The Kangaroos’ Javier Baez made the news for essentially booing his Mets fans because they had been booing the Mets for their poor play this month.
We’ll never have a controversy like that in the EFL. For one thing, we don’t have very many fans. For another, our players have no way (and no will) to communicate.
But we owners do sometimes get exasperated at our team and/or its individual players. I confess to occasional Bronx cheers when my team manages to screw up.
I’ve heard Phil say we create opportunities for God to intervene in our affairs when we pray. We change the scene, we express our own consent to God’s exercise of power over our lives. And prayer changes the pray-er, making us potentially more useful as God’s agents in the world.
When I boo my players, am I not praying? Am I not inviting Divine retribution against their fantasy selves? Is there any way for God to retribute against my fantasy player without retributing against the real person he stands in for?
Perhaps there ought to be a rule against booing our own players.
…
While we are in the spirit of reform, let’s see what other reforms we can wish for.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 91 | 40 | .695 | — | 754.0 | 498.9 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 85 | 46 | .647 | 6.3 | 689.2 | 507.5 |
| D.C. Balk | 83 | 47 | .636 | 8 | 741.5 | 561.7 |
| Peshastin Pears | 81 | 50 | .617 | 10.3 | 655.1 | 520.9 |
| Kaline Drive | 80 | 51 | .612 | 11 | 701.7 | 558.7 |
| Cottage Cheese | 75 | 57 | .566 | 17 | 746.8 | 671.4 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 72 | 58 | .553 | 18.7 | 675.5 | 618.3 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 72 | 60 | .545 | 19.7 | 670.3 | 611.3 |
| Haviland Dragons | 71 | 60 | .543 | 20 | 671.2 | 638.7 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 69 | 63 | .521 | 22.8 | 566.6 | 543.8 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 61 | 70 | .465 | 30.1 | 691.6 | 746.0 |
Old Detroit: W, 5 – 3. (46 PA, .250, .348, .350; 4.7 ip, 1 er, 1.91 ERA.) Will Smith homered and singled to lead the offense, staking out his spot at 16th in the fWAR leader board with 4.4 fWAR this season. That puts him in fourth place among Wolverine hitters, who are currently ld . Chris Paddock came off the MLB IL to help the W’s fight against replacement pitchers, Paddock almost did the job perfectly, falling 2/3 of an inning short of keeping his team replacement pitcher free, and one wild pitch from a reliever from allowing 0 earned runs.
Here’s a reform MLB needs to make: don’t charge a pitcher for an earned run when another pitcher allows his runner to score on a wild pitch. A pitcher’s own wild pitch should be held against him, but a different pitcher’s wild pitch is exactly the same as a fielder’s error. The runner advances through no merit of his own, and no fault of the pitcher charged with the run.
Flint Hill: “W”, 3 – 4. (42 PA, .175, .214, .375; 12 ip, 6 er, 4.50 ERA). German Marquez and Julio Urias split those 12 innings evenly, but Urias allowed only 1/3 of their opponents’ earned runs. All those innings erased 2.3 replacement innings and left the T’s with a 2.7 ip cushion against replacements going into the final day of the month. It could have been enough for a win, but the offense stalled. Even homers from Mookie Betts and Paul Goldschmidt couldn’t life the team to victory.
But the loss might be Flinty management’s fault. It became evident yesterday evening the Tornados were spending the day hounding other EFL owners for favorable trades. Here’s a reform the Tornados should make: at crucial junctures in pennant races, they should focus on wringing the best out of their current players, rather than wringing other teams’ best players out of them.
DC: “W”, 4 – 7. (16 PA, .188 ,188, .375; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Bryce Harper is quietly having a great season — or was. I’ve seen three stories in the last few days about Harper’s season. How much coverage can you get and still fly under the radar? Anyway, Harper blasted a Smith-like homer and single yesterday to squeeze into 3rd place on the season fWAR list for hitters, his 5.1 fWAR wedged between Marcus Semien’s 5.3 and Trea Turner’s 5.1. So it’s still a great season, just not so quiet any more.
But one player cannot carry a baseball team. The rest of the Balkan offense went 1 for 11 with no walks. And only one relief pitcher showed up. His single spotless inning left DC buried under a pile of 42 replacement innings, and 8 games out of first place.
Peshastin: W, 6 – 3. (30 PA, .240, .367, .440; 5.7 ip, 1 er, 1.58 ERA). You think Jerry Dipoto took flak from his own players for trading Kendall Graveman away in the midst of a pennant race? Then I wonder what the mood is on the Pears: on the day they net a nice win, and gain 0.1 games in the standings, the team’s management trades away two key players (Alex Wood and Mitch Haniger) for Anthony Rendon.
Rendon ranks 34th in fWAR…among third basemen. His 0.7 puts him at 222nd for all hitters. Also, he’s injured and will be out for the rest of the season.
Now I realize the future value Rendon offers. And that the Pears will be siphoning money out of the Flinty account next year. And that Alex Wood just went on the IL himself (for COVID), and is a free agent after the season, as is Haniger, whose 1.9 fWAR leaves him in 111th place on the Fangraphs leaderboard, tucked in among Tommy Edman (108th at 1.9), Ryan McMahon (109th) and JP Crawford (113th at 1.8). But it’s so cruel, sending Haniger away from the Pacific Northwest into the bleak Flint Hill Kansas uplands. And Wood, too. There oughta be a law against that.
Kaline: L, 6 – 7. (37 PA, .294, .351, .353; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). There oughta be a law against updates that peter out as you go down the standings. But there isn’t, not exactly, and I have a busy day today, what with ginning up a draft list and my GF duties and all. So — almost no one came to pitch, so even though the Drive hit pretty well, they only got two extra bases, and didn’t get a win.
Cottage: L, 3 – 3. (32 PA, .194, .219, .323; 11 ip, 8 er, 6.55 ERA). I think there already is a law requiring daily coverage of Shohei Ohtani, so we can’t ask for that reform. But did you notice we haven’t mentioned yet Ohtani’s place among MLB’s greatest hitters this year? Well, he’s 10th, with 4.8 fWAR.
Of course he also has 2.4 fWAR as a pitcher, good for 43rd place among pitchers, along with a spiffy 3.00 ERA. That means his total fWAR leads the majors at 7.2. I think a daily update of Ohtani’s fWAR score would be a worthy reform.
Canberra: W, 6 – 2. (34 PA, .281, .294, .594; 11.7 ip, 5 er, 3.85 ERA). Finally! Some real slugging! This is mostly thanks to Vlad G. Jr’s two homers, but Carter Kieboom had the other.
Speaking of which: don’t you think baseball players, like any other businesspeople) should be covered by truth in advertising laws? A guy named KieBOOM should go BOOM! more often than 5 times a year. It should be a regular occurence, like Ohtani goes. Carter K is still young — he turns 24 on Friday — but if he isn’t slugging at least .500 by his 25th birthday, he ought to be forced to change his name to something less misleading, like KiePlop, or KieSplat, or maybe KiePoke if he’s hitting enough singles.
Pittsburgh: DNP, 1 – 0. (18 PA, .235, .278, .588; no pitching) Two slugging teams in a row! Max Muncy and Bobby Dalbec did the honors yesterday for the Alleghenys. When they weren’t at the plate, the rest of the team hit 1 for 10 for a .100, .100, .100 batting line. It was a day off, so we can’t be too hard on them. In fact there ought to be a rule against berating people for not working on their day off. I’ll try to do better. Especially since this nearly inert team actually passed the Dragons yesterday.
Haviland: L, 1 – 7. (25 PA, .091, .200, .227; 1 ip, 0 er , 0 ERA). Brandon Lowe got two hits, one a homer, plus he walked twice. The other five Dragon hitters went 0 for 19, with a lone Kyle Schwarber walk being their only contribution to their team’s cause.
Joe Barlow was the only pitcher for Haviland, and he only managed 1 inning, albeit a perfect one.
At present we have no way to hold our players accountable for not trying hard enough. They can’t even hear us when we boo them. There oughta be an accountability mechanism in our rules for use against slacking players.. Or maybe to reward the Lowes and Barlows who go beyond what their duty requires. I just can’t think of how to do it.
Bellingham: DNP, 2 – 0. (17 PA, .294, .294, .588; 1 ip, 0 er, 0 ERA). Our third truly slugging team of the day! And our fourth with only 1 shutout inning of pitching. Note how the Cascades’ slugging percentage is exactly twice its batting average. They had 5 hits and 5 extra bases, four of them thanks to Kyle Farmer’s home run and double. They also had 4 strikeouts, one each by every player in the lineup. It’s practically the synchronized swimming of baseball.
Our league oughta give bonus points for style.
Portland: W, 7 – 6. (35 PA, .267, .343, .567; 2.3 ip, 2 er, 7.83 ERA). We finish with our fourth team slugging over .500. Four out of the bottom five. With an average record almost identical to Bellingham’s 10th place record.
Who knew that slugging percentage was inversely related to winning!? Did the Chief Rosebud curse Nick Solak and Corey Seager for blasting home runs yesterday? Did he say “what do you think you’re doing? We’ll never get out of the cellar that way?” This vision of slugging percentage as a bane is so confusing. There oughta be a rule against all the slugging percentage going to teams in the bottom half of the league.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 91 | 40 | .695 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 85 | 46 | .647 | 6.3 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 83 | 48 | .634 | 8.1 |
| New York Yankees | 76 | 55 | .580 | 15.1 |
| Boston Red Sox | 75 | 58 | .564 | 17.1 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 68 | 61 | .527 | 22.1 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 40 | 90 | .308 | 50.6 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 83 | 47 | .636 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 72 | 58 | .553 | 10.7 |
| Atlanta Braves | 70 | 60 | .538 | 12.6 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 67 | 64 | .511 | 16.1 |
| New York Mets | 63 | 67 | .485 | 19.6 |
| Washington Nationals | 55 | 75 | .423 | 27.6 |
| Miami Marlins | 55 | 76 | .420 | 28.1 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 76 | 56 | .576 | — |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 72 | 60 | .545 | 4.1 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 69 | 63 | .521 | 7.2 |
| Cleveland Indians | 64 | 64 | .500 | 10 |
| Detroit Tigers | 62 | 70 | .470 | 14 |
| Kansas City Royals | 59 | 71 | .454 | 16 |
| Minnesota Twins | 58 | 73 | .443 | 17.5 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 80 | 52 | .606 | — |
| Cottage Cheese | 75 | 57 | .566 | 5.4 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 71 | 62 | .534 | 9.5 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 67 | 63 | .515 | 12 |
| Chicago Cubs | 57 | 75 | .432 | 23 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 48 | 83 | .366 | 31.5 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 80 | 51 | .612 | — |
| Houston Astros | 78 | 53 | .595 | 2.1 |
| Oakland A’s | 72 | 59 | .550 | 8.1 |
| Haviland Dragons | 71 | 60 | .543 | 9 |
| Seattle Mariners | 70 | 62 | .530 | 10.6 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 65 | 67 | .492 | 15.6 |
| Texas Rangers | 46 | 85 | .351 | 34.1 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| San Francisco Giants | 84 | 47 | .641 | — |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 83 | 49 | .629 | 1.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 81 | 50 | .617 | 3.2 |
| San Diego Padres | 70 | 62 | .530 | 14.5 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 61 | 70 | .465 | 23 |
| Colorado Rockies | 60 | 71 | .458 | 24 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 44 | 89 | .331 | 41 |