So here we are – sitting at the halfway point of the
first ABL season (well 2 teams have played 20 so that’s close enough!). As you
could probably tell from the Defensive Specialist’s attempts to predict the
outcome of each series, things have been a little up and down in terms of
performance and form across the league. Just when it seems one team is ready to
put their foot on the accelerator and take off, they get a bad case of the
speed wobbles and are dragged back to the pack. Wasn’t it only a few weeks ago
that the Defensive Specialist was hiding behind ‘league parity” as a means to
down play his prediction foibles? Anyway, with 20 games down now seems like a
good time to lift the hood on each team and evaluate what’s going on with them.
Which teams have reasons to be optimistic in the second half and which teams
should be preparing for the worst? Being an eternal optimist, it’s often tough
for the Defensive Specialist to deliver tough criticism so please take a moment
to appreciate your old pal’s efforts.
Sydney
Blue Sox
Outlook:
Half Full (just)
Look, there’d be a fair proportion of Melbourne
supporters who’d disagree after the Sydneysiders had to hire an extra bus to
transport their rear ends home after they were handed to them by the Aces, but
the Defensive Specialist has too much faith in their pitching to believe that
last weekend’s performance was the death knock on their season. For those of
you not following along, the Aces and Blue Sox squared off in a 5 games series (one
game was a make up for a Sydney rain out) in Melbourne that ended in a Sydney
blood bath, especially on Saturday when the Aces gave them the prison shower
treatment in the form of a 30 run assault.
Melbourne fans are still not convinced about the pitching
so let the Defensive Specialist elaborate – Chris Oxspring continues his dominance
of the league despite only getting a decision in 50% of his games. He is a
legitimate number 1 who gives the Blue Sox a chance to win every time out.
David Welch seems to have overcome his early season difficulties and has now
strung together 3 consecutive outstanding appearances. So right there you have
the chance at a series split each week with those two guy - that’s something to
be optimistic about isn’t it? But the issue arises with the rest of the
rotation. Wayne Lundgren has been Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (more Dr Jekyll of
late) this season and Craig Anderson got touched up pretty badly on the
weekend. All it takes is for one of those guys to straighten it out and all of
a sudden you have 3 big arms at the front of the rotation with the likes of
Ryan Rowland Smith and Brad Thomas set to make some form of appearance as the
season progresses. Dae-Sung Koo has been rock solid as the closer with 8 saves
and 14 punch outs in 11 innings of work and Matthew Williams has provided
another quality late inning arm. After those guys, things are somewhat sketchy with
the remaining relievers not providing reliable options for manager Glenn
Williams.
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| League leader in saves - D.S Koo |
The Blue Sox offensive struggles have been well
chronicled in this forum and things just don’t seem to be picking up. If you
look at overall team hitting stats, the Blue Sox are 4th in runs and
pretty much middle of the pack in everything else which isn’t too shocking.
What is shocking is the overall lack of performance from a line-up full of
proven performers at this level. The most telling stat? 143 strike outs, which
is almost 20 more than the nearest team. We keep waiting for the hitters to
click and start swinging it like we expect them to, but at some point perhaps
it needs to be said they’re not a good offensive club. When do we say that?
Lets give them 2 more series to show us some life.
Brisbane
Bandits
Outlook:
Half Empty (but half full)
Hang with your old pal on this one! The Bandits have
no chance at an ABL championship this year and will be hard pressed to make the
playoffs, BUT their future is looking fairly bright beyond this season, which
is the half full part. That makes sense right?
The Bandits have consistently screwed up the Defensive
Specialist’s predictions by stealing games that no one thought they’d win but
the reality is they’re a young team that are a year or two away. The offensive
line-up is littered with local talent like Josh Roberts, Rory Rhodes, Joel
Naughton and Alan Shoenberger who will form the core for years to come. In
fact, if Rhodes falls into vat of weight gainer he may get so big that he takes
up 2 spots on the hitting order! But with youth comes growing pains in the form
of low team run totals, poor base on balls tallies, high strike-outs and next
to no power. These are all things that typically come with experience and age,
which is why the Defensive Specialist has to be pessimistic on the team’s
chances this season.
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| Future man-child Rory Rhodes |
The pitching staff also shows flashes of promise but
still lacks the consistency of a championship calibre ball club. No one shows
more promise than Ryan Searle who has an electric arm but can’t quite parlay it
into on-field dominance. James Albury started out well but hit a brick wall in
his last 2 starts including a 3-inning beat down by Adelaide last week. Hiroki
Yamada appears to be settling into the staff ace role with a K per inning this
season and 2 excellent appearances against Perth and Adelaide although reliever
Chris Mowday may be the MVP of the pitching staff thus far with 21 innings of
work and a 3-1 record.
So don’t expect too much more from the Bandits this
season, instead think of them as a long term high interest bearing savings
account – you keep contributing to it (more games and experience) and when you
check in down the road your investment has paid off as your initial deposit has
grown and blossomed into something greater (a better team). That’s a deep
metaphor!
Canberra
Multiculturalists
Outlook:
Half Empty
The Multiculturalists really do live up to their name
– a melting pot of talent, performance and output than when stirred together
ends up looking brown. On paper a line up of Nick Kimpton, Didi Gregorius,
Donald Lutz and Michael Collins looks solid but that’s the beauty of baseball –
the game isn’t played on paper. Collins has kept his good form from last season
going although a little more pop would be appreciated by manager Steve Schrenk.
Kimpton hasn’t been able to maintain the white hot pace he carried across two
seasons and Gregorius’ performance has been far from gregarious. The Korean
connection was always going to be a surprise and for the most part its been an
underwhelming surprise, much like receiving socks at Christmas time. So what’s
the upside? Well you’d definitely bring back Collins, Kimpton and Tom Vincent
(and not just because they live in Canberra) and the rest you could wave
goodbye to and start afresh next year! Is that an upside?
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| Michael Collins |
Ok so that was a bit tough on the Multiculturalist
hitters, lets try to be a bit more positive with the pitching staff.
(Crickets chirping)
Just kidding - Chris Morgan has been a real find for
the Canberra team, logging 16 innings in relief and picking up 2 saves with an
ERA of 1.69. Jun Hyeok Heo and Myung-Ho Jin have emerged as two front line
starters although Heo has been prone to the long ball and doesn’t over power
hitters. Jin racks up the punch-outs but also the walks, which may explain why
his inning total is down. If these were local kids the Defensive Specialist
would be giving them the same convoluted treatment Brisbane received but since
they’ll likely never be seen again its hard to get excited about their
potential. Steve Kent is a local guy but his season to this point is well below
where he’d like it to be with an 0-3 record and a couple of outings (against
Melbourne and Perth) that he was lucky to get out of alive. The rest of the
staff is a bit hit and miss but it is populated by young arms (Phil Brassington
being an outlier), which means that with experience and age they should develop
and get better in the seasons to come.
Part 2 tomorrow
