Newsletter - July 2, 2014

The Clubhouse Report

Northern Virginia APBA Baseball League

July 2014

Welcome to a New Manager

Everyone is thrilled to have the Vermont franchise taken over by new manager David Neely and becoming the Chino Valley Hot Shots.  David has APBA experience and should be able to ramp up and be comfortable with game play fairly quickly.  Welcome David!

The Standings

Coastal Division

	W	L	%	GB
Roswell	35	21	.625	--
Oakton	29	19	.604	2
Springfield	24	16	.600	3
Delphi	22	18	.550	5
Columbia Pike	22	26	.458	9
Sterling	15	21	.417	10

Piedmont Division

	W	L	%	GB
Stonehenge	33	15	.688	--
Chino Valley	5	3	.625	8
Washington	27	33	.450	12
Occoquan	23	37	.383	16
Arlington	5	11	.313	12
Seacoast	12	32	.273	19

Results

June Results

DEL 4	at	OCC 0
SPR 2	at	OCC 2
OAK 1	at	WAS 3
OAK 1	at	SPR 3
OAK 4	at	CPC 0
ROS 3	at	SEA 1
DEL 2	at	OAK 2
OCC 2	at	CPC 2
SEA 1	at	DEL 3
SPR 3	at	STO 1
STE 0	at	OAK 4
DEL 2	at	ROS 2
STO 4	at	SEA 0
SPR 1	at	WAS 3
STO 1	at	OAK 3
DEL 2	at	WAS 2
STE 3	at	CPC 1

 

Who’s Hot and Who’s Not

The records for the teams during May are:

Washington 8-4, (27-33) Finally the bad luck ended for Washington and it’s about time.  The Senators impressively beat playoff teams Oakton and Springfield, then split with Delphi, who is with them and Chino Valley in the thick of the race for the final playoff spot.  At least we see that Washington will be able to hang with the big boys if they do make the playoffs.  They would be an unfavorable 1^st round opponent also, considering 6 of the 7 games you would be facing a 18xyg righty, 16xy righty, and 13x righty.

Delphi 13-7, (22-18)  What a great month for the Oracles.  They took care of business vs. the two weakest teams in the league, then held their own by splitting against 3 of the toughest teams in the league in Oakton, Roswell, and Washington.

Oakton 15-9, (29-19) A great month where Larry was able to rebound and get 10 games above .500.  The month started out really badly going 2-6 vs. Washington and Springfield.  Then they headed in the right direction with sweeps vs. Columbia Pike and Sterling, a split vs. Delphi and impressive final’s preview win vs. Stonehenge.  It wouldn’t be the first time those two teams met in the finals.

Roswell 5-3, (35-21) A solid month for Bob, maintaining a two game lead in the Coastal Division.  The Greys beat Seacoast and split with Delphi.

Springfield 9-7, (24-16) True to last month’s planning, Chris was able to complete 16 games this month and add two games to his count above .500.  The four series included impressive wins vs. Oakton and Stonehenge, an unimpressive split vs. Occoquan, and a loss to Washington which at this time was more important for Washington than it was for Springfield.

Stonehenge 6-6, (33-15) The Stonehenge Druids have come back down to earth after a terrific start.  This month they lost to playoff contenders Springfield and Oakton, and destroyed Seacoast.

They have an 8 game lead over Chino Valley in the Piedmont division.  In case you are wondering their pace is on target for a 60 win season unless they flounder some more. 

Sterling 3-5, (15-21) It was a tough month for the Pirates courtesy of a sweep at the hands of Oakton, then failing to get the final 2 games in by the deadline to avoid losing next year’s 8^th round draft pick.  Let this be a lesson to those who prefer to wait as long as possible before playing:  if you wait too long it’s quite possible that unforeseen circumstances will make it impossible to get the games in that you think are going to be finished.  On the positive side, at the end of the month the Pirate ship righted itself with a 3-1 series win vs. Columbia Pike.

Occoquan 4-8, (23-37) While Seacoast is 20 games under .500, Occoquan is now 14 below.  The next closest teams are 6 games under.  In this league it is pretty normal to split a series and we can expect the rest of the bad teams to continue playing ball above .400.  The month of June for Occoquan included being swept by their nemesis Delphi, then splitting with Springfield and Columbia Pike.  An advantage to being a non-contending team is that teams often rest their best starting pitching and offensive players against you.  That is a lot of the reason I split with the Cardinals and Cubs.

Columbia Pike 3-9, (22-26) The June results are more like what we expected from the Cubbies on paper.  They went from being 2 games above .500 to 4 games below thanks to being swept by Oakton, beaten by Sterling, and splitting with Occoquan in the ongoing battle to eventually see who will get the 2^nd overall pick in the draft.

Seacoast 2-10,(12-32) There is no longer any doubt about the Hamner trophy after this atrocious month.  The Wayfarers were beaten by Roswell and Delphi, then swept by Stonehenge.  At the halfway point in their season they are on pace to win only 24 games.  Occoquan would have to close the season 1-27 to match that.  It’s going to be an interesting watch to see how early in the year Seacoast will clinch the number 1 pick in the draft.

Chino Valley 0-0 , (5-3) Did not play a full series.  The new owner David has two games in against Sterling, which have not been reported yet.  Best of luck David!

Arlington 0-0, (5-11) Nothing happening this month with Arlington.  Games are on hold with the possibility of 1 or 2 managers still sniffing around the idea of taking a team.  One of these guys is a friend I started playing basketball with in a group to try and slow the seemingly rapid trend of my body towards not being able to get out of a chair and walk around.  Just too many sweets, too many nights a week.  This is why Dwight still jogs and why Chad should never stop running. 

Transactions

Sterling sends Drew Storen to Occoquan for Joe Nathan and OCC #9.

This was giving Sterling a 23* grade righty closer this year in exchange for a relief pitcher who has an ERA of 1.03 in 2014.  I had 5 good offers for Nathan and it ended up with me going for who I perceived at the time to be the best 2015 card on the table as Storen is headed towards a solid Z letter.  Now I’m not quite so sure as Storen hardly gets any playing time and is headed towards only 30 innings of eligibility.  Unfortunately he is one of 4 relievers the Nationals have with ERAs 2.00 and below and a pretty good starting rotation so he is often the odd man out in games that matter.  It must be tough to come back from injury, have an ERA around 1, and be on Matt William’s undesirable list.

The trade deadline is not until August 24^th, so not much else to report on trades or trade talks.

2015 Kilg Korner

Hitting	Pitching	Overall
Team     OPS         Rank     Top Player SEA          0.807     1               Trout OAK         0.803     2               Tulowitzki ARL          0.764     3.5           N. Cruz STE           0.764     3.5           V. Martinez STO          0.756     5               Encarnacion DEL          0.740     6               Bautista CPK         0.738     7               Puig CHV         0.735     8               Freeman WAS        0.714     9               Pence SPR          0.712     10            Mesoraco OCC         0.707     11            A. Ramirez ROS         0.696     12            Gattis	Team     ERA          Rank       Top Player STO          3.20        1               Wainwright OAK         3.22        2               Kershaw ROS         3.23        3               Cueto STE           3.34        4               Bumgarner WAS        3.55        5               Simon SPR          3.59        6               Peralta CPK         3.74        7               Hudson SEA          3.76        8               Hamels CHV         3.78        9               Teheran ARL          3.82        10            Samardzija DEL          3.87        11            Darvish OCC         3.97        12            Storen	Team Rank OAK 1 STO 2 STE 3 SEA 4 ARL 5 WAS 6.5 CPK 6.5 ROS 8 SPR 9 CHV 10 DEL 11 OCC 12

OAK – Hitting 2^st and Pitching 2^th, Oakton’s pitching really jumped up as King Felix continued an excellent season and Clayton Kershaw returned from injury and went crazy, including a no-hitter.

STO – Somehow the Stonehenge pitching jumped up into first place, which is not an easy feat vs. Hernandez and Kershaw.  But Stonehenge has Adam Wainwright who has single handedly won more plaques, and also Lester and Zimmermann, who are looking good.

STE – The Pirates are fourth in hitting and fourth in pitching.  Will 2015 be the year Walt finally breaks out of his slump.

SEA – Seacoast hitting jumps to #1 as Trout heats up.

ARL – Nelson Cruz is still going and helping out this team quite a bit.

WAS and CPK – Now tied, as two middle of the pack teams.

ROS – The Greys pitching fell from 1^st to 3^rd, but they are still very good.  The hitting is the only team below .700 OPS.

SPR – Mesoraco is coming alive.  The pitching is starting to look more ho-hum, and Springfield drops to 9^th.

CHV – The pitching that looked promising last month fell into the tank, dropping the Hot Shots from third to 10^th place.

DEL – Hitting is looking fine, pitching is looking weak.

OCC – This team is ugly.  Aramis Ramirez came off the DL and did pretty well.  Maybe he’ll be a keeper after all.  Josh Hamilton is not having a bad year, except for missing most of it.

Happy Rolling!

Good job this past month getting 17 series in.  We now have 2 months to get up to 60 games, which 2 teams have already done.  Let’s help Chino Valley get their games in if David comes a knockin’.