EHCC 2016 Performance Final

 

That’s it! The 2016 regular season is in the books. This was an especially compelling season as the race for the last playoff spot went down to the wire. In the end Santo Domingo beat out Rio de Janerio by 1 game. Tough luck for the Cristos.

The leader in top weekly score for 2016 was Weymouth with 103 points in week 13. There was a tie for worst weekly performance with 20.5, San Fernando Valley in week 9 and Tokyo in week 20. So you get to bear that cross together.

 

Let’s Get Aggressive

As the season wound down some teams took the opportunity to add pieces in July and August to help their championship aspirations. So who was most aggressive at the deadline?

SD added Cole Hamels, Ian Desmond and Victor Martinez. QC added Jonathan Lucroy and Billy Hamilton. LV added Justin Turner & Jose Reyes. WEY added Daniel Murphy. SJ and RIO each added a closer. In fact the only “in contention” team to not make any additions was Dublin. So the Snake Chasers decided to hold while the competition got better around them. Could this be a move that comes back to haunt them?

San Fernando Valley ended up making a whopping 6 trades between July 20th and August 12th. Impressive for a new owner. SFV turned Jonathan Lucroy, Ian Desmond, Victor Martinez, Justin Turner, Alex Colome and picks into Jose De Leon, Derek Norris, Michael Wacha, Ian Happ, Robert Stephenson and picks (but like, different picks). Bridgewater also sold, making 2 trades, jettisoning Daniel Murphy, Santiago Casilla and Edwin Diaz for picks and prospects. We have 13 years of trade data. BW has made 9 trades in 13 years, 2 being this year. SFV and BW did what rebuilding teams should do. They sold players that weren’t going to be around to help their next contending teams. Rakeville on the other hand? Claimed to have players available, but was MIA come deal time.

 

Her Name Is RIO…

Back on July 12th I wrote, “Something tells me that that week 20 SD vs RIO matchup is going to be huge.” And it was. Santo Domingo took it to Rio de Janerio for a 6-2 win. Call it the curse of Yulieski Gurriel? While 6-2 is a decided victory, the margin would’ve been greater if not for a 3 hr  Sunday from Josh Donaldson.

Oddly, RIO has been SD’s bitch all season with SD owning a 21-7-2 (0.733) record over 3 matchups this season. Strange considering how consistently good RIO had been all season. If it wasn’t for RIO, SD would barely be a .500 team. Also RIO, I have some shirts that need to be ironed, my lawn could use a trim and this coffee isn’t going to go get itself…

But in all honesty, it’s a bummer to see RIO sitting at home while San Juan is still playing. The numbers (see below) show that RIO was a far superior team. Maybe it’s time to balance the schedule?

  

Line Drives

- All 6 playoff teams won in week 21.

- Upon his call up on July 25th, SD had planned on Alex Bregman being a big reinforcement for their playoff stretch. Unfortunately, Bregman struggled out of the gate. By the time Bregman proved that he figured it out the season was almost over. It then became a game of, do I want to call up a mi guy for a week? 2 weeks? Then lose that extra roster spot over the off season. Tough call.

- The yahoo tiebreakers are:

     1) Head to head record (best win-loss-tie percentage in the regular season between the teams)
     2) Overall playoff seed (highest seed wins)

- So much for parody. 5/6 2016 playoff teams were also 2015 playoff teams (almost 6/6).

- I guess Dublin was right to keep stud Trevor Story in the minors for the season even while he played out of his mind. Story was eventually lost for the season to a torn thumb ligament. Also DUB, I would like to borrow your crystal ball when you have a chance. #freestory

- For the record, nobody is going to give you anything for the last 5 guys on your roster. 

- Bridgewater had a 44-100-6 (0.104) record within the eastern division. And a 26-31-3 (0.458) record vs the tougher western division. Wait, what?

- Updating your available players is nice, but not doing much good if you're not letting the league know generally what you’re looking for in return. Ok, player X is available. Should I just start offering you junk until you tell me what you’re looking for?

 - Surprised to only see less than half the owners in the league put themselves in position to take advantage of the contribution picks. This is an easy way to put some extra mi talent in the pipeline. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

- Odd to see one of the top teams in the league offering up “win now”’ pieces for picks and prospects. Normally playoff teams are trying to maximize their chances of winning a title. Is Las Vegas concerned that their window is closing?

 

Feeling Unlucky?

Below is a summary of the PF and PA for the 2016 regular season. The PF shows how well you’ve performed on average on the 10-120 scale. As in my previous posts, the delta(∆) column is your PA minus 65 (65 being the average). This number gives you an idea of how “lucky” you’ve been. You’ll find that the most “lucky” teams in 2016 were San Juan, Dublin and Weymouth. While the most “unlucky” teams were RIO, Rakeville, Tijuana and Tokyo.

New Number Alert! I’ve added an column named “Effective”, which adds your PF to your Δ. Basically combining your performance with the performance against you. I’ve also added your final finishing place. You’ll find that the effective column and your actual finishing place are pretty close.

Standings be damned, the best team in 2016 was Quebec City with an average PF of 80.7. RIO had the 3rd best PF on the season, but was struck with the worst PA luck in the league. San Juan should be sitting at home with an average PF of 66.9, instead Rio is while they put up a 77.2. Seriously, we need to balance the schedule.