Here’s the thing: in this edition of the power rankings, we kept running into our old rule that no team can move by more than 10 spots in the rankings. That was fine when we did these things on a bi-weekly basis, but now that we’re older and lazier and doing them on more of a bi-monthly basis, that really restricts us. Especially when we do something stupid based on a team’s record 12 games into the season. Case in point: the Biloxi Hurricanes. They were pretty dreadful in the first fortnight of this 1972 campaign, but since then have become on of the league’s clear best teams. We would rank them in the top three, but rules are rules, and therefore the Canes get stuck in the #8 spot. The good news is that next time around they have the capability of jumping into the #1 slot. On the other hand, even if Texas wins every one of their remaining games, our bi-monthly rankings frequency say they can’t possibly get to #1. Or probably even into the top 10.
Anyway, since we’re at the all-star break, we’ll be sure to give you some all-star stats that we can pretend our meaningful. It’s just our way of saying to you: “We don’t feel like doing any real analysis and will instead just focus on the first stupid stat we see when we look at a team.” That’s a promise from us to you. And by the way, for whatever reason, Halifax is really dominating the league in terms of weird and random statistics. On to the rankings!
1. Spalding Aeros – Previous Ranking: 4 (+3) –
The Aeros are well on their way to passing 100 wins this season, making us look foolish for (narrowly) excluding them from our postseason predictions. They’re doing it like they usually do it: scoring tons of runs. Their 506 runs scored leads the league by a wide margin – Boston is #2 at 441 runs, and they are one of only 3 teams to even have 400 or more runs. But for an all-star stat, we want to point out what the Spalding offense isn’t doing: stealing bases. Their 7 stolen bases are fewest in the league, again by a wide margin. Next lowest is Homer’s 29, and Homer is one of only two teams with fewer than 50 stolen bases.
2. Falls Church Frenzy – Previous Ranking: 1 (-1) –
Why are the Frenzy successful? Well, they’re second in the league in stolen bases (we’ll talk about #1 later), helping out the offense, but they’re also tough to run against. Two Frenzy starters are in the top 10 in runners caught stealing (on that pitcher’s watch). One is David Toon, and the other is the league leader, Willie Martini. The Frenzy have nailed 12 of the 18 batters to try to steal off of Martini. By the way, the Frenzy only caught one potential base-stealer when Martini pitched last season. We believe that makes Martini the leading candidate for the league’s most improved player!
3. Boston Big Digs – Previous Ranking: 3 (-) –
Ricardo Saenz seems to be taking his game to the next level. Now in his 4th season, the 27 year-old outfielder leads the league with 49 extra-base hits, more than he hit all of last year in 475 at-bats. Unfortunately, he’s struggled against lefties – this is unfortunate because Boston just seems to face so many lefties. Eight of the top nine hitters in terms of at-bats against left-handed pitching are from Boston, led by John Kellett’s 150. That Banks Division is crazy, with 4 of the 5 starters in New York and 3 of 5 in Honshu and Halifax being lefties. The Boston rotation is all righties, by the way.
4. Vienna Buzz – Previous Ranking: 13 (+9) –
We love it when a player’s nickname really defines that player, as it does with Melchor “Slug” Arias and his ML-leading 11 times grounding into a double play. What’s interesting here (and this has nothing to do with Vienna, for which we apologize) is that 12 (12!) players in the WL have as many or more GIDPs than the ML leader Arias (and the 5 MLers who he is tied with for that all-star stat). Anyone want to venture a guess as to why the WL grounds into so many more double plays?
5. New York Empire – Previous Ranking: N/A (-3) –
The rookie of the year race in the ML is going to be a good one between rookie starters Enrique Santiago (8-3, 2.79 ERA) of Chessie and Mark Samuels (5-5, 2.28) of New York. What’s really surprising here, for those of you that don’t follow the goings-on of the New York pitching staff religiously like we do, is that Samuels is a 29 year-old rookie. It’s rare that someone who wasn’t good enough to make the major leagues at age 28 suddenly arrives on the scene and not only leads all rookies in ERA, but pitches like a CAHMMLPOTY award winner. Samuels is even second in the ML in ERA, only one hundredth of an ERA point behind the leader, Boston’s Lloyd Jackson. Which means that Samuels has a shot at not only being rookie of the year, but pitcher of the year in the ML.
6. Bradford Bulls – Previous Ranking: 6 (-) –
We all know that any old loser can hit a sacrifice fly at home, with the home crowd behind you coaching that lazy fly ball into the mid-outfield. But on the road, with a hostile crowd cursing your ball to be too shallow to score the runner, you need a special kind of hitter. A hitter like Pete Tondreau, who leads the league with 4 sacrifice flies on the road. What a hero. That must be why the Bulls are playing so well right now (their current 2-8 streak notwithstanding). Also, congratulations to Tondreau for hitting a triple in June, his first in over a year. He now has 15 on his 12-year career. Even Frank Robichaud, the Glacier himself, hit 29 triples in his career.
7. Bowie Knives – Previous Ranking: 17 (+10) –
You have to feel sorry for Jon Routt, the ML leader in quality start percentage (85%, 17 out of 20), who somehow only has 5 wins on the season. He has given his team a chance to win in 17 starts this year, and his team has said no thank you 12 of those times. Weird thing is, he’s not even in the top 15 in the league in run support (he gets 3.5 runs per game, not good but not terrible). He’s really just a victim of Bowie’s lousy bullpen, which has a whopping 4.67 collective ERA and 10 blown saves.
8. Biloxi Hurricanes – Previous Ranking: 18 (+10) –
There’s a lot to like about the Biloxi Hurricanes these days. (We know Dan Curcio likes his salary!) Not only are they shooting to the top of these rankings, but their young players are really impressing. For example after giving up 21 runs in his first 12.1 innings of work this season (15.32 ERA) and earning himself a none-too-flattering mention in our last edition, 22 year-old Chad Nieman has gone 8-2 with a 1.70 ERA in his 14 starts since then. Meanwhile, 20 year-old Alberto Maldonado, who looks like the second coming of Danny McAlpin, is starting to hit well thanks to a good June. But we’re all about finding flaws here at Power Ranking Headquarters, and so we will point out that Maldonado leads all rookies with 6 times caught stealing, in just 9 stolen base attempts. We are sure that this fact will haunt Maldonado for the rest of his sure Hall of Fame career.
9. St. Boni Bashers – Previous Ranking: 11 (+2) –
The Bashers are leading their division right now, but they’re not playing all that well (rather, the division is playing quite poorly). Part of that is due to being a league-worst 9 games under .500 (4-13) in one-run games. Only one other team, South Beach (with 8) has won fewer than 10 one-run games. But that’s only part of the story as to why the Bashers have declined a bit from last year. The rest of the story – and this really should be obvious to anyone who even casually follows this league – is that the Bashers give up way too many triples to left-handed hitters. Consider that Jin-Soon Kim and Andres Guerrero, two of St. Boni’s top pitchers, are tied for the league lead with 5 triples allowed to left-handed hitters. In this league, that will kill you. And it has, except for the fact that St. Boni has a 5.5 game lead in their division.
10. Orchard Park Blizzard – Previous Ranking: 7 (-3) –
Only three teams have more than 100 stolen bases so far this year. St. Louis has 109 and Falls Church has 122. Way out ahead of everyone is Orchard Park, who has 190 stolen bases. For those of you who like ratios, that’s more than 27 stolen bases for every base Spalding has stolen this year. Three of the league’s top six base-stealers – Tom Wilson (39), Micah Morello (45), and Marion Vanwyk (league-leading 52) – play for Orchard Park. Stolen base fever might go a little too far in Orchard Park, though, as you have guys like Brian Warren (5 SB, 6 CS), Edgar Stange (5 SB, 5 CS), and especially Oscar Lafever (who has been caught in each of his four stolen base attempts) trying to unsuccessfully copycat the real Blizzard base-stealers.
11. Chattooga Eagles – Previous Ranking: 5 (-6) –
The six-slot fall for the Eagles can be largely attributed to the mediocre play of Tom Cheesman. In seven years in the majors, Cheesman has never finished a season with an OPS under .800, but it looks like that will change this year, as he’s hitting just .209 and has a .692 OPS. What’s interesting is the home/road split, where Cheesman has really disappointed the Chattooga fans with the league-leading (in a bad sense) low home batting average of .173 (compared to .243 on the road). Then again, his home/road OBP is almost equal due to Cheesman being tops in the ML in home walks, with 30. Ok, looking back at what we said earlier in this paragraph about the home/road splits being “interesting”, we’re sorry, we lied.
12. Homer Yetis – Previous Ranking: 9 (-3) –
We’ve already talked about the WL’s dominance in the category of grounding into double plays. Well, the grand master is Homer’s Ramon Garcia, who has bounced into a whopping 18 double plays already this season. What’s most impressive about this feat is that Garcia is the leadoff man for the Yetis, so his first at-bat every game by definition is not a candidate for a double play ball, and the pitcher will very rarely get on base for him, either, or will have bunted a baserunner over. So how does he ground into so many double plays when no one is on first base? Beats us. Garcia is otherwise a very good player. With 92 hits and 53 walks, we wonder where he finds the time to ground into so many double plays.
13. Superior Moo – Previous Ranking: 10 (-3) –
Is there a better bunter in the league than Olen Kyser? We think not, which is why his 10 sacrifice hits leads the league, with the next closest player having a measly seven. The fine bunting performance is all the explanation we need for Kyser’s 9-3 record and stingy 2.42 ERA. By way of comparison, St. Louis starter Barry Keith has only one sacrifice hit this season, and he is 2-7 with a 6.05 ERA. So the correlation between sacrifice hits and pitching effectiveness is quite clear.
14. Halifax Atlantics – Previous Ranking: 16 (+2) –
From the with-a-bat division of the couldn’t-hit-the-broad-side-of-a-barn department, we have the league leader in strikeouts, Halifax first baseman Rodrigo Acosta, who has whiffed 110 times already. He’s on pace for 200 strikeouts, which would put him behind only Shon Scott (1967) and Clifton Derouen (1969) for the all-time whiffiest seasons. To be fair, Scott walked 51 times in his 200+ strikeout season, and Derouen walked 65 times, so both of them can claim they were running deep counts by being selective. Not so for Acosta, who is on pace for only 31 walks. By the way, Halifax also features the player with the fewest strikeouts in the league also, Mario Montanez, who has struck out only 5 times in 277 plate appearances. In this all-star stat bonanza for Halifax, Montanez is also leading the league in fewest walks, with only one all season. In those same 277 plate appearances. Oh, and Montanez leads the league with 5 sacrifice hits in close/late situations (no one can make an out with the pressure on like he can!) Montanez is an all-star-statsman’s dream. And while we’re on Halifax, we’ve got one more thing, possibly the most unexpected moment of the season. On June 29, in a 12-inning game in Boston, newly acquired 38 year-old starting pitcher Mariano Archambault ended up catching. Yes, catching. He caught two innings and, more amazingly, threw out the only runner to attempt a stolen base. That makes him the league leader in caught stealing percentage among catchers, throwing out a healthy 100% of would-be base-stealers.
15. St. Paul Stogies – Previous Ranking: 24 (+9) –
The Stogies are up 9 spots from the basement this time around, and we think the reason why is that they have developed a mean streak. Case in point, check out their ace, Justin Facer. Facer is only 5’11” and 185 pounds, but he’s as intimidating as anyone in the league, because he’s mean. He’s one of the league’s more accurate pitchers, with only 19 walks allowed and two wild pitches in 136.2 innings pitched. And yet he leads the league with 13 hit batters. So you know that when he hits someone, he didn’t miss his target. And that attitude has rubbed off on his team and, somehow, not resulted in lengthy suspensions or hefty fines for Facer.
16. Medicine Hat Juffowup – Previous Ranking: N/A (-) –
We know our all-star stats have wowed you so far, but this one blows them all away in terms of relevance to results on the field. Of course, we are talking about Medicine Hat rookie centerfielder John Ortiz, who leads the league (ok, is tied for the league lead…but he leads among rookies!) in times getting on base due to catcher interference. With two. We believe the awe-inspiring nature of this particular stat speaks for itself, so we don’t have to come up with some crap about it.
17. Cold Blitz – Previous Ranking: 21 (+4) –
Well, if you have a player like Tom Scranton, you put him out on the field, and that’s exactly what the Blitz have done. Scranton leads all players at all positions in total defensive innings (781.1) and leads all first basemen in every other category (errors, total chances, putouts, double plays, and assists). Maybe he could use a break, but can you imagine the Cold offense without him…um, wait a minute, he’s only hitting .178 against right-handed pitching, and has a .688 OPS overall. Maybe this guy really does need a break.
18. St. Louis Assault – Previous Ranking: 8 (-10) –
It’s the bottom of the ninth inning and you’re losing by a run. There’s one out, the bases are loaded, and all the pressure is on as the pitcher’s spot comes to the plate. You can’t let the pitcher hit; you need to go to your bench. Who do you call on? If you’re St. Louis, you turn to Cliff Buchanan, who has 27 pinch hit plate appearances. Because he’s proven that he can hit a sacrifice fly right here and tie the game. He leads the league with two sacrifice flies as a pinch hitter. With him at the plate in this situation, you KNOW the game is going to extra innings. You can decide for yourself if we are complimenting or insulting Buchanan.
19. Chessie Ironhorse – Previous Ranking: 22 (+3) –
Ok, bear with us for a minute. Chessie reserve second baseman Bob Doles doesn’t actually lead the league in times hit by pitch, but of the league’s top 30 in HBP, Doles is easily the only one who has been hit by more pitches (9) than he has walked (7). This man clearly has no idea where any pitch is going – on every pitch he either swings or (and?) gets hit. By the way, when you look past the top 30 in HBP, two other guys you see with more HBP than walks are the aforementioned amazing Mario Montanez and his Halifax teammate Manuel Apodaca. Is there something in the water in Nova Scotia? Or in the ice?
20. South Beach Sunburn – Previous Ranking: 22 (+2) –
When the fans come to the ballpark, they want to see some offense from the home team. And nobody knows like that like Sunburn starter Bill “the Barbarian” Harris (that nickname isn’t as applicable as Arias’s in Vienna). Harris’s WHIP is a nice tidy 1.01 at home but that rises to 1.54 when he hits the road. Yes, he lets the opposing fans see some offense, as he leads the league in hits allowed on the road. That’s better for his popularity than James Blea, who not only leads the league in walks allowed at home, but also has a name that sounds like throwing up. Which is what the home fans want to do when they watch him pitch.
21. Honshu Nymphs – Previous Ranking: 14 (-7) –
And the award for worst command of the strike zone by hitgoes to…...(drum roll)…….the Honshu Nymphs! The Nymphs lead the league in strikeouts (778) and have the second fewest walks (226). And it’s really been a team effort, since no Honshu player leads his respective position in strikeouts (counting Mike Seltzer as a right fielder). Wait, we take that back. Turns out that Tim Nicklas is tied for the league lead in strikeouts among pitchers, with 25. The man has 38 at-bats and has struck out in 25 of them.
22. Latrobe Lightning – Previous Ranking: 15 (-7) –
For the last 13 years, the Lightning have followed their leader, Mario Maples, their leadoff man. He’ll go down in history as one of the league’s best ever leadoff hitters, and as he goes his team goes. And right now, that means that his team is making a lot of outs, following Maples’s lead, where he’s run into 17 outs on the base paths. And Jesus Cortes has followed, with the two of them tied for the league lead with 17 times caught stealing. Maples has been caught in 17 of his 34 attempts (50% for the math challenged) and Cortes has been even worse, being caught in 17 of his 27 attempts. Whichever coach is in charge of base running should be fired and replaced by someone who will take the all-important step of tying their shoelaces together to keep them in once place.
23. Melbourne Mosquitoes – Previous Ranking: 20 (-3) –
The Bugs are 20th in runs allowed, but only 15th in ERA. Why? Well, bad infield defense isn’t making things any easier on the pitchers. Roscoe Cribb (17) at third base and Ivan Norby (19) at shortstop both lead the league in errors at their respective positions. They make Ed Graham (6th in most errors among first basemen, with 6) and Joe Becker (3rd among second basemen, with 10) look like sure-handed defensive wizards. Which they are very much not.
24. Texas Timewarp – Previous Ranking: 19 (-5) –
Boy, it’s a real struggle to find any league leader in Texas. Even in a negative category. This is just an all-around dull team. They do lead the league in lowest winning percentage. Edwin Alcorn is tied for the league lead with 11 losses. And rookie (and new official power rankings favorite named player) Robbie Dunkelberger (seriously, that’s the man’s name) did go 16 straight at-bats without a hit at one point. That probably doesn’t lead the league, but it did give us a chance to mention his name. Yawn.