Batting Titles

With the 2012 batting race currently featuring 4 players within 16 points of each other, I thought I'd go back and find other close batting titles in SFL history. Surprisingly, there weren't many, but this is what I found:

1985-- John Decker and Tony Connor tie at .500.
1987-- Bill Weinberg beats Rich Rowlands by 4 points, .452 to .448
1992-- Dan Schneider beats Kurt Hettler by 4 points, .486 to .482
1996-- Joe Gerber beats Phil Kotik by 8 points, .484 to .476
2003-- Ian Lebowitz beats Chris Hall by 7 points, .500 to .493

Here are the widest margins of victory:

1983-- Bill Weinberg (.605) by 114 points over Jose Balento
2007-- Phil Ciccone (.558) by 85 points over Dave Sommers
2005-- Chris Hall (.580) by 80 points over Carl Weinberg
2000-- Larry Savell (.623) by 78 points over Ian Lebowitz
2008-- Carl Weinberg (.541) by 75 points over Ian Parfrey

Players who won multiple titles:

Phil Kotik, 3-- 1994, 1995, 1999
Bill Weinberg, 2-- 1983, 1987
John Decker, 2-- 1985 (tie), 1986
Dan Schneider, 2-- 1992, 1997
Joe Gerber, 2-- 1996, 1998
Ian Lebowitz, 2-- 2001, 2003
Carl Weinberg, 2-- 2002, 2008
Chris Hall, 2-- 2004, 2005
Phil Ciccone, 2-- 2006, 2007
Ian Parfrey, 2-- 2010, 2011

Players who were runners-up multiple times:

Larry Savell, 4-- 1989, 1990, 1991, 1999 (won in 2000)
Phil Kotik, 4-- 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002 (won in 1994, 1995, 1999)
Dan Schneider, 2-- 1993, 1994 (won in 1992, 1997)
Carl Weinberg, 2-- 2005, 2006 (won in 2002, 2008)

One time runners-up:

Jose Balento, 1983
John Decker, 1984
Austen Ruse, 1985
Bill Weinberg, 1986
Rich Rowlands, 1987
Mark Allen, 1988
Kurt Hettler, 1992
John Grieco, 1995
Ian Lebowitz, 2000
Bob Holzwasser, 2001
Chris Hall, 2003
Gil Schmerler, 2004
Dave Sommers, 2007
Ian Parfrey, 2008
Derek Martinez, 2009
Freddie Melendez, 2010
Eric Schulman, 2011

From the Roger Connor files:

Did you ever wonder who SFL's past lifetime batting average leaders were? Here's a rundown.

1983-84: Bill Weinberg
1985-87: John Decker
1988-89: Bill Weinberg
1990: Jose Balento
1991: Bobby Naranjo
1992: Jose Balento (now #16)
1993: Bobby Naranjo (now #17)
1994: Larry Savell (now #6)
1995: Phil Kotik
1996-97: Dan Schneider
1998-2000: Phil Kotik (now #4)
2001-05: Dan Schneider (now #3)
2006-09: Chris Hall (now #2)
2010: Ian Lebowitz

I set the current requirement at 1,000 plate appearances, however up until 1993 qualifying limit rises incrementally each season, which is why John Decker and Bill Weinberg drop off the list. I might re-think that later, we'll see.

ZACH NILVA THROWS NO HITTER

Game 1
Hewes 7, O'Connor 5
Havelock Hewes (10-16) needed most of a 7-0 cushion to pick up the win. Sam Magnus was 2-for-4 with a double and 3 RBI for the winners. Ken Walker (3-for-4, 2 RBI) and Freddy Melendez (3-for-3) led O'Connor's team. Hewes stranded the tying runs on base.

Game 2
Parfrey 10, Stoeth 3
Ian Parfrey (11-7) battled control issues in the first, when he walked the bases loaded and then allowed Glen Lawrence's 3-run double. He settled down to throw 6 scoreless frames afterwards. Alex Rivera was the offensive star, going 3-for-3 with 2 doubles, 2 runs scored, and an RBI. Ian Lebowitz scored 3 runs, drove in 2, and participated in a bizarre play where his short fly ball to center fell just in front of Don Weiss, who recovered to force out Parfrey at second, and the throw on to third got Bill McLaughlin, while Alex Rivera scored from third.

Game 3
Nilva 1, Melendez 0, 5 innings
Zach Nilva allowed no hits and walked three, and a French tourist walk-on named Manu made three difficult catches in right-center to preserve the no-no. He then asked me if we play every day, and I told him only on Sundays. I hope not to see him unless he's on my team. Zach's defense turned two double plays behind him, and the game's only run came when Mike Palma hit a leadoff triple to right-center, and then came around on Ken Walker's sac fly to deep left. Freddy Melendez was the hard-luck loser, scattering 4 hits.

Games and Notes of 8/15

Notes:
Pitcher Derek Martinez got the win as Lee's Tavern won the Staten Island Co-ed League championship. Derek says: I finished the year 11-1 as a pitcher and last Sunday won the championship 21-13. Crazy first inning where I gave up 10 runs but settled down to win by 8. A brief recap is at http://www.silive.com/recsports/index.ssf/2010/08/staten_island_softball_roundup_1.html

Games:
Melendez 8, Hewes 6
This contest featured prodigious slugging from Brian Hernandez and Jaime Orochena. Hernandez homered twice, including a first-inning grand slam, and drove in 6, while Orochena tallied 5 RBI with a sac fly, a 2-run homer, and a 2-run double. Havelock Hewes's first-inning woes continued, as his team fell into a 5-0 hole, mostly courtesy of Hernandez's blast to left-center. However, Freddy Melendez (9-5) had to work for his win, fending off several comebacks, and stranding the tying runs in scoring position. The winners also got contributions from Ian Lebowitz (3-for-4, 2 doubles) and Ian Parfrey (3-for-4, 3 runs). Zach Nilva was 4-for-4 with 3 runs scored for Havelock's team.

Parfrey 7, Stoeth 5
Ian Parfrey (10-5) became SFLOI's first 10-game winner in a sloppy 6-inning comedy of walks and bad defense. Bob Holzwasser's 3rd inning single broke a 2-2 tie, and two further runs scored on errors in the inning to give Parfrey a lead that he tried to give back but ultimately "failed" to. This game featured balanced offensive attacks from either side, with no outstanding offensive performances, although Alex Rivera did follow up last year's bunt triple with a fielder's choice "triple" on a grounder to shortstop.

GAMES OF JULY 25th

A couple of good, close games this morning.

Game 1-- Appell 8, Hewes 6
Appell's team built an 8-1 lead and survived a late onslaught to win. A disputed call on a diving no-catch by Alex Rivera opened the floodgates in the 3rd inning, as Appell's team scored five times, keyed by Appell's 2-run single. Eric Schulman hit a 2-run HR down the LF line in the next inning, and it looked grim for Hewes's side. They scored 5 times in the fifth, however, including an Alex Rivera 3-run HR, and closed within 2. The tying run came to bat in each of the next two innings but Appell (1-3) slammed the door.

Game 2-- Parfrey 5, O'Connor 4
This game had an even more thrilling finish. With two outs in the 5th, Zach Nilva tripled to right-center and came around to score when the relay to third was off-line. This tied the game at 3, but Ian Lebowitz led off the top of the 6th with a line drive HR to deep left (his first since 2003!) to give Jim O'Connor a 4-3 lead. In the bottom of the inning, Havelock Hewes and Paul Geoghan had successive 2-out RBI singles, plating the tying and eventual winning runs. Parfrey (9-5) pitched a 1-2-3 7th for the win, and allowed only 5 hits overall, but walked 6, adding to his reputation as the Ollie Perez of SFLOI. Zach Nilva had 3 hits and scored 3 runs for the winners.

THE FUTURE SEASON FORECASTER

This is something I've been kicking around with Sal and Seung for awhile now-- trying to come up with our own predictive tool, like Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA, for softball. I've concluded that this is a basically useless endeavor-- incredibly difficult with little payoff besides finding out if I'm as smart as I think I am. We're not professionals; Havelock will not be considering this when deciding whether to sign Alex or Zach to a multi-million dollar deal to patrol centerfield. But the idea refuses to die.

We do have an incredible statistical database, with basic batting stats going back to 1983, and the full range of stats starting in 1985. Pitching was not always tracked diligently, until Joe Gerber came along, and fielding is impossible to track at this level. Gerber, by the way, left me a valuable statistical database consisting of-- I believe 9-- complete seasons from the 1990s and 2000s. For those seasons at least, I could (if I accept this mission) weed out the park effects from the different fields we've used. It's easier to hit in the winter games, for example. Hastings produces a lot of doubles. Dobbs produces cheap homers. When SFLOI used Dobbs as its primary field, there was a HR explosion of epic proportions, similar to what would happen if the Colorado Rockies moved to Mexico City with 275-foot fences and built eight clones of Ted Williams with DNA taken from his frozen head. When I was hitting at Dobbs in late 2008, I hit 7 of my 12 homers in a single month. Jeff Appell homered 19 times in a season, Glen Lawrence 17, Ian Lebowitz 16. Heckscher, with its spacious outfield (and some claim, its difficult hitting backdrop), took away everyone's "power", though they were really the same hitters. Look in the lifetime stats-- the HR explosion is 1998-2001, and 2002-2005 is the dead ball era.

So, obvious conclusion #1-- some ballparks make certain hitters look good. Singles hitters do not benefit from Dobbs Ferry. Big fly-ball hitters do, as do line-drive gap hitters.

In baseball predictions, age is a big factor, but I don't think that would be the case in softball. Most baseball players are finished by 35, and softball hitters are never "finished", and you could make a case that the decline phase only even begins somewhere between 40 and 60. I would guess that how often a player plays, and how good their conditioning is, has a greater effect. So, I might look at how players perform after 200-AB seasons. Do they improve, or at least decline more slowly? Complicating this-- many of our players get at bats elsewhere, with other teams and pickup games. How can we measure for that?

Well, that's all the stats I have in me for today, and my girlfriend will probably kill me if I don't get off her laptop soon. Nate Silver, one of the guys who designed PECOTA, later said that ballplayers perform pretty much like they did in past seasons. That's good enough for me. Maybe.