The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance

As an outsider, if I were to look at the current state of the Bureaucrats, I would say they are simply a bad team. a 21-24 record and a 3rd place team does not instill confidence in, well pretty much anyone. But if I were to look at their history, when compared to their division rivals, it shows a completely different picture.

Not only do the Bureaucrats have the highest season Win % over their rivals, they have the highest Career Win% of the entire Seaboard Division. On top of that, they have the 2nd highest Cumulative Win % of the Imperial League (among similarly aged teams), beaten only by the Florida Featherheads. If we realllllllly want to get even more confusing graphs, let's compare their cumulative Win % across both leagues (for similarly aged teams). Now, we see that across both the Imperial and Sovereign Leagues that the team with the 5th best Win % by far is the Arlington Bureaucrats. With this new information in mind, we have to ask, "What happened?". How could a team that had been in the playoffs 11 times over 20 seasons end up with an 81-81 record in 2027? Perhaps the answers lie with everything involved. With a team Batting Average of .248 and a team Pitching ERA of 3.36, it would seem average. Comparing that to the Evas, who won the playoffs, having a .270 average and a team ERA of 3.04, it becomes clear the shortfalls of the Bureaucrats was a problem throughout the team.

Let's look at the best pitcher, and best hitter in the 2027 season for the Bureaucrats.

Motoyuki Hatsutori
Age |G |GS|W|L|SV|ERA|IP----|HA-|R-|ER|HR|BB|K--|HLD|CG|SHO|WHIP|BABIP|WAR|ERA+|PWS|
33--|33|33|16|9|0-|2.13|223.7|200|56|53|7-|35|171|0--|2-|1---|1.05-|.293--|7.6-|170-|23.6|

Motoyuki Hatsutori was an All-Star in the 2027 season, and it's not entirely hard to see why. With a dominating 2.13 ERA attributing to 16 win in 33 starts (a nice 48.5% win %) and sitting down 171 batters with strikeouts. This is an ace that could lead a team to a title.

CF Mario Ramirez
Age|G-|AB--|H--|2B|3B|HR|RBI|R-|BB|HP|SH|SF|K-|SB-|CS|AVG|OBP-|SLG|OPS|WAR| OPS+|OWS|DWS|
23-|139|516|115|22|4-|24|78-|77|53|3-|1-|7-|131|37|3--|.223|.295|.421|.716|5.4-| 110 |11.9-|5.6-|

Mario Ramirez appears to be the young cornerstone for this team. Even though he finished the season with a below-average average of .223, he was an All-Star in 2027. His strikeouts are worrying, but he seems to be a contributing member of the team.

So what else went wrong? Is this just a case of "Baseball can't be predicted."?

The pitching in 2027 was among the best in franchise history. With the 4th best ERA (3.36), 8th best WHIP (1.22), and 5th best Opposing Average (.244) in team history, why was 2027 the year of a .500 record? What of the hitting? With the 6th worst Avg (.246), 3rd worst OBP (.309), 2nd Worst SLG (.370), and 3rd worst OPS (.679) in team history, the cracks become clear. The hitting of 2027 simply had not lived up to the hitting of 2026, when they made their last playoff appearance. 2 years does not a rebuild make, but it is a worrying trend. The Bureaucrats have never been removed from the playoffs for more than 3 consecutive seasons (which has happened 2x in their history), and if this hitting trend continues, it could lead to their 3rd absence from the playoffs.

Something must be done, and it will be done

great analysis Justin!

Sandgnats wrote:great analysis Justin!

Thanks! That took far too long to write up !

This is awesome! We need more graphs!

I'm over my head on that one - ... Though, as I look at the Bureaucrats this season, the one thing that stands out to me is that they have a total lack of being able to draw a walk - and that little offensive trick is keeping their OBP at a pathetic low, and HAS to be effecting their run total, and by proxy, their win total - well, that and the high K value. If you look at comparable teams as far as AVE and SLG (Hartford, Florida and Havana), you can see how higher OBP seems to have made a big impact on their run outputs - and Hartford and Florida aren't too far ahead in the standings. And when you are 6-11 in 1-run games (37% of your games!), and 1-5 in extra-innings - one run a game has clearly made a big difference in Arlington's standing!

Borealis wrote:I'm over my head on that one - ... Though, as I look at the Bureaucrats this season, the one thing that stands out to me is that they have a total lack of being able to draw a walk - and that little offensive trick is keeping their OBP at a pathetic low, and HAS to be effecting their run total, and by proxy, their win total - well, that and the high K value. If you look at comparable teams as far as AVE and SLG (Hartford, Florida and Havana), you can see how higher OBP seems to have made a big impact on their run outputs - and Hartford and Florida aren't too far ahead in the standings. And when you are 6-11 in 1-run games (37% of your games!), and 1-5 in extra-innings - one run a game has clearly made a big difference in Arlington's standing!

Oh believe me, I would have gone with more graphs, but it wouldn't let me do more than 3 images!

Wow- that was awesome. Add a laser pointer and headset and you could make it a TED Talk!

Along the lines of what Michael said, the one thing about Ramirez that sticks out is that OBP - .295 is pretty low. Although he’s hitting for power, he’s not getting on much.

I agree with your overall thesis - the ‘Crats need work. And I say this as the GM of a terrible team that has the worst minor league system in both leagues. Talk about needing work ... I haven’t made any graphs. Maybe that would help!

Nice post! I look forward to reading about how you tackle Arlington’s needs!

Claymores wrote:Wow- that was awesome. Add a laser pointer and headset and you could make it a TED Talk!

Along the lines of what Michael said, the one thing about Ramirez that sticks out is that OBP - .295 is pretty low. Although he’s hitting for power, he’s not getting on much.

I agree with your overall thesis - the ‘Crats need work. And I say this as the GM of a terrible team that has the worst minor league system in both leagues. Talk about needing work ... I haven’t made any graphs. Maybe that would help!

Nice post! I look forward to reading about how you tackle Arlington’s needs!

StatsLab has a graphs section,and if it makes you feel better, I have the 3rd worst Player Development rating.

Well I helped you along by managing to lose three games in our recent four-game series I won't be so kind next time round I love all the analysis, something that is way beyond me. I wish I had grown up with baseball then maybe I could have been at that level

Harpoon wrote:Well I helped you along by managing to lose three games in our recent four-game series I won't be so kind next time round I love all the analysis, something that is way beyond me. I wish I had grown up with baseball then maybe I could have been at that level

I personally think anyone could do analysis. I just got back into baseball 2 years ago and I've come to love the stats and sabremetrics.

It'd be interesting to see where the Evas line up in the both-leagues comparison. They've consistently been a force in PEBA (and the LRS before that).