Team comments
These are not all uniform in length or detail, because frankly there are teams about which I have been unable to construct a mental model to work from in explaining them. Some of these team explanations will be new to some of you and some of them won’t. Sorry if that is the latter in your case.
The manager
His record and comments about him. If the manager has no record, then his predecessor’s record will be displayed, with his year-to-year record and also the team’s record in the period up to three years before he took over. If a manager, say outgoing Eagles skipper Yosuke Hiraishi, took over as an interim manager in the team’s 64th game of the 2018 season, then the previous three years would be from the start of the 2016 season through Game 65 in 2018.
Key players
A list of the team’s players who played 400-plus defensive innings on or had 300 PA. Their positions are listed in order of defensive innings and I omitted every position at which a player didn’t have 50 innings.
Strengths and weaknesses
This is a look at the team overall up to last season and draws heavily on how each team ranks in the following categories. This will skip rankings in the middle, 3 and 4, and those where the league is tightly bunched together. To avoid confusion in areas where the team leading the league is a negative outcome, such as batters’ strikeouts, items will be labeled as “best” or “worst” in the league.
Team Offensive rankings
- Most runs, doubles, triples, home runs, stolen bases, sacrifice hits, walks.
- Highest stolen base pct (SB pct), batting average (Avg), batting average on balls in play (BABiP), on-base percentage (OBP), slugging average (Slug), isolated power (Iso P)
- Fewest strikeouts, ground ball double plays (GDP)
Rankings against opponents’ offense
- Fewest runs, doubles, triples, home runs, stolen bases, walks.
- Lowest stolen base pct (SB pct), batting average (Avg), batting average on balls in play (BABiP), on-base percentage (OBP), slugging average (Slug)
- Most strikeouts, ground ball double plays (GDP)
Other rankings
- Fewest wild pitches, balks, passed balls, errors
- Lowest ERA
- Saves, holds, intentional walks issued, sacrifice hits, relievers used, ,
