Baseball Night in America Atlanta Stonecutters vs NY Rippers

ATLANTA STONECUTTERS(22-20)VS NEW YORK RIPPERS(32-10).

GAME TIME 9:15 PM EASTERN

STADIUM: WRIGGLY FIELD

MANAGERS

ATLANTA STONECUTTERS: CRAIG LOPACINSKI

NEW YORK RIPPERS: BILLY HOBBS

STONECUTTERS LAST 10 GAMES: 5-5

Hitters in the last 110 games hitting .241 

Pitcher have a 4.25 ERA in the last 10 games.

RIPPERS LAST 10 GAMES: 6-4

Hitters in the last 10 games hitting .242

Pitchers have a 3.51 ERA in the last 10 games.

The revamped, power hitting (and not much else) Stonecutters come to Wriggly Field and take on the leagues best team. While in the last 10 games the teams seem evenly matched hitting .241 and .242 as a team. The Stonecutters have a ERA of 4.25 in the last 10 games, which is surprisingly better than there season ERA of 4.55. In the past 2 weeks the 'Cutter Crew has gone through a bunch of roster changes sending away 2 starters in Maddux, and Willis, and also Gold Glove winner Torii Hunter, along with big bat Barry Bonds. They did pick up Brad Penny, and Roy Oswalt to try and make up for the departures. They also picked up two power bats in Adam Dunn and Andruw Jones.

On the Rippers side Coach and GM Hobbs thought they needed to bolster an already impressive bullpen. They shipped out outfielder Matt Holiday for Francisco Rodriguez. Coach Hobbs hopes to make it a 5 inning game for his starters then let the bullpen do it's job. 

Can the Stonecutters walk away with an important series win to get back into the race? Be sure to tune in.

First pitch is at 8:15 pm eastern.   

Your 2004 Atlanta Stoncutters so far..12 games in.

Okay, okay I know it's only 12 games, but I'm bored so I thought I would take a look at what the Stonecutters have done so far in 12 games. As of this writing we are 6-6, and I can say a little dissapointed in the team so far.  I do not see my team as a bunch of All-Stars but I thought we would be quite a bit over the .500 mark by now. So, lets take a look at the slow starters or "Rolenites" as I like to call them.

 1. Jason Kendall C. I have/had high hopes for Jason this year, as he is a good hitter and his defense is better than his 2003 campaign. Jason hit .319/.399/.390 in 2003, and as you can see below the first 11 games were not even close to those numbers. Jason has started slow for me last year as well, and I pretty sure he'll come around.  I'm just looking for high AVG, and OBP out of him.

Name	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG

Kendall, Jason

11

41

4

9

2

0

0

3

3

4

0

1

.220

.289

.268

2. Lew Ford OF. I was SO excited to get the season started just to get to play with Fords card.  High AVG, High OBP, and fast. leadoff guy all day long. 1st AB of the season he drew a walk. I was like "alright, here we go!" As everyone knows the dice gods don't like certain players. Ford might be one of those guys, or the computer just has it out for me. 2004 real life Ford slash line was, .299/.381/.446 with 20 steals, B power facing LH's. Well so far 12 games in we are looking at a very pathetic .219 with a SLG % of .281 and has been caught stealing twice already where he was only caught twice all year round in real life. 

Name	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG

Ford, Lew

12

32

6

7

0

1

0

4

6

5

2

2

.219

.333

.281

3. Chipper Jones 3B. Last in year in 2003 Chipper wasn't all that after I acquired him, however he totally redeemed himself by hitting a walk off home run against Detroit in the playoffs. Chipper has an off year for real in 2004 so I wasn't expecting a lot of offensive production from him this year. Slash line of .248/.362/.485. As we see below Chipper is getting on base with walks, but he can not hit the ball to save his life. his AVG and SLG is a killer.

Name	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG

Jones, Chipper

12

39

6

7

2

0

0

2

10

7

0

0

.179

.347

.231

It is a long season, but I just wanted to get this down somewhere so I can go back and see how/if these player are true "Rolenites" or they just started off really slow. My next blog I will talk about the HOT players on my team, hopefully have some time here soon to get that done. What players on your team let us know in the comments or via email.

A quick look at the 2004 Atlanta Stonecutters

Well here we are just a few hours away from the Stonecutters 1st series of the the season against the Washington Senators. Ownership is looking forward to another great season in Cutter country. Gone are the likes of first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, Ellis Burks, Marlon Byrd, and Mark Prior. Added are the talents of Lew Ford, the Alomar Brothers (Roberto and Sandy), Mike Sweeney, John Olerud, and Pitcher Russ Ortiz. The team will be anchored by last years reigning MVP Barry Bonds who promises to put up even better numbers than last year (famous last words).

With the change of the roster also come change in a new ballpark. Stonecutter Park (Miller Park) looks to be a hitters paradise, which could be bad news for the pitching staff, but good for guys like Barry Bonds, Torii Hunter, Mike Sweeney, and Chipper Jones.

Here's to a great 2004 season and lets bring home a World Series title!

The Autopsy of the 2002 Atlanta Stonecutters

I have completed the 2002 MBL season with a record of 85-77. Sure it's a winning record, any Brewer fan would be proud of the season. However, this is the Atlanta Stonecutters! At the beginning of the 2002 season the front office was really shooting high for the 2003 season. With a couple of trades the front office made the move to win the Southwest Division. Additions of Mark Prior, Manny Ramirez, Troy Percival, and Terry Adams the thought was it was enough to win the divison and move deep into the playoffs. Well, that didn't happen. Washington teams of the Tribe and the Senators took the division to the wire and have to play a 1 game playoff while Atlanta finishes the season 11 games out of first place.

Lets take a look and see what went wrong on this team. We will start with the position players. With players like Jose Vidro, Scott Rolen, Manny Ramirez, Lance Berkman one would think there would be enough fire power in the line up to put up big numbers, and they kinda did with a run differential of +136.  The following chart is a power ranking chart similar to the one I run for the league, this one takes into effect strikeouts.

Name	Power Ranking %	OPS	Real OPS	OPS Difference
Gary Bennett	.919	1.082	0.668	0.414
Manny Ramirez	.813	1.116	1.097	0.019
Omar Infante	.783	0.831	0.777	0.054
Nomar Garciaparra	.774	0.889	0.88	0.009
Jose Vidro	.704	0.846	0.868	-0.022
Lance Berkman	.672	0.85	0.982	-0.132
Einar Diaz	.667	0.691	0.542	0.149
Orlando Cabrera	.600	0.703	0.701	0.002
Jay Payton	.577	0.756	0.838	-0.082
Jason Kendall	.565	0.703	0.706	-0.003
Scott Rolen	.550	0.724	0.915	-0.191
Gabe Kapler	.541	0.728	0.688	0.04
Doug Mientkiewicz	.531	0.691	0.843	-0.152
Ben Grieve	.437	0.671	0.716	-0.045
Chris Gomez	.176	0.401	0.633	-0.232

Power Ranking % is closer to the number 1 you are the better you were for the team as a whole. I also compared the players real OPS number (OBP + SLG) to what they produced in the 2002 season for me. As you can see Gary Bennett was a stud according to the numbers, however Gary was not with us the entire season, only 25 games, and he only hit vs lefty pitchers as he crushed them in the real 2002 season. Manny lived up to the hype after he came over in a trade batting a better OPS. Manny did slide a bit toward the finish line and dropped his batting average from .410 at one point down to .386. Still winning the batting title but batting .400 would have been nice. Plus  going 0-4 in the last game of the season against a lefty really put the cherry on top of the season.

Nomar was traded mid season so he's incomplete. Jose Vidro was a real headache for us during the first part of the season, he however found his swing and bounced back a bit. Yeah, he didn't out perform his real OPS but he came close. 

Now for Mr. Lance Berkman. 

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	SB	CS	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
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Totals	162	609	99	162	34	3	31	102	93	115	5	0	4	5	4	7	.266	.366	.484

Mr. Iron man for the team playing in all 162 games. Under preformed in almost every offensive category compared to his real 2002 season.
Batting average Real 2002: .292, MBL 2002 .266.
Home runs: Real 2002: 42, MBL: 31
RBI: Real 2002: 128 MBL 102
OBP: Real .405 MBL: .366
SLG: Real .578 MBL: .484

I would like to blame County Stadium for the reduction in Home Runs, but I'm not going to. OBP should not take a huge hit like it did just because of the stadium a player plays in.

Most disappointing player on the roster is... Scott Rolen. You might have seen my post a month of two ago showing how horrible Scott has been in 2002.
Here are Scott's stats in 114 games:

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	SB	CS	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Totals	114	424	64	98	18	7	15	67	44	82	16	0	1	1	4	20	0.231	0.326	0.413

Here is what Scott finished the 2002 season with:

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	SB	CS	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
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Totals	162	600	95	127	22	10	24	91	76	115	23	0	2	3	4	23	.212	.322	.402

Yep, he got even worse after I wrote the blog post. Worse avg, OBP, and SLG. **head desk**

Finally, Doug Mientkiewicz of DM from here on out. While not known for his bat in 2002 he was still solid with a AVG in the .260 range and a little pop. But instead DM gave me this:

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	SB	CS	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Loading...
Totals	162	593	72	137	34	3	11	78	87	107	9	0	3	2	3	9	.231	.337	.354

One saving grace for Rolen and DM is that they were both A+ in rage for their positions in 02. They saved us a lot of hits down the line cause of their defense. However, I don't think it really made up for the lack of stick they had in 02 for us.

For a team full of clutch hitters of Vidro, Berkman, Manny, Rolen, DM there were not a lot of clutch hits.

In conclusion, the reason the Stonecutters fell in 2002 was the under performace of 3 key players. If those 3 came close to performing like there card Atlanta would be getting ready to play in the playoffs. 

Here is the pitching chart I made. Basically, while Prior was our 2nd best pitcher according to my chart he went 5-11 for us. That is not going to cut it. I only had one pitcher who had over 10 wins and that was Maddux going 22-6.

	Games	Power Ranking	ERA	Real ERA	Difference	WHIP	Real WHIP	Difference
Troy Percival	43	0.08	2.31	1.92	-0.39	0.85	1.118	0.268
Mark Prior	26	0.72	3.62	3.32	-0.3	1.08	1.166	0.086
Armando Almanza	34	0.81	3.75	4.34	0.59	1.28	1.292	0.012
Antonio Alfonseca	19	0.82	2.31	4	1.69	1.16	1.466	0.306
Greg Maddux	37	0.90	2.38	2.62	0.24	0.98	1.199	0.219
Dave Veres	59	1.11	3.12	3.48	0.36	1.24	1.282	0.042
Jeff Nelson	56	1.26	3.86	3.94	0.08	1.61	1.38	-0.23
Terry Adams	21	1.31	3.29	4.35	1.06	1.31	1.39	0.08
Kevin Brown	5	1.54	5.94	4.81	-1.13	1.26	1.429	0.169
Andy Pettitte	9	1.56	3.45	3.27	-0.18	1.43	1.307	-0.123
Ron Villone	24	1.62	3.92	4.13	0.21	1.41	1.303	-0.107
Jaime Cerda	21	1.74	4.01	2.45	-1.56	1.5	1.403	-0.097
Chad Paronto	17	1.85	5.31	4.04	-1.27	1.1	1.262	0.162
Pete Walker	28	1.85	4.55	4.36	-0.19	1.31	1.397	0.087
Rick Bauer	29	1.88	4.88	3.98	-0.9	1.44	1.434	-0.006
Shane Reynolds	21	1.98	4.23	4.86	0.63	1.49	1.432	-0.058
Pete Munro	16	2.52	6.22	3.57	-2.65	1.59	1.388	-0.202
Aaron Harang	14	2.59	5.68	4.83	-0.85	1.8	1.57	-0.23
Ben Sheets	3	3.20	7.82	4.15	-3.67	2.21	1.417	-0.793