Chemistry 101

With Jason Akamanis recently being dumped by the Bulldogs due to a 'lack of chemistry', I thought it would be a good time to look at chemistry on the baseball field. Does it matter? Does having a team united help in the march toward a championship? Now there are obviously a few varying opinions on this subject. There are those of you out there that believe that a team with good chemistry is a good baseball team and that by having a good chemistry the team will perform better.... well I'm here to disagree with that opinion entirely and offer some views on the subject.

Now a lot of people point to the fact that winning teams have good chemistry, which is true. It appears fairly obvious that a team that wins more games than it looses will have good chemistry. However, what causes a team to win games? Is it the fact that Albert Pujols is a nice guy and bought one of his team mates a soda before the game? Or the fact that Derek Jeter laughs at Robinson Cano's jokes? Or is it more likle the fact that those guys are awesome baseball players. and help their team when it really matters? For mine, winning is clearly dependent on the talent of the team, if you have a good team you win, regardless of whether or not guys within the club like each other.

Now some people bring up that 'winning teams have good chemistry'. Now there is no denying this, however why do winning teams have good chemistry? Well it seems pretty obvious, when you win, your team generally has more fun which leads to an increase in perceived 'chemistry'. So it can be said that while chemistry doesn't change a teams ability to win, it can be said that if your team is winning, then it will have greater chemistry. You might notice that last year the Seattle Mariners improved with the addition of Ken Griffey Jr. Now, there were reports that by bringing Griffey into the team, Seattle's team chemistry had improved, thus they had won more games than in the previous season. However, this season, Griffey was struggling at the plate and the so called chemistry that he brings to the team was not resulting in wins, which forced him into retirement.

The reality of baseball is that it is essentially a group of individuals playing within one team. While there are small instances where performances overlap, generally speaking, the performance of one member of the team will not effect the performance of another. A pitcher will throw strikes regardless of the catcher, an infielder will field balls at the same rate regardless of the pitcher, and a hitter will hit for the same percentages regardless of who is in the lineup with him.

With that said, I'll throw it over to Jim Leyland, who seemed to sum up the situation fairly well recently when asked about Pud...

"Take all that clubhouse [stuff] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [nonsense] for years. Chemistry don’t mean [anything]. He’s up here because he’s good. That don’t mean [a hill of beans]. They got good chemistry because their team is improved, they got a real good team, they got guys knocking in runs, they got a catcher hitting .336, they got a phenom pitcher they just brought up. That’s why they’re happy."

Good Signs

The Backyard Baseballer was competing in one of the many athletic events that he excels in last night, when he bumped into a juicy little peice of information yesterday that he thought would make the Australian Baseball Community very pleased. In front of me sits the 'home' schedule for one of the teams playing in the upcoming ABL. Due to privacy and attempting to protect my source, I will not divulge which team this schedule relates to. I can however tell you this...

Assuming that each team has the same schedule in terms of home and away (surely they would), each team will play;

• 4 games per week
• 20 home games in total, which would amount to a 40 game season
• The first home series for this team starts mid November, and finishes around mid January

So in other words, there will be a lot of baseball played between November and Feburary this season. Should more information come out I will attempt to relay it to my loyal fans (all 7 of you).

Upcoming Post

Just want to let all of my dedicated fans (all two and a half of them) that I'm working on a post detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each team. Depending on time, I'll roll one out at a time to save from overkill.

Stay tuned!

All Star Fever

So it's been a couple of weeks since my last post, to say there has been a lot on the old plate of life would be an understatement... but I digress. Now with my site being mentioned over at Deep in the Hole, I guess there might hopefully be some readers out there at least a tiny bit interested in some form of post. With the All Star Game being played right now, I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of look an 'Australian' All Star team would have from last season. Now not everyone will agree with what I choose, which is awesome. Bit of healthy debate never hurt anyone!

So here we go...

Catcher:

There is one clear guy that stands out here, Michael Collins. Last season he managed to hit .417 with an OBP of .543, which is ridiculously good. For good meassure he also managed to go yard 6 times. Not only that, he also only struck out a super impressive 6 times (the same amount of times he went deep). Collins will be moving states next year from SA, if he manages to repeat these numbers with the Canberra team the new guys may be competitive.

1st Base:

After seeing the power numbers displayed at catcher, the first base position is actually very dissapointing. Patrick Maat lead the way at first last season by a clear margin, hitting .390 whilst hitting 9 doubles and clearly the fence on 2 occassions and driving in 19. The only real challenge came from Ryan Murphy of SA (.247 3HR 16RBI) and Hayden Dingle of VIC (.284 1HR 14RBI). But clearly those numbers don't stack up against the New South Welshman's.

2nd Base:

Offense at second is always gold, and that definitely has the be one of the key reasons Victoria was able to go all the way last season. Scott Wearne hit a very handy 3 home runs, while managing to stroke 10 doubles. This lead him to a batting average of .320 and a .500 slugging percentage. Mitch Graham was a very close second, hitting .274 with 4 bombs and 11 driven in. However it's hard to ignore the consistent hitting of Wearne here.

3rd Base:

The backyard baseballer was extremely dissapointed with the power numbers from last season (homeruns are sexy), and expects some teams to recruit some big bats for the corner infield positions for a little excitment. As with second base, it's hard to look past the champs Victoria with Josh Davies. The low homerun totals for mine are a letdown, but it's hard to look past the fact he lead the team in RBI's (19) whilst also managing to hit a few doubles for good meassure. Next season should hopefully see stronger competition amongst third baseman, with Luke Hughes potentially going yard for WA and the improvement of youngster Stef Welch of SA.

Shortstop:

This is where it gets interesting, finally a position with a bit of competition amongst it! There are three very handy players at short who managed to star last season. Michael Lysaught went yard four times to lead all shortstops. While he did strike out 29 times, the power from what is a generally considered a defensive position is great to see. Maybe one of the most underrated season came from Alan Schoenberger up at Queensland. Hitting .284/.363/.481 with 3 jacks. In any other year that might have been the best performance from a shortstop... but then again it's not every year the a shortstop manages to hit .400 while displaying some pretty handy power. Matt Lawman, of Victoria (there is a theme happening here) hit .423/.468/.549 and clearly was the most outstanding performance at short. Having said that, either of the other two are quite handy and there will be a big battle for offensive supremecy amongst the shortstops next season.

Outfield:

As with the MLB all star game, there are no outfield positions, so we could potentially have three corner outfielders manning the team (we are). First up is Mitch Denning from NSW. You might have been living under a rock if you hadn't heard of this kids season last year. He his .391/.466/.594 with 2 jacks. Easily deserving of one of the outfield spots. It will be interesting to see how Denning goes next year, will there be a sophmore slump? Or will his gap power translate into homerun power. At any rate, he's definitely going to be one of the players to watch next season.

Andrew Russel (another VIC!) managed to hit .348 with 2 homeruns and 15 RBI's (second on the team). Now these numbers aren't as impressive as the other two guys manning the All Star outfield, they were however a big reason that Victoria was able to go all the way in the end.

Now with the last pick (but definitely not least) - Tim Kennelly, of WA, showed that he will be an offesnsive force in the coming season. Showing tons of power with 4 homers and 13 doubles, and a little speed to boot with 5 stolen bases. He also managed a league leading 23 RBI's while hitting a handy .354 and showing great plate discipline, only striking out 9 times. If WA manage to get Hughes into their lineup then WA may manage to have one of the best 3/4 combinations in the league.

So there we have it, the ABL 'All Star' team from last season. There has been a rumour that there will be an 'All Star' game played next season. Rumour was that it will be a game between the native Australian players and the imports for each team, to be played at Norwood Oval (SA). However this has not been confirmed, and it's unlikely that we will know much prior to the season.