Post by Reddington on May 29, 2020 21:56:33 GMT -5
Welcome all to another State of HOFFBL edition here on the home of Braves Baseball.
The whimsical gods of Baseball are again with us in all of baseball, but we’ll start with the AL East.
Baltimore is again having a pretty 500 type season despite having one of the best pitchers in baseball on a pitching staff that has 3 aces, and two of the best hitters in baseball, yet they still cant get out of their own way and put together a run for the pennant. It wasn’t that long ago when it looked like the Tribe was going to run away with getting into the playoffs and now they are in a fight for their life to get there, and their life raft is taking on water at an alarming rate. Doc is an amazing pitcher, but he loses too many games. With his talent he should be closer to a .667 win % not in the .550 range. Toronto is still in first place and they have held onto the top spot again since the beginning of the season. Curiously though, they are not as dominant as last year. With just under 2 months to go in the season, while Toronto has the East in hand, they are tied for 3rd best record in the AL.
Over in the Central, after looking like Detroit could make a run at the post season, that is looking less and less likely, a full 13 games out of the wild card position. Fear not Detroit fans, they already have a couple young stud pitchers, with a few more in the minors. Soon the talented batters in the minors will be joining the amazing cast of hitters they already have in the majors. Until that happens, and even once it does, the question is will they be able to overtake the current kings in the Central? Once again, the White Sox are running away with the pennant. The tank might be slowly running down though as the minors don’t have and real special talent left.
The West is the real fun. California after last seasons first post season under the young GM Uwill, look to be even better. They struggled to find their spot and were playing just 500 ball 2 months into the season having a record of 23-23. Since then they have been a blistering 46-18. All this with their best hitter still in the minors. What was really curious was they traded for a slugger from the Twins but have yet to utilize the slugger, though when the slugger was slated to take over the DH and the DH is hitting .307 and the team is in the middle of a historic run, I guess one could say the manger is being wise. Sophomore David Justice is having a MONSTER year, already with 28 homers and 90 rbi’s, the kid is on fire. With all of that though, Seattle is still number 1 in the Division, and it looks like while the Angels are destine to be playing in October, it will be without the Banner that once again the Mariners shall bring home to Seattle.
Coming to the NL, we have the best dog fight in the league which is also in the West, the team with the best record in HOFFBL holding a 5 game lead over the team with the 2nd best record in the NL. The Dodgers have found their winning ways again and after a very weird year last year, they have bounced back and taken baseball by the throat. Their only issue is that they are in the same division as the Giants. There must be something about living on the Pacific coast as the 4 of the 6 teams that do, have 4 of the top 6 records in all of HOFFBL. The Giants are just a machine this year, with two of the top 3 batters for avg and OPS, a league leader in homers, and a batter in the top 3 for RBI, runs, stolen bases. With a young staff that is the best in baseball, combined with a young lineup, this team has the marking of being the team of the 90’s. The only thing that could bring this team down is payroll, but Mr. Martin seems to be a magician when it comes to the books and salaries. Year after year, the bean counters say the payroll is unsustainable, and year after year, somehow, they meet payroll and increase their savings in the bank.
In the NL Central is the most improbable story. In an effort to not self destruct the Cards of the last two years have traded away talent that they couldn’t afford to keep, and yet are right back in the thick of things with a chance to steal another pennant for the rabid baseball fans of St Louis. How the Cards have done this in back to back years is worthy of a case study, for other GMs to learn from. When the season started the money was on the Pirates to win the Central, with the Cards coming in at a 40% chance, but low and behold the team that is leading is none other than the Cubs. The Cubs have the pitching to continue the season to bring home the pennant to hoist at Wriggly. That same pitching is the greatest concern for the next couple seasons as they will need to replace Dravecky and Sanderson in a year or two at the latest.
Over in the NL East we have the Braves once again leading the division. In a taste of irony, the Braves are having one of their worst seasons in quite some time, but after three years of having four teams that could and would have won a division had they been in a different division, this years East crowd is in rebuild. It looks like the GM of the Braves has finally started the long awaited negotiations to keep the phenom named Maddux in town. One thing to really watch for in the coming days is Doug Corbett’s date with destiny. With 599 career saves, he is 1 away from the magical and unicorn mythical 600th.
