Wednesday Night Preview

Carlin vs. Schefkind:
Projected Winner: Carlin

I do not want to play Schefkind in the first round. They're a 7-12 team that A) has lost six games this year by two or fewer runs and B) have missed key guys in multiple games, especially down the stretch. Tonight is no different which will hurt them against one of the best teams in the league. Team Carlin is locked in as an opening round 2nd seed so this will most likely be a first round preview. Throw out a 17 run loss to Team Pollock in Week 3 and here are the amount of runs Carlin has lost by this season: 1, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 2.



Randell vs. Wallman:
Projected Winner: Randell

Fact Of The Day: Randell has given up 10 or more runs in every game except for ONE. I usually don't type anything in all caps, but that's amazing. To put it in perspective the next team on the list of most games giving up 10+ runs a game is Team Lapine who has held opponents to less than 10 runs a game in six games.

Fact Of The Day Part II and III: Randell has the longest current streak of scoring 10+ runs at games with 5 in a row coming into tonight. On the other hand, Wallman has cracked double digit runs only one time in their last seven games. They're the only team that can say this.


Bottom Line: Any game with Randell should result in at least 20 runs and playing on the highest scoring field in the league should yield even more. Randell has put together a strong second half performance and amazingly has a chance to get out of the 8th spot by the end of the season. I think that quest will be kept alive with a win tonight.

Power Rankings

I'm going to do two power rankings every week. The "official" rankings will be based on the formula I started using last week. The other will be based on my own judgment that I've been using for most of the season. The problem with a formula based ranking is that it does not take into account special game situations like key players missing games. Certain teams will be missing important players for the rest of the season, so their formula based rankings will take a beating. However, I can take that into consideration when doing my own list.

Like I mentioned last week, there's a chance the formula could be improved with some tweaking but for the most part I think it's a good indication of where teams are in relation to each other. I'm also going to list the total score for each team. Based on the point values, the highest a team could score is 160, the lowest is 10. If two teams are tied, the team with the overall best record will get the tie breaker. Here's a quick reminder how the system works:

I ranked each team in four categories. Each category carries a percentage of the overall score based on its importance:

Overall Record -35%
Overall Run Differential-35%
Second Half Record-15%
Second Half Run Differential-15%

I think second half performance is very important, but I also kept it mind that the last 11 games of the season are also factored into the "Overall" categories as well. For example, at the end of the season a team's second half record will really account for 22.5% of the formula (15% for "Second Half Record" and half of the 35% for Overall Record). I think this is a good balance to use. For each category the top team received 160 points, second best received 150 points, third received 140 points, etc. Multiply the points earned in that category by the percentage of the category and that's how many points a team earned for that part of the formula.

Even though the only games we had since the last power rankings were this past Wednesday Night, there still was movement on the list. I wonder how much the results are going to change after all the doubleheaders this week. It should be an exciting Softball Sunday!

Power Rankings Based on Formula:

1. Pollock (1) 150
2. Sarcona (3) 130.25
3. Younger (4) 129
4. Peragine (5) 126.5
5. Goldfarb (2) 123.5
6. Carlin (6) 110.5
7. Beilis (7) 108
8. Granese (8) 88.75
9. Schefkind (9) 79.5
10. Spiegel (10) 65.5
11. Harris (11) 65.5
12. Wallman (13) 56.75
13. Lapine (12) 48
14. Randell (14) 31.5
15. Feldman (15) 28.75
16. Applebaum(16) 18



And here are my own personal rankings:

1. Pollock
2. Younger
3. Goldfarb
4. Sarcona
5. Peragine
6. Carlin
7. Granese
8. Beilis
9. Spiegel
10. Harris
11. Schefkind
12. Wallman
13. Lapine
14. Randell
15. Feldman
16. Applebaum

Wednesday Night Predictions

I know if this were a job, I'd be fired for missing my deadline. But for the sake of posterity, here are my (abridged) Wednesday Night Predictions.

Lapine vs. Applebaum:
Winner: Lapine

It's been a long season for Team Applebaum, but the good news is if they start getting hot now then who knows what will happen in the playoffs! Lapine is coming off an excruciatingly tough loss and should be able to put it behind them with a win tonight.

Peragine vs. Goldfarb:
Winner: Peragine

Normally I'd be going with the team I still think is among the best three this season, but rumor is they are missing their Cy Young pitcher tonight. That is enough to tilt the balance in Peragine's favor who is still barely hanging on to the hopes of a division title.

Power Rankings

I made a little change when working on this week's power rankings. Instead of glancing at record, recent performance, I set up an easy formula to eliminate as much subjective thought as possible. Of course it's tough to eliminate it completely since I'm the one determining what to put in the formula. I ranked teams in different categories as if this were a rotisserie fantasy baseball league and assigned percentages for each category. The breakdown is:

Overall Record- 35%
Overall Run Differential- 35%
Second Half Record- 15%
Second Half Run Differential- 15%

I think this is a system that could be tinkered with forever. It's always debatable what kind of categories to include and what weight should be given to each. I wanted something that gives emphasis to how a team has played recently but does not ignore the whole season. If I put a ton of value on recent play then the rankings would fluctuate too much. The main goal was to come up with a formula where the end results pretty much align with what should be expected but also provide some insight that would have been missed if this power ranking was conducted just by glancing at the records. Another goal was to defeat the boredom of having nothing to do at my part-time job. I feel this was a huge success on both counts. I mentioned it in my previous post, but by far the change that stands out the most is how much Team Schefkind moved up. It has become clear that their 2-9 start was a product of bad luck. The system isn't perfect but I'm going to try using it for the remainder of the regular season. I also have some additional formulas in mind for a special playoffs preview at the end of the season. But until then, here are the latest rankings:

1. Pollock(1)
2. Goldfarb(2)
3. Sarcona(3)
4. Younger(4)
5. Peragine(6)
6. Carlin(5)
7. Beilis(9)
8. Granese(7)
9. Schefkind(15)
10. Spiegel(8)
11. Harris(12)
12. Lapine(11)
13. Wallman(10)
14. Randell(14)
15. Feldman(13)
16. Applebaum(16)

Wednesday Night Preview

Schefkind vs. Spiegel
Predicted Winner: Schefkind

After looking at the season statistics I realize Team Schefkind is perhaps the biggest sleeper in the league. Over the second half of the season they're 4-2 and have the best run differential in the league (+27). Although they were 2-9 in the first half they only gave up 13 more runs than they scored. Sure that's not a great number, but it's a figure that deserves more than a 2-9 record. When a situation like this happens there are always two ways of looking at it. The first way is that the team just isn't clutch enough so they stay close in games but are missing that extra ingredient to win games. The second way of looking at it is that they're a team that's had some bad luck and eventually they're going to start winning these close games. Team Schefkind is finally winning the games to go along with their good run differentials. I can imagine them finishing the season strong, ending the season at 10-12 and getting the 5th seed in the AL.

Meanwhile, Spiegel's team has been a tale of two halves. The best of times was the first half where they were 8-3 with a +35 run differential. The worst of times is the second half where they are 2-5 with a -24 run differential. After winning their last games perhaps they are back on track. I just think it's going to be a case of bad timing as they are facing one of the hottest teams in the league.


Granese vs. Feldman
Predicted Winner: Granese

It says a lot about the NL that a team with a 9-9 record is only a half game ahead of the 7th spot in the standings. Granese's record hides the fact that they are definitely an above average team. Like Team Schefkind in the first half, Granese has been at the losing end of several close games. Team Feldman comes in this game struggling a little bit with only one win in their last five games(although one of those loses was a 12-inning heartbreaker to Team Pollock). Feldman's greatest asset is their defense. In their 10 losses they've given up an average of 13 runs. In their 7 wins, they've given up an average of just over 4 runs per games. That's a remarkable difference. Unfortunately, Union Hill Right is not exactly known as a defensive field.

Power Rankings

Mini version of the power rankings this week. The most interesting thing happening in the AL is the surging Team Randell. Up until recently it seemed a forgone conclusion that they'd have to play the #1 seed in the playoffs but their three game winning streak has brought them back to civilization and only one spot away from the 7th seed. While Team Pollock has a pretty comfortable hold on the top spot in the AL, things are a lot more interesting at the top of the NL. Goldfarb, Younger, and Sarcona are separated by only one game for the honor of playing Team Applebaum in the first round of the playoffs. Seeing that every other team in the NL can pose a great threat, grabbing that #1 seed is big deal.

1. Pollock(1)
2. Goldfarb(2)
3. Sarcona(3)
4. Younger(4)
5. Carlin(7)
6. Peragine(5)
7. Granese(8)
8. Spiegel(6)
9. Beilis(12)
10. Wallman(13)
11. Lapine(9)
12. Harris(10)
13. Feldman(11)
14. Randell(16)
15. Schefkind(14)
16. Applebaum(15)