Express strikes back with late runs at star-studded May meeting

May 2024 Newsletter

By Gilbert D. Martinez

A thrilling come-from-behind victory for the Round Rock Express, a delicious pregame barbecue dinner and a mesmerizing post-game Star Wars-themed drone show demonstrated that the force was very much with us at the May chapter meeting on Saturday.

A small group of six chapter members and guests watched the Express fall behind early against the Las Vegas Aviators, but four runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings pushed the home team to a 4-3 victory.

A smaller group of four enjoyed dinner at the Salt Lick prior to the game.

For the first time, some in the group saw the new rules related to the automatic ball-strike system. Express season ticket holder Andy York filled us in. For Friday through Sunday games, the home plate umpire calls balls and strikes as usual, but the batter, pitcher or catcher may challenge a call by patting the top of their head. The umpire will then announce to the crowd that the call is being challenged, and the animation of the pitch will be displayed on the big screen. We saw several instances of a challenge, with calls going in favor of the umpire’s call and against.

Evidence of Star Wars weekend was abundant at the stadium. Special guests wearing Star Wars costumes were scattered throughout Dell Diamond, and Jedi training was provided for young fans. Star Wars-themed shirts and toy light sabers were sold in the gift shop, and special food offerings were available at concessions such as Vader Taters and Jar Jar Links.

The group also had a chance to chat briefly with Express General Manager Tim Jackson, who was making his way around the stands visiting with fans.

 

Results from Chapter Bylaws Voting

From May 1 to 10, current chapter members were invited to evaluate proposed chapter bylaws and vote for or against them online. Thirty-two of the 81 current chapter members successfully cast votes: 30 members voted for the bylaws, and 2 voted against.

With the adoption of these bylaws, the Rogers Hornsby Chapter further adheres to SABR HQ’s guidelines.

These bylaws go into effect immediately.

Many thanks to Ryan Pollack for his assistance in setting up the Google form for the bylaws election and compiling the list of current members. And many thanks to the chapter members who participated in this vote (you know who you are!).

Predictatron 2024 Update: Gay leads the way!

Sunday, May 5, 2024, edition

By Jim Baker

We have a new leader in our contest in the person of Mr. Gay. Being the first player to cross over the 600-point threshold has allowed him to push past previous leader overall Mr. Rogers while also taking charge of the Raeanne Martinez Division lead.

Mr. Larson has found himself atop the Brian Rogers Division when that same Mr. Rogers lost 10 points on the week and fell back to second place. Mssrs. McIntosh and McNulty are not far behind, being currently tied for third place just four points off the chase. The Martinez Division lead previously belonged to Mr. Miller, but a downturn of fortune has seen him drop to third, 19 points off the pace. Meanwhile, Mr. Siegel maintains his hold on second place in that division.

For the second time in a row, Mr. Harrell is our Player of the Week. Last week, he scored 89 points to pace the field and this time around he led the contest with 57. This allowed him to jump from tenth to seventh in the Martinez Division. That’s a 35 percent increase in points in a two-week period for the rookie. Such is life in the early going of Predictatron!

The largest standings jump was experienced by Mr. Baker, who went up four spots from ninth to fifth in the Rogers Division, facilitated by a second-best showing of 43 points. On the other end of the spectrum, Mr. Wancho and Mr. Martinez both fell five places each and are now situated in seventh and last respectively.

According to a recent study, 84 percent of the participants in this contest consider themselves to be baseball fans. As such, we spend quite a bit of our time angry about our game. Myopic umpires, vexing rule changes, callous owners, all-too-often-injured players, showoffs and show boaters, incompetent announcers—all those and more are often the target of our anger and frustration. In the context of this contest, our anger can be directed at only one place: teams that don’t comply with our expectations. As we have long since learned, over- and underachievement is the bane of the Predictatroner on the make.

With that in mind, here are the teams that are hurting us the most:

35 – Houston: This is the biggest shocker of 2024 so far, isn’t it? The Astros rose to competency in 2015 after riding the train to Tank Town and loading up on talent, so we’ve grown accustomed to them playing at a certain level of decency. They’re clearly not going to get up to that level this year, but they could get back to .500, an achievement that would make us all happy, especially the three players who Locked them.
32 – Miami: The Marlins have been bad before (8-23 in .500 seasons coming into 2024), but never this bad. Their .519 showing last year gave us the expectation of high-end mediocrity at the very least, so this 1962 Mets-level winning percentage is putting a real hurt on us.
26 Chicago (A): It’s gotten better. Since jumping off a cliff to start the season at 3-22, they’ve gone 5-5. This sort of play will keep them out of the bad pages of the history books and off of lists like this one—provided they can maintain the recent showing and not the previous way of doing things.
24 – Cleveland: Relax, Guardians, it’s the American League Central, for pete’s sake. You don’t need 105 wins to take the title in this division.
23 Colorado: The Rockies have sunk to the White Sox level, which is an especially huge problem for the six players in our midst who named them as their National League Lock. Make no mistake: we all thought they’d be terrible—just not 1935 Boston Braves terrible.
22 Philadelphia: Given that every last one of us said they’d make the playoffs and the field average is 89 wins, it’s not like the Phillies snuck up on us. However, they’ve been playing like the best team in baseball of late (in spite of dragging around the carcass of Nick Castellanos and losing Trea Turner to injury), and it’s hurting us. Even the most-ambitious Phillies pick—Mr. Crombar at 94 wins—is costing 17 points at the moment.

On a happier note, the Braves unpleasant 1-5 week brought them right in line with where we all hoped they would be in 2024, and they now rank as one of our best collective picks!

Through games of Sunday, May 5, or 21.6 percent of the 2024 season:

 

PLAYER

Points

PB

Last

^/v

prev

move

1

Jan Larson

580

 

560

20

3

2

2

Brian Rogers

577

3

587

-10

1

-1

3

Gary McIntosh

576

4

555

21

5

2

3

Mike McNulty

576

4

557

19

4

1

5

Jim Baker

564

16

521

43

9

4

6

Chris Crombar

555

25

536

19

6

0

7

Tom Wancho

551

29

561

-10

2

-5

8

Frank Rechtorovic

547

33

513

34

11

3

9

Dan Walsh

540

40

528

12

8

-1

10

Ryan Pollack

539

41

517

22

10

0

11

Mike Dillon

534

46

508

26

12

1

12

Gilbert Martinez

521

59

532

-11

7

-5

 

PLAYER

Points

PB

Last

^/v

prev

move

1

Scott Gay

601

 

565

36

3

2

2

Ira Siegel

588

13

567

21

2

0

3

Jerry Miller

582

19

574

8

1

-2

4

Syd Polk

581

20

551

30

5

1

5

John Rechtorovic

574

27

542

32

6

1

6

Eric Robinson

572

29

560

12

4

-2

7

Michael Harrell*

561

40

504

57

10

3

8

Team Hall

544

57

525

19

8

0

9

Raeanne Martinez

533

68

541

-8

7

-2

10

Michael Bass

531

70

513

8

9

-1

11

Don Dingee

507

94

474

33

11

0

Awardatron Update

(Shared via email to the chapter Google Group list on May 5)

By Ryan Pollack

Greetings and salutations, award predictors! It’s a little over a month into the season. Time to take a pulse on where the nascent award races stand, especially as compared to our pre-reason picks.

AL MVP

Prediction favorites: Soto, Julio Rodríguez, Rutschman

Award favorites: Soto, Henderson, Witt Jr.

Much to my personal dismay, Juan Soto has been in the Bronx everything he was supposed to be but didn’t accomplish fully to everyone’s expectations in San Diego. Steamer (a well-regarded projection system) has him finishing the season with 37 HR, an OBP of .423, and slightly below average defense (his best since 2021) for 8 WAR. I cannot believe this is only his age-25 season and his walk year. The man is about to get $$$paid$$$. 

That projected 8 WAR figure is nearly 1 WAR clear of the next closest projection – Gunnar “In play, Gunn(s)” Henderson. Last year’s AL ROY has taken his game to another level, smacking 10 HR already alongside excellent defense at shortstop to power the Orioles’ playoff hopes. Steamer projects him for a full season of 35 HR and a decent .339 OBP that contribute to 7 WAR. Pay the man already, Mike Elias!!! (And Adley too, while you’re at it. And Corbin. And Grayson. And Jordan. etc.)

Just behind him in the AL WAR projections is Bobby Witt Jr., who of course got his big payday during the offseason. Witt Jr. is helping his Royals surpass everyone’s pre-season expectations. It’s a long, long season but the early signs look very good. Steamer projects him for 27 HR, the same OBP as Henderson, and just slightly worse defense for 6.6 WAR.

Others of note: Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge.

NL MVP

Prediction favorites: Betts, Acuña Jr., Freeman/Turner/Harper

Award favorites: Betts, Acuña Jr., Tatis Jr.

Mookie Betts is the destroyer of worlds, especially a world where he plays competent shortstop and where Ronald Acuña, Jr. is off to a slow start. Betts’ projected 8.4 WAR is clear of Acuña Jr.’s 6.5 by a significant margin. The latter’s slow start is partially to blame; so far Acuña Jr.’s projections are down to 27 HR. That would be a significant disappointment after last year’s total of 41. 

Others of note: Ohtani (yes, even without the pitching), William Contreras (who would have a narrative edge if the somewhat-underdog Brewers made the playoffs), Will Smith (of the Dodgers, although I would be inclined to vote for the reliever Will Smith, having witnessed him give up a grand slam to Adley Rutschman in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago).

AL Cy Young

Prediction favorites: Burnes, Kirby, Gausman

Award favorites: Skubal, Luis Castillo, Gilbert

Tarik Skubal has more or less maintained his 2023 breakout season so far, giving Tigers fans something to dream about. The “one stat” I judge pitchers by is strikeout rate minus walk rate (K-BB%) and Skubal’s is 4th among AL starters at 25.4%. If you need more stats, his hard-hit rate (% of batted balls hit 95 MPH or higher) is 2nd among AL starters at 28.9%.  

That Mariners rotation … whew. Castillo is 6th among AL starters in K-BB% and Gilbert is 12th. Kirby, whom many of you voted for, is 7th. Bryce Miller 14th. Yowza. (Thankfully for my Orioles and for your votes, Corbin Burnes is not far behind at 15th.)

NL Cy Young

Prediction favorites: Strider, Gallen, Yamamoto

Award favorites: Wheeler, Glasnow, Webb

Yeah, so … remember that you get to change 1 prediction at the All Star Break 🙂 I’m going to guess that the 11 of you (out of 17) who predicted Strider would win this award will change your prediction. Juuuuuust … have a feeling. 

What more can I say about Wheeler that I haven’t already said in this space? Dude’s underrated, which I think tends to happen with so many high finishes in Cy Young voting but no wins. He is a big part of the reason why the Phillies starters lead baseball in fWAR. 

Other names to watch: Cease, Gray, Imanaga

AL Rookie of the Year

Prediction favorites: Holliday, Carter, Langford

Award favorites: Colton Cowser, Mason Miller, Wilyer Abreu

Welllllll Jackson Holliday’s MLB debut definitely didn’t go as planned.  A 50% strikeout rate with hardly any walks is struggling in a way that guys like Gunnar and Adley never did. The kid will likely be fine; he’s still 20. And technically he could come back up in, say, mid or late May, set the league on fire, and still win the award. Gunnar was not great until June of last year and still won the award. But Jackson will have a large hill to climb. Perhaps the O’s will hold him back until next year and give him another, better shot at it. 

Wyatt Langford has also looked overmatched. He’s hitting .224/.295/.293. Baseball is hard. But his teammate Carter is hanging in there with a decent .328 OBP and great .472 SLG. 

As an O’s fan, I’m fully on board the Colton Cowser ROY train. Like many sensations, he’s playing above his head with a .378 BABIP (.290-.300 is more normal) and a 31.6% HR/FB rate (10% is the MLB norm, although power hitters can exceed that regularly). His 35.8% strikeout rate is concerning, although his 9.5% walk rate is good. (He literally just walked as I’m typing this.) He will have to adjust. But his .377 xWOBA is still very good. He is hitting the ball hard and on a line and he’s just 24.  (As I’m typing this, a couple hours later, Cowser has just doubled.)

Mason Miller … well, these days I’d love to trade Craig Kimbrel for him straight up. If Oakland wants, they can demand a king’s ransom for this kid at the trade deadline. He’s struck out 53.7% of the batters he’s faced. Over half!! It’s not yet a full season, but if it held, it would be the highest strikeout rate in a full season in a decade — Aroldis Chapman struck out 52.5% of the batters he faced in 2014. (Kimbrel himself had a nice 50.2% strikeout rate in 2012 — I’d love it if he rediscovered that particular form.)

Other names to watch: Wenceel Perez, David Schneider, Austin Wells

NL Rookie of the Year

Prediction favorites: Yamamoto, Chourio, Jung Hoo Lee

Award favorites: Imanaga, Yamamoto, Andy Pages

Here’s another area where your favorites line up with who’s on pace to win. Yamamoto has been excellent, maybe outshined by only his countryman Imanaga in Chicago.  It’s going to be tight between these two. 

Other names to watch: Jared Jones, Mitchell Parker, Joey Ortiz

AL Manager of the Year

Prediction favorites: Servais (Mariners), Hyde (Orioles), Quatraro (Royals)

Award favorites: Vogt (Guardians), Quatraro, Servais

The Guardians have so far exceeded all expectations under first-year manager Stephen Vogt. According to projections I aggregate from multiple sources every morning, they’ve raised their playoff chances about 32 percentage points, from “not going to happen” to “right on the bubble” in the first month. Given that MOY awards typically are “manager of the team that exceeds expectations the most”, I feel confident in saying he’s an early favorite.

Matt Quatraro’s Royals are right behind. Their playoff chances are still in the “not going to happen” range, but like Cleveland they’ve been one of the largest positive surprises in the AL. I saw two Orioles-Royals games in mid-April. Both were tense affairs, far more stressful than I’d expected given how the Royals did in 2023. (But damn, could we just NOT hit Alec Marsh. Also, if Salvador Perez doesn’t get elected into the HOF, I’m convinced KC fans will travel en masse to Cooperstown and storm the Museum in a protest/riot. They loooooooooove him there.)

Scott Servais’ Mariners are licking their lips. Houston’s failure to launch has opened up the AL West. The Rangers have been disappointing, but the Mariners have responded by playing decent baseball. I currently have them and the Rangers in the playoffs, with Houston on the outside looking in. Regardless of what happens, the AL West may be a tense affair this year. 

Others to watch: Cora (Red Sox), Boone (Yankees)

NL Manager of the Year

Prediction favorites: Counsell (Cubs), Shildt (Padres), Bell (Reds) / Roberts (Dodgers)

Award favorites: Murphy (Brewers), Counsell (Cubs), Shildt

The Cubs have raised their playoff chances the most in the NL, but many expected them to be good. Fewer people expected the Brewers to be good, which is why I think Pat Murphy is the frontrunner for this award. Freddy Peralta has been excellent and William Contreras is playing like an MVP candidate — although to be fair he did sneakily put up almost 6 WAR last year at age 25. So maybe we should’ve seen this coming. Pat will get the credit if the Brewers make the postseason. 

Others to watch: Thomson (Phillies) 

Next Meeting: Potluck at Ryan Pollack’s House!

The next monthly meeting will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, June 1, at the home of Ryan Pollack in North Austin. He’ll provide sandwich platters, while guests are invited to bring side dishes, desserts and beverages to share. Please RSVP to Ryan directly (ryan9379@gmail.com) by Thursday, May 30, with what you plan to bring, and he’ll share his home address.