Ridley Park Wiffleball

Rocky Mountain Rundown #11

Week 7 Power Rankings: Full 3 Round Re-Draft

 

RPWL was back in action Sunday, which saw the Astros continue their dominance after a four week hiatus. Every member of the team hit a home run on their way to five total in two games  The White Sox dominated the Royals 9-4, Boas and Tommy each hit two home runs. The last game saw the Expos beat the Phillies 2-1 behind 6 hits from Noah and Mike.

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Wednesday's action has me revisiting my overreaction article where I said “Sean is washed up and his only elite wiffleball this year will be played outside RPWL”. Sean has had some solid performances but after an 0-2 day, his team sits outside the playoff picture and his season numbers aren't where you'd expect. As for the new look Jays, Cam may have found his golden ticket to the playoffs with Pone. Another dominant showing on the mound and a grand slam by Milzy led them to an easy win. The Royals won a low scoring game 2 where all 3 runs scored were solo homeruns, one for Zane, Flick and Sean. Is it time for the Diamondbacks to sell before the deadline?

 

 

Rocky Mountain Rankings

1. A’s –

2. Astros  –

3. Expos +1

4. White Sox +1

5. Mariners –

6. Royals -3

7. Phillies +1

8. Jays +1

9. Mets +1

10. D Backs -3

11. Angels –

 

• Athletics hold number 1 with the head to head win over the Stros.

• Expos continue their climb after another solid performance on the mound from Noah. He has thrown 20 of their 23 innings so it will be interesting to see how they look in the back half.

• Royals went 1-1 on the week, but the loss was a bad one and the win wasn't particularly impressive.

 

We’re approaching the halfway point of the season as 10 of 11 teams are at 6 or more games with the Mets being the lone team at 5. We are finally starting to see teams form an identity and players exceeding or underachieving expectations. Today we’re going back to draft night. How would the draft go knowing what we currently know? I wanted to look at this as objectively as possible. I started by sorting every drafted player by OPS, which often gives the best representation of a hitter that a single stat can. I also considered batting average, home runs and pitching performance to this point. My tiebreaker stat is something I refer to as “empty game rate”. I went through each individual player and counted how many games they recorded zero hits, as well as how many games they failed to reach base at all. I did not consider what a captain would actually do, like Zane drafting Behn or Rizz if they're available. The only adjustments I made were ensuring that any team taking a hitter in the first round would come back with a pitcher in the second but outside of that it is all statistically based. Who would be the biggest riser? Biggest fall? Which re-draft team would win it all? Let's get to it.

 

For draft order, I kept it the same as it was heading into draft night.

 

Round 1

Expos- Chris Durning +2

White Sox- Frankie Camp +2

A’s- Connor Warwick +8

Mariners- Ben Mutz +8

Angels- Tommy Loftus -3

Mets- Johnny Demucci -1

Royals- Mike Collins -6

Blue Jays- Nick Pollag +2

Astros- Pone +7

Diamondbacks- Sean Hinchey +9

Diamondbacks- Behn Worley -4

 

Round 2

Phillies- Dennis Donegan -6

Phillies- John Lockhart +2

Astros-  Josh Butler +6

Blue Jays- Riley Brown -6

Mets- Adam Milsted -8

Mets- Erick Schulles -3

Angels- Jimmy Hallman +3

Angels- Eddie Bleacher +7

A’s- Dylan Ayers +13

White Sox- Mike Sfida +1

Expos- Adam Beyers +1

 

Round 3

Expos- Matt Haines +8

White Sox- Pat Farrell -11

A’s- Matt Milakeve -8

Mariners- Wayne Shambo +2

Blue Jays- Flick Adams –

Royals- Brendan Risley -4

Royals- Andrew Kelly -11

Phillies- Vinny Albanese -5

Astros- Mike Ward -2

Mariners- Nick Liberio -2

Diamondbacks- Joey Van Houten -1

 

Biggest Risers

Dylan Ayers- Ranks 18th in OBP and 19th in OPS prior to Wednesday's games. Seems to be improving every game.

Sean Hinchey- 9th in OPS, 10th in slugging. We are seeing a true breakout for the career .110 hitter.

Connor Warwick- 8th in OPS and a 1.50 ERA across 8 innings. 

Ben Mutz- 13th in OPS and hasn't allowed a run in his limited action on the mound.

 

Biggest Fallers

Andrew Kelly- 35th in AVG, 37th in OPS 38th in OBP.

Pat Farrell- 28th in OPS, 30th in AVG but hasn't reached base at all in 3/6 games. 1 of 3 players to not reach base in 3 or more games this season. (Pat, Nick L, JVH)

Adam Milsted- 27th in average and OPS, has struggled on the mound as well.

 

Expos

Noah Silverman

Chris Durning 

Adam Beyers

Matt Haines

 

White Sox

Brendan Boas

Frankie Camp

Mike Sfida

Pat Farrell

 

A’s

Dylan Harshaw

Connor Warwick

Dylan Ayers

Matt Milakeve

 

Mariners

Jack Liberio

Ben Mutz

Wayne Shambo

Nick Liberio

 

Angels

Nate Smith

Tommy Loftus

Jimmy Hallman

Eddie Bleacher

 

Mets

John Polanco

Johnny Demucci

Adam Milsted

Erick Schulles

 

Royals

Zane Johnston

Mike Collins

Brendan Risley

Andrew Kelly

 

Jays

Cam Farro

Nick Pollag

Riley Brown

Flick Adams

 

Astros

Ryan Drecher

Pone

Josh Butler

Mike Ward

 

Diamondbacks

Sean Bignear

Sean Hinchey

Behn Worley

JVH

 

Phillies

Colin Pollag

Dennis Donegan

John Lockhart

Vinny Albanese

 

If you step back and were to pick which team is the best after the re-draft, you could attack from multiple ways. We all have preconceived opinions about players, which is why I wanted to base this exercise purely on production. Considering what we have seen to this point my favorite re-draft team would be the Mets. They were positioned better than anyone on draft night with 3 picks in the top 17 so it makes sense in this exercise for them to have 3 solid players. My least favorite team is the Mariners, which is really a credit to Lib. Draft night trades prevented him from being stuck with two third round picks, and this exercise shows exactly why he made those moves.

 

I also took the re-draft board and applied the positive or negative value of each selection to create a rough draft score for every current team. The idea is simple, how much value did each team gain or lose relative to where its players were originally selected? (For this exercise, I counted Pone as a Met since he’s played more games there)

 

Astros +17

DBacks +12

A’s +10

Expos +4

Mariners 0

White Sox -4

Phillies -4

Royals -6

Mets -7

Blue Jays -11

Angels -11

 

Outside of the Diamondbacks, this lines up surprisingly well with the current power rankings. Ayers accounts for a large portion of the DBacks positive score, but the bigger takeaway is that nearly everyone on that roster has performed at or above their draft position. The exception is Sean, who hasn't quite looked like his usual self.

The beauty of a re-draft is that it forces us to forget reputations and focus on results. Some of the league's biggest names still landed near the top, but plenty of players have completely changed how they're viewed in just a few short weeks.