BGB Fantasy League 2018: Week Five

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Week five saw a combined no-hitter, some injuries to some big names and host of impressive rookies continuing bright starts to their MLB careers. How would the BaseballGB Fantasy League look afterwards?

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Norwich No II 35 16 45 5 .265 .852 3 6 58 2 3.93 1.20 11
The Bath Bombers 32 7 31 3 .248 .772 1 1 41 3 4.93 1.55 1

 

Norwich are top of the standings after an 11-1 win against the Bombers. Norwich belted 16 homers including four from Harper and four from Rosario, who also scored eight times, knocked in 12 and stole two bases while batting .433. Junis had a win and 13 strikeouts, closely followed by Hader thanks to his eight-strikeout save. Corbin helped take ERA and WHIP. Tough week for the Bombers but Reed salvaged saves and Trout (.545) had a big week.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Orpington Isotopes 40 12 39 2 .306 .917 4 3 83 3 2.84 1.04 11
Mighty Slugs 23 9 21 0 .181 .607 5 2 43 0 3.56 1.29 1

 

The Isotopes are above .500 after defeating the Slugs 11-1. Kemp hit .450 but the offensive star was Lindor, who hit .425 with 11 runs, four homers and 10 RBIs. Greinke struck out 15 and teamed with Morton to take ERA and WHIP while Rodney and Devenski took care of saves and holds. Richards helped take wins for the Slugs and Rizzo had a three-homer week, the batters had a team-wide slump.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Richie’s RBI’s 26 13 37 3 .230 .791 2 2 60 0 5.88 1.40 8
Weston-Super-Sox 24 5 17 2 .215 .629 2 1 41 0 2.57 0.94 2

 

An offensive sweep helped the RBIs defeat the Sox 8-2. Neither team hit for average but Gallo (five runs) and Mazara (11 RBIs) each belted four homers and Villar stole two bases. Giles and Strickland had a save each and Clevinger racked up 17 strikeouts. The Sox, now hit by injuries to Kershaw and deGrom, took ERA and WHIP thanks to another very impressive week from Cole.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Batteries Essential 16 4 22 2 .299 .808 2 5 58 0 2.08 1.01 3
Durham Riverkings 28 9 29 6 .256 .757 3 5 57 1 1.79 0.84 8

 

The Riverkings used a balanced attack against Batteries Essential, taking four hitting and four pitching categories in an 8-3 win. Despite Corey Seager being ruled out for the rest of the season, Torres stepped in at SS and had a great week with two homers and nine RBIs, while Betts scored seven runs, hit five homers, knocked in eight and hit .400. Paxton and Archer helped take ERA while Kluber picked up a win and Chapman had three saves.

 

Santana and Ramos helped Batteries Essential take average and OPS, but with only six batters playing in this matchup and a bunch of players wasted on the bench it is no surprise to see them struggle offensively. On the mound, Verlander (22) and Sale (18) racked up the strikeouts and Davis collected a trio of saves.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Newcastle Knights 35 12 45 7 .283 .897 3 5 38 1 3.92 1.26 8
The Cheddar Chasers 21 4 13 5 .238 .651 5 4 75 1 3.76 1.49 3

 

The Knights used an offensive sweep to defeat the Chasers 8-3. Pollock led the team with four homers, two steals  and a .423 average while the Cleveland duo of Encarnacion (10 RBIs) and Ramirez (nine runs) also had big weeks. Gray and Gausman helped take WHIP while Hand had three saves. The Chasers enjoyed another huge week from Scherzer, who picked up a win to go with 23 strikeouts and he also helped take ERA and WHIP.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Beckenham A&E Dept 26 7 29 0 .279 .902 4 2 49 4 4.33 1.34 3
Cheshunt Maltsters 26 13 34 2 .251 .862 2 4 59 4 2.96 1.16 7

 

Finally, the Maltsters handed the A&E Dept a rare loss, taking this matchup 7-3. Five Cheshunt batters had multi-homer weeks, led by three from JD Martinez while Hosmer drove in seven and Pham swiped two bases. Bauer led the staff with 19 strikeouts and teamed with Faria to take ERA and WHIP while Kimbrel and Jansen had two saves each. McCutchen (.474) and Hamilton (.400) helped Beckenham take average and OPS while Mikolas was one of four pitchers with a win and Bradley notched four holds.

 

After week five, the standings are as follows:

 

Rank Team W-L-T Pct GB Last Week Waiver Moves
1   Norwich No II 40-17-3 .692 – 11-1-0 6 9
2  Durham Riverkings 38-18-4 .667 1.5 8-3-1 2 7
3   Beckenham A&E Dept 31-21-8 .583 6.5 3-7-2 9 9
4  Richie’s RBI’s 29-24-7 .542 9 8-2-2 12 12
5   Newcastle Knights 29-26-5 .525 10 8-3-1 8 16
6  Orpington Isotopes 29-27-4 .517 10.5 11-1-0 10 9
7   Cheshunt Maltsters 28-26-6 .517 10.5 7-3-2 3 5
8  The Bath Bombers 25-32-3 .442 15 1-11-0 11 8
9   The Cheddar Chasers 23-33-4 .417 16.5 3-8-1 1 2
10  Weston-Super-Sox 19-34-7 .375 19 2-8-2 5 3
11  Mighty Slugs 20-36-4 .367 19.5 1-11-0 7 16
12  Batteries Essential 19-36-5 .358 20 3-8-1 4 –

 

The week six matchups are:

Norwich v Chasers

Riverkings v A&E Dept

RBIs v Bombers

Knights v Isotopes

Maltsters v Sox

Slugs v Batteries Essential

 

Reminder: 20-inning minimum limit

Just a friendly reminder to make sure you hit the 20-inning minimum limit to avoid forfeiting all of the pitching categories. So far we have avoided this happening but the rash of pitching injuries may mean teams run the risk of dropping under the limit. One to keep an eye on if you don’t have a deep staff.

MLB This Week: All eyes on Tuesday’s Press Conference

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In MLB This Week I usually round-up the UK-friendly early games taking place in the days ahead.

You can still find that below, but there’s a pretty big UK-related event happening on Tuesday that falls under the UK-friendly heading for different reasons.

London Mayor Sadiq Kahn and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred will be staging a press conference in the capital to finally formally announce a two-game series for June 2019.

Baseball fans in the UK have had hopes for many years of MLB coming to these shores, with actual plans to do so being discussed publicly since 2011.

The key details, that it will be the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees facing each other at the London (Olympic) Stadium, have been known for a while, albeit not officially confirmed by MLB.

What else might we learn?

When and how it fits into the schedule

ESPN’s new story about the forthcoming press conference states that the games will be played on 29-30 June. Assuming that’s correct, that’s already useful in terms of long-term planning of potentially making one of those games.

However, what we don’t yet know is how those games will fit into the almost non-stop MLB schedule.

It’s relatively easy enough to take a series to Mexico – as they did this past weekend with the Dodgers and Padres – without much disruption, whilst trips to place such as Japan – as the A’s and Mariners will do next year – can be scheduled in March before the regular season gets underway.

The logistics of bringing games to Europe, and the UK in particular, have always posed the question of how you do it without it causing scheduling problems for the teams involved. That’s vitally important if we want MLB to see coming to London as a completely positive venture and to encourage future visits.

So, how the off-days will be sorted out and how it will fit into the schedule will be a key talking point that hopefully will be clarified.

How it fits into London Stadium

As above, going to places like Mexico and Japan is less challenging as they have ballparks you can either use as they are or bring up to a better standard.

We don’t have such a venue to use in the UK (maybe one day?).

Sydney Cricket Ground was transformed into a ballpark for the 2014 Opening Series between the D-Backs and Dodgers, so it can be done and the London Stadium has been chosen from various sites in the capital as the best fit.

However, staging games in a non-dedicated baseball ballpark unavoidably means that there will be some compromises in terms of the playing dimensions and viewing angles.  It would be great to see some images of how MLB expects it to look.

What about 2020?

It may seem hugely ungrateful, after years of waiting, to respond to news of MLB games in 2019 by asking for more.

But, it’s a valid question in this case as the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) included plans to come to London in both 2019 and 2020.

So, are we going to get a firm commitment on Tuesday that this isn’t a one-off and MLB is coming both years, or will they be coy about a potential return?

Most signs have been pointing to the New York Mets making the trip in 2020. It’s worth noting that it couldn’t be a Subway Series, or a Boston return, as the current CBA prohibits the same club from playing more than one non-Mexico/Dominican Republic/Puerto Rico international event during the 2017-2021 agreement.

We shouldn’t expect any specifics about the match-up at this point, there’s no reason to do anything to take away attention from the 2019 Red Sox and Yankees series, yet not confirming the 2020 event too will take something away from the announcement bearing in mind it’s public knowledge that this is the plan (in other words, fairly or not, sceptics would latch onto it as MLB lacking confidence in making a success of 2019).

MLB’s longer-term goals

The NFL’s London project always had the potential end-game of an expansion team being based here, following the lessons learned from the NFL Europe competition. For a whole host of reasons, that’s clearly not in MLB’s mind as a realistic model to follow, so what actually is the plan?

When I raise this question here I do so with no great expectation that we’ll get any detailed answers at the press conference. No one wants to be held a hostage to fortune, least of all the MLB Commissioner, so I would expect discussions of MLB’s longer-term goal to be shrouded in generic aspirational terms.

In any case, the whole point about this is that – different to the NFL’s approach – MLB’s venture into London is part of a much wider international plan. That’s a great thing for baseball, but I think is something being overlooked by some UK baseball fans based on Twitter comments (again, seeing it through the lens of the NFL London expansion).

Take the MLB International office in London, for example. The MLB UK Twitter account leads people to refer to it as the MLB UK office but it’s really not in that sense; its remit extends across the whole of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India. Much as they will have a huge role to play in the London series, their work is far from solely focused on expanding MLB in the UK.

The current CBA includes not only International Play Events but also Spring Training and post-World Series trips.  I expect that the next CBA (subject to any lingering free agency-related acrimony) will continue this approach and that MLB’s medium-term plan is to make international series events a standard part of the MLB regular season calendar, with perhaps four or five series every year in different countries.  That would likely include future games in London beyond the 2019-2020 events, although playing a series elsewhere in Europe (especially established markets such as the Netherlands, Italy and Germany) would make a great deal of sense too.

Excitement builds

Whatever extra topics they do or don’t discuss at the press conference, the key details are something many of us have been waiting years for. Tuesday should be a memorable day for UK-based baseball fans.

As for the action on the field, here are the pre-midnight BST starts for this week:

Monday 7 May

No early games

Tuesday 8 May

18:15 Twins at Cardinals (Odorizzi (2-2), Martinez (3-1)) *BT Sport/ESPN

Wednesday 9 May

17:35 Mets at Reds (Wheeler (2-2), Romano (2-3))
18:10 Indians at Brewers (Carrasco (4-1), Guerra (2-2))
19:05 Tigers at Rangers (Liriano (3-1), Colon (1-1))
19:10 Pirates at White Sox (Williams (4-2), Lopez (0-2)) *MLB.com Free Game
19:20 Marlins at Cubs (Chen (1-1), Quintana (3-2))
20:10 Angels at Rockies (Barria (2-1), Anderson (2-0)) *BT Sport/ESPN
20:35 Astros at Athletics (Cole (3-1), Mengden (2-3))

Thursday 10 May

18:05 Giants at Phillies (Blach (3-3), Velasquez (2-4)) *Facebook Game

Friday 11 May

19:20 White Sox at Cubs (TBD, Chatwood (2-3)) *BT Sport/ESPN

All of these games are available to watch or listen to live via an MLB.TV subscription, other than the Facebook live game which is exclusive (but free) to Facebook subscribers. TV coverage of MLB in the UK comes courtesy of the BT Sport channels and these are highlighted above, as are any games that are available to view online for free via MLB.com. The above list of games just shows those starting before midnight UK time. The full schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com

BGB Fantasy League 2018: Week Four

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Week four of the BaseballGB Fantasy League saw a number of young players make an impact with Torres and Acuna getting a taste of life in MLB. But which managers would benefit from their efforts?

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Orpington Isotopes 28 11 31 5 .265 .806 1 2 45 2 6.42 1.51 2
Durham Riverkings 37 8 28 10 .292 .848 4 6 48 2 3.14 1.23 9

The Riverkings are top of the standings after a convincing 9-2 win against the Isotopes. Moncada scored seven runs and hit .371 for the week, while Inciarte batted .364 with seven runs and six steals. The infield was also boosted with the arrival of Yankees prospect Torres, who hit .348.

Snell and Kluber each had a win and helped take ERA, with Corey striking out 10. Chapman had three saves. Cespedes drove in seven for the Isotopes, while Realmuto hit three homers in his first full week back from injury and Altuve discovered his home run stroke. Not much to write home about on the pitching side, apart from two holds for Devenski.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Norwich No II 27 9 27 2 .262 .769 4 0 49 3 4.20 1.28 2
Richie’s RBI’s 44 13 40 2 .263 .824 1 6 53 0 3.78 1.16 9

 

The RBIs also enjoyed a big week, defeating Norwich 9-2. Gregorius belted four homers, knocking in 10, while batting .357 for the week. Gennett scored seven and knocked in seven with a .393 average. Darvish helped take ERA and WHIP and tied for the team lead with eight strikeouts while Strickland had four saves. Tanaka won twice for Norwich and Ottavino had a pair of holds. Springer (.375) and Freeman (.355) had great averages but the team fell .001 shy of a tie in that category.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Batteries Essential 22 7 21 4 .284 .875 3 2 26 0 4.34 1.21 2
Cheshunt Maltsters 35 16 46 2 .328 1.044 3 2 45 1 4.14 1.38 8

 

The Maltsters slugged their way to an 8-2 win against Batteries Essential, belting 16 homers on the way. Votto hit four of them while the Seattle duo of Hangier (seven runs) and Zunino hit three each. Marwin Gonzalez, JD Martinez and Pham all hit above .400 for the week. Gio Gonzalez struck out 12, Fulmer did not allow an earned run and Miller had the lone hold before his injury. Benintendi had two steals for Batteries Essential and Verlander helped take WHIP. The roster has a lot of injuries and moves need to be made to avoid being a cellar dweller.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Beckenham A&E Dept 25 7 16 1 .194 .680 5 5 70 0 3.69 1.07 7
Weston-Super-Sox 17 2 12 2 .242 .649 2 5 49 0 2.43 1.13 3

 

The A&E Dept’s good run of form continued with a 7-3 win against the Sox. There wasn’t much offense, but Schwarber belted three homers and Arenado was one of three players to score four runs. Chatwood won twice, fellow Cub Hendricks helped take WHIP and Porcello struck out 15. Diaz, one of the closers of the season so far, had three more saves. Andujar hit above .400 for the Sox and Marte had a steal but the injury list grows with Andrus out and no SS on the bench. DeGrom and Happ helped take ERA while Soria and Vizcaino had two saves each.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Newcastle Knights 32 5 25 7 .294 .823 5 3 39 2 2.17 0.97 4
The Bath Bombers 33 10 38 7 .264 .836 3 1 45 3 2.11 1.04 7

 

The Bombers got the better of the Knights 7-3 in a matchup featuring a number of close categories. Sanchez (10 runs, four homers, 11 RBIs) and Albies (eight runs, three homers, eight RBIs) were the offensive stars while Ray struck out 13, McCullers did not allow an earned run and Reed had a pair of holds. Trea Turner stole four bases and batted .385 for the Knights while Braun hit an even .400. Gray and Quintana picked up wins while Morrow had three saves.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Mighty Slugs 23 4 25 1 .266 .772 1 4 39 3 5.31 1.06 6
The Cheddar Chasers 37 5 26 9 .252 .737 2 1 41 1 7.14 1.74 6

 

Finally, the Slugs and Chasers finished all square at 6-6. Kela had three saves and Robertson picked up a pair of holds for the Slugs, while Gausman and Ryu made the difference in ERA and WHIP. Miggy Cabrera hit .421 and the decision to draft Acuna Jr is paying off as the Atlanta phenom hit .400 in his first week in the big leagues. Schebler led the Chasers with six runs, two homers and nine RBIs while Goldschmidt, Baez, Cain and Duvall stole two bases each. Scherzer picked up a win and tied with Weaver for the team lead with 10 strikeouts.

 

The standings look like this:

 

Rank Team W-L-T Pct GB Last Week Waiver Moves
1  Durham Riverkings 30-15-3 .656 – 9-2-1 2 5
2  Beckenham A&E Dept 28-14-6 .646 0.5 7-3-2 9 9
3  Norwich No II 29-16-3 .635 1 2-9-1 6 9
4  The Bath Bombers 24-21-3 .531 6 7-4-1 11 6
5  Richie’s RBI’s 21-22-5 .490 8 9-2-1 12 9
6  Cheshunt Maltsters 21-23-4 .479 8.5 8-2-2 3 3
7  Newcastle Knights 21-23-4 .479 8.5 4-7-1 8 14
8  The Cheddar Chasers 20-25-3 .448 10 6-6-0 1 2
9  Mighty Slugs 19-25-4 .438 10.5 6-6-0 7 11
10  Orpington Isotopes 18-26-4 .417 11.5 2-9-1 10 8
11  Weston-Super-Sox 17-26-5 .406 12 3-7-2 5 3
12  Batteries Essential 16-28-4 .375 13.5 2-8-2 4 –

The Week Five match-ups

Isotopes (10th) v Mighty Slugs (9th)

Batteries Essential (12th) v Durham Riverkings (1st)

Beckenham A&E Dept (2nd) v Cheshunt Maltsters (6th)

Newcastle Knights (7th) v The Cheddar Chasers (8th)

Norwich No II (3rd) v The Bath Bombers (4th)

Richie’s RBI’s (5th) v Super-Sox (11th)

MLB This Week

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After a couple of Rangers-Indians games to start the working week that creep in under the pre-midnight BST line, Wednesday and Thursday provide a host of good match-ups to enjoy live at a convenient time in the UK.

Corey Kluber should be on the mound for Cleveland on Wednesday and his name always stands out among starting pitchers, but you shouldn’t overlook the Rays’ Blake Snell who has been excellent so far this season.  The Cubs will also be hoping for another good showing from Yu Darvish after a slightly shaky start to life with the north-siders.

On Thursday, the Yankees-Astros match-up looks the most enticing, with Tanaka and McCullers currently the probable pitchers.

All times are in BST.

Monday 30 April

23:10 Rangers at Indians (Hamels (1-4), Bauer (2-2))

Tuesday 1 May

23:10 Rangers at Indians (Fister (1-2), Clevinger (2-0))

Wednesday 2 May

18:05 Royals at Red Sox (Duffy (0-3), Pomeranz (0-1))
18:10 Rays at Tigers (Snell (4-1), Fulmer (1-2)) *MLB.com Free Game
18:10 Rangers at Indians (TBD, Kluber (4-1))
18:10 Blue Jays at Twins (Stroman (0-3), Hughes (0-0))
18:15 White Sox at Cardinals (Giolito (1-3), Martinez (2-1))
19:20 Rockies at Cubs (Anderson (1-0), Darvish (0-2)) *BT Sport/ESPN
20:45 Padres at Giants (Richard (1-3), Holland (0-3))

Thursday 3 May

18:10 Blue Jays at Indians (Garcia (2-2), TBD)
18:05 Pirates at Nationals (Williams (4-1), Hellickson (0-0))
18:10 Braves at Mets (Foltynewicz (2-1), Vargas (0-1))
19:10 Yankees at Astros (Tanaka (4-2), McCullers (4-1)) *BT Sport/ESPN
19:15 Tigers at Royals (Fiers (2-2), TBD)
20:40 Dodgers at D-backs (Wood (0-3), Corbin (4-0)) *Facebook Game

Friday 4 May

No early games.

All of these games are available to watch or listen to live via an MLB.TV subscription, other than the Facebook live game which is exclusive (but free) to Facebook subscribers. TV coverage of MLB in the UK comes courtesy of the BT Sport channels and these are highlighted above, as are any games that are available to view online for free via MLB.com. The above list of games just shows those starting before midnight UK time. The full schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com

 

BGB Fantasy League 2018: Week Three

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Three teams won big in week three of the BaseballGB fantasy league, but which team would benefit from Sean Manaea’s no-hitter?

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Durham Riverkings 32 9 25 5 .302 .873 5 2 60 2 2.82 1.09 12
The Cheddar Chasers 28 4 19 4 .283 .777 3 1 43 0 5.53 1.43 0

 

We begin with the biggest winners of the week as the Riverkings completed a clean sweep against the Chasers. Betts hit four solo homers and scored seven runs while Molina hit .412 for the week. Merrifield hit three homers and knocked in five while Inciarte swiped three bases. On the mound, Snell was the pick of the pitchers, winning twice, striking out 15 and helping to take ERA and WHIP. Kluber also won twice.

 

Boxberger and Chapman had a save each while Edwards Jr collected a pair of holds. Baez scored seven runs, hit three homers and knocked in nine for the Chasers, while Cain crossed home nine times. It was a tough week for the pitchers, but at least Matt had the Manaea no-hitter to enjoy.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Newcastle Knights 40 18 47 3 .320 1.050 4 4 58 1 2.19 1.01 11
Richie’s RBI’s 37 14 37 1 .290 .950 5 2 49 0 3.28 1.08 1

 

The Knights have surged up the standings after defeating the RBIs 11-1. Machado and Ramirez were the stars of an offensive sweep, as Manny batted .500 with five homers and seven runs, while Jose launched four longballs. And if that wasn’t enough offense, Grandal drove in 11 and Trea Turner stole two bases. Cueto struck out 18 without allowing an earned run and posting a miniscule WHIP, while Norris and Morrow had two saves each and Albers notched the matchup’s lone hold. The RBIs put up more than respectable numbers across the board, as five hitters had multi-homer weeks, including three each for Judge and Gregorius. Severino won both of his starts.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Norwich No II 31 7 44 2 .284 .840 4 3 38 1 2.53 0.91 10
Weston-Super-Sox 15 3 20 3 .228 .685 2 2 49 0 3.25 1.22 2

 

Norwich were the third team to hit double digits with a 10-2 win against the Sox. Springer scored ten runs and drove in eight while Lowrie continued his hot hitting with two homers and nine RBIs to go with a .357 average. Four pitchers picked up wins, with Corbin and Samardzija not allowing any earned runs. Hader had two saves and Ottavino the only hold. The Sox, hit by another injury to Andrus, had three steals from Marte and deGrom struck out 22.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Batteries Essential 25 7 23 1 .270 .782 2 4 37 0 2.94 1.10 3
Beckenham A&E Dept 26 8 35 2 .311 .930 3 3 68 1 3.09 1.17 9

 

The A&E Dept continued their unbeaten start to the season with a 9-3 win against Batteries Essential. An offensive sweep saw Correa and Schwarber each score five and knock in seven, with Carlos, who also stole a base, joining Arenado in hitting two homers and hitting well over .500 for the week. The pitching staff, gradually starting to get injured players back, benefited from Manaea’s no-no as he also struck out 10. Bradley had the lone hold. Verlander helped take ERA and WHIP for Batteries Essential, while Davis and Herrera had two saves each. The offense was hurt by SS and an OF spot being left empty all week.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Mighty Slugs 31 6 27 4 .250 .788 2 3 45 1 3.35 1.09 7
The Bath Bombers 28 7 20 3 .250 .777 4 2 43 0 2.91 1.06 4

 

The Slugs defeated the Bombers 7-4 in a very tight matchup. Hoskins knocked in eight runs and joined Villanueva (.462 and a steal) in scoring five runs. Keuchel struck out 12, Robertson had a hold and Doolittle converted two saves. Moustakas and Trout each hit three homers for the Bombers while McCullers Jr won twice and helped make the difference in ERA and WHIP.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Orpington Isotopes 23 4 24 3 .184 .555 5 2 59 1 2.13 0.89 5
Cheshunt Maltsters 26 8 30 1 .304 .877 3 2 53 2 4.22 1.47 6

 

Finally, the Maltsters picked up their first win of the season against the Isotopes. JD Martinez hit .421 for the week, while Devers (two homers) and Haniger (three homers) each batted .360 with seven RBIs. Madson and Miller had a hold each. It was a pretty poor week for the Isotopes offensively, but Puig stole two bases. Colome had two wins and a save and Wood led the staff with 11 strikeouts, teaming with Morton to help take ERA and WHIP.

 

The standings now look like this:

 

Rank Team W-L-T Pct GB Last Week Waiver Moves
1   Norwich No II 27-7-2 .778 – 10-2-0 6 8
2  Beckenham A&E Dept 21-11-4 .639 5 9-3-0 9 6
3   Durham Riverkings 21-13-2 .611 6 12-0-0 2 4
4  Newcastle Knights 17-16-3 .514 9.5 11-1-0 8 12
5   The Bath Bombers 17-17-2 .500 10 4-7-1 11 5
6  Orpington Isotopes 16-17-3 .486 10.5 5-6-1 10 6
7   Weston-Super-Sox 14-19-3 .431 12.5 2-10-0 5 2
8  The Cheddar Chasers 14-19-3 .431 12.5 0-12-0 1 –
9  Mighty Slugs 13-19-4 .417 13 7-4-1 7 10
10   Batteries Essential 14-20-2 .417 13 3-9-0 4 –
11  Cheshunt Maltsters 13-21-2 .389 14 6-5-1 3 2
12  Richie’s RBI’s 12-20-4 .389 14 1-11-0 12 9

Week Four match-ups

Orpington Isotopes (6th) v Durham Riverkings (3rd)

Batteries Essential (10th) v Cheshunt Maltsters (11th)

Beckenham A&E Dept (2nd) v Weston-Super-Sox (7th)

Mighty Slugs (9th) v The Cheddar Chasers (8th)

Newcastle Knights (4th) v The Bath Bombers (5th)

Norwich No II (1st) v Richie’s RBI’s (12th)

MLB This Week: Angels-Astros and more

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The pre-midnight starts this working week look more plentiful than the reality as eight of them begin at gone 10 at night.

However, there’s still a decent batch of live games to watch at a convenient time in the UK.

Not least of which is an AL West clash between the Angels and Astros on Wednesday. That game is being shown live on BT Sport from 19.10, with the Mariners-White Sox game available for free on MLB.com at the same time.

This week’s Facebook game (available for free, but only to Facebook subscribers) is scheduled to be a lively affair, as Ben Lively should take the mound for the Phillies against Arizona on Thursday.  Both New York teams are in early action that day too, with the working week ending with a day-game at Wrigley.

All times are in BST.

Monday 23 April

23:40 Braves at Reds (Foltynewicz (1-1), Romano (0-2))

Tuesday 24 April

22:10 Mariners at White Sox (Gonzales (1-2), Fulmer (0-1))
23:10 Cubs at Indians (Chatwood (0-3), Tomlin (0-2))
23:35 Twins at Yankees (Berrios (2-1), Sabathia (0-0))
23:40 Braves at Reds (McCarthy (3-0), Mahle (1-3))

Wednesday 25 April

19:10 Angels at Astros (Tropeano (1-1), Verlander (3-0)) *BT Sport/ESPN
19:10 Mariners at White Sox (Hernandez (2-2), Shields (1-2)) *MLB.com Free Game
20:10 Padres at Rockies (TBD, Gray (1-4))
20:45 Nationals at Giants (Scherzer (4-1), Samardzija (1-0))
23:35 Twins at Yankees (Lynn (0-1), Gray (1-1))
23:40 Braves at Reds (Wisler (1-0), Finnegan (0-2))

Thursday 26 April

17:35 Braves at Reds (Newcomb (1-1), Bailey (0-3)) *MLB.com Free Game
17:35 Tigers at Pirates (Fulmer (1-2), Nova (2-1))
18:05 D-backs at Phillies (Koch (0-0), Lively (0-1)) *Facebook game
18:05 Twins at Yankees (Gibson (1-1), TBD)
18:15 Mets at Cardinals (Syndergaard (2-0), TBD)
23:10 Mariners at Indians (TBD, TBD) *BT Sport2

Friday 27 April

19:20 Brewers at Cubs (TBD, TBD).

All of these games are available to watch or listen to live via an MLB.TV subscription, other than the Facebook live game which is exclusive (but free) to Facebook subscribers. TV coverage of MLB in the UK comes courtesy of the BT Sport channels and these are highlighted above, as are any games that are available to view online for free via MLB.com. The above list of games just shows those starting before midnight UK time. The full schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: ManaeaMania

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We had seen a few no-hitter attempts early this season, not least a three-day run in the second/third week.

Shohei Ohtani was perfect through 6.1 innings on Sunday 8 April (more on that in a moment), the Royals’ Jake Junis then also took a no-no into the seventh inning on the Monday, before the Blue Jays’ Aaron Sanchez did the same on the Tuesday.

All attempts had ended as just that, an attempt rather than a celebration.

That was until last night and Sean Manaea’s no-hitter against the red-hot Red Sox.

Boston had won the series opener on Friday 7-3 and so this A’s fan wasn’t sure quite what to expect when I looked at MLB At Bat this morning. Manaea has been the lone bright spot in an otherwise faltering starting rotation, so if anyone was going to be able to give the A’s a chance to grab a victory it was going to be him. He more than lived up to that by no-hitting the best offence on the best team in MLB so far this season.

Let’s get this point out of the way: there were a couple of calls that looked to have ended the no-no but were turned around in Manaea’s favour.  Taking away Benintendi’s single due to running outside the baseline seemed fair enough when watching the highlights this morning.  Awarding an error on Marcus Semien rather than a hit in the fifth inning on a pop-up in shallow centre field was more debatable, to the point where Manaea admitted after the game that he assumed it was a hit and got a shock when looking at the scoreboard from the dug-out a couple of innings later.

However, given the way Manaea pitched the only people who could begrudge him that bit of good fortune would be Red Sox fans, and they’ve got plenty of good things coming their way this season to soon forget about it.

Most of the attention in the AL West during April has focused on another starting pitcher.

Shohei Ohtani’s scheduled start against the Royals last Sunday was postponed due to bad weather, moving his next appearance to a Tuesday night showdown against Boston.  Plenty of baseball writers rejoiced at the news, excited to see what Ohtani would do against a strong batting line-up after his two impressive appearances against the A’s.

It didn’t go well for Ohtani, not making his pitches and leaving early with a blister, so that would lend some credence to the point being made by the writers that it was just the A’s who were being carved up by Shohei’s splitter previously. Yet, those comments were more a reaction to simply looking at a win-loss record and failing to go any deeper.  If we look at some of the main MLB Team stat rankings this morning, they show the following:

Batting Average

1. Boston – .282

2. Oakland – .268

On-base

1. Boston – .350

2. Oakland – .346

Slugging

1. Boston – .478

2. NY Yankees – .443

3. Oakland – .442

Home runs

1 LA Angels – 41
…..
Jt4. Oakland – 27

…..
8. Boston – 26.

Going a bit more advanced we can see that Boston lead the way on Fangraphs with a 5.0 team batting WAR.  Who’s right there behind them in second on 4.9?  Yes, those Oakland A’s.

Now there’s a bit of me being a slightly precious A’s fan in all of this, but there’s a genuine point here that once you ignore the lack of big names you’ll find that Oakland not only have a good batting line-up this year but had a good one from the second half of last season onwards, when the likes of Matt Chapman and Matt Olson were called up to the Big League roster. The A’s team batting ranked 7th in the Majors on Fangraphs WAR for the second half of last season after being 27th in the first half.

The big issue the A’s have is with their starting pitching.  Coming into Spring Training they had a group of 8 or 9 guys battling for five spots and Manaea was the only one who you felt much confidence in not simply holding down a spot for a while but actually performing really well whilst doing so.

Depressingly, two of the candidates (Jharel Cotton and top prospect AJ Puk) have recently undergone Tommy John elbow surgery and Paul Blackburn is on the 60-day DL with a forearm strain, so the Opening Day roster rotation was largely determined by who the A’s had healthy, with former A’s Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson being brought in late in Spring Training on free agent deals as relatively inexpensive attempts to patch things up once they got up to speed.

The frustration with this as a fan was in looking at the A’s line-up and what could be a decent bullpen and seeing a potential outside challenge for the second AL Wild Card – a welcome step forward from the last three seasons – dissolving into another long 90-loss campaign.  The early signs were not good with starting pitchers failing to go far in games, the bullpen being overworked as a result and series being lost.

That was except for the starts of Sean Manaea and he’s showed perfectly over the past week how he might lead the way for the rest of the rotation.

Manaea started things off last Sunday by going seven innings in a 2-1 win against the Seattle Mariners, a day after the bullpen had to pick up from starter Kendall Graveman only going four innings. Then the Chicago White Sox came into Oakland for three games and the A’s took the first two on the back of Daniel Mengden going eight innings and Trevor Cahill pitching an excellent seven innings on his season debut.

Game three was a different affair, Andrew Triggs lasting just 1.1 innings and then seven relief pitchers having to cover the next 12.2 innings of a near six hour, 14 inning 12-11 victory. A merciful day off on Thursday led on to Graveman lasting five innings in Game One against Boston on Friday (pitching a bit better than his 6ER line suggested) and the bullpen once again needing to cover four innings of work through necessity rather than some optimal pitching strategy.

All of which brought things back around to Manaea last night.  The A’s needed him and he pitched a no-hitter against the best team in the Majors.

Would I call him an ace? At any given time there’s probably only 10 to 12 true aces in MLB and whilst he helped the A’s get the better of one of them, Chris Sale, last night, it would be fair to say he’s not yet quite in that bracket.

But he is a lot of fun to watch pitch, not least due to his excellent change-up, and if you want to define an ace purely in respect of what he means to his team as the leader of a pitching staff, Manaea looks like he’s stepping up into that role in his third Major League season.

There’s no doubt that Ohtani’s talent and story make him the star young pitcher in the AL West, but hopefully this no-hitter will make a few more people realise that Manaea’s worth watching too.

BGB Fantasy League 2018: Week Two

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With a number of brawls and plenty of bad weather, it may have been tricky for the managers in the BaseballGB Fantasy League to keep their players on the field. Here’s what happened in week two.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Cheshunt Maltsters 27 7 28 3 .268 .766 2 5 55 1 4.10 1.30 2
The Cheddar Chasers 31 12 35 9 .302 .938 3 2 41 1 2.56 0.98 9

 

We begin with the biggest winners of the week, as the Chasers climb the standings with a 9-2 win against the Maltsters. Goldschmidt scored eight runs and joined Baez in belting four homers, with the Cubbie also driving in 10 and stealing a base. Kyle Seager joined Goldy in batting .417 for the week in an offensive sweep. Scherzer and Nola each had a win and helped take ERA and WHIP. Bundy struck out 16 for the Maltsters while Kimbrel had two saves. The Maltsters posted perfectly respectable offensive numbers, but that’s the way H2H goes – sometimes you run into a juggernaut.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Orpington Isotopes 23 4 19 3 .236 .657 3 4 53 1 5.28 1.35 3
Beckenham A&E Dept 26 4 17 4 .199 .645 4 5 59 1 3.08 1.04 7

 

The A&E Dept remain unbeaten with a 7-3 win against the Isotopes. The pitching staff fell a hold shy of a sweep as Carrasco, Porcello, Manaea and Hernandez each picked up wins and helped to take ERA and WHIP. Diaz had three saves. The offense was hit by injuries (Myers on the DL, but with Lamet now expected to be done for the season, there is a way to create a DL spot) and a suspension for Arenado but Hamilton led the team with six runs and three steals. Lindor, who knocked in five, teamed with Upton to take average for the Isotopes, while Devenski had a hold in an otherwise rough week for the roster.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Batteries Essential 19 4 20 1 .306 .918 3 3 60 0 1.76 0.93 7
Weston-Super-Sox 28 7 17 5 .253 .754 2 3 38 0 2.77 0.96 3

 

In a matchup full of good pitching, Batteries Essential defeated the Sox 7-3. Verlander, Sale and Godley each had wins and double-digit strikeouts, with the Houston starter posting great ERA and WHIP stats. Davis had three saves. Benintendi was the offensive star, hitting .429 with seven RBIs. Marte had eight runs, two homers and two steals for the Sox and Familia had three saves. Tough losing a matchup with a sub-1.00 WHIP too.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Newcastle Knights 17 8 22 5 .224 .715 4 6 58 0 4.76 1.39 4
Norwich No II 21 8 19 3 .262 .784 4 4 59 4 4.98 1.02 6

 

Norwich remain top of the standings after a 6-4 win against the Knights. Khris Davis belted four homers to go with his five runs, seven RBIs and .391 average. Anderson helped take WHIP while Hader led the staff with 12 strikeouts and two holds. Pollock knocked in six and stole a base for the Knights, while Martinez helped take ERA and Hand had four saves.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Durham Riverkings 25 6 28 4 .259 .754 3 2 53 1 3.60 1.15 5
The Bath Bombers 40 17 42 2 .294 .934 1 2 46 2 5.09 1.61 6

 

The Bombers edged past the Riverkings 6-5. The offense put on a power-hitting clinic, launching 17 homers with LeMahieu, Mosutakas and Trout all hitting three and joining Albies in scoring six runs. Moose hit .440 and joined Sanchez in driving in seven runs. Parker and Reed had a hold each. Kluber had a win, 13 strikeouts and did not allow an earned run for the Riverkings and Inciarte stole two bases.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Mighty Slugs 25 3 22 2 .255 .726 4 0 40 0 5.25 1.72 5
Richie’s RBI’s 27 8 22 2 .250 .717 3 4 28 0 5.30 1.63 4

 

Finally, the Slugs squeezed past the RBIs 5-4 in an extremely tight matchup. Stanton and Ohtani helped take average and OPS while Richards struck out 11 and helped take ERA and Kela picked up two wins in relief. Judge and Shaw each scored five runs for the RBIs and Taylor launched three homers and knocked in six. Sanchez helped make the difference in WHIP and Middleton, a wise free agent addition, had three saves.

 

Which all means the standings look like this:

 

Rank Team W-L-T Pct GB Last Week Waiver Moves
1  Norwich No II 17-5-2 .750 – 6-4-2 6 8
2  The Cheddar Chasers 14-7-3 .646 2.5 9-2-1 1 –
3  Beckenham A&E Dept 12-8-4 .583 4 7-3-2 9 4
4  The Bath Bombers 13-10-1 .563 4.5 6-5-1 11 3
5  Weston-Super-Sox 12-9-3 .563 4.5 3-7-2 5 2
6  Richie’s RBI’s 11-9-4 .542 5 4-5-3 12 9
7  Batteries Essential 11-11-2 .500 6 7-3-2 4 –
8  Orpington Isotopes 11-11-2 .500 6 3-7-2 10 5
9  Durham Riverkings 9-13-2 .417 8 5-6-1 2 3
10  Mighty Slugs 6-15-3 .313 10.5 5-4-3 7 5
11  Newcastle Knights 6-15-3 .313 10.5 4-6-2 8 8
12  Cheshunt Maltsters 7-16-1 .313 10.5 2-9-1 3 2

 

Week three matchups

Norwich v Sox

Chasers v Riverkings

A&E Dept v Batteries Essential

Bombers v Slugs

RBIs v Knights

Isotopes v Maltsters

MLB This Week: Inclement Weather

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The usual process of looking ahead at the coming week’s MLB schedule and planning which games you might want to catch is being disrupted quite a bit so far this season due to ‘inclement weather’, as MLB loves to call it.

We’ve almost had as many postponements up to this point in 2018 as we had in all of 2017.  The extra rest days that the players wanted, and received, in the new CBA are going to be filled up over the next few months as teams look to catch up on lost games.

Here’s the list of pre-midnight BST starts this working week as things stand at time of writing. Games and starting pitcher assignments are all subject to, potentially quite a bit of, change.

Monday 16 April

16:05 Orioles at Red Sox (Cashner (1-1), Johnson (1-0)) *BT Sport/ESPN
23:35 Marlins at Yankees (Smith (0-1), Cessa (0-0))

Tuesday 17 April

23:35 Marlins at Yankees (Garcia (0-0), Tanaka (2-1))
23:40 Orioles at Tigers (Gausman (1-1), Liriano (1-1))

Wednesday 18 April

17:35 Rockies at Pirates (Freeland (0-2), Kuhl (1-1)) *MLB.com Free Game
18:10 Rangers at Rays (Hamels (1-2), Faria (0-1))
18:40 Reds at Brewers (Mahle (1-2), Davies (0-2))
19:20 Cardinals at Cubs (Weaver (2-0), Hendricks (0-1)) *BT Sport/ESPN
20:35 White Sox at Athletics (TBD, Triggs (1-0))
21:07 Royals at Blue Jays (Kennedy (1-1), Sanchez (1-1)) *Facebook Game
23:40 Orioles at Tigers (TBD, Boyd (0-1))

Thursday 19 April

18:10 Orioles at Tigers (Cobb (0-1), Zimmermann (0-0))
20:40 Astros at Mariners (TBD, Gonzales (1-1)) *BT Sport/ESPN
23:35 Blue Jays at Yankees (Estrada (1-1), Sabathia (0-0))

Friday 20 April

18:10 Royals at Tigers (Hammel (0-1), Fulmer (1-2))

All of these games are available to watch or listen to live via an MLB.TV subscription, other than the Facebook live game which is exclusive (but free) to Facebook subscribers. TV coverage of MLB in the UK comes courtesy of the BT Sport channels and these are highlighted above, as are any games that are available to view online for free via MLB.com. The above list of games just shows those starting before midnight UK time. The full schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Rookie Managers Making It Look Easy

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Alex Cora and Mickey Callaway must have their feet up in their respective manager’s office thinking that this managing malarkey is easy.

Cora’s Red Sox sit astride the Major Leagues with a 12-2 record heading into Sunday’s games, with Callaway’s Mets close behind on 11-2 having had their nine-game winning streak brought to an end by Milwaukee yesterday.

Meanwhile, it turns out the Phillies’ manager Gabe Kapler might not be completely clueless – as some declared after his first three games – as his team have won five games in a row to second behind the Mets on an 8-5 record.

The Nationals’ Dave Martinez (7-8) and Yankees’ Aaron Boone (7-7) are holding steady in the early going too, which just leaves veteran Ron Gardenhire among the new managers for 2018 for whom the start of the season is proving to be a struggle.

Gardenhire has been in the game long enough not to be too envious of those whippersnappers. There are only 30 MLB manager jobs at any one time and even being in charge of a rebuilding Detroit Tigers is a post to be proud of.

However, it is interesting that so many potentially plumb positions ended up in the hands of rookie managers.

Sport teams generally will change a manager when things have gone badly, with the manager holding responsibility for the team’s performance and being the easiest big part to change as opposed to making significant changes to the playing staff.

That often leads to an ‘opposite ends’ approach to the recruitment of managers, especially in football.  If a ‘back-to-basics’ experienced British manager gets the boot then a younger continental manager is just what’s needed.  If relegation looms with said younger continental manager’s brand of ‘tippy-tappy’ football not working in England, well of course you need a ‘back-to-basics’ experienced British manager to shake things up.

It’s not quite the same in baseball as the manager here has a different brief to work towards (accepting manager/head coach roles vary among football clubs too), yet you still see that approach being taken and, to varying degrees, that goes for the six new managers in MLB this year.

The situation in Washington was the most extreme. Ex-manager Dusty Baker has his critics from previous managerial stints, yet it’s difficult to see quite what he did in his two years at the helm with the Nationals to deserve to be pushed aside over the off-season rather than to continue with the team. They won 95 and 97 games in 2016 and 2017 and whilst consecutive 3-2 Division Series exits were bitterly disappointing when expectations of a World Series were so high, in the cold light of day there wasn’t much about those series defeats that you could pin on Baker.

His departure was a classic case of the team wanting to change something to get over the Division Series hump and Baker being the easiest option.  They changed from a 68 year-old with 22 MLB managerial seasons of experience to Dave Martinez, a 53 year-old who is taking on his first MLB managerial job after serving an apprenticeship under Joe Maddon at the Rays and Cubs.

The changes in Boston and New York were more understandable.

The Red Sox won 93 games and the AL East before being knocked out of the play-offs by a formidable Houston Astros team, so it was hardly a disaster on the field last year. However, it never seemed like a happy camp under John Farrell and so bringing his five-year reign to a close and moving on to the dynamic young Alex Cora looked like a shake-up move at somewhere that needed a shake-up.

The same could be said for the Mets, although in their case the 2017 season undoubtedly was a disaster.  Terry Collins had outstayed his welcome so bringing him back for 2018 was never going to work. Mickey Callaway’s glowing reputation from his five years as pitching coach under Terry Francona in Cleveland made him an obvious candidate to take over at a team whose fortunes are so heavily invested in the form and fitness of their starting pitching.

Aaron Boone was a left-field choice for the Yankees, yet fits into the ‘opposite ends’ idea by virtue of his excellent communication skills – shown to all in his work with ESPN – being cited as a crucial factor in his appointment. Joe Girardi had served a decade as the Yankees’ manager and many on the New York beat had started bemoaning his increased willingness to say very little in his managerial briefings long before it was announce he would not be returning for 2018.  It wasn’t simply the New York press wishing for someone more quote-worthy – although I’m sure that makes their lives much easier – but more that their experience was indicative of what they were picking up from players too: that Girardi was failing to inspire his team any more.

Those four situations are all about winning now, which is different to the roles that Gabe Kapler and Ron Gardenhire are taking on. In Philadelphia, they are firmly on the way up with a young team and so switched the 66 year-old Pete Mackanin for 42 year-old rookie manager Kapler.  In Detroit, they are at the start of a rebuild and decided that the experienced head of Gardenhire was what was needed at this point to move on from first-time manager Brad Ausmus, whose four-year tenure produced mixed results.

These are early days in the 2018 season and none of us can be certain how the six managerial appointments will pan out over the next few years, but it is likely we can take a good guess at the type of manager they will be replaced by when that time comes.

That is, someone the opposite of who they are replacing.

The Sunday Smasher

The Bangles sang that “It’s just another manic Monday”.

In MLB the song goes: “It’s just another Shohei Sunday”.

The Angels’ Japanese star is back on the mound today and after he went six perfect innings against the A’s last time out, he now gets to face the Kansas City Royals who have the worst record in MLB so far this season.

In other words, this has ‘potential no-hitter’ written all over it.  Or it will produce a big shock of the Royals being the line-up to knock Ohtani out of his stride. Either way, it will be worth watching.

First pitch from Kauffman Stadium is at 19.15 BST and the game is available to watch on MLB.TV.