The Edinburgh News
08-28-2028
It’s all about the Wild Card chase, baby.
This week’s edition of TWITA will concentrate on the seven-team scrum for the Imperial League’s two Wild Card slots.
It’s not that the Trans Atlantic isn’t worth examination, but let’s face it: Havana made the division race a foregone conclusion back in … well, April. So, we’re heading where the action is: Wild Card land, where most of the division is in the thick of things, anyway.
The Vegas Line
Let’s start with what the Las Vegas odds makers are saying about the IL race, for whatever that’s worth:
..........................Win Division Title..................Win Wild Card Slot...........Win Playoff Spot.......
Scotland……………………….2.5%...................................97.5%...........................100.0%...............
Arlington……………………...0.1%...................................36.2%.............................36.3%................
Hartford……………………….0.1%...................................29.6%.............................29.7%................
San Juan……………………….0.0%...................................21.9%.............................21.9%................
Kentucky……………………...0.1%...................................12.6%.............................12.7%................
London………………...……...0.0%...................................00.6%.............................00.6%................
New Orleans……...…..…...0.0%...................................00.6%.............................00.6%................
Vegas, in its wisdom, has essentially ceded the first Wild Card Spot to the Claymores, except for the teeny outside chance that the mighty men in kilts might somehow erase Havana’s lead and take the division title.The division thing is Game of Thrones-worthy fantasy. Awarding the first Wild Card spot at this point isn’t so much fantasy as premature. If you take the remainder of the season and break it into five one-week chunks, all it would take are a couple of 2-4 or 2-5 (or worse) showings by the Scottish for that 8-game lead for the first slot to disappear.
The Schedule
So, is a collapse totally outside the realm of possibility?
Hell no. Scotland has 15 games left against teams that it has struggled against: three against Havana (5-10); six against New Orleans (5-7); three against Kentucky (7-8); and three against San Antonio (6-7). It also has 4 games left with San Juan, with whom it has split its season series, so far.
Does that schedule look like a Red Wedding-style ambush by the Claymores to you? Didn’t think so. Any number of those series could go sour – especially given Scotland’s iffy bullpen performance (see below).
So, whom else does Vegas favor? Well, the odds makers marginally like Arlington better than Hartford to make the playoffs, which may be reasonable … or not.
Arlington has 18 games left against teams with whom it has a losing record: three against Havana (4-5); three against West Virginia (6-9); six against New Orleans (2-4); and 6 against Hartford (6-10). It also has four left against San Antonio, with whom it has split their season series (6-6).
Hartford? The Harpoon have 13 games left against teams against whom it has a losing record: seven against West Virginia (5-10); three against Kentucky (4-5); three against San Juan (4-5), plus six against Havana against whom it has a .500 season record (3-3).
To this reporter’s eyes, that seems about a wash ... maybe even a slight Hartford advantage.
One especially delicious quirk of the schedule to note here: the Bureaucrats and Harpoon have six games against each other in the final two weeks – including a season-ending three-game series at Arlington.
That could easily be a win or go home series for both teams!
How does the schedule shape up for the other Wild Card contenders? New Orleans and San Juan would seem to have the favorable draw here – both have just nine games remaining with teams they’ve struggled against.
For the Trendsetters, that’s three against Kentucky (6-9); three against Havana (6-9); and three against Florida (4-9), plus four against San Antonio, against whom New Orleans has split the season series (6-6).For the Coqui, it’s three against New Orleans (3-6); three against Florida (6-9); and three against Havana (3-10). San Juan also has four games against the Scottish, against whom they have a .500 record (6-6).
Kentucky and London would appear to have harder roads – they each have 17 games left with teams they’ve had trouble with.
Kentucky has four against Florida (5-7); seven against Havana (7-8); 3 against Arlington (3-6); and three against West Virginia (6-7). It also has six games remaining with Amsterdam, against whom it has split its season series (3-3).
Finally, London has four left against Havana (3-9); three against Scotland (3-6); three versus West Virginia (4-5); and seven against San Juan (7-8).
The Statistical Landscape
If you’re curious about how the contenders stack up against each other with their pitching, hitting and defense … well, look no further.
Team Pitching and Defense: Here’s a ranking of the contenders on a number of different team pitching and defensive stats:
• Runs Per Game (earned and unearned): 1. London (3.6) 2-T: Arlington (3.80) and San Juan (3.80) 4. Scotland (3.9) 5. Kentucky (4.0) 6. Hartford (4.1) 7. New Orleans (4.2)
• Overall ERA: 1. London (3.98) 2. San Juan (3.49) 3. Arlington (3.54) 4. Kentucky (3.58). 5. Scotland (3.66) 6. Hartford (3.82) 7. New Orleans (3.87)
• Starting ERA: 1. Scotland (3.53) 2. Arlington (3.60) 3. London (3.74) 4. New Orleans (3.82) 5. Kentucky (3.83) 6. San Juan (3.85) 7. Hartford (4.16)
• Bullpen ERA: 1. London (2.61) 2. San Juan (2.73) 3. Kentucky (2.98) 4. Hartford (3.28) 5. Arlington (3.43) 6. Scotland (3.95) 7. New Orleans (3.98)
• Defensive Efficiency: 1. London (.726) 2. Arlington (.721) 3. San Juan (.715) 4. Hartford (.707) 5. Scotland (.701) 6. New Orleans (.695) 7. Kentucky (.680)
Team Offense: And now from the other side of the plate, here’s how the teams rank in a number of offensive categories:
• Runs Per Game: 1. Scotland 4.4; 2-T: Hartford and Kentucky (4.2); 4. New Orleans (3.9) 5. Arlington (3.80) 6. San Juan (3.7) 7. London (3.4)
• Batting Avg.: 1. Kentucky (.269) 2. Hartford (.265) 3. Scotland (.258) 4. New Orleans (.255) 5. Arlington (.251) 6. San Juan (.234) 7. London (.235).
• OBP: 1. Hartford (.327) 2. Kentucky (.325) 3. Scotland (.320) 4. New Orleans (.303) 5. Arlington (.302) 6-T: San Juan and London (.300).
• Home Runs: 1. Scotland (146) 2. New Orleans (136) 3. Arlington (119) 4. Hartford (116) 5. Kentucky (106) 6. London (95) 7. San Juan (89).
• Run Differential: 1. Scotland (+59) 2. Kentucky (+17) 3. Arlington (+6) 4. Hartford (+3) 5. San Juan (-12) 6. London (-19) 7. New Orleans (-39).
Some Takeaways
A couple of things: most of these teams are pretty unbalanced, leaning heavily either towards pitching or offense.
Scotland probably comes the closest to a balanced squad of any of them, pairing run-scoring power with a surprisingly stingy starting rotation (given that two critical members of the opening day rotation have been on the disabled list since May). The glaring hole in the Claymores: the bullpen, especially the middle relief/setup corps.
Next in line would be Kentucky – the only team outside of Scotland that has a double-digit positive run differential.
The upshot: this race easily could come down to the final week. And, unlike the boys in Vegas, we won’t be too surprised if the Thoroughbreds trot away with one of those Wildcard spots.
Where They Stand
On the morning of Aug. 28, the Trans Atlantic Division standings were: 1) Havana, 81-49 – ; 2) Scotland, 74-56, 7 GB; 3) San Juan, 65-65, 16 GB; 4) London, 61-69, 20 GB.
On the morning of Aug. 28, the Imperial League Wild Card standings were: Scotland, 74-56, +8; Hartford, 66-64, --; Arlington, 65-65, 1 GB; San Juan, 65-65, 1 GB; Kentucky, 64-66, 2 GB; London, 61-69, 5 GB; New Orleans, 60-70, 8 GB.
See you next time!
