Dude of the Month – November

All right, we’re one month into the season so its time to unveil the first Deep in the Hole Dude of the Month. There’s a strong chance you’re sitting in front of your computer scratching your head and asking; dude?? So let the Defensive Specialist set a few parameters that’ll help you better understand. Firstly, according to the Urban Dictionary, dude can be defined as:

“Something that's just so awesomely cool, amazingly kick ass”

Here at Deep in the Hole we’re going to use that definition as a starting point and add that a ‘dude” in a baseball sense is a guy who basically looks his team mates in the eye, points at his back and says “climb on boys, I’m going to carry the club”. It’s kind of like the team MVP only cooler. So from now on when we refer to a player as a dude, you know they’re legit! We’re not talking about guys who’ve started hot, we’re talking about players who are carrying their ball club while carving up the league.

While you’re sitting there thinking about all the ‘dudes’ you know the Defensive Specialist needs to rip through some A1 series predictions and address an inquiry that hit the comments box.

Predictions

Perth Heat Vs. Brisbane Bandits

The Bandits travel to Perth buoyed by their split with the Blue Sox last week while the Heat will be bitterly disappointed that they weren’t able to take 3 from the Bite in Adelaide. The Defensive Specialist is going with a 4-0 Heat series sweep as they add a couple of key bats (Adamson & Dale).

Canberra Multiculturalists Vs. Adelaide Bite

The Multiculturalists got rolled in Melbourne in a rain-affected series while the Bite split with the Perth team at home. The weather looks ominous in the nations capital but if they get all 4 in, Adelaide will win 3.

Sydney Blue Sox Vs. Melbourne Aces

The matchup of the round. The Blue Sox looked shabby against the Bandits while Melbourne found some form and took 2 off the Multiculturalists. It will be a tight contest and the Defensive Specialist is calling a split 2-2.

Ok, now that the tips are in, lets visit a comment that got left behind after the last post (no, not the humourless and nonsensical one):

After the first few weeks of the season will the ABL teams start to look for further imports to address holes in their roster? I can see Perth needing a bit more help in the middle infield and another starter. – Diesel

Diesel,

You’d have to assume with the roster flexibility that’s in place, teams will do whatever it takes to tool up during the season so if that means importing new players, they’ll do it. A number of teams (see Blue Sox, Sydney) have a bunch of local stud horses buried on their roster (Rowland-Smith, Thomas & Oeltjen) that will definitely help. Other teams sniffing the playoffs may dip into the foreign player ranks if it means getting to the big dance. In better news for the happy Heaters, the word on the street is that Luke Hughes’ stay in Venezuela may be done in late December / early January meaning that they’ll add his bat and Tim Kennelly’s to form a formidable offensive attack just in time for the playoffs.

Right, lets get back to the Deep in the Hole Dude of the Month award for November. As mentioned above we’re awarding the guy who’s flat out been a world-beater in the first month of the season. There have been plenty of hitters who’ve taken off running like Robbie Widlansky (Heat), James McOwen (Bite), Josh Davies (Aces), Michael Collins (Multiculturalists) and Alex Johnson (Blue Sox) or pitchers that have made short work of the league such as Dushan Ruzic (Bite), James Albury & Chris Mowday (Bandits), Greg Wilstshire (Aces) and Daniel Schmidt (Heat). But at the end of the first month of the season, there have been two “DUDES’ that have set themselves apart from the pack- Quincy Latimore (Bite) and Chris Oxspring (Blue Sox). Both players stand out on league leading ballclubs and both have been instrumental in their clubs success.

The US born Q-Tip has mashed ABL pitching at a .400 clip with a 1.264 OPS (On base % + slugging – anything above .900 is rock solid). He has been a middle order beast for the Bite crushing 5 home runs and driving in 16 while scoring 12 runs. Half of Latimore’s knocks have been for extra bases meaning that he is a one man wrecking crew in the early part of the season. The only downside to his season has been his relatively low base on balls total (3) and high strikeout tally (11) although it’s fairly safe to say that Adelaide Manager Tony Harris won’t be complaining about this facet of Q-Tip’s game.

The Defensive Specialist has been fortunate to witness 3 of Chris Oxspring’s 4 starts this season and 2 of those outings were absolute gems. Oxspring has put up a 2-0 record in his 4 starts with a 0.64 ERA and a ridiculous 29-2 strikeout to walk ratio. Oxspring has been a workhorse, gobbling up innings (28.1) while yielding only 2 earned runs and surrendering 16 hits. People often bandy about the term “Ace” but Oxspring has lived up to it in every definition of the word with displays like his start in Brisbane where he reeled off a 1 hitter with his team down 2-0 in the series. The only blip on the month was his last outing where he appeared a little less sharp than usual and surrendered a 3 run lead to the Bandits.

It’s not an easy call to make since both guys have demonstrated real ‘DUDE”-like qualities throughout the month of November, but the Defensive Specialist is remunerated handsomely to make the big decisions so with that in mind, the Deep in the Hole Dude of the Month for November 2010 goes to Chris Oxspring. Although Latimore has landed in Australia with his bat blazing, he is surrounded by more firepower that assists in picking up a large amount of the offensive burden. Oxspring on the other hand has been a steadying force on an inconsistent pitching staff, with a middle of the road offense behind him.

Congratulations to Chris Oxspring – Dude of the Month

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Brooks Adams

Yes Henry, you’re so damn right! The Defensive Specialist has received so many emails from loyal readers offering thanks and praise for the quality of information that is flowing out of Deep in the Hole. It’s like the collective baseball community is growing in knowledge and intellect on a daily basis and judging by the comprehensive analytics used to track traffic on the blog, that knowledge is taking place in far flung regions across the globe.

Before the Defensive Specialist continues self-fellating, it’s probably wise to cast a quick eye over the fearless predictions made for each series last week:

Perth Heat Vs Adelaide Bite – the Defensive Specialist called a 3-1 result to the Happy Heaters and it looked like the Perth lads were going to turn in a 4-0 result. The Bite had other thoughts and rallied back to split the series 2-2.

Sydney Blue Sox Vs Brisbane Bandits - Your old pal went large on this one and predicted a 4-0 sweep to the Blue Sox. It didn’t play out like that at all with the teams splitting the series

Melbourne Aces Vs Canberra Multiculturalists – The season opener at the MCG was supposed to spark the Aces to a 3-1 series win. Mother nature decided she’d intervene and cut the series to 2 games of which Melbourne won both.

So, for another week, the Defensive Specialist’s tips were as useful as lockjaw at a suckers picnic. Seriously if you were laying your hard earned on the line based on the info being delivered here you’d be on the verge of having your legs broken by agitated bookies.

Since the Defensive Specialist is demonstrating no real ability to predict the future, lets examine the past and vault into the weekly installment of “What the Defensive Specialist Learnt” after the recent Sydney Vs Brisbane series.

1. For the second week in a row, the Blue Sox have demonstrated that their once feted pitching staff has a couple of holes in it. The arms that the Sydney squad has on its roster are impressive but have not consistently delivered across a full series in back to back weeks. Wayne Lundgren has been roughed up in his last 2 outings, surrendering almost a run per inning while staff ace Chris Oxspring showed a slight speed wobble in his last start (which will fill many hitters hearts with hope). David Welch regained form with an outstanding appearance but was questionable in the 2 previous and Vaughn Harris was excellent in his first start of the year. Matt Williams got the prison shower treatment in relief on the weekend although the defense behind him did not help his cause. If the Blue Sox can put it all together they have the best staff in the league – the question is consistency.
2. Despite evidence to the contrary, pitchers can be smart. Case in point – Alex Johnson’s performance. Numerous blogs (including this one) spent last week blowing on Johnson’s trumpet after he exploded onto the scene with ridiculous numbers to start his ABL career. All of a sudden Brisbane rolls into town after seeing him the week before and he submits a 1-12 with a double and a solitary RBI. Guys can go 1-12 where they square up everything and hit it straight at people but Johnson looked off kilter. Were the Bandits pitching him differently? Had they figured him out? Who knows, but this weekend’s series will really show whether or not he can make the necessary adjustments to get back on track and be the run producer the Blue Sox need.
3. The Brisbane staff has some arms but a real affinity for missing the strike zone. Starters James Albury and Hiroki Yamada have both demonstrated an ability to get hitters out but their walk rates are at an unacceptable level meaning that they’re giving opponents extra outs and consistently pitching with runners on base. Yamada in particular has the ability to blow lineups away (17 k’s in 16 innings) but extend at bats by falling behind. Not only does this slow him down and perhaps affect the defense behind him but it drives up his pitch counts and limits the innings he can eat up.
4. Yes, the Bandits dropped a 9 spot on Sydney in game 3 but offensively there are question marks. Josh Roberts has gotten off to a hot start and Shuhei Fukuda handled the bat well, but there is not one guy in the line up that puts any sort of fear into the opposing managers heart which means pitchers can go right after anyone in the lineup without fear of the long ball. Having said that, if Rory Rhodes got himself on a red meat diet and lived in a weight room he has the frame to be an absolute man-child. The youngster is 201 cms (6’7) and got down the line in a pretty good time when he dropped a drag bunt. If he can hang some muscle off his skeleton, he has the potential to hit balls that don’t come back.
5. Speaking of cold bats, Sydney’s Mark Holland and Pat “Stone Hands’ Maat are proving to be black holes in the batting order with at bats being sucked in and lost at a level that would arouse Stephen W Hawking. Holland and Stone Hands have punched out at an alarming rate (12 & 14 in 12 & 10 games respectively) while contributing almost nothing offensively. Holland has never been known as a force with the stick and is in the lineup to provide defense so you could turn a blind eye to his anemia. Stone Hands on the other hand is a proven contributor so his offensive slumber is creating large-scale problems in the run production department because he was banked on to be a middle order force and there isn’t another bopper on the horizon ready to be plugged in (unless Trent Oeltjen makes a cameo). Stone Hands looks to have lost bat speed and as a result is gearing up earlier in order to catch up – this of course makes him susceptible to anything with a change of speed.
6. The Bandits pen has been impressive. Chris Mowday who looks like a Metallica roadie was exceptional in relief last week and is proving to be a go to guy for manager David Nilsson. Simon Morriss, Phil Stockman and young pup Josh Warner have yet to concede a run in 18 innings of work. If the starters can get late into the game and turn a lead or close ballgame over to the pen, the Bandits would have to like their chances.

Your old pal could continue teaching but the word count is getting up and with attention spans not what they used to be, its probably better to stop the learning so that the influence remains. The Defensive Specialist will be back tomorrow night with a fresh round of unbelievably accurate predictions as well as the unveiling of the Deep in the Hole Dude of the Month.