Rod Beck vs the Potato Pickers

At the end of Sim 2, two teams have sustained a good enough winning percentage to avoid being tagged with a10th loss on the season. At 21-7, the Harry Caray league's Windy City Potato Pickers have the best record in ATB. Across the way in Vin Scully, I Miss Rod beck is just two games off the pace at 19-9. While early season predictions are often recipes for embarrassment and backpedaling, it certainly wouldn't be a surprise if the two teams met in October.

Is one better than the other? Both are within 4 Runs Scored and 8 Runs Against of each other but have marked differences on paper. Their offenses have relied on different aspects of the game to score their runs:

WPP - .278 / .337 / .417, 21 HR, +10 SB
IMR - .310 / .355 / .381, .9 HR, +32 SB

The Potato Pocketers also lead in doubles 53 to 32 and triples 15 to 7. The large advantage for Rod Beck in on-base percentage virtually eliminates the edge Windy City has in the power department, as evidenced by their RC/27 values - both exactly 5.0.

The key to their offenses lie in a few outfielders. Rod Beck is led by right fielder Tony Gwynn and his left field counterpart, Jesse Burkett. Both are high average hitters with little power, but have a combined line of .370 / .410 / .446.

Windy City has one standout, the immortal Ty Cobb. Roaming center field with very good defense, Cobb is also getting it done with the stick, batting .341 / .388 / .540 with 17 R and 18 RBI.

If the two offenses are similar, we must make allowances for differences with their pitching staffs. At this point in time anyway, there is no better pitching staff in baseball than Windy City's:

#1 SP: 1.59 ERA, B Adams
#2 SP: 2.75 ERA, H Brecheen
#3 SP: 2.45 ERA, J Schmidt
#4 SP: 3.52 ERA, F Jenkins
#5 SP: 4.02 ERA, N Hahn

Their pen is downright nasty:

0.47 ERA, D Lilliquist
1.08 ERA, J Neale
1.77 ERA, E Kinder
3.20 ERA, G White

Their team RCERA stands at 2.55.

This is no knock on the Rod Beck - one can make a case their combined staff is likely one of the Top 3 in the game. Their team RCERA in fact is third best at 3.30. However, they falter by one or two pitchers in a direct comparison to Windy City:

#1 SP: 4.12 ERA, C Mathewson
#2 SP: 1.88 ERA, D Gooden
#3 SP: 2.90 ERA, J Chesbro
#4 SP: 4.15 ERA, S Chandler

And their bullpen:

1.96 ERA, J Franco
4.00 ERA, J Shaw
4.88 ERA, R Beck

As of today at least, it does appear Windy City has the best team in the land. (Jinx!!!!)

Note - The top-10 team Pythagorean Winning percentages are below, and I list them to only to mention there are other teams waiting in the wings to be included in the next "Best of ATB" discussion:

.664 - Windy City
.647 - Bellevue
.626 - La Chapelle-aux-Saints
.613 - I Miss
.579 - Bucky Dent