OK, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the relative strength of each team based on last year’s numbers. For simplicity’s sake, I made a few gross oversimplifications:
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Team batting average calculated as the average of the batting averages of all hitters on the team. In the actual game, bench players don’t count, and certain players are obviously going to get more at-bats than others, giving them more weight in the final numbers.
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Ditto for ERA and WHIP. The distortion here is likely to be even more pronounced, since it’s quite possible to stick a weak pitcher on the shelf and only put them in the lineup against a weak opponent when you know they’ll be starting. Thus the better pitchers on a team are likely to weigh far more heavily in the game stats than in this calculation.
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For the purpose of this initial ranking, I ignored any transactions since the draft. Obviously several managers have released players and picked up free agents as replacements, but because of the format in which Yahoo! made the information available, this calculation was much, much easier if I ignored these transactions.
Also, it’s important to remember that these rankings are based on what the players actually did last year, not what they’re likely to do this year, and that there is a fair amount a manager can do to control his team’s destiny by careful management of the lineup, etc.
Keeping all that in mind, I compiled the stats for each team using last years numbers, averaging BA, ERA, and WHIP across the whole team and totaling the “counter” stats. I then ranked the teams in each of the ten statistical categories (BA, R, HR, RBI, SB, ERA, WHIP, W, S, K). In each category, I assigned ten points to the highest ranked team, 9 to the second highest, etc. I then totaled the points for each team.
And the results are:
[ul][li]Smug Sox 66[/li][li]Lord Derfel 59[/li][li]Zev’s Wolves 57[/li][li]RackensackTravelers 56[/li][li]Reservoir Dogs 55.5[/li][li]Columbus Mad Cows 55[/li][li]Cecil’s Fielders 53[/li][li]Chile Dogs 51.5[/li][li]Out on Waveland 51[/li][li]UncleBeer’s Brewers 46[/ul][/li]
A more generous soul would probably post the totals and rankings in each category, but then I’m not that eager to point out weaknesses that my competitors may not have realized yet.
I will say that the secret to the Smug Sox’s success was consistency. They ranked no higher than 3rd in any category, but no lower than 7th in any category either, and were closer to the high end of that range in most cases.
And it looks as if the draft worked out fairly evenly, all in all. A few tweaks here and there might well move you several places in one or more categories.
Looking forward to an interesting and competitive season.
“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” –Satchel Paige
