Chapter Three In Review

As I did last chapter, I will forgo our Chapter Review tradition of breaking this report into "good, bad, and ugly" sections, as there was very little good or bad to report in Chapter Three. At the end of Chapter Two, I asked on this page which version of the 2021 Cowtippers was the "real" version: Chapter One or Chapter Two?

Keep in mind that there is very little in common between those two versions. They are practically polar opposites -- to the point where it is difficult to understand how the same team, with the same players, using the same player cards, can perform so drastically differently from one chapter to the next. As we progress further into this ridiculous season, it appears that the Chapter Two version of the Cowtippers is the one that we should expect to see from this point forward.

On a similar note, it appears that the Rafael Devers that we saw in Chapter One, who got off to a blazing-hot start before cooling down a bit and finishing with a respectable .273/.316/.500 batting line, is a thing of the past. We must come to accept the fact that the version of Rafael Devers that plays in the BDBL is not the one we see in real life. Our version hit all of .189/.265/.356 in Chapter Three, which appears to be his "new normal."

For the season, Devers is hitting just .217/.272/.398. These numbers pale in comparison to the numbers on the projection disk: .292/.344/.530. How on earth those numbers somehow translate into this shitty performance, 80 games into the season, is truly a statistical marvel.

Prior to the start of this season, we ran six sims using the projection disk, with Devers playing in Salem's home ballpark in all 162 games each season. His median OPS for those six sims was .823 -- 52 points below his projection OPS (which is fairly in line with the league average, given that our ballpark favors pitchers.) The lowest OPS he posted in those six sims was .792. That lowest OPS is a whopping 122 points higher than his current OPS in the BDBL. How many seasons would we need to sim before we would see an OPS as low as .670? 1,000? 10,000? 1 million? We're likely witnessing a performance that is probably three standard deviations below the mean! That is as statistically-improbable as it gets, folks. We're talking lottery-winning odds.

So, now the question is: what do we do with a third baseman who is posting a .670 OPS, is basically useless overall, is a huge liability in the field, and completely useless against left-handers (.525 OPS)? We have dropped him down to #5 in the lineup against righties, and #6 against lefties, and he is still killing us. So, do we sit Rafael Fucking Devers? Who on earth would we play instead? Aledmys Diaz? Keep in mind: Devers is the guy that we thought would have a good chance to become the first Salem MVP since Sammy Sosa!

Of course, Devers is hardly alone. Christian Walker (-133), Yadiel Hernandez (-113), Kurt Suzuki (-106), Robinson Chirinos (-247), Jose Pirela (-124), and Nick Madrigal (-141) are all posting OPS's more than 100 points below their projected numbers. That's SEVEN players, folks. We could almost field an entire LINEUP of hitters that are under-performing their projections by 100+ points!

So...what do we do about this? Do we sacrifice our entire farm system to upgrade our lineup? Which first baseman could we get who hits better than Christian Walker's .804 projected OPS? Or Jose Pirela's .805 OPS against lefties? Or Yadiel Hernandez's .801 OPS against righties? If the projected numbers have zero correlation to their actual performance, then why bother upgrading?

We have a starting lineup comprised of five hitters with an .800+ OPS against lefties (with two others above .790), and five players with an .800+ OPS against righties...and we currently own a team OPS of .709, with a lefty/righty split of .684/.721.

Folks...there is ZERO correlation between the stats on the projection disk and our team's actual offensive performance. ZERO.

Moving on. Defensively, the Salem Cowtippers rank DEAD LAST in the BDBL in fielding percentage, with a league-high 70 errors. No other team has more than 54 errors as I type, so we lead the league by a VERY comfortable margin. The main culprits here are Devers and Shohei Ohtani. Devers has posted a career MLB fielding percentage of .931, but he's sitting at .907 in the BDBL, with 17 errors so far. Ohtani is forced to play out of position as a DH, so his 11 errors (.959%) at first base is at least understandable. Alex Colome has only had FOUR total chances in the field so far, and has committed THREE errors. Max Scherzer and Sonny Gray have committed four errors combined, and both carry a fielding percentage below .900. In total, nine of our team's seventy errors (13%) have been committed by our pitchers -- which has to be the league leader.

Last, but certainly not least, let's talk about the bullpen. 80 games into our 160-game season, it has become crystal clear that we cannot trust ANYONE on our roster to hold a three-, four-, or even five-run lead. Here are our runs allowed per inning, and where we rank among the BDBL:

1st inning: 45 (19)

2nd inning: 21 (1)

3rd inning: 29 (8)

4th inning: 38 (19)

5th inning: 27 (4)

6th inning: 27 (2)

7th inning: 33 (8)

8th inning: 51 (21)

9th inning: 35 (23)

With the weird exceptions of the first and fourth innings (poor performance against the top of the lineup!), we rank among the best in the league in preventing runs in the first six innings of the game. After that, we fall completely apart. We rank near dead-last in the eighth and ninth innings. It doesn't seem to matter who we use in those situations, either, as we have tried everything we can think of to avoid this -- including using our usual inning one-through-six starters out of the bullpen!

That's right. Our bullpen has been so bloody awful that we began using our four aces -- Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Sonny Gray, and Jon Gray -- in relief. These are four of the best pitchers in baseball. Surely, they can handle pitching an inning or two without allowing more than three runs....right? Wrong.

Max Scherzer (6 times), Stephen Strasburg (10), Sonny Gray (14), and Jon Gray (6) have been used out of the bullpen a whopping 36 times this year (only 8 fewer times than our relievers!), and have gone 3-9 in those games. Our two Cy Young candidates and two top-50 starters have lost NINE games in relief this season. NINE. That is roughly the same number of losses as all of the relievers on our team, combined.

Is there a parallel universe somewhere where this makes a lick of sense?

We finished Chapter Three with a 13-11 record. We barely outscored our opponents by nine runs. Over the past two chapters, we have gone 25-27 with a +13 runs differential. We've lost ten more games than the pathetic, flag-waving, waffling, Joplin "Cutting Our Losses" Miners over the past two chapters. Is there a light at the end of this dark tunnel, or is it time to reset expectations for the second half? At this point, it appears that the Salem Cowtippers you see now are what we are stuck with from this point forward.

* * * 

Let me close out this delightful chapter summary by showcasing some of the completely asinine fucking ways we lost games in Chapter Three:

• In a game against the Niagara Locks, we managed to rally to tie the score in the sixth inning, and our bullpen miraculously managed to hold the Locks at bay for four innings. Our offense couldn't make heads nor tails out of Matt Strahm (mediocre 3.92 ERA on the disk) or Carlos Estevez (4.18), who pitched four innings of one-hit shutout relief combined. Then we brought in Strasburg to start the bottom of the 11th inning and he served up a walk-off homer to the first and only batter (Xander Bogaerts) that he faced.
• We took a commanding 5-0 lead against the Carolina Saints, at home, in the first of our four-game set. We went to the bullpen early, having started the shaky Framber Valdez, and watched as they slowly allowed Carolina to creep back into the game while our offense took the rest of the day off. In the ninth, we held a slim 5-3 lead. We handed the ball to Sonny Gray...who proceeded to allow FIVE runs.
• We then lost Game Two of that series when Jon Gray somehow couldn't contain the awesome offensive firepower of Franklin Barreto (who is hitting .204/.290/.407 for Carolina this season.) His three-run blast -- made possible by yet another error by Rafael Devers -- put the game out of reach. The crushing blow in the first game, a three-run triple off of Sonny Gray, also came off the bat of Barreto.
• We lost a game to the lowly South Loop Furies when Jon Gray was tasked with holding a tied score in the bottom of the ninth. Instead, he allowed a leadoff double (where the runner advanced to third on yet another error by Ramon Laureano.) The next batter popped out to right field...where Yadiel Hernandez dropped the ball, and the winning run of the game happily scampered across the plate. Back-to-back errors led to a walk-off.
• We lost a completely idiotic game to the Allentown Ridgebacks in which not one, but TWO of our Cy Young candidate aces blew easy saves in the late innings. First, we brought Scherzer into the game in the eighth inning to protect a three-run lead. He proceeded to allow a two-run double and an RBI single to tie the game. Then, in the twelfth inning, Strasburg took the hill for his third inning of relief and allowed a three-run blast to Matt Olson with two outs. We managed to lose that game by only one run after Trea Turner hit a two-run homer with no outs in the bottom of the inning. But then someone named Grant Dayton struck out Aledmys Diaz, Kolten Wong, and Ramon Laureano in order. Whiff, whiff, whiff. Fucking Bugs Bunny.
• We ended up losing three of four to Allentown in that series after Corey Kluber carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning of Game Two, and someone named Andrew Kittredge carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning of Game Three. Rafael Devers failed to get a single hit in that entire series.

* * * 

So...where does that leave us? Frankly, I see no reason to expend any effort whatsoever on improving this team, given this team's apparent lack of effort to win regardless of who I put on the field. We have pursued a few trades, but the asking price is always much, much higher than we're willing to pay. Of course, the irony is that 2021 is the year when star players have been traded for pennies on the dollar. It's a buyer's market for everyone except us, it seems.

We will likely ride this team to the end, for better or -- likely -- worse. What a ridiculous season it has been in every conceivable way.

About That Bumgarner Trade...

When you join a league, any type of league, the underlying principle that makes the league worthwhile is the unstated assumption that each member of the league is actually trying to win. Once in a while, you will come across a league where some sort of collaboration or alliance between teams is beneficial to winning, but even then, the teams in that alliance benefit equally. Otherwise, what's the point?

If you are in a league where the ultimate prize is money, then the motivation to win is obvious. When there is no money involved, then there may be ulterior motives to winning that would explain a team's decision to decrease their chances of winning in order to increase another's. In the end, when there is no money on the line, then the league must rely on the honor system or the entire league would collapse.

All of which is to say...what the fuck was up with that Madison Bumgarner trade?

Imagine that you actually are trying to win, and you enter into a trade negotiation with another team in order to increase your odds of winning -- whether now or in the future. You offer your best trading chit, and your trading partner offers Players A, B, and C in return. You value Players A, B, and C so greatly that you feel that is a fair trade. At no point does it occur to you to make a counter-offer for Players X, Y, and Z instead. You prefer A, B, and C.

Now, imagine if your trading partner then says, "Oopsie! I forgot that I already traded A, B, and C! My bad! How about Players X, Y, and Z instead?"

We've already established the fact that you didn't want Players X, Y, and Z. Otherwise, you would have asked for them instead. If you had considered A, B, and C to be a fair market value for your player, then X, Y, and Z would -- by logical extension -- be LESS than fair.

Given that, why on earth would you accept a less-fair package of players in exchange for your player?

I have given some thought to that question, and these are the only answers I can come up with:

1) You are in a rush, and don't care much about getting fair value, so you simply take whatever is offered, because it's better than nothing.

2) You really don't care about your team, so in the end, it doesn't matter who you get in exchange for your best trading chit.

3) You were saved from making a foolish trade initially after realizing that it was Players X, Y, and Z that you really wanted all along.

There is only one other possible explanation: you simply wanted to screw someone else by trading his main competitor a good player, and in the end, it didn't matter who you got in return, as long as it screwed that guy.

Joplin has turned the 16th-best farm system in the BDBL into a division-leading team thanks to the generosity of two owners in the league who decided that the 50th, 75th, 92nd, and unranked prospects in baseball were worthy of their impact players.

Of course, that isn't the only reason Joplin is winning after "cutting their losses" a chapter ago. They're also winning thanks to some fortuitous performances from some incredibly-unlikely players. And they are in first-place only because our Cowtippers have collapsed so spectacularly. Joplin has been both incredibly lucky AND have created their own luck through trades. Sometimes it helps to be in an alliance, even when the league structure doesn't call for one.