2020 Playoffs Diary: Scouting Akron, Part One

For the second year in a row, we'll be facing the Akron Ryche in the OL Division Series. Although we defeated them in five games last year, a close look at each one of those games reveals that the series was much closer than it appears on the surface. Needless to say about any team that makes it this far in the season, Akron has a very good team. Which means the margin for error in this series (and every series from here until the end) is razor-thin. This is why we scout ahead.

Akron won 97 games this year, and scored more runs than any other team in the league except the ridiculous Los Altos Undertakers. The Akron lineup includes three major weapons: Ronald Acuna (.295/.387/.587, 49 HR, 151.4 RC), Josh Bell (.292/.364/.578, 41 HR, 125 RC), and Starling Marte (.323/.373/.602, 34 HR, 34 HR, 111.4 RC). To the extent that any of the three has a weakness, Bell struggles a bit against lefties (.243/.319/.536). Otherwise, there is no strategy on the planet that will contain them.

The rest of the Akron roster, for the most part, consists of part-time players with monster splits. David Dahl is a lefty who crushes (.346/.415/.543) lefties. Jesse Winker is a non-factor against lefties (although he did very well in a very small sample), but crushes righties to the tune of .296/.398/.573. Akron has no fewer than NINE players who posted an 800+ OPS against righties this year. Against southpaws, "only" six batters reached that level (in a significant sample.)

We had the best pitching staff in the entire BDBL this year, by several different measurements. This will be an immovable object vs. unstoppable force type of matchup.

On the pitching side, Akron's starters shouldn't provide too many reasons to worry. Patrick Corbin (4.25 ERA in 101+ innings for Akron) was hot and cold after his trade to Akron. He tossed six innings of shutout baseball against us the first time we faced him. Then we lit him up for six runs in five innings in his only other start. Mike Clevinger (4.21 ERA in 134+ IP) and Brandon Woodruff (3.92 ERA in 131 IP) will presumably be the #2 and #3 starters, in either order.

Inning for inning, someone named Jacob Waguespack ended up with the best ERA (3.57) on the Akron team, but he's limited to just six innings in the series. Likewise, Luke Weaver (3.57 ERA) is limited to just five.

The strength of the Akron pitching staff is their bullpen. Scott Oberg (0.31 ERA in 29 IP) was just absolutely insane this year. Will Smith (3.25 ERA in 69+ IP) is also tough, as is Andres Munoz (1.44 ERA in 25 IP). Josh Hader (4.48 ERA in 82+ IP) was supposed to be one of the best relievers in the game, but he badly stumbled this year -- especially in the longballs department. He and Smith are both left-handed, which is something to keep in mind as we make out our roster.

We barely managed to win our season series against Akron, 7-5. Anibal Sanchez was responsible for three of those losses, and he won't be making the trip to the postseason this year. Our tentative rotation will be:

Game 1: Sonny Gray
Game 2: Max Scherzer
Game 3: Stephen Strasburg
Game 4: Jon Gray
Game 5: Sonny Gray
Game 6: Max Scherzer
Game 7: Stephen Strasburg

By the time the series begins, I will likely change my mind and fliip-flop Scherzer and Strasburg. If one of them will have two starts at home, I'd rather it be Scherzer. But looking at their home/road splits, it looks like a wash. I will need to look further into this in Part Two.

Our roster decisions beyond those four starters will likely be fairly easy:

RP: Wendelken
RP: Wick
RP: Cordero
RP: Bummer

Those four are givens. Sean Manaea is our next-best pitcher, but he's only eligible to throw 2 1/3 innings. Still, we may bring him along for no other reason than to pitch to Bell. Sam Dyson deserves a spot in the bullpen. Taylor Rogers was such a disaster, but he is another left-handed option. Felix Pena would be gold against all of Akron's righties. No one else deserves consideration. So, at least two of those spots will go to:

RP: Dyson
RP: Pena

That leaves 15 more for the offense. These guys are no-brainers:

C: Murphy
C: Holaday (only because it's required)
1B: Walker
2B: Ramirez
3B: Devers
SS: Turner
OF: Laureano
OF: Ohtani
OF: Gardner
OF: Senzel
OF: Maybin

That's eleven. Benintendi is usually our starting LF against lefties, but Corbin is SO tough against lefties, it isn't worth giving him a spot in the lineup. Then again, Hader gave up an insane home run rate against lefties, and Akron's home park rewards lefty homers, so it seems logical to keep a spot for Benny.

Aledmys Diaz is useful to have around for his versatility. And Carlos Puello, although severely limited in usage, carries a great bat against lefties, an Ex glove, and he's a decent bunter and runner. Other than the ones I just mentioned, no one else deserves a spot on this roster. So, that's:

OF: Benintendi
OF: Puello
UT: Diaz

That gives us 24 players, total. One more spot to fill. Should it be the ever-shitty Anibal Sanchez, just in case we need someone to pitch in a blowout? Maybe Jake Rogers to pinch hit against Smith or Hader in the late innings? Maybe Taylor Rogers, on the off chance that he might not give up two or three homers every inning he pitches?

Hmm...

2020 Salem Season in Review

It's all over but the crying, as they say. After 20 years of November tears of sadness, we cried tears of joy in 2019. Incredibly, we now stand in line to defend our title with another postseason appearance. My annual Playoffs Diaries are to come, but for now, let's look back at the regular season, which just recently concluded for us.

The Good

Rafael Devers (.318/.369/.583) had a hot-and-cold season (see below), but he led the Salem offense in runs created (145.3), homers (40), runs scored (127), and RBI's (118).

Trea Turner (.301/.351/.488) enjoyed a phenomenal season. He had a whopping SEVENTY extra-base hits, including 17 homers and a team-leading 50 doubles. He also led the team with 31 stolen bases, but was caught an unusually high (15) number of times.

Sonny Gray (20-7, 3.06 ERA in 191+ IP) was outstanding from beginning to end. A true ace, and possibly a Cy Young. (See below.)

Rowan Wick (0.50 ERA in 35+ IP), J.B. Wendelken (1.83 ERA in 34+ IP), and Aaron Bummer (2.01 ERA in 44+ IP) were the Holy Trinity of relief pitching in 2020. Together, they combined to go 14-3 with 27 saves. Throw Jimmy Cordero (2.75 ERA in 39+ IP) into that mix, and we have a pretty decent bullpen for the postseason.

Max Scherzer (15-9, 3.57 ERA in 189 IP, 255 K) and Stephen Strasburg (16-8, 3.85 ERA, 285 K) managed to be both highly-effective and highly-disappointing at the same time. Given the nightmare that Washington's ballpark was in MLB '19, we really thought both pitchers would enjoy pitching in Salem this year. They were good...but not great.

Jose Ramirez (.277/.343/.550) began the MLB 2019 season in a massive slump. Then, just as he began to come out of it, he injured himself for the remainder of the season. Frankly, we didn't expect much from him this year, but he surprised the hell out of us. He ranked second on the team in runs created (106.3), behind only Devers. He was one of three Cowtippers to hit 40+ doubles, and was one of three to hit 30+ home runs. He also swiped 27 bases in 30 attempts.

We assumed that Christian Walker (.265/.340/.479) would suffer a bit from Salem's ballpark factors, but he also surprised us. He was one of only three Salem batters to create 100+ runs (103.8), and he just missed becoming the fourth Salem hitter with 30+ homers (with 29). He also played Ex defense at first base, which was huge for us, with Ramirez playing out of position all year.

Ramon Laureano (.272/.321/.545) joined the 30-30 club with 34 doubles and 33 homers. He also stole 18 bases in 21 attempts and gunned down 10 runners with his cannon arm in the outfield.

Jon Gray (9-6, 3.51 ERA in 164+ IP) was a pleasant surprise. He was so good at one point that he won the Pitcher of the Chapter award and earned a spot on the OL all-star roster.

Cameron Maybin (.358/.436/.614 overall) absolutely crushed right-handers all year, and Tom Murphy (.321/.375/.664) and Nick Senzel (.293/.346/.479) were lefty-killers. Shohei Ohtani (.282/.334/.514) also performed well, despite playing out of position all year. He committed nine errors in the outfield, good for an .899 fielding percentage.

Sam Dyson (3.74 ERA in 65 IP) was a true workhorse for us in the bullpen, and was called upon in many tough situations. More often than not, he rose to the challenge.

The Bad

It's hard to believe Andrew Benintendi (.245/.332/.388) finished strongly enough to be categorized as merely "bad." For most of the season, he was absolutely useless. He was so useless that we were forced to trade for Brett Gardner. Which reminds me...

Brett Gardner (.236/.314/.500) hit 15 homers in his short time (250 AB) with Salem, but was otherwise mostly useless. He did come through with some clutch hits, though, and was mostly an improvement over Benintendi against righties.

Taylor Rogers (4.46 ERA in 74+ IP) was mostly a disaster, to the point where he was being used only in mopup situations toward the end of the year. The problem was the longball. Thirteen of them, to be precise, in only 74 innings.

The Ugly

Alex Avila (.181/.324/.351) more than likely played himself off the postseason roster. He was supposed to be our full-time catcher against righties, but he was mostly useless (.200/.340/.387) against them all season.

Anibal Sanchez (11-6, 4.68 ERA in 180+ IP) may not belong in the "Ugly" category based on his final numbers, but the fact that he had so many ugly starts this year places him in this category. He simply can't be trusted in the playoffs, so he will be watching from the sidelines. (Something perhaps we should have done last year.)

Mark Melancon (6.15 ERA in 33+ IP) and -- especially -- Trevor May (6.15 ERA in 60 IP) belong in a category all to themselves. I have nothing nice to say about either one, so I'll just leave it at that.

Back in January, just before our season began, I posted a dozen hopes for the 2020 season. Let's see how we did:

Hope #1: We win back-to-back McGowan Division titles.

Mission accomplished. It took eleven years for us to win our ninth division title. My #1 hope heading into this season was that it wouldn't take eleven more to win our tenth. Of course, with every other team in our division deciding to rebuild in 2020, we basically won the McGowan Division by default. Still, it was nice to reach 100 wins for the ninth time in franchise history. 

Hope #2: Back-to-back BDBL championships.

TBD, obviously. Last year, we faced the same exact path to the World Series as this year: Division Series against Akron, with the #1-seeded Undertakers looming on the horizon. We lucked out, big-time, last year when Los Altos was upset in the OLDS by Joplin. Had that not happened, it is highly likely a 2019 banner would not be flying in Sam Adams Stadium today. We may not get so lucky this year.

Hope #3: A Cy Young award for one of our three aces.

We managed to win 103 games this year despite the fact that our aces didn't pitch like the aces we thought they would be. Of the three, Sonny Gray (20-7, 3.06 ERA in 191+ IP) has a good chance of winning that Cy Young award. That would make him the first Salem Cy Young winner since Erik Bedard won back-to-back honors in 2007 and 2008. Greg Maddux -- in our first-ever BDBL season -- was the only other Cowtipper to win the award.

Hope #4: Three 20-game winners.

This did not come close to happening. In fact, had it not been for a relief appearance by Sonny Gray in our penultimate series of the season, we would not have a single 20-game winner. Max Scherzer (15-9, 3.57 ERA in 189 IP) was practically a disappointment, given the $15.5 million we paid for him. Stephen Strasburg (16-8, 3.85 ERA in 229 IP) had his moments, but ultimately he was similarly as disappointing as any 16-game winner can be. In the end, our "three-headed ace" turned out to be one.

Hope #5: An MVP award for Rafael Devers.

Devers began the season on absolute FIRE. He hit .431/.488/.798 in Chapter One, and .361/.394/.722 in Chapter Three. Heading into the All-Star break, the OL MVP award seemed like a given. Then he got ICE cold. He hit just .272/.290/.437 in Chapter Four, and just .271/.328/.421 in Chapter Five, before bouncing back (somewhat) in Chapter Six: .278/.349/.591. He finished the season with a .318/.369/.583 batting line, 42 doubles, 40 homers, 127 runs scored, 118 RBI's, and 145.3 runs created. He ranks #5 in the OL in batting average, #5 in slugging, #5 in RBI's, and #3 in runs created. He will likely earn a lot of votes in the MVP balloting, but in the end, I don't think he will win the award.

Hope #6: Adley Rutschman gets the call.

Obviously, when I wrote this, I didn't realize there wouldn't be a minor league season, nor that the MLB season would consist of just 60 games. Not only didn't Rutschman get the call, but he didn't even make the expanded roster. He did make the projection disk, but his stats are so anemic, it wouldn't be worth carrying him on the roster. So...let's hope there is a 2021 MLB season.

Hope #7: Nick Madrigal makes the White Sox club out of Spring Training.

See above, although Madrigal's projection against lefties may be good enough to justify a bench spot.

Hope #8: Max Scherzer stays healthy.

As it turned out, it didn't matter. Scherzer's 2020 projection is good enough to justify the $15.5 million we spent on him. He was also healthy and a top-20 pitcher in MLB's shortened 2020 season, which bodes well for 2021.

Hope #9: Andrew Benintendi steps up.

Another wish list item for MLB 2020 that will never be resolved. Benny played in only 14 games and batted a whopping .103. So...yeah, that franchise contract we gave him could very well bite us in the ass for years to come.

Hope #10: Nick Senzel fixes whatever is broken.

Nope. Senzel is still broken. He hit .186/.247/.357 in 23 games, but at least his projection is somewhat useful.

Hope #11: Shohei Ohtani pitches 150 innings.

Yet another great disappointment from the MLB 2020 season -- a season filled with nothing but disappointment, it seems. Ohtani finally made it back on the hill...where he lasted all of 1 2/3 innings before he was forced to shut it down. AGAIN. We may never know how great a two-way player he could have been. At this point, it seems unlikely that he will ever pitch in the big leagues again. That is not only a shame for the Cowtippers, but for baseball and fans in general.

Hope #12: Spencer Howard pitches 100 innings in MLB.

Boy, did this hope not age well. He tossed only 24+ innings, but his 5.92 ERA suggests that it doesn't matter either way. His ugly projection means he won't be a factor at all for the Cowtippers in 2021 -- which would have been a shock to learn back in January.