As many of you may know, we officially made it to the playoffs in my league. The top two teams from each division advanced to the best of 7 series playoffs to see who will take home the inaugural Showdown Cup. In the Chipper Jones Division we have the #2 seed Acuna Matata taking on the #1 seed Dat Boy X. For the Gary Sheffield Division the #2 seed Wisconsin Wolves will be facing the #1 seed Skyway Rainiers. After a very successful first season I saw a lot of different strategies play out and these are the final four. In fun fashion for these teams to clinch playoff births it came down to the last series of the season and for Acuna Matata it came down to the very last game winning and advancing to the playoffs. I'm going to break down the playoff match ups and will start with the Chipper Jones Division Championship. Based on my real life schedule, I will probably play games 1,2,&3 on Monday, but I am only going to release game 1 on Monday, and game 2 on Tuesday. Over the rest of the week I will likely play out the remainder of the games for the first round. Hoping to release one day of games a day.
Acuna Matata won the season series 4-2, but these teams are very similar in scoring. I can see this being a full 7 game series based on how close these two teams are. Based on things the managers told me they would like for their teams in the series, I can't wait to watch this one play out.
Pitching for the first 3 games looks like a fun battle. Kershaw's record is deceiving as he has a better WHIP and ERA than Kyle Freelund yet Freelund has a better record.
Looking at the season stats we may have two MVP candidates in this series between Ronald Acuna and Justin Turner. Not looking past other members of the team with great season as well but those two seem to be the leaders on the offensive side to get the teams rolling. Jumping off the page to me is Jesus Aguilar and his 69 hits on the season for an 8OB, that is good enough to be tied for 4th in the league with his teammate Justin Turner in the season total of hits. On a sad note, DAT BOY X ownership announced they filed a missing persons report for Shane Greene, saying he was last seen at the ball park with his teammates, but hasn't been seen since. Totally unrelated, the team announced the boiler room of the stadium is closed off to the media, public and local police.
GARY SHEFFIELD DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP
The Wolves really took it to the Skyway Rainiers in the season series. again we have two teams that are very similar until we get to the bullpens and the Rainiers 1.859 bullpen ERA. That is the explanation of the average runs given up per game being so low. The test of defense mattering will be shown in this series with the Wolves low infield defense and the Rainiers top of the order speed. Can the Rainiers tame the Wolves power lineup?
More MVP candidates in this series as Christian Yelich led the league in doubles, batting average, hits and on-base percent. He did everything for the Rainiers and needs to be shut down for the Wolves to get the advantage. The Rainiers also had the best closer in the league with Craig Kimbrel and his 17 saves. On the Wolves side the had JD Martinez leading the league in RBI with 54, and Nicholas Castellanos led the league in Home Runs with 16. How many pick Castellanos as the home run leader in your preseason polls???
There we have it for the first round of the playoffs, So time for everyone to get their predictions in, in the comments below lets hear who you think wins each series of this round, and in how many games?
excited for the playoffs! thanks for setting up and running the league, really enjoyed it
ReplyDeleteNo problem it was my pleasure, it was such a fun project and I’m surprised how fast and smooth it went by, 16 weeks of in game play done in 4 months. Literally worked out to basically a week of games per week. Can’t wait to see how the playoffs shake out
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