SBL Notebook, Week 2

It's unwise to read too much into a baseball season in its infant stage -- SBL results, 13 games in, determine supplemental draft position but little else. So the ongoing spectacle of last season's division winners, Dan's Cherry Valley Bombers and league champions Paulo's Zero's, sharing cellar space with four-time SBL champs the BGoff Bammers after two weeks probably should be taken with entire shakers-full of salt. But perhaps the most surprising development at this early juncture is the presence of Mikee's Moaners at the top of the American division heap -- not because they haven't been there before (they have, and not infrequently), but because of how they got there. The M's, to put it bluntly, cannot hit -- Week 2 totals of four home runs, 28 runs, 31 RBIs and an abominable .278 OBP drive home that point much more effectively than the team's hitters have been driving home baserunners. But, in a shocking turn of events for a team owned and operated by one of the SBL's most notoriously pitching-phobic CEOs, the Moaners have suddenly and unaccountably begun channeling the mid-1960s Dodgers, overcoming a popgun offense by deploying a dollop of speed on the basepaths and superior work on the mound to fashion a 12-1 record, including an unlikely 7-0 run this week despite the feeble hitting numbers cited above. Those Dodgers featured Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and an offense, personified by speedsters like Maury Wills and Willie Davis, that labored to manufacture just enough runs to eke out a 3-2 or 2-1 or 1-0 victory. Today’s Moaners have, for two weeks, featured Tim Lincecum and Adam Wainwright in the Koufax-Drysdale roles and Rajai Davis offering a somewhat pale Wills impersonation. Lincecum and Wainwright this week contributed 23 quality innings in which they allowed two runs, 20 baserunners, struck out 23 and notched three Ws, making them the linchpins in perhaps the best pitching week in franchise history -- microscopic ERA (1.23) and BR (.79) numbers, a 5-1 WL and monster K-rat (1.14). Moaners starters trudged to the hill seven times and surrendered exactly six earned runs in 53.2 IP. Meanwhile, R.Davis, who seems to have less trouble getting to second base than he does to first, contributed three of the Moaners' seven stolen bases, even as his OBP plunged to .246 (as leadoff hitter for OBP kings the Oakland A's, no less). And that, more or less, is how the M's managed to go 7-0 -- they won at least four pitching stats from everyone they played (in fact they conceded only 3.5 of a possible 35 pitching points), were beaten in stolen bases by only one of seven opponents, and picked just enough low-hanging fruit in the other hitting categories to win a fistful of close games -- one in a tiebreaker, three by 6-5, one by 6.5-4.5 and two 7-4 "blowouts." Decades of SBL experience and wisdom inform us that reliance on starting pitching as a long-term strategy is a recipe for failure in a fantasy league, particularly one that is 55% offense. But it has paid a short-term dividend for a Moaners team that deviated wildly from its traditional drafting approach by spending (wasting?) six of its first 10 selections on pitchers -- three starters and three relievers. . . . OK then, after availing himself of what he's sure will be his only opportunity all season to extol his team's (clearly ephemeral) virtues, your humble servant turns his gaze to the rest of the league, and sees that it is good. DamianUnited extended their stay in the first division with another solid week anchored by pitching (1.87 ERA, 1.04 BR, 4-1, .98 Ks) anyone but the Moaners would envy; they share the NL penthouse (at 10-3) with the Patton Inmates, whose combination of solid hitting and exceptional pitching was all but unbeatable in a 6-1 week. Andy's Badgers continued to look like the league's most explosive offensive force, though their pitching (5.40 ERA, 1.56 BR) let them down in a 4-3 week that left them two games behind the Moaners, and one ahead of Bristow’s Batfaced Girls, who rode 12 SBs, a .399 OBP and quality pitching across the board to a nice 6-1 week. And as for the Bombers, Bammers and Zero's, hey, it's only a two-week sample, just a blip on a long season's radar screen, not a six-month trend.