Stats Week 5

RAIN

This is the closest I've come to not issuing a scheduled BLOG.  Its been a trying week to stay the least.  The only reason that this is even up is because its probably less work to do this than listen to the moaning from Doyle & Peters.  

Anyway, it strikes me (upon further review) that not everyone understands how makeup games work.  Pully brought this up at the exec meeting this week and I think its a great point.  So maybe its time share with everyone how it works. 

All this is available on the league website as our meeting minutes are public record; so its not like I'm divulging any 'insider secrets'.  You should all know.  You should all be informed.  If you're not interested, skip down to the Stats section.  If you are interested, here is a fact sheet. 

• FACT:  Our regular league schedule has 168 games
• FACT:  The dates that we have available to us do not allow for all these games to be played at 7:00 or 8:15 so there are 17 regularly scheduled 9:30 games over the course of the year.  
• FACT:  ALL makeup game slots are at 9:30 as 8:15 and 7:00 slots are consumed.
• FACT:  Neither your captain, the rescheduler (me), the elected executive, the regular executive nor mother nature is purposefully trying to screw anyone by making the makeup games at 9:30.  Its what we have. 
• FACT:  Overall we have fewer makeup dates available this year because the schedule is compacted into one less week than last year. Again, its a calendar issue not a "we hate the [insert team name here] issue
• FACT:  Last year we had 8 rainout for the season.  They mostly came late in July which caused a lot of angst trying to reschedule all those games with only a month left in the season. 
• FACT:  This year, with only a month gone in the season, we've already lost 11 games due to rain or dangerous field conditions. 
• FACT:  The Dog Catchers and Red Dogs are the only teams to have not lost a game thus far. 
• FACT:  The Gruesome Devils and Blues Brothers have both had 3 games rescheduled. 
• FACT:  The Beer Bros., Brew Jays, Grisslies, Hurtin' Units and Hot Tub Woody's have all lost 2 games. 
• FACT:  The Draft Kings, Tap Masters, Dodge City Rounders, Dislocated Joints, Rusty Rebels and Dusty Cleats have all lost a single game to date.

 The Process:

1. A game is called prior to becoming "official" by the league (for safety reasons), the Captains or the Umpire.
2. I get notified. 
3. I look for the NEXT AVAILABLE SPOT in the schedule that meets the following criteria:
• Doesn't make a team play 3 games in a week.
• Doesn't make a team play a double header.
4. When I find the first available spot I email the affected captains and ask them to confirm that I’ve met the criteria as stated (because I can screw up).
5. When the captains reply affirmatively, I make the schedule change, which is reflected on the league website during the weekend upload and immediately make the scheduling change on the BLOG in case anyone checks that.
6. I then send a notification to the captains to inform their teams that the game is confirmed and that they can now notify their teams of the new date. 
7. I then send a confirmation to the Umpire in Chief so an ump can be scheduled for that game.

It doesn't sound too difficult does it?  Me, two sets of captains, Roman and Jamie need to get our heads together and figure it out.  Piece of cake.  The problem is that we're rarely fortunate enough lose just one game.  Twice we've lost 4 games in a night, which means that the equation above is multiplied by 4.  Buy and large, people understand that the important thing is to a) get the games scheduled and b) inform players. 

Changes

With the plethora of rainouts and spots that meet that above criteria rapidly disappearing, we had to make some changes.  Jamie provided the executive with a number of viable options which you can read in the minutes and after a healthy discussion we landed on the following arrangement.  
 

Motion by Paul Piellusch to maintain a 24 game schedule for each team as follows:

i.        Reschedule postponed games using the current make-up timeslot of 9:30, avoiding 3 games per week or double headers
ii.      If (i) is not possible, reschedule postponed games using the current make-up timeslot of 9:30 regardless of whether it is 3 games per week or double headers
iii.    If (i) and (ii) are not possible, reschedule postponed games on Thursday at Coventry

Seconded by Steve Ross.  Motion carried by vote.

Point (iii) to clarify, will ONLY become an option when all other options are deemed to no longer be tenable.  When (i) can happen it will ALWAYS be the 1st choice.  When (i) can't happen (ii) will ALWAYS be the next choice.

My thanks to the captains that make this task with doing. 

Now Peters and Doyle know what all the captains know.

The Beer Cup

The Dislocated Joints remain owners of the Beer Cup as the field was deemed unplayable for their game against the Blues Brothers.  This week should be interesting as the winless Grisslies try to stake a claim to the cup!

Teams that have held the Beer Cup(3)

• Beer Bros.
• Hot Tub Woody's
• Dislocated Joints

Teams that have defended the Beer Cup(1)

• Dislocated Joints (2)

Teams that have yet to play for the Cup(10)

• Blues Brothers
• Dodge City Rounders
• Dog Catchers
• Dusty Cleats
• Grisslies
• Draft Kings
• Gruesome Devils
• Hurtin' Units
• Rusty Rebels
• Tap Masters

League Notes:

Again, nature reared its ugly head.  We lost our full slate of Tuesday games.

More Stuff that might actually have an element of fun to it

• The Dodge City Rounders have a great lineup.  They are really balanced in terms of age, speed,  and a combo of players with a long track record of average and of power.  So riddle me this:
• The Rounders played two full 7 innings games this week. 
• In their 14 innings they scored in only 2 of them. 
• In their 2 scoring innings they scored 5 against the Grisslies and 1 against the Hot Tub Woody's. 
• In 2 games this week they scored 6 total runs.  
• Unbelievably they were 1-1 this week.  (you're welcome).  
• The Dog Catchers finally tasted defeat this year falling to the surging Tap Masters.  
• The Tap Masters followed up that win with a win against the Hurtin' Units on Thursday.  That game saw some interesting 1st in this season.  
• Rob Farah and I both subbed for the Tap Masters making it the first time that two co-captains had subbed together in the same game since Rob and I subbed for Lucky Stiffs last year.  (okay, I made that one up)
• Rob and I both got hits in the 2nd inning.  That was the first time that Rob and I have been on base in the same inning all year! (I WISH I was making that one up)
• Rob and I both both scored runs in the second inning making it not only the 1st the time that we had both scored in the same inning, but the 1st time that we have both scored runs in the same game!  Good god, I wish that was a joke too.  It isn't. 
• Rob and I got to shake hands as the winning team, another first for this season.   
• I was 4/4 in the game.  I'm now hitting .767 as a sub.  I'm hitting .364 as a Grisslie.  
• I scored 2 runs.  I have 9 runs scored as a sub.  2 as a Grisslie.  
• Frig.
• Why couldn't the rain have come on Thursday???  Sadly, this had to happen.  The Red Dogs Vs. The Rusty Rebels.  Someone HAD to win and lose their status as one of the last 2 winless teams along with the Grisslies.  The Rebs would prevail leaving the Grisslies and Red Dogs as the last two team searching for a win.  
• We only lost 7 hitters this week.  There are now 89 players who have reached base safely in every game of the season.  And we're down to only 28 guys left (15% of the league) who have scored in every game.  Next week might be time to reveal who's left in that category.  

STATS TIME

So I had a few ideas about rating offensive and defenses against each other and try to look for trends that looped back to the standings; but I lost my enthusiasm somewhere along the way, so its just regular stuff.  Hopefully next week will have more. 

Here are the standings available on our league site.

And here are baseball style standings which don't look a heck of a lot different this week. 

Here are your top 10 hitters, again a complete list can be found on the league website.  Within the next week or two we'll start tracking the batting leaders for the 2nd quarter of the season.  For many of us we need a "do over" anyway!  Oh, BTW....Yes, that is a rookie leading the league!  Way to go Don. 

This is normally the top 10 area but we also do + ties so this has 16 in the category.  Neil had a wicked week.  I think that he and Brad need nicknames.  Anyone?

Well, you already about Mr. Slipetz he is ransacking the league.  But take notice of these names, there are some good ball players there, including Jim Smith who is currently doing it all on one leg!

 Uh-huh....I think Gere has bragging rights over Pendlebury!

So here is my compare on this.  Steve is leading both this and the previous category as did Roger Gaudet last year.  Lahey, Polny and Goosney all appear on the "HIT" list but not the "AB" list.  Why?  Is it because all their names end in "Y"?  Is it because they all have two syllable last names? Doubtful.  But their times on base produce for their teams.   Where as with Cox, Barton an Dickson, the mere threat of them coming to the plate makes a difference. 

I remain unconvinced yet that this is really showing anything, still looking though. 

This is a favourite.  

Mike Ollife has bee nothing but consistent!  Dwayne has stayed on the list as well, but Martin is having a wicked start to the year.

I'm starting to think that Brad is gonna give Jens' 104 a run.  

 Things you may have missed this week. 

For the Grisslies Game five BLOG, Beehey Night!, click HERE
For the Dislocated Joints game summary, click HERE
For the Hurtin' Units BLOG, click HERE
For the Donini 3 stars, click HERE
For the League Website, click HERE