Senga, Best Statis-Pro Pitcher, Shuts Down ChiSox, Worst Team in Decades

The Chicago White Sox have the worst record since the 1916 Philadelphia A's in the actual MLB season, and last year Kodai Senga debuted as a 30-year old with the New York Mets and posted the second best ERA in baseball (2.98) behind only Blake Snell.

While Senga's calf injury has allowed him to throw only one game this  year, with the team holding out hope that they make the playoffs and he returns to pitch then, in our "what if" Statis-Pro league this year he continues to be their ace.

In that light, the Statis-Pro match-up of Senga against the White Sox did not surprise. Senga went 7 shut out innings for his second straight start i our game, allowing only 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 10 White Sox to give the Mets SWEEP credit for winning after leading by at least 5 runs after 8 innings without using their reliever - Edwin Diaz - who has the best pitching card this Statis-Pro season despite not being as dominant after missing the 2023 season with an injury.

The White Sox did show some life with three runs in the bottom of the 9th to almost require the Mets to use Diaz, but the Mets held on 6-3, then were able to use Diaz in a 3-1 win in the second game.

We update all results in our game and pitcher's stats on this grid. We do weigh a factor for strength of schedule, and playing the White Sox in a series counts as a -2, but that still leaves the "what if" Mets in 2nd place of our 12 teams, behind the Orioles - though the Twins would get the second bye spot since it can only go to the winner of the East, Central or South pod/division. Here is where the White Sox actually stand historically. They were eliminated from the playoffs when they lost to the Astros Sunday.

Note: oops, we had a formula off in the original post of the 5 worst teams below, that gave them winning percentages of 0.308 to 0.336. They are much worse that than! We have corrected below:

Rnk	Worst Teams Since 1901	Year	Wins	Losses	Win%
1	Philadelphia Athletics	1916	36	117	0.235
2	Chicago White Sox	2024	30	95	0.240
3	Boston Braves	1935	38	115	0.248
4	New York Mets	1962	40	120	0.250
5	Washington Senators	1904	38	113	0.252

The White Sox are one of the 8 relegated teams, meaning they only play a series or two during the season but are not part of our standings. Here are our standings so far this season. If our playoffs started today, the Mets would host the Guardians, and the Astros would host the Yankees.

Teams - Playoff is season ended	W	L	AdjW%	SOS	playoffs if today
Baltimore EAST CHAMP	13	5	0.744	1.5	1
Minnesota CENTRAL CHAMP	12	6	0.684	1	2
Houston SOUTH CHAMP	10	8	0.590	1.5	3
NY Mets 1st WILD CARD	13	5	0.688	-2	4
Cleveland 2nd WILD CARD	11	7	0.632	1	5
NY Yankees 3rd WILD CARD	7	11	0.463	2.5	6
Seattle	6	6	0.455	-1
Tampa	8	10	0.444	0
St. Louis	5	7	0.417
Boston	4	8	0.333
Texas	4	8	0.333
Kansas City	3	9	0.25
zrelegated composite	6	12	0.333

Verlander's gem and 4 Astros HRs knock Rays out of Playoffs as of Today

Justin Verlander was shelled in his earlier season opener, but in his second Statis-Pro start he had a Verlander-like 7 innings with only 1 earned run allowed to give the Astros a 7-2 "Sweep" and push the Rays out of the playoffs if our Statis-Pro season ended today. The beneficiary is the Yankees moved into 6th place for the last playoff spot. 

The Rays openers in back-to-back games hurt them as their bullpen is not deep, meaning four PB 2-4 (weakest rating) had to pitch this second game of the series to omcompelte the game - including the 6th inning in which Diaz, Meyers and Tucker all homered. Altuve homered earlier in the third inning.

 

PlayOff	Team	Div	W	L	AdjW%	SOS
bye	Baltimore (4)+1	East	13	5	0.744	1.5
bye	Minnesota (8)	Central	12	6	0.684	1
wc	NY Mets (14)	Surprises	8	4	0.667
wc	Cleveland (5)	Central	11	7	0.632	1
wc	Houston (7)+1	South	10	8	0.590	1.5
wc	NY Yankees (3)+1	East	7	11	0.463	2.5
	Seattle (11)	Central	6	6	0.455	-1
	Tampa (18)	South	8	10	0.444	0
	St. Louis (16)	Surprises	5	7	0.417
	Boston RS (15)	East	4	8	0.333
	Texas (17)	South	4	8	0.333
	Kansas City (13)	Surprises	3	9	0.250

Playoffs -  The top teams in the East, Central and South are eligible for a bye in the playoffs. The best record of those pod champs is the 1-seed (Baltimore right now) and the second best record of those three champs gets the 2nd bye (Minnesota right now). The champ of the other three gets a wildcard, then the best remaining three teams also get a wild card. Note there is no guarantied playoff spot for any of the three teams in the Surprises pod, as they were added late as borderline additions.

Through 32 Statis-Pro games the starting pitchers have had a 3.88 ERA, just below the actual MLB average.  The number after each team indicates their seeding overall based on World Series odds after the trade deadline, so the only very slight surprise in the six teams in the playoffs is that the Mets (14-seed of all MLB teams) is in and Seattle (11-seed) is out. 

The nice thing for the Astros, as you can see from this composite box score of the 2-game series, is that due to JP France giving them 2.7 scoreless innings (we use .7 instead of .2 to mean 2/3rds of an inning), they only needed Josh Hader in the 9th for the Save and could keep Ryan Pressly to finish the second game.

Ryan Pepiot even earlier than expected exit in Game 1 forced the Rays to go through even more relievers than expected, which resulted in them needing to use several PB 2-4 pitchers in Game 2. They were also hurt by Josh Lowe and Yandy Diaz colliding on a Z-play to be lost for the end of Game 1 and for all of Game 2 (we play injuries are for the rest of the 2-game series no matter if they appear in the 1st or 2nd game). However, they do both have capable backups.

2024 Houston Astros 2 games	OPS	Pos	AB	R	H	RBI	Other
Minute Maid Park (11-36 HR)
Kyle Tucker	0.877	RF	9	2	5	2	2b,HR
Jose Altuve	0.819	2b	8	1	2	2	HR
Yordan Alvarez	0.988	DH	9	1	2	0	2B
Alex Bregman	0.823	3b	6	2	2	0	3 BB
Yainer Diaz	0.776	C	8	3	4	5	2b, 2 HR
Chas McCormick	0.76	CF	7	1	0	0
Jeremy Peña	0.714	SS	7	1	1	0	2b
Jake Meyers	0.699	LF	7	1	1	2	HR
Trey Cabbage	0.696	RF	8	0	2	0
			69	12	19	11
Houston Pitchers	ERA	PB	IP	H	R	ER	W / K
Hunter Brown (Gm 1,St)	3.91	2'-7	2.7	5	3	3	3/2
Cristian Javier	4.36	4'-7	1.7	2	1	1	1/0
Caleb Ferguson (fr NYY)	3.67	4'-7	1	0	0	0	1/0
J.P. France (W)	4.39	4'-7	2.7	0	0	0	0/2
Josh Hader (Sv)	3.21	2'-9	1	0	0	0	1/2
Justin Verlander (Gm2 St, W)	4.03	2'-7	7	8	1	1	1/5
Lance McCullers Jr.	3.83	2'-7	1	1	1	1	0/1
Ryan Pressly	3.37	2'-8	1	0	0	0	0/2
			18.1	16	6	6	7/14
2024 Tampa Bay Rays	OPS	Pos	AB	R	H	RBI	Other
TBR (Tropicana Field 11-42 HR)
Josh Lowe (inj)	0.761	RF	4	0	1	0	2b
José Caballero	0.691	2b	7	2	2	0	2b,sb
Christopher Morel (fr CHC)	0.777	DH	8	2	1	1	HR
Yandy Díaz (inj)	0.836	1b	3	0	0	0
Brandon Lowe	0.784	ss	7	2	5	2	HR
Jonathan Aranda	0.753	1b	5	0	0	0
Dylan Carlson (fr StL)	0.757	CF	7	0	2	1
Richie Palacios	0.718	LF	8	0	2	0	2b
Curtis Mead	0.719	3b	7	0	2	0
Jonny DeLuca	0.715	LF	5	0	1	0
Alex Jackson	0.692	C	6	0	0	0
			67	6	16	4
Tampa Pitchers	ERA	PB	IP	H	R	ER	W / K
Ryan Pepiot (Gm1 st)	4.22	4'-7	3	3	2	2	2/4
Taj Bradley (L)	4.12	4'-7	1.3	2	3	3	1/0
Edwin Uceta (Temp #D)	4.19	4'-7	1.7	1	1	1	1/2
Shawn Armstrong (fr Stl)	3.72	4'-7	1	0	0	0	1/0
Garrett Cleavinger	3.53	2'-6	1	0	0	0	0/0
Shane Baz (Gm2 st, L)	3.89	2'-7	2	5	2	2	1/2
Manuel Rodríguez	4.07	2'-4	2	0	0	0	0/3
Drew Rasmussen	3.4	2'-7	1	2	2	2	1/0
Richard Lovelady (fr FA)	4.08	2'-4	0.3	2	2	2	0/0
Joel Kuhnel (fr HOU)	4.53	2'-4	1.7	1	0	0	0/0
Colin Poche	3.87	4'-7	1	0	0	0	0/3
Pete Fairbanks	3	2'-9	1	0	0	0	0/1
			17	16	12	12	7/15

Suggested Tweaks to Line-ups and Rotations from Statis-Pro PDFs of teams

The following details a few places where we made tweaks on our suggested line-ups or starting rotations from when you get the PDF by Clicking here for links to all the current players as well as the 60 all-time great Statis-Pro baseball teams. Here are the instructions to play your own games.

Keep in mind we have these set up as a "what-if" set-up, so even if a player is injured for the year we are leaving them in the line-up in rotation. Obviously you can choose not to play injured players or to set line-ups and rotations using any players you want.

The following are the only tweaks we suggest, just moving players around on the PDF of these teams.

Atlanta - moved Schwellenbach from pen to #5 starter, though we just use 4 starters in our game.

Baltimore - had listed Eflin in pen in PDF, but recommend him as No. 2 starter behind Burnes. He was 6th in Cy Young voting last year when he pitched for Tampa and led the league in wins at 16-8, with his projected stats qualifying him as a PB 2-9 (best 5% of all pitchers).

Houston - did not have a 1st baseman in suggested line-up on pdf, and added Cabbage.

San Diego - moved Peralta into line-up in LF since had 2 DHs in the pdf line-up, so dropped Campusano to bench.

San Francisco - did not have a DH in line-up in PDF, so inserted Lee as No. 3 batter and DH.

St. Louis - did not have a left fielder, so inserted Burleson in line-up.

Toronto - did not have a DH in line-up, so added Horwitz but since he is a much higher rated fielding first baseman so put him there and moved Guerrero to DH. The first two (Braves and Orioles) are changes to the starting pitching rotation, the rest are line-up tweaks.

Atlanta Starters	ERA	Th	0	PB
Spencer Strider	3.23	R	1	2'-9
Max Fried	3.44	L	2	2'-9
Chris Sale	3.8	L	3	2'-8
Charlie Morton	4.14	R	4	2'-7
Spencer Schwellenbach (Temp #D)	4.06	RHP	5	4'-7
Baltimore Starters	ERA	Th	0	PB
Corbin Burnes	3.62	R	1	2'-8
Zach Eflin (fr TBR)	3.51	R	2	2'-9
Grayson Rodriguez	3.84	R	3	2'-8
Kyle Bradish	3.82	R	4	2'-7
2024 Houston Astros	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Kyle Tucker	0.877	LP	13/88	RF
Jose Altuve	0.819	RP	88/11	2b
Yordan Alvarez	0.988	LP	13/88	DH
Minute Maid Park (11-36 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Alex Bregman	0.823	RP	88/11	3b
Yainer Diaz	0.776	RP	88/11	C
Chas McCormick	0.76	RP	88/11	CF
Minute Maid Park (11-36 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Jeremy Peña	0.714	RN	88/11	SS
Jake Meyers	0.699	RN	88/11	LF
Trey Cabbage	0.696	LP	13/88	1b
2024 San Diego Padres	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Fernando Tatis Jr.	0.871	RP	88/11	RF
Manny Machado	0.813	RP	88/11	3b
Xander Bogaerts	0.778	RN	88/11	SS
Petco Park (11-42 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Jake Cronenworth	0.739	LN	13/88	1b
Luis Arraez (fr MIA)	0.796	LN	13/88	DH
David Peralta (fr z FA)	0.713	N	-/-	LF
Petco Park (11-42 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Ha-Seong Kim	0.716	RN	88/11	2b
Kyle Higashioka	0.66	RP	88/11	C
José Azocar	0.631	RN	88/11	CF
2024 San Francisco Giants	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Thairo Estrada	0.717	RN	88/11	2b
Mark Canha	0.773	RN	88/11	LF
Jung Hoo Lee	0.773	LN	13/88	DH
Oracle Park (11-27 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Wilmer Flores	0.781	RP	88/11	1b
Matt Chapman	0.765	RP	88/11	3b
Michael Conforto	0.748	LN	13/88	RF
Oracle Park (11-27 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Mike Yastrzemski	0.747	LP	13/88	CF
Patrick Bailey	0.657	SN	-/-	C
Marco Luciano	0.657	RN	88/11	SS
2024 St. Louis Cardinals	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Lars Nootbaar	0.791	LP	13/88	CF
Jordan Walker	0.791	RP	88/11	RF
Paul Goldschmidt	0.817	RP	88/11	1b
Busch Stadium (11-25 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Nolan Gorman	0.789	LP	13/88	2b
Nolan Arenado	0.785	RP	88/11	3b
Willson Contreras	0.781	RP	88/11	C
Busch Stadium (11-25 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Brendan Donovan	0.762	LN	13/88	DH
Alec Burleson	0.756	LN	13/88	LF
Masyn Winn	0.683	RN	88/11	SS
2024 Toronto Blue Jays	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Bo Bichette	0.809	RP	88/11	SS
George Springer	0.77	RP	88/11	RF
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	0.871	RP	88/11	DH
Tor (Rogers Centre 11-54 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Alejandro Kirk	0.77	RN	88/11	C
Davis Schneider	0.76	RP	88/11	2b
Spencer Horwitz	0.74	LN	13/88	1b
Tor (Rogers Centre 11-54 HR)	OPS	Bats	vs. L/R	Pos
Daulton Varsho	0.754	LP	13/88	LF
Addison Barger	0.71	LP	13/88	3b
Steward Berroa (Temp #6)	0.612	SN	-/-	CF

Orioles finish East Pod 10-2 with 11th Inning Win vs. Yankees

 Ryan Montcastle was the Orioles Statis-Pro hero for the second straight game with a 2-run 11th inning homer for a 3-1 over the Yankees.

The Orioles take the series 5 games to 1 as they did to the Boston Red Sox in their other other East pod series. They are first in the AL at 13-5.

The Yankees managed only 3 hits in the game as we had TV on in the background to watch them managed only 4 hits against the Tigers.

A couple of changes in our Statis-pro game.

We went with the Orioles lefty Trevor Rogers die to the lefty dominant Yankees line-up, as Kyle Bradish would start against a more right-handed lineup.

In response, DJ LeMahieu played 1st base instead of Ben Rice.

Rogers was dominant with 10 strikeouts and only one walk in 6 innings. The only hit allowed was a 5th inning homer by Giancarlo Stanton- admit we expected an "18" to be a  double but Stanton's home run range is 18-26.

In the old home run friendly Camden Yards Anthony Volpe's deep drive in the 8th would have made the Yankees 2-1 winners. However the deep number of 36, out of most parks and certainly an average park with an 11-48 range, was caught in Camden with its 11-25 home run range in deep drives.

Burns 1st to Go 8 IP - Propels Orioles Past Twins for No. 1 in Statis-Pro AL

Our 29th Statis-Pro game of the Milwaukee league based on projected 2024 stats was the first of the season to feature a pitcher going past the 7th inning.

The Baltimore Orioles' Corbin Burnes was throwing a gem through seven innings, but with that being his Max Innings Pitched on his card he dropped from a PB 2-8 to PB 2-7 to come back out for the 8th. We left him in because that still made him better than every Orioles relievers - the one weakness of the Orioles in the game - as even closer Craig Kimbrel is a PB 4-7 (average). 

The game was a scoreless duel into the 7th inning as the Yankees Gerrit Cole went 6 scoreless innings, but with two outs in the 7th Ryan Mountcastle blasted a 3-run homer, it would turn out the first of two homers, to give the Orioles a 3-0 lead.

The first batter Burnes faced after being reduced to a PB2-7 for the 8th was the Yankees newly acquired Jazz Chisholm Jr. (from Miami), who wasted no time blasting a DEEP drive. Yankee Stadium allows a homer on 11-57 on a DEEP drive, and Chisholm was almost the hero he has become since the trade as the Random Number was a 61 to indicate a diving catch against the wall that missed a homer by just two numbers.

We start with the normal end of the box score, the pitchers' lines:

Baltimore Starters	PB	IP	H	R	ER	W	K
Corbin Burnes (W)	2'-8	8	3	0	0	2	6
Yennier Cano	4'-7	1	1	1	1	0	1
NY Yankees Starters	PB	IP	H	R	ER	W	K
Gerrit Cole (L)	2'-8	7	3	3	3	2	5
Chase Hampton	4'-7	2	4	3	3	0	3

The Orioles were not done, as Cedric Mullins doubled in a run and then with two outs Adley Rutschman added an RBI single to finish the 8th inning ahead 5-0. That is key in our Statis-Pro league rules as a team that wins after leading by 5+ runs after eight innings is considered to have SWEPT the 3-game series represented by the one game - so after wrapping up the 6-1 win the Orioles claimed this sweep. 

With the sweep the Orioles improved from 7-4 to 11-4 in our standings, passing the Minnesota Twins for the top spot in our league this year. Here are the overall standings and which team would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.

 

Playoff	AL Statis-Pro	W	L	AdjW%	SOS
bye	Baltimore (4)+1	11	4	0.742	0.5
bye	Minnesota (8)	12	6	0.684	1
wc	NY Mets (14)	8	4	0.667
wc	Cleveland (5)	11	7	0.632	1
wc	Tampa (18)	7	5	0.545	-1
wc	Houston (7)+1	5	7	0.481	1.5
	NY Yankees (3)+1	6	9	0.455	1.5
	Seattle (11)	6	6	0.455	-1
	St. Louis (16)	5	7	0.417
	Texas (17)	4	8	0.333
	Boston RS (15)	4	8	0.333
	Kansas City (13)	3	9	0.25

And finally here is the box score from this battle of the Eastern pod in our league. As noted above, the loss also dropped the Yankees one spot out of the playoffs behind the Astros.

 

Pos	2024 Baltimore Orioles	OPS	AB	R	H	RBI	Other
CF	Cedric Mullins	0.741	4	1	1	1	2b
ss	Gunnar Henderson	0.818	1	0	0	0	Inj
SS	Jackson Holliday	0.728	3	0	0	0
DH	Eloy Jiménez (fr CWS)	0.812	4	0	0	0
C	Adley Rutschman	0.815	2	1	1	0	2 Ws
RF	Anthony Santander	0.788	4	1	1	0
1B	Ryan Mountcastle	0.773	4	2	2	4	2 HRs
3b	Ramón Urías	0.709	4	0	0	0
2b	Jordan Westburg	0.743	4	1	2	0
CF	Cristian Pache (fr PHI)	0.659	4	0	0	0
	Orioles Totals		34	6	7	5
Pos	2024 NY Yankees	OPS	AB	R	H	RBI	Other
CF	Jazz Chisholm Jr. (fr MIA)	0.764	4	0	0	0
DH	Juan Soto	0.96	4	0	1	0	2b
RF	Aaron Judge	0.954	4	0	1	0
2b	Gleyber Torres	0.797	3	1	1	1	HR
LF	Giancarlo Stanton	0.776	3	0	0	0
1b	Ben Rice (Temp #4)	0.746	3	0	0	0
C	Austin Wells	0.709	4	0	0	0
SS	Anthony Volpe	0.71	3	0	0	0
cf	Trent Grisham	0.727	3	0	1	0
	Yankees Totals		31	1	4	1

Guardians-Twins Battle for 1st in Statis-Pro Too

 After our home and home split:

1. Minnesota 12-6

2. Baltimore 8-4

3. Cleveland 11-7

Anyone who believes the fact that the Guardians are contending for the best record in the AL, may be interested to know they are also in the top two spots in our Statis-pro season.

In our first game to feature pitchers for the second time, both aces pitched well again and it was the Twins winning 3-1 to solidify the top spot in our Statis-pro season.

And the second game was like the first with the home team closer kicking down a close win. With the no. 4 starters squaring off, the score was a little higher with a Cleveland 6-4 win as they kept pace with the second best record in our game.

Statis-Pro Standings of 12 MLB Teams After one trip Through Rotation

 Our last post gave the results of the first start for each of the team's 4 starting pitcher we use in our Statis-Pro 4-man rotations. Obviously teams really rotate more starters, but playing a limited number of games in our season, we keep it to four starters just as the nine batters play almost all their games except for platoons and pinch runners etc.

On the second time through the 4-man rotation, we are going to play each team in a 2-game series against the other two teams in their "pod," which are listed and color coded in our standings below. If the team has yet to play a team in their pod in the first two series, then the "Next Games" column to the right just says "pod," and that means they will next play the other two teams in their same font.

Team	W	L	AdjW%	SOS	Runs	Allow	Pod	If playoff today	Next Games
Min	9	3	0.769	1	7.0	4.5	Central	1-Bye	Pod
Cle	8	4	0.692	1	9.5	6.5	Central	1-WC v TB	Pod
Balt	8	4	0.680	0.5	9.5	6.5	East	2-Bye	NYY/NYM
NYM	8	4	0.667	0	5.8	3.0	Surprises	2-WC v NYY	Balt/Bos
NYY	6	6	0.556	1.5	7.0	7.8	East	3-WC v NYM	Pod
TB	7	5	0.545	-1	4.0	3.3	South	4-WC v Cle	Hou/StL
Hou	5	7	0.481	1.5	6.8	7.0	South	1st out	Pod
Sea	6	6	0.455	-1	7.0	6.8	Central	2nd out	Pod
StL	5	7	0.417	0	3.5	4.8	Surprises	3rd out	KC//TB
Bos	4	8	0.333	0	3.8	7.5	East	4th out	NYY/Tex
Tex	4	8	0.333	0	2.3	3.8	South	5th out	Hou/KC
KC	3	9	0.250	0	4.0	7.8	Surprises	6th out	StL/Tex

If a team already played at least one of the teams in their pod, then I list their next two opponents by name. The only team that already played both of the teams in their pod as their first series was the New York Mets - playing Kansas City and St. Louis.

Since we will not have time for each team to play the other 11 teams in our league, we adjust the winning percentage slightly based on strength of schedule (SOS). 

We also decided to require that at least one team from all 4 pods must be in the 6-team playoff, and that no more than one team in each pod can get on of the two teams to get a bye. If the playoffs were held right now, the interesting wild card series would be the New York Mets against New York Yankees. However, both need to play the very good Baltimore Orioles next.

Click here for links to all the current players as well as the 60 all-time great Statis-Pro baseball teams, and here are the instructions to play your own games.