One of the interesting awards we have here is the pennant. How do you win one? You have to be a good, but underrated player, who gets traded inbetween games a lot. Gil almost stole one this year by playing one half of every doubleheader. Bob, who did win, was frequently traded when the losing team requested a good infielder. I came within 1 game of the pennant by going 18-7 as a pitcher, and many of the previous pennant winners-- Gil, Jorge Loarte, Pete Bochan, Havelock-- have been pitchers. The pitcher can control his destiny a little better than the fielders can.
The dark side of this award is the negative pennant. I can't take credit for coining the phrase; it's Seung's. Only one player has won three positive pennants (Bobby Naranjo), but three different players have "won" four negative pennants. Pete Bochan, Bobby Naranjo, Havelock, Gil, and Bob have all won both awards. Havelock, in his "winning" season, was 24 games under .500. That was also the year he walked 63 times. Karma? You tell me. The negative pennant has been won by some good players. Alltime OPS leader Phil Kotik won one, while never winning the actual pennant. Alltime RBI leader Jose Balento is one of the unlucky four-time winners. I guess his bat was asked to cover some outmatched teams over the years. Rich "Wrong Way" Rowlands set a record of sorts in 1999 by winning the negative pennant and only playing 13 games; he went 2-11. We all know Rich can play the game-- that couldn't have been his fault.
Taken together, the positive and negative pennants can measure how well balanced the team-choosing is. 2009 was a well balanced year, with the two pennant winners a total of 19 games off of .500. This makes it the most balanced year since 1993. The most unbalanced year was 2007, when Carl won the pennant at +17, and Marvin won the negative pennant at -20. I think it took all of Havelock's skill to hold Carl to +17 that year, as Carl also led the league in doubles, triples, homers, and RBI.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
THE GOLDEN SOMBRERO
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2 comments:
One other factor is tardiness. if a player is considered in the top half of the talent pool and comes late to a game, he will likely be chosen by the team which is behind (and likely to lose the game) I think this may be a factor in Balento's case. As for career records, I was proud at one point in December to, after over 1,300 games have an exactly even record. Now that I'm two games over .500 I'm open to criticism of fixing the games. Another thing about career records - Tony Connor is the most games over .500 at about 55. However, we have two players, David Rosengard and Marvin Cohen, who are over 100 games under .500. Being the guy most responsible for making the teams it seems that I must overestimate Dave and Marv's skills. They are both close friends of mine who I admire greatly. It may be that my general admiration of these men bleeds into my assessment of them as players. Now that Marvin has said such nasty things about me, I expect my admiration for him to drop, which may cause me to see Marvin as a poorer player, causing me to put him on better teams. Another 20 years and Marvin will be back to .500!
The next four after Tony are: Jorge Loarte, Carl Weinberg, Ben Indek, and Derek Martinez. Ben may be the only player to ever win the pennant in his rookie season.
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