Even though it is early, we are adding the Pirates as our 11th team due to their 1st place 16-7 start and 3rd best in the league +25 run differential. Below is an image of the score tracker for our league.
First, an interesting note on platooning the clean-up and No. 5 hitters - which you do not see all the time. The top two players in this photo hit 4th and 5th against right-handed pitchers. Catcher Endy Rodriguez has a 0.750 OPS and left-fielder Jack Suwinski has a 0.747 OPS - both good but not great, but none of the Pirates projected to have the .900 to 1.000 OPS that several have.
Against left-handed pitching those two players are on the bench and the No. 4 hitter's are catcher KEvin Plawecki (only .630 OPS), and returning to Pittsburgh to play left field is Andrew McCutchen (.738, though this season he is actually above .900).
The reason for the split is the platoon number at the bottom. Rodriguez has no adjustment against lefties or righties (NA/NA) while Plawecki's 85/12 means he gets hits on all 85-88 against lefties on the batter or pitcher card with runners advancing two bases - with each number worth around 0.025 that means his OPS against lefties will be around .730 so close to Rodriguez and worth a platoon of catchers. He would strike out on 11-12, pushing his OPS against righties to less than .600, so definitely pitch hit for him when a righty comes in in relief.
McCutchen is a more modest 88/11. That means he shoots ahead of Suwinski in OPS against lefties - getting hits on an 88 on his card or the lefty pitcher card to be about and 0.763 OPS, but the 11 to the right of the slash makes that a strikeout and means his OPS against righties is only about 0.713. So the top two play against Woodruff in the opener, but then the bottom two start against lefty Peralta in the second game.
The other 10 teams have all played six games, or three series. The chance of teams being at different places in their 4-man rotation is the reason we have all two games series with the 1 & 4 in the rotation pitching the first series, then the 2 & 3 pitchers in the next series. The third series each team pitched their 1 & 4 so the other 10 teams will now be pitching their No. 2 and No. 3 starter in the next series.
As you can see from the schedule below, four of the other teams will play the Pirates, meaning Pittsburgh will be in our next eight Statis-Pro series.
The Pirates will start their No. 1 ace Luis Ortiz and No. 4 Johan Ovedo in the opening home-and-home against the Brewers (who in real MLB are tied with them for 3rd in the NL with that +25 run differential.
The next series against the Padres they will start No. 2 JT Brubaker (actually injured this season, but we are playing this as a "what if" season and using any player who was projected to pitch this year even if they were later injured). Then the Pirates No. 3 pitcher Roancy Contreras.
We just listed 2nd in rotation and 3rd in the rotation below for now to make it easier to read the Twins starters, but will add thier names as we get to the games.
For the Brewers that will mean a very tough No. 2 Brandon Woodruff (a dominant PB 2-8) will be their first opponent faced at Pittsburgh to start their season, then the No. 3 Freddy Peralta (a more average PB 4-7) will start the second game in Milwaukee.
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment