLOG after the Grisslie game Monday and next stats BLOG next Saturday. 

Cheers!