The Harry Caray league is all set. Despite losing three in a row Planet 10 clinches a Wild Card playoff birth, narrowly edging out Edinburgh. With an 85-76 record, Edinburgh at best could finish with 86 wins and are officially eliminated.

This leaves the playoff series as follows:

Planet 10 (#4) vs. Windy City (#1)
La Chapelle (#3) vs. Bellevue (#2)

The last Wild Card slot in Vin Scully remains up for grabs, coming down to perhaps the last game of the season:

0.0 - Helena (88-72)
1.0 - Rochester (87-73)
1.5 - DC (87-74)

The top two teams make the playoffs, leaving DC currently on the outside looking in by the thinnest of margins.

DC has just one game remaining and realistically require a win to have a shot. If victorious against Addie Joss (10-9, 3.05) and the Black Sox they will have to watch from home as Helena and Rochester close out the season. Here are the remaining pitching match-ups


Two notes on these.

1) Ed Walsh is gets the start for Rochester because their #1 starter Sandy Koufax is out for the season with an arm injury.

2) Helena's remaining two games are against John McDonald, a team they have just a 3-6 record against this season.

Finally, the Vin Scully divisional leaders have assured themselves a playoff birth. John McDonald clinched the #1 seed and will play the Wild Card team with the worst record.

Pitching Matchups for Rochester and DC

While nothing is set in stone, it certainly appears the only race that will come down to the wire is the last Wild Card slot in Vin Scully, between the DC Chips and Rochester Beau Brummels. With 4 games to play, Wild Card leader Helena Handbasket has a 1.5 game lead on Rochester, and a 2 game lead on DC.

Over in Harry Caray, Planet 10 has a 4.5 game lead on Edinburgh for the final Wild Card slot.

Here are the pitching match-ups for the key WC race:

Powe Alley - Week 10

Top 5

• No change in teams and their order remains intact
• However, slowly but sure Windy City has fallen off their mid season pace of 118 wins and no longer have the best run differential in the game.

Gains and Losses

• No team had a significant climb up the charts, but White Meadow Lake, Rusty Kuntz, Duke Street, and Warning Track each climbed 2 slots.
• With a 4-11 week, Bucky Dent loses three slots and is likely out of the wild card race.

Speaking of which, with a month to play, the level of excitement with regard to the wildcard races has diminished. At the beginning of Week 10, nine teams had chances at reaching the playoffs, and the end of the week just six are remaining.

Bucky Dent, Rod Beck, and Warning Track went a combined 11-16 during the sim, while the teams they were chasing recorded 18 wins in 28 attempts.

Relooking at the ATB IX Draft

A few weeks ago, I ran a "draft analysis" piece. No time for commentary, but here is an updated file.

Well, some bullets anyway:

• Worst 1st round pick continues to be Randy Johnson, though, he does have a 2.16 ERA with his new team.
• The latest an elite player was taken? Rd 5, Doc Gooden from Rod Beck
• Worst pick of the draft might be Ron Guidry - a 3rd rounder taken by Edinburgh who still has a 5.63 ERA.
  
• Maybe it is Whitey Ford though - he's a second rounder with a 5.23 ERA but has done less damage because he's pitched a few less innings.

Great late finds:

• Rd 26, Charlie Ferguson (WMB) - 3.27 ERA, 104 IP
  
• Rd 22, Kevin Millwood (WMB) - 3.18 ERA, 123 IP
  
• Rd 20, Derek Lilliquist (WPP) - 1.21 ERA, 75 IP
• Rd 19, Mike Jackson (OPR) - 1.87 ERA, 63 IP
• Rd 18, Frank Killen (OFB) - 2.00 ERA, 121 IP
• Rd 11, Steve Evans (WPP) - .973 OPS, 404 AB
  

Predicting the Future Based Upon Strength of Schedule

Late in each ATB Season I try and break out the calculator and make some educated predictions about the balance of the season in hopes of finding the favorites for the Divisional and Wild Card Races. This year, the closest divisional race comes courtesy of the It Gets Thru Buckner division, but here the White Meadow Lake Black Stones trail the Helena Handbasket's by 6.5 games. The race is certainly not over, but by no means seriously in doubt.

The other Division races are even less exciting with John McDonald leading Behind the Bag by 9, the Windy City Potato Pocketers winning by 10.5, and the Belleveu Freakin Franchise by an almost unbelievable 19 games.

Our focus today will be on the Wild Card races. But first, a few notes on how I went about the calculation - ATB regulars can skip the next two paragraphs as nothing written hasn't been said at least twice already throughout our previous campaigns.

Bill James once derived a formula to predict the outcome of a game between two teams, based solely on their winning percentage. I took this a bit further, incorrectly in all honesty, and applied it to winning percentages of a team versus the collective winning percentages of all opponents left on the schedule. Even further, I use Pythagorean Winning Percentage instead of straight winning percentage.

Step through the charts below in a left to right fashion:

• Teams Actual Record
• Pythagorean Winning Percentage of that Team to Date
• Remaining Opponents Pythagorean Winning Percentage
• Expected Outcome of those games expressed in winning percentage terms. For instance, JMF is playing .640 ball, has to face teams with a collective .485 Wpct the rest of the way, and we should therefore expect them to win .654 % of their contests.
• Quick and Dirty Home/Away modifier, meant to adjust the Wpct up or down based upon the number of Home/Away games.
  
• Games Left
• Projected W-L record of those remaining Games
• Projected Win Total
• Projected Games Back
  

Vin Scully League

Today, 10 of the 12 teams in this league have a legitimate shot at contending for a playoff spot. In terms of the Wild Card, the 10th team is just 5.5 games out of the last slot and 6 teams are within 3 games.

Strength of schedule shows this isn't going to last:

• The top teams remain where they stand with John McDonald and Helena winning their divisions by 7 and 5 games respectively.
  
• The Rochester Beau Brummels project to finish as the second best team in the league, a full 9 games up in the Wild Card
• If play ended today, the Black Stones would narrowly edge the DC Chips for the last playoff spot thanks to a .522 vs .521 winning percentage. However, the Home/Away schedule for DC gives them the edge closing out the year. Both teams have nearly identical expected winning percentages but DC has 27 home and 18 road games remaining, while White Meadow Lake has 23 home and 26 road. This difference results in a predicted 2 game advantage for the reigning champs. These two teams still have 4 head to head games remaining with the Black Stones winning 5 of 8 so far this year.
• Bucky Dent's Middle Name, currently a half game back of White Meadow Lake, looks to be in the thick of the race as well, projecting to fall short by just two games. With an expected winning percentage of .510 but more road games than home games, they look to finish the season with a run of .500 ball.
• The rest of the teams all fall of the pace quickly. The Chi Town Black Sox have lost 8 in a row and project to play about .500 rest of the way, and with their current record 6 games under .500 they'll likely fall short of contention.
  
• Rusty Kuntz Traveling All Stars have played well of late, but face teams with a collective .511 winning percentage.
• I Miss Rod Beck will have a tough go of it as well. They are currently being outscored by 17 runs and are expected to win 21 of their last 45 games, coming up 6 games short.
  

Harry Caray League


I won't spend much time on the less exciting Vin Scully League. Three teams project to easily outpace the pack, with the only playoff spot in doubt coming down to the last Wild Card team. The Edinburgh Caber Tossers have a much easier strength of schedule when compared with Planet 10: .486 vs .536. And while Planet 10 has a better run differential, they still project to lose one game on Edignburgh, finishing 2 out. Both teams have 26 home and 19 road games left.

If interested, here is the team by team look at the remaining schedule.

ATB XI All Star Backups

Harry Caray Bench
C) Javy Lopez, PR
MI) Roberto Alomar#, CR
CI) Lou Gehrig*, CR
OF) Ted Williams*, JuP
OF) Bobby Murcer*, CR
Bench) Jeff Bagwell, WPP


Vin Scully Bench
C) Mickey Cochrane*, JMF
MI) Fred Dunlap, WMB
CI) John Olerud*, RBB
OF) Willie Keeler*, RBB
OF) Tris Speaker*, DCC
Bench) Willie Mays, BDM

Power Alley - Week 4

Top 5
Two changes to the Top-5 this week. I Miss Rod Beck drops 3 slots to #6 and Helena Handbasket drops 5 slots to #10. This made room for two new teams - John McDonald Fanclub and La Chappelle-aux-Saints Neanderthals.

Movers and Shakers

• +6 - Edinburgh Caber Tossers. At 10-3 in Week 4, the Caber Tossers cracked the magical .500 Wpct barrier for the first time all season. They have been victorious 9 of their last 10 games and outscored their opponents 84-64. Their best batter, Tip O'Neill, was named Sim 4 player of the Week while their pitching staff was led by Whitey Ford who made two starts, winning both with a 2.93 ERA.
  
• +6 - White Meadow Lake Black Stones. Another 10-3 team, the Black Stones broke out on offense, batting .310 / .375 / .455 and were third in scoring during the Sim. First Basemen Jason Giambi drove in 18 on 5 HR and compiled a .407 on-base percentage.
  

Losers and Fakers

• -6 - Willets Point "Mechanics". Tough week for Willets Point. Heading into Sim 4, the "Mechanics were 24-22 and potentially on the cusp of contention. A sim later, they are 8 games out with a -52 run differential, though still in second place. Who's to blame? While their pitching wasn't too bad(4.00 ERA) their batting was awful. With team slash line of .243 / .307 / .356 they scored 3.7 runs per game, a far cry from the league leading Caber Tossers at 6.5.
  
• -6 - Wedge Tornado. With an awful 2-12 sim record, and an even worse -44 run differential, Tornado has a .356 winning percentage and is on pace to lose 102 games. In Week 4, five regulars batted under .200 (Hack Wilson, Don Baylor, Mike Schmidt, Ryne Sandberg, and Ivan Rodriguez.
  
• -5 - Helena Handbasket. All looked great for Helena coming into Sim 4. At 27-16, on a 6 game winnings streak, and having closed the gap with I Miss Rod Beck to just 1 1/2 games, Helena had a great opportunity to take the division lead. Instead, with a 4-9 record they lost a game in the standings to Rod Beck and the third place team, Bucky Dents Middle Name, gained 4 1/2 games. The culprits? Out of the pen Robb Nen, Earl Hamilton, Joel Hoerner, and Todd Frohwirth combined for a 8.18 ERA. On offense, Jackie Robinson, Lefty O'Doul, and Cal Ripken had OPS scores of .550 or worse.
  

Player of the Week - Cla Merideth

As with Mr. O'neill, the success of Cla Meredith coincided exactly with the turnaround of his team as a whole. The White Meadow Lake Black Stones went 10-3 in Sim 4, and now stand at .500 and just 5 1/2 games out first place. Meredith was quite good over the past 13 games and is awarded Week 4 Pitcher of the Week honors: 10 appearances, 8 Saves, no runs, 11.1 IP, 5 H, 6 K.

A Gamble Failed?

Sitting in front of his locker after game 14, Sure Shot Dunlap wouldn't be discouraged. The first round draft pick for the struggling White Meadow Lake Black Stones had been awful at the plate all season long, and at the end of play on April 29th his slash stats stood at an unremarkable .225 / .307 / .236.

"Dunlap has and immense amount of pressure on his shoulders," said manager Mike S, "our entire hopes for ATB success rest on them." Mike later stopped short of admitting it was a gamble drafting the strong armed second basemen, but it was undoubtedly gamble nevertheless. Dunlap came from the 1800s player set, a myriad of unproven players that sometimes excel (see Tip O'Neill) but more often fail to live up to expectations. With the proven slugger and superstar Ted Williams still on the draft board, the Black Stones went with the second basemen instead.

This from player and batting coach Sam Crawford, "Dunlap has kept his cool throughout. He's a business man first, and ballplayer second. He understands 19 games a season doesn't make". Truer words have rarely been spoken. In his real baseball life, Dunlap was often the highest paid player in the game, showing a keen business acumen for pitting teams against each other, forcing up his asking price. In speaking about his own contract demands, Dunlap once said, "he had adopted baseball as a profession and was in the business to make money."

Most importantly, a spark has ignited in Dunlap's bat over the last 6 games. Since the last day of April, Dunlap has batted .440 / .533 /.680. Only time and patience will ultimately reveal if Dunlap pans out and is ultimately worth a 1st or even 2nd round pick, but you can't help root for the historically obscure middle infielder.

Power Alley - Sim 2

The top two teams remain unchanged at the end of Sim 2, with the Windy City Potato Pickers and I Miss Rod Beck continuing their pace of 100 plus win seasons. At 21-7 The Potato Pickers have been particularly good so far, though the run differential suggests not quite as good as their .750 winning percentage indicates.

Rounding out the Top 5 are Bellevue Freakin' Franchise (up 1 slot), La Chappelle-aux-Saints Neanderthals (up 6), and Rusty Kuntz Traveling All Stars (down 2).

The biggest movers of the week are the Rochester Beau Brummels, led by the aforementioned Batting Player of the Week, Babe Ruth.

On the other hand, the fortunes of the Potomac Rage and White Meadow Lake Black Stones have plummeted, with both teams losing 13 slots in the power rankings. The Rage went 3-12 thanks in large part to a team .662 OPS in Sim 2 and the Black Stones must put much of the blame on their horrendous .224 team batting average with runners in scoring position.