The 2038 Sovereign League Royal Raker Race

[Ghosts]

The races to the Sovereign League playoffs are in full sprint. As Reno, Niihama-shi, Kalamazoo, Shin Seiki, Aurora, Toyoma, Okinawa, Tempe, and maybe even Madison vie for playoff position, the Sovereign League’s stars push tirelessly to lift their respective teams above the competition. Meanwhile, writers, fans, and executives analyze, argue, and evaluate which players have done the most in that regard, and the foundation for the end of season awardings takes shape. The Royal Raker, Golden Glove, Golden Arm, Shitdown Reliever, and Wunderkind awards are the prized possessions of those players that gave more than any other, and this year’s contenders will be no exception.

The Royal Raker, awarded to a position player, is an award that generates as much controversy as it does envy. Some believe it to be the equivalent of the old MLB Most Valuable Player award, where offense, defense, and everything in between is taken into consideration. Others deem it an offense-only award, while others still claim it is a hitting only award.

If the all-effort crowd is to be believed, perhaps the most important statistic one would refer to is WAR, the infamous catch-all number for valuing a player’s contribution to his team. SL leaders as of August 16th, 2038 are Aurora’s Angel Silva (6.4), Okinawa’s Pablo Ortiz (5.9), Kalamazoo’s Claudio Perez (5.5), Niihama’s Jin-Song Zambrano (5.3), and Duluth’s Henry Davis (4.8 ). Perhaps the only surprise on that list is Davis, who has never in a 14 year career accumulated more than 2.3 WAR in a season. Davis, at 36, is a first-time all-star and at least according to WAR, is in the running for the Royal Raker. What is notable about the list is that the list is exclusively made up of centerfielders, shortstops, and catchers. While each of these players is having excellent seasons behind the plate, they are also playing the game’s most difficult defensive positions and their WAR scores are weighted as such. Whether this is a good thing for ranking Royal Raker candidates is up to the voter.

For those that might argue against defensive production’s inclusion, perhaps runs created per 27 outs (RC/27) is the right catch-all number. It is an estimate of the number of runs per nine innings (27 outs) a team made up of eight of the same player would score. Leaders in this metric, which includes stolen bases, sacrifices, and even grounding into double plays, are among the game’s most prolific offensive forces. Today’s leaderboard consists of Duluth’s Doug Petersen, Shin Seiki’s Ryo Takahashi, Okinawa’s Pablo Garza, and Kalamazoo’s Claudio Perez and Juan Carlos Ornelza. For those that prefer to exclude stolen bases, weighted on base average (wOBA) is perhaps the better metric, but both of these measures are rate statistics, meaning they don’t measure a player’s production, only the rate with which he accumulates it. For a sense of total production, there is perhaps no substitute for simple totals like hits, walks, home runs (HR), etc. If there was one catch all total for hitting production, it might be total bases, the simple sum of hits, doubles, triples, and HRs where each is worth the bases reached. Today’s leaderboard is Pablo Garza (304), Juan Carlos Ornelza (256), Toyoma’s Fernando Cabrera (252), Duluth’s Antonio Herrera (248), and Pablo Ortiz tied with Shin Seiki’s Doug Knox (247). Garza’s incredible lead in total bases (+48) puts him far and away ahead of the pack for accumulated production. Much of that comes from his HR total of 44 (+7 ahead of 2nd place), which is on pace for a record-crushing 60 HR. In fact, Garza just needs 11 HRs to supplant Steve Boyer’s record of 54 HR in a season, a feat well within his reach with 54 games remaining in Okinawa’s season.

So who really leads the pack for the award? It’s hard to say, as different perspectives will have different answers. On one hand, it’s hard to argue against the tallies the Mountain Man has accumulated for Okinawa. On the other, Claudio Perez is actually beating Garza in multiple categories, including all-encompassing cumulative stats like WAR and wPA (4.11 vs 3.85), but also in key offense-only metrics like OPS+ (174 vs 159), wOBA (.435 vs .414), and ISO (.360 vs .355). If the voting were happening today, Perez would be a hard candidate to ignore.

Ultimately, though, only the vote will matter. Previous winners include players known only for their bats, with Garza himself being the most recent (2035) example, as well as those CF/SS types that accumulate WAR so well (Watson, Ortiz).