After a brief hiatus, we move on to Double-A run environments. If you are just joining, we are taking a look at a few measurables for all the full season minor leagues to get an idea of how they compare to the big leagues. The goal is to go a step beyond typical characterizations as pitchers’ or hitters’ leagues. We have found to this point that aside from the California League and its prolific scoring, runs per game across levels are fairly similar to the major leagues. Homerun rates, on the other hand, diverge wildly between leagues.
The jump to AA is often referred to as the most difficult for prospects on their way to the bigs. The average age of players is about twenty-four and a half, over a year and a half older than those in High-A. The level consists of three leagues: the Eastern League, Southern League, and Texas League. The Cubs’ affiliate since 2007 has been the Tennessee Smokies of the Southern League. Of the three leagues, my sense is that the only one considered to be an extreme environment is the Texas League for offense.
The Run Environments
Methodology is here.
The AA levels play much closer to one another in terms of runs scored than the High-A levels. The Texas league does indeed come out on top, though the gap seems to have narrowed somewhat in recent years. Interestingly, homerun rates in the TL have increased over that time period,
though that has oscillated a bit in the past. On the whole, the Double-A levels show only a slight bump in homerun per contact as compared to High-A (2.87% AA vs 2.75% A+, 2011-2013 three year averages), though I suspect that the real jump in power is higher than that. It’s tough to disentangle the numbers from their environments, and the Cal League drives up rates at A+ quite a bit.
The Southern League Split
What originally prompted this series was a discussion of the run environment in the Southern League. I was under the impression that it was slightly hitter-friendly, which was quite clearly wrong. There are a few mentionable caveats, however. First and perhaps most importantly for Cub fans, the Smokies play in one of the best hitters’ parks in the league. Moreover, the league features a significant divisional split. The Southern North and Southern South generate similar runs per game (4.32 vs 4.25, 2011-2013 three year averages), but diverge significantly in terms of offensive power output.
When considering that approximately 15-20% of a team’s schedule is made up of out-of-division road games (which are included in these numbers), the homer-split is very significant. On a per-contact basis, the North plays similarly to the Eastern League, while the South is about as homer-free as the Midwest League.
Prior to 2012, the split was easy to understand, as the two worst hitters' parks (Birmingham and Mississippi) were in the South Division, with the two best (Tennessee and Hunstville) in the North. In 2012, though, the Carolina Mudcats moved to Pensacola and the South Division, while Birmingham was shifted to the North. Despite the early returns on Pensacola’s stadium (which seems to be homer-friendly) the split has remained, and in 2013 was larger than it has ever been. This is likely attributable in part to a new stadium in Birmingham that opened this year. Another possible cause could be increasingly insular divisional schedules. I’m not sure whether this is actually happening, as the league schedule is unbalanced*, and I don’t have the energy to look at team-by-team schedules for the last 8 years.
*The Southern League is geographically large and teams are restricted in the number of long road trips they may take, necessitating the unbalanced schedule.
Cub Affiliate Levels
For Cub prospects climbing the ladder, the Southern League provides a significantly better environment for homeruns than previous levels.
Javier Baez obviously took advantage of that this year. I look forward to seeing what Dan Vogelbach and Kris Bryant can do at Tennessee in the future.
Bonus Regional Hero-Worship Tidbit
No less than three of the ten Southern League cities are named after former president Andrew Jackson (Jacksons TN and MS as well as Jacksonville, FLA). The Tennessee club has even taken the nickname “Generals” in tribute. Regardless of opinions on the historical figure, I think we can all agree that this is a step up from their former moniker “Diamond Jaxx,” which sounds like an early-90s character-driven urban crime pic.
Since I have more to say about the level of play and this post is rapidly careening towards tl;dr territory, I’ll split out the rest into a part II.
Comments
http://www.csnbayarea.com/49ers/nfl-staley-should-not-have-been-penalized
Thank you. I couldn’t believe all the shit out there about how GB was screwed on that play. Matthews drags Kaepernick down by the neck 3-4 yards out of bounds, Staley gets in Matthews’ face, Matthews hits Staley in the face multiple times and somehow it’s supposed to be off-setting penalties?
Bullshit. Personal foul on Matthews for the late hit. Personal foul, unsportsmanlike conduct for the “punches.” Matthews, gtfo.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
For those who didn’t see…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAomffMtIyM
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Ryno, how about Boldin? That was awesome to watch. Boldin is still a beast.
MuckerQuote Reply
@ Mucker:
Man, he exceeded my already high expectations. If he has position on a DB, throw it to him. He’ll win against any DB out there. I thought Tank Carradine was their best draft pick, but using a 6th on Boldin is close.
How did CHI look? I watched NO/ATL instead, but it sounded like CHI moved the ball well on a tough CIN D.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
@ GW
Love this series of analysis.
Tl; dr doesn’t apply if it’s interesting. (Or in Alvin’s world.)
mobile svbQuote Reply
Yeah, I live in the Baltimore area so I got to watch a lot of Ravens games and I don’t understand why they traded him. He’s a nightmare for secondaries.
Chicago looked good I thought. I wanted to see how the “new” offensive line looked and I thought they did a great job all things considered. Long and Mills, 2 rookies, played great. The line didn’t give up any sacks or have any pre-snap penalties and aside from some early pressure, kept Cutler very well protected. The run blocking wasn’t very good though but it was great to watch considering what they’ve had before. I thought the Def was terrible in the first half but they shut it down in the second. But I’m pretty happy they were able to get a W from a Super Bowl contender.
MuckerQuote Reply
Omar Little wrote:
This. This. This.
It wasn’t even a late hit, it was a late hit launched at the QB’s head. Now, you can argue about how QBs are pampered and how certain things shouldn’t be penalties, but the fact it that right now a QB’s head is off limits no matter where or when you hit him in the course of the play.
I don’t have a problem with Staley also being flagged for starting the fight so long as Matthews get’s hit with a 2nd one for continuing the fight and gets tossed for throwing punches.
I’m just glad SF won the game. I half wanted James Jones to catch a hail mary at the end for selfish fantasy purposes, but not really because it would have only reduced the amount by which I lost and also, fuck Green Bay.
Aisle424Quote Reply
Omar Little wrote:
I think they looked how they’re going to look.
Ragged on offense at times, but making some plays and definitely better than last year, especially on the offensive line. That should improve as the year goes on.
The defense did what it’s going to do, it’s going to give up long scoring drives because they are old and not that good anymore, but they have individuals that can still make plays, so they’ll get their share of turnovers and they can make a key defensive stop here and there. I expect the defense to get worse as the year goes on, though.
Aisle424Quote Reply
But Cincinnati could have gotten the ball back at the end if they weren’t dumbasses, and then who knows what happens. It was good the Bears beat a decent team, but I still think they are a marginal playoff team and they won’t go deep if they get in.
Aisle424Quote Reply
Aisle424 wrote:
Exactly. I don’t care either if they penalize Staley, but they should be consistent. They could have ejected Matthews for that, so he should AT LEAST be penalized.
That’s also why I didn’t care that people were bitching that GB “got screwed” by the officials on that play, like it tainted the win.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Aisle424 wrote:
Absolutely. Trestman’s offenses are (at least they used to be) timing based. It’ll take a year or so before it really starts to click.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
And at the end of the year, Cutler is a FA.
MylesQuote Reply
New aside, bitches: http://obstructedview.net/aside/new-store-updates.html
joshQuote Reply
@ Myles:
New coach, new QB. SJSU’s David Fales and UGA’s Aaron Murray look like good fits for that type of offense.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
That’ll be my biggest question. I hope its offset by an improving offense. There’s a chance they click better as they go.
joshQuote Reply
Boldin just caught another pass
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ josh:
I think that’s what we’re going to see. The decline of the defense while the offense improves. The problem is that I don’t think the Bears have the tools to become an elite offense like their defense was elite for many years under Lovie. So they need to get younger and better on defense soon while the offense is still fairly young.
I’m way more confident in a re-tooled offense going forward (even with NON-ELITE, BAD TEAMMATE, POUTY, WHINY PUSSY-POT Jay Cutler at QB) than I am with the defense. There isn’t a real difference maker under the age of 30 on defense and that’s a real problem.
Emery has to string together some pretty fantastic drafts to unfuck the team from under the weight of Angelo’s abysmal draft history. So far, he seems to be doing pretty well, especially if Long is as good as we hope he can be to anchor that O-line for years.
Aisle424Quote Reply
New Bears Shit
http://obstructedview.net/bears/bears-24-bengals-21.html
MylesQuote Reply
Myles wrote:
If he is grasping the offense and they think he can grow in it, they’ll re-sign him. If not, they’ll find someone. What gave me the most hope was that the back-up QBs looked competent in Trestman’s system during the pre-season. Usually there is a gigantic drop-off even though they are facing inferior defenses. That guy that started the last pre-season game looked pretty good and they didn’t hesitate in cutting him.
With Alshon, Bennett, Marshall (I think for at least 1 more year), and Forte around with an improved o-line, it’s up to Jay to earn a paycheck by doing what they hope he can do. If not, they’ll start over and probably be OK offensively.
Aisle424Quote Reply