I’ve written in the past about the few common elements that
for seemingly mostly coincidental reasons are shared by many of our league’s
champions. Rather than delve into these elements, here is a quick recap.
For whatever reasons, league champions tend to:
·
Include at least two first-year players (5 out
of the last 6 winners)
·
Include no players from the previous year’s
championship teams. (Darren Freeman was the last player to play for two
consecutive champions. This was back in 2009 and 2010.)
·
Come from a top 8 runs scored team. (Since this
data was part of the “standings” page, all 6 champions were in the top 8 for
runs scored that year. As far as top defenses, only half the champions this
decade were in the top 8 for Runs Against)
The most recent trend concerns the rebound performances by
captains who were knocked out early in the previous year’s playoffs. Since
2013, every captain who made the finals was knocked out in the first round the
previous year. This obviously excludes Marrone in 2013 since it was his
first year being a captain.
Here’s a list of the captains knocked out in the first round
2015, now primed for a run at the finals:
Goldfarb, Younger, Randell,
Applebaum, Lapine, Jacoby, Marrone , Pollock
Just like the previous
indicators, this should be chalked up to coincidence. I don’t buy into any
theory that a captain is anymore hungrier the year after an early exit. Still,
it’s fun to look at what teams are primed for a championship based on these
trends.
Here are the teams who fit the
criteria for each of the championship trends listed above:
Two Rookies: Pollock, Lapine, Applebaum, Sarcona, Goldfarb, Beilis,
Jacoby, Granese, Marrone, Randell
No Repeat Champions: Pollock, Lapine, Sarcona, Younger, Beilis,
Paladino, Wallman, Jacoby, Bykofsky, Feldman, Randell
Top 8 in Runs Scored: Bykofsky, Jacoby, Applebaum, Goldfarb,
Wallman, Randell, Pollock, Marrone
Here is how many of the four
trends each team has going for them going into this year’s playoffs:
Lapine- 3
Jacoby -4
Goldfarb- 3
Harris- 0
Wallman- 2
Randell- 4
Marrone- 3
Feldman- 1
Sarcona- 2
Pollock- 4
Granese- 1
Applebaum- 3
Younger- 2
Bykofsky- 2
Paladino- 1
Beilis- 2
Once again, this is a purely fun
way of predicting who will win the championship based on recent trends. In
fact, “Top 8 in Runs Scored” is the only category here that is based on
performance. Logically, a team’s chances
of winning should not diminish if one of its members played for last year’s
champions. Nonetheless, here are the only teams who fit all four criteria.
Jacoby
Randell
Pollock
