Last Sim of the Season; What to Watch For

Well here we are!  There are 4 days left in the regular season and what a wild ride it has been.  Not 1 of the 6 divisions have been clinched yet and there are still 4 playoff spots to be taken. So what's at stake?

NL EAST
Much like last year, the NL East race might go down to the season's final day.  At the moment, Niagara Falls leads Baffin Island by 1 game.  The Frenzy will visit Boston for a 4 set while Baffin will stay home and welcome Plymouth to town.  If you remember last season, these two played a one game playoff for the division.  The Beavers are looking for their 9th NL East division title while if the Frenzy can hang on, this would be their 1st.  The division winner would clinch the 2 seed and play the NL South winner in the Divisional Round while the loser will clinch Wild Card spot #2 and be the visiting team in a 3 game set against the other Wild Card winner,  which will be Los Angeles or Irvine.

NL WEST
After winning the division comfortably by 16 and 17 games over Irvine the last two seasons, 3 games separates the two with just 4 games left to play.  Both will be at home, Los Angeles welcomes Maui meanwhile the Bandits of San Francisco will be visiting Irvine.  If the Bruins can take care of business they will win their 14th division title in 16 years.  Irvine is looking for their 2nd division title, while their only one came in 2021.  The winner of the division will be rewarded with the #1 seed and will await the winner of the Wild Card round.  The team that places 2nd will be rewarded with the #1 Wild Card seed and will host either NFF or BAF.

NL SOUTH
Two years removed from a World Series win and one year removed from the best record in the BSA, the Hendersonville Hitmen find themselves 2 games up on the resurgent New Orleans Looters, who are attempting a worst to first story.  The Hitmen lead by 2 and will welcome the Looters for a 4 game series to end the season.  The Looters will need to take 3/4 to tie for the division and a series sweep to win it outright.  The Hitmen are looking for their 15th division title in 16 season, with their only blemish coming in 2021 when Orlando took home the crown.  The Looters are looking for their 1st division title and 2nd playoff appearance.

CL EAST
The best division in baseball.  They will have 3 teams finish with at least 96 wins.  Atop of the division and on the verge of clinching are the St. Louis Browns.  The Browns lead the division by 4 games with just 4 to play over the Greenville 84ers.  St. Louis will travel to Chicago where only 1 win is needed to clinch their 1st division title in team history.  The 84ers welcome Madison where they will need a 4 game sweep and 4 losses from St. Louis just to tie the division.  If the miracle happens, they will win their 11th division title.  The winner will be the #1 seed in the CL playoffs, meanwhile the loser has already locked up the #1 Wild Card.

CL WEST
Almost identical to the East, the St. Charles Sheens lead the Portland Philosopher Stones Kings by 4 games with just 4 to play.  Unlike the East these two will play each to finish off the season as the Sheens travel to The Kallipolis for a 4 game set.  One win for the Sheens will give them their 4th division title and third in a row.  If Portland can sweep and then cause a 1 game playoff and win again, they would win their first division title and their first playoff appearance.  Their 93 wins are already 13 ahead of the franchise's best 80, set back in 2010.  Portland is in the Wild Card race, explained below.

CL CENTRAL
After a close race all season long the Toronto Titans hold a 4 game lead with 4 games to play over the Springfield Stars.  The Stars had their chance in the last series, but the Titans won the last 2 games of the series to push Springfield on the brink of elimination.  The Titans will travel to rival Austin for 4 while the Stars go to Kalamazoo.  The Titans are looking for their 12th division title while Springfield is looking for a miracle to take home their first title.  Their only playoff appearance was a Wild Card berth in 2011.

CL WILD CARD
The 1st Wild Card position has already been clinched by St. Louis/Greenville, but we have a two team battle for the 2nd.  Jersey Shore currently leads Portland by 1/2 game as both teams are playing amazing baseball.  Jersey gets an off day before heading to New York to finish their season, while Portland welcomes St. Charles for 4 games. The Jersey Shore is looking for their 8th playoff spot, while Portland is still searching for their 1st.

TRIPLE CROWN WATCH
Santiago Marquez, or Q, of Orlando is still in contention for the NL Triple Crown.  If you remember last year he led the league in RBI, but finished 2nd in AVG and 3rd in HR.  With 4 games to play he leads the NL in AVG and HR but trails Ruben Calderon of Los Angeles by 6 RBI.  It would take some huge games, but it is still in reach.

RECORD WATCH
There are a few season records that could be in jeopardy going into our final 4 days.  Jeff Daniels of Portland is 10 hits shy of Dave Dodd's record of 239 hits set back in 2021.  Daniels needs to average 2.5 hits per game in his last 4 to tie.  Ronnie Brown of Boston sits at 166 singles on the season.  The current record is held by his teammate Rob Whitley who singled 175 times back in 2016. Brown would 9 in his final 4 games to tie.  Meanwhile in Boston, Bill Wilson has been a doubles machine and currently sits with 61 for the year.  The record of 67 was set by Jin-yu Son way back pre-BSA in 2007.  The current day BSA record is 63 set by Dan Best in 2014.  Derek Davidson currently sits at 156 RBI on the year and is 10 behind Dave Dodd's record of 166 set in 2021.  Thought it is a long shot, Davidson has 4 games.

On the pitching side of things, Irvine closer Kuang-Yin Yue sits at 48 saves with 4 games to play.  The current BSA record for saves is 50, which is shared by 4 players.  2 will give him a tie with this foursome while 3 would give him the outright record.  Jose Rivera of San Fran and Armando Lopez of Niagara Falls have both appeared in 101 games this season, which turns out is a new BSA record for appearances in a season.

Tracking Mikey Bryant's Assault on the Record Books; Volume 7

This will be 7th year in a row we will continue to follow Mikey Bryant's rise on the career leaderboards.  Mikey turned 36 just two weeks ago and his career appears headed towards a close, but at a gradual pace.  2023 was the 1st season Bryant finished under 5 WAR since his rookie campaign but still managed 36 HR and 105 RBI.  Jersey Shore reached the conference championship round again before losing to Greenville, and Bryant's time to get a ring is running out.

Besides the HR, Mikey had 192 hits, walked a career best 66 times and still had a fairly productive season mainly playing from the DH position for the D-Bags.

Bryant's average of .304 was the lowest mark he has put up in his career and dropped his career average to .324.  Bill Wilson and Paco Rosas remained in the top two spots and we have a newcomer to the list, as Bryant's teammate Tadahisa Kisuki has enough AB's to pass Bryant for 3rd. Bryant remained 3rd overall in slugging, but fell in OPS behind the retired Mel Fields and slugger Shumei Yokoyama, good for 6th.

In hits SS Oliver Hernandez remains in the top spot and needs 157 hits this season to become the first BSA player in history with 3000 career hits.   With his 192 hits, only his 2nd full season below 200, Bryant moved past the the retired Crowe and active players Copriviza and Rivas to sit in 6th place as we start the season.  The recently retired Gordon McMahon sits 189 above Bryant.  Another 30+ double campaign made Mikey the 19th player in BSA history to reach the 400 doubles plateau and good for 19th place.  Bryant also finished the 2023 season 5th in total bases which put him 5th all time and 71 short of 4000 for his career.

His 36 HR last year was enough to top the 400 HR mark, following Crowe, Newell, Cobra and Yoko. Yoko took over the career lead last year and sits at 431 and we should see 3 more sluggers reach the 400 mark this year in Delaney, Rivas and Doyle.  His 10th straight 100+ RBI season slots Mikey into 6th all time, just 3 behind Newell, 25 behind the retired Crowe and 26 behind the retired Sagar.  65 RBI would make Mikey the 3rd player ever to reach 1400 RBI.

It was another productive year stats wise, but most categories down down down as expected.  Bryant is playing with a $26M contract this year which was a team option picked up by Jersey Shore this past off-season.  At 36 years old, what does Jersey do with Mikey?  Does he come out and have a solid year at 36? Is the year when we see things start to slide off the table?  Time will tell this season. Stay tuned!

Current All-Time Rank.  (Previous 6 years are in parenthesis)  

BA: 4th (3rd, 2nd, 2nd 2nd, 2nd, 1st): .3240

OPS: 6th (4th, 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd): .9557

SLG: 3rd (2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st): .5744

VORP: 8th (8th, 9th, 13th, 20th): 624.94 - apparently OOTP doesn't track anymore

Hits: 6th (8th, 14th, 27th. 34th, 57th, 96th): 2216

Doubles: 19th (25th, 29th, 42nd, 57th, 82nd, NR): 402
Triples: 12th (15th, 17th, 28th, 46th, 75th, NR): 54

Total Bases: 5th (8th, 11th, 14th, 23rd, 41st, 73rd): 3929

HR: 5th (8th, 8th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 35th): 401

RBI: 6th (7th, 8th, 9th, 19th, 32nd, 53rd): 1335

Runs: 7th (11th, 14th, 22nd, 28th, 55th, 86th): 1249

WAR: 6th (6th, 10th, 11th,13th, 18th, 24th): 66.74

Dave Dodd; Man or Machine?

It has been evident for years that Dave Dodd had the talent to be a special player.  The way he went from  an everyday outfielder in A ball in 2015 to manning RF for Jersey the very next season as a 22 year old was no mistake.  The power potential was always there.  In 2015 he hit 15 HR in just 41 games in AAA before being called up to the show.  In 4 full big league seasons he has never failed to top 30 2B, 30 HR or 100 RBI.  He has speed, he plays defense and the scary part.....he is improving.

Turning 27 early this season all you have to do is look at his numbers to see the improvement.  He has improved on his batting average every year he has been in the league.  Hitting .254 as a rookie in 2016, .289 in 2019 and now this year 75 games into the season an eye-popping .399.  As a rookie Dodd broke the all-time record, and still holds it, for strikeouts in a season at 204.  Last season he struck out 138 times and in 2021 he is on pace to K just 83 times.  

At age 27, Dodd very well could be in the perfect storm.  He hits directly behind one of the greatest hitters in the BSA in Mike Bryant and has power hitting all-star Jaime Torres directly behind him.  He is in his prime.  The 26-28 ages are well known for sluggers putting up the biggest numbers of their career.  From Luis Padilla's record season at age 26,  Jeff Cole's 12 WAR at age 27, Zach Hutchinson's 12.1 WAR season at age 27, and Bryant's Triple Crown season at age 28 now is Dodd's time.

So far in 2021 he is putting up video game numbers. When you look at the leaderboard it is a collage of Dodd's face over and over again sprinkled in with a couple other faces.  His. 399 batting average is 26 points higher than Bill Wilson of Boston.  His .471 OBP is 28 points higher than Al Mills of Greenville.  This might be the most unbelievable one: his .853 slugging is 186 points higher than Matt Doyle of Toronto.  The record for slugging in a season is .699 by Felix Morales.  He has 10 more HR than Doyle as this point as well.  If Dodd stays on his current pace he would shatter BSA records.  A WAR of 15.8, 71 HR, 243 hits, 187 RBI.  A triple slash of .399/.471/.853 to go along with an OPS of 1.324.

No one can say what is going on with Dodd right now.  He already has a Player of the Month trophy to go along with 5 player of the week trophies in 2021 alone.  All we can say to the fans of Jersey Shore and the BSA, sit back and enjoy it.  You might be witnessing a season for the ages and seasons like this only come around once in a great while.  Enjoy it will it lasts, I know I will!

GO D-BAGS!

Bryant Starts Season Hot; Clubs 300th Career HR

When Mikey Bryant ended the 2020 season with 297 career home runs, everyone knew it wouldn't take him long in the 2021 season to hit 3 and reach the milestone of 300, but what they didn't know is that it would only take 3 games.  Bryant homered in both of the 2 game opening series again the 84er's to put him at 299 heading into a 3 game set in Reno on April 5th, 2021.  Luis Lopez was the starter for the Cards and a pitcher Bryant was a then 2-7 against without a HR.  After grounding out in the 1st, Bryant would a 0-1 pitch and launch it 438 feet to dead center easily clearing the CF wall for his 300th career bomb.  

Bryant becomes the 10th big leaguer to hit for 300 HR in the history of the BSA, behind Shizue Chouda who hit his 300th before the end of last season.  Though Bryant amassed 40 HR last year, through 51 games in the 2021 season he has struggled.  As of May 30th, he sits at 8 HR which puts him on pace for only 25. In the past he has heated up in the summer months, particularly August, so time will tell if can put up another great season at age 33, Jersey Shore could sure use his bat as they sit 6 games under .500.  

The only real viable candidate he can pass on the all time list this year year is George Alston who sits at 315 homers. He is active playing in AAA Lansing, but hasn't seen BSA time since 2019.  There is still a good chance that Bryant could reach the 400 HR club and beyond if he doesn't harshly regress in the next 2 years.  Even only a 30 HR season would put him would put him around 330.  The real question to be asked is if Jersey Shore will resign him after this season where he is a pending free agent.  Only a handful of parks around the league are as offensively friendly as the park in Jersey.  I really don't see the D-Bags letting him walk, but we have seen stranger things in the BSA. 

Meanwhile in the lineup, Dave Dodd and his incredibly hot start have him sitting on 184 HR at only 27 years old and he might be peaking now.  Tracking his stats should be a fun thing to do as well.

GO D-BAGS

Tracking Mikey Bryant's Assault on the Record Books; Volume 4

For the 4th year in a row we will track where and how high 2B Mikey Bryant climbed in the career leaderboards.  In his 7th full season and 8th year in the BSA overall, it was the first time Bryant failed to hit for .300 in a full season as well as snapping his streak of 7 straight 200 hit seasons, where he only finished with 188 hits.

His power stayed in full force though as Bryant managed 36 doubles, 40 home runs while knocking in 133 runs.  You can tell age is finally starting to catch up with him a bit as he struck out a career high 142 times and swiped a career low of only 4 stolen bases.  His season was good enough for his 7th All-Star selection while finishing 3rd in MVP voting and help lead his Jersey Shore club to their 2nd World Series appearance.

With his first season below hitting .300, Bryant took a swift drop in career numbers going from .3288 to .3246. While this is still good for 2nd all time, Paco Rosas increased his lead after a season where he hit .348.  Bryant sits only 1 point ahead of Adam Mason who retired in 2013.  Bryant remained in 2nd in career OPS where he has been since we started doing this tracking report 4 seasons ago.  Jeff Cole and his crazy OBP lead by a healthy margin and Bryant dropped a few points, but Paco Rosas sits only 4 points behind Bryant while veteran slugger Shumei Yokoyama is the next active player in 5th.

A category where Bryant remained king though was in Slugging even though his .561 mark last season was the lowest of his career.  Bryant once was the only player to hold a .600 slugging percentage, but that number has slowly lowered to .586.  That number is still 23 points higher than the 2nd place Mel Fields and 33 points higher than the next active player in Jeff Cole.

Like I mentioned earlier, this was the first year since his rookie season where he only played a partial season that Bryant didn't reach the 200 hit plateau.  His 188 hits did take him to 27th on the all time list and 22nd on the active player list.  He reached the 1500 hit plateau in July and will reach the 300 double mark sometime early as he finished 2020 with 298 career 2-baggers.  As for total bases, even though he tallied the lowest number of his career in a full season, he still lead the BSA with 356 and edged closer to Top 10 All-time in this category.

For the 4th time in his career Bryant reached the 40 HR plateau and for the 5th time knocked in more than 130 runs.  With 297 career Homers, he looks to become only the 10th player to hit 300 in a career, following the latest player, CF Shizue Chouda who hit his 300th last May.  In similar fashion he became the 9th player to knock in 1000 runs in a career reaching this mark in the middle of September.  In both HR and RBI the only retired player ahead of Bryant is the leader John Crowe in both categories who retired in 2019.  Sam Sagar who is nearing the end of his career, needs 19 RBI to tie Crowe, while Yokoyama starts the season behind Crowe by 74.

Bryant turned 33 in Spring Training and while the scouts have his ratings dropping a little, we have yet to see anything steep.  He is to the point in the record books where not only his numbers matter but most of the players he is grouped with are also active.  What is interesting is this is the last year he remains under contract with Jersey Shore after spending his entire career in the organization after being drafted in 2010 and receiving the 6 year contract in the summer of 2015.  He has stated he would like to finish his career in Jersey and you have to assume D-Bag mamagement would love to watch their native son only wear one uniform for his career.

Current All-Time Rank.  (Previous 3 years are in parenthesis)  

BA: 2nd (2nd, 2nd, 1st): .3246

OPS: 2nd (2nd, 2nd, 2nd): .9673

SLG: 1st (1st, 1st, 1st): .5861

VORP: 9th (9th, 13th, 20th): 554.92

Hits: 27th (34th, 57th, 96th): 1582

Doubles: 42nd (57th, 82nd, NR): 298
Triples: 28th (46th, 75th, NR): 41

Total Bases: 14th (23rd, 41st, 73rd): 2853

HR: 10th (15th, 20th, 35th): 297

RBI: 9th (19th, 32nd, 53rd): 1012

Runs: 22nd (28th, 55th, 86th): 890

WAR: 11th (13th, 18th, 24th): 54.38

Tracking Mikey Bryant's Assault on the Record Book; Year 2

Last year we started a topic where Mike Bryant stood on the All-time batting lists at the beginning of last season.  With a new season about to be underway, it's time to update this and see how far he climbed the Leaderboards during the 2018 season.

With another big year, he added and passed many players in several categories.  Though with a down April and a huge year from breakout star Jorge Martinez, he wasn't able to secure coveted 3rd straight MVP and remains 1 of only 3 players to ever win 2 MVP awards along with Jeff Cole and John Crowe.

Before last season Bryant sat behind only Todd Church on the All-Time batting average list, but a sub-par year from Church pushed Bryant back to the top where he holds a career average mark of .330, over 5 points higher than the 2nd place Paco Rosas of Greenville who is at .3249.  Bryant remains 2nd in career OPS still sitting behind only Jeff Cole.  Bryant still remains on top of the career Slugging % list, but dropped from a 31 points lead over Toronto's German Rivas to a 27 point margin.

As for the compiling categories Coffin is positioning himself inside the Top 50 of almost every major category out there.  With his 5th straight 200+ hit season he catapulted almost 40 slots to 57th place and with 2 more 200 hit seasons, 1500 career hits is within reach during the 2020 season.  Cuurently only 20 BSA players have reached the 1500 hit mark.  With a lot of active players ahead of him, even a big season might only push him up on the list 15-20 spots.

As for HR, his 42 last season pushed him into the Top 20, at No. 20, and only 3 behind teammate John Warner and former St. Louis Brown Carlos Valle.  With 29+ HR this season Bryant could join an elite group of players who have hit 250 or more BSA HR.  That list is currently at 11 players and shouldn't be added to much this year with only a few threats between Bryant and those 11.  

As for RBI, Bryant's 119 was the lowest total since his rookie season, but still good enough to jump 21 places on the all time list and put him in 32nd place.  39 doubles pit Bryant into the Top 100 in 82nd place with 223 career two-baggers, and scoring over 110 runs for the 5th straight year moved Bryant up 31 spots to 55th on the All-Time list.  

With Bryant's birthday coming this week, he will turn 31 for the 2019 season.  While he is old by no means, the BSA historically has been a young mans game.  Many players have hit the magical age of 30 and have fallen off, will this be the case with Bryant?  He can only hope not and continue to track his progress among the elite names and all time greats of the BSA.  

Current All-Time Rank. (Last season's rank in parentheses.)

BA 1st (2nd): .3300

OPS 2nd (2nd): .9771

SLG: 1st (1st): .5937

VORP 13th (20th): 417.58

Hits: 57th (96th): 1181

Doubles: 82nd (NR): 223

Total Bases: 41st (73rd): 2125

HR: 20th (35th): 221

RBI: 32nd (53rd): 753

Runs: 55th (86th): 655

WAR: 18th (24th): 41.87

Mike Bryant's Assault and Climb on BSA's Record Books

Just days before the 2018 season started, Mike Bryant turned 30 years old, with only 4.5 years under his belt he is behind most players who played their rookie year before the age of 25.  That hasn't stopped him from being one of the most consistent players in that time span.  Bryant had another huge year in 2017 bringing home his 2nd MVP award and making him only the 3rd player in league history to have 2.  The others are John Crowe and Jeff Cole, not too bad of company to be in.

Bryant has nearly set every record in the Jersey Shore record book for hitters and will only build upon that in the coming years.  As we are a week into the 2018 season, Bryant sits only behind Todd Church on the All Time BSA leader boards for batting average, 2nd to only Jeff Cole in OPS, while sitting firmly atop the Slugging percentage ranks by 31 points over German Rivas.

As for 2nd basemen he already holds the all time lead for HR with 182 and only sits 5 RBI behind Dylan Sinclair for the all-time RBI lead at 2B.  It just goes to show how much of a rarity it is for a powerful 2nd baseman to remain there and produce.

With 3 HR in Jersey's first 5 games, Bryant has a career total of 182 HR which currently puts him tied for 35th on the all-time list.  If he can hit his career average for HR and hit 35 this season, he would be pushed up the list to around the 20th mark, while becoming the 22nd, 23rd or 24th player ever to hit 200 HR in BSA history.

For his career he has knocked in 641 runs, which ranks him 53rd on the all time list.  If he hits career averages and knocks in 140 runs this year, he should end in the neighborhood of 775 or so RBI, which catapult him into the 25-30th range with a large handful of still active players ahead of him on the list.

As for hits Bryant sits lower on the list and just entered the Top 100, sitting at 96th with 974.  He will become around the 90th player in BSA history to have 1000 career hits.  He hasn't missed 200 hits in a full season yet in his career and with another 200 hit season, he should end this year around 1170.

As for runs, he is in the same boat as hits.  He recently entered the Top 100 and sits in 86th place with 547.  His career average for runs is 125, and if he puts up close to that it could catapult him into the top 50.

While I know getting a late start in his career will hamper his career numbers and hold him back from any huge milestones, I will use this as a starting piece to track his progress through this year and beyond.

As of 4/6/2018 ranks:

BA 2nd: .3306

OPS 2nd: .9807

SLG: 1st: .5954

VORP 20th: 348.54

Hits: 96th: 974

HR: 35th: 182

RBI: 53rd: 641

WAR: 24th: 35.51

2016 Jersey Milestones We Might See

Baseball is about statistics.  There are more statistics in baseball than in any sport combined.  And we here in Jersey are no different, we love tracking our players and their accomplishments.  Here is a list statistics and what we might be in store for the 2016 season.  Some more likely than others.

Let's start on the pitching side of things.  

Pitching:

35 year old Dan Macias has 3 wins in 4 starts.  It's a long shot, but 19 more wins this year (22 wins total) would make him the 3rd ever pitcher to reach 150 wins.  With 2 more wins he passes Ethan Pickup for 5th All-time.

Sticking with Macias, his 19 K's thus far puts him just 105 K's from 1800, which (After Ricky Bolden does it soon) would make him the 5th pitcher to reach this milestone.

Rob Goodship with 1 win this season, needs 12 more this season for 51 career, which would make him the current all time Win leader in D-Bag history.

Jaime Saenz with 2.6 VORP this season needs 17.4 more this season to pass former closer Daniel Morris as the franchise all-time VORP leader.

Hitting:  

Leon Foster, with 17 RBI in 16 games, needs 92 more RBI to join the 800 RBI club which has only been accomplishment thus far by 5 players and 2 soon to be members.  109 RBI might be a stretch for the season though.

Foster also needs to strikeout only 3 more time to join the 1100 club, occupied by 3 players.  With 103 more he would join only John Crowe, and possibly Enrique Jarmillo as the only players on the 1200 list.

Mikey Bryant, 3 HR thus far, needs 5 more to make him the 1st D-Bag ever to hit for 100 career HR.  It would also only make him the 3rd 2B ever to hit 100+ HR behind Luis Pezina and Jeff Cole.

Matt Doyle would need 23 total, already has 5, for the 100 HR plateau as well.  Doyle has average a HR ever 14.23 AB in his career so far.  Career leader John Crowe has a 15.62 average for his career.

There are also a few team records Bryant could set this season.  He needs  to score 111 total runs this season to set the team record in runs, he currently sits 3rd behind Parker Morrow and Mason Bonniface.  He would also need 226 hits (which would break his own team record of 209) to pass Parker Morrow the only man he sits behind at this point.

With the team's last 5-4 win over Austin on 4/22 with 4 total bases, Bryant passed Morrow for 1st on the franchise record for total bases.

With 29 HR this season (which would be a career high) Luis Antonio Duran would become the 8th catcher to hit 100 HR in BSA history. 

With most players being in their mid-20's there isn't a lot for milestones.  But some things to look this season besides the amount of wins the D-Bags rack up!

GO D-BAGS!