The Major League regular season is nearing its end. More than 90% of the team’s schedule was completed. The wild card player has not been decided yet, but there are only about two weeks left in the regular season. As the postseason has expanded, there has been no one-game playoffs, so even if there is a tied team, no more regular season games will be added.메이저놀이터
This year’s regular season is ‘a time when money betrays’. The teams ranked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in salary in the opening game all fell. The New York Mets, in first place, had a team salary of a whopping $353.55 million before the opening day. It was on a scale unprecedented in history. The second-place New York Yankees also failed to meet expectations for the season.
Opening Day Team Salary Rankings
1. New York Mets – $353,556,854
2. New York Yankees – $276,999,872
3. San Diego Padres – $248,995,932
4. Philadelphia Phillies – $243,094,395
5. LA Dodgers – $222,717,834
28. Tampa Bay Rays – $73,184,811
29. Baltimore Orioles – $60,722,300
30. Oakland Athletics – $56,895,000
The team with the third highest salary before the opening day is the San Diego Padres. The Mets and Yankees, ranked 1st and 2nd, were teams that could spend a lot of money because they were based in the big city of New York. However, San Diego has had a strong small market image. It wasn’t long before I started spending a lot of money. So this season, in which large-scale investments were made, came across as very awkward.
San Diego spent more than meets the eye. The contract extension cost exceeded $500 million as the company not only recruited externally but also paid attention to internal controls. Total expenditures amounted to $940 million.
San Diego, which spent an astronomical amount of money, failed to advance to the postseason. Let alone the postseason, even the .500 win rate is unclear. With 15 games left, they currently have 69 wins and 78 losses, and they need to win more than 12 games to achieve a winning percentage of .500. The original target was the Dodgers, but the current winning percentage is the same as Pittsburgh (0.469).
Teams with poor performance have a noticeable two-stroke imbalance. If you subtract the goals conceded from the goals scored, the majority is negative. The Atlanta Braves, who currently have the highest winning percentage in the major leagues, have a goal differential of +242, while the Kansas City Royals, who are ranked last in the major leagues, have a goal differential of -184. Even without such extreme comparisons, it is rare for a team with a winning percentage of less than .500 to have a positive goal difference.
This year, San Diego deviated from this common sense. The win rate is less than .500, but the goal difference is +60. Among the teams with a winning percentage of less than .500, they are the only team with a positive goal difference. As a result, San Diego has an expected score of 80 wins and 67 losses based on goal difference. With this score, the winning percentage is 0.544. Philadelphia, currently ranked first in the National League wild card, has a winning percentage of 0.541.
San Diego’s plus difference was created by the mound. The total number of goals conceded is 614, the third fewest in the league. San Diego’s team ERA of 3.92 ranks third in the league and sixth overall. In particular, the starting lineup ranked first overall with an ERA of 3.63 by July.
San Diego’s task, which had a solid mound, was simple. The batting line was able to score enough points. San Diego scored 674 points in total points. The overall ranking was exactly in the middle. Overall, it appears that the score was sufficient, but upon closer inspection, there were some disappointing aspects. San Diego did not score enough points before scoring enough points.
The batting can’t explode all season long (except for Atlanta). So even when the feeling of hitting subsides, you need to be able to score points in other ways. This is referred to as score manufacturing.
San Diego did not have this type of attack well. When the batting line exploded, he was on fire, but when the batting line did not explode, he remained silent. The temperature difference between each game was very severe. The 15 games with double-digit scores were the 8th most, but the 28 games with 1 point or less were also the 4th most.
The reason for the large discrepancy in scoring can be found in the scores in the scoring range. In fact, scoring power was an unresolved problem for San Diego this year. He worked hard to get on base based on his excellent pitching plan, but when runners were out of scoring range, the batters flinched. Until May, the scoring average was 0.192. Towards the middle of the season, scoring performance recovered, but as the batting line improved, an injury gap occurred on the mound. As the two-hit mismatch worsened, recruiting at the trade deadline was of no use.
San Diego monthly scoring average (ranking)
April – 0.208 (28th)
May – 0.175 (30th) June
– 0.236 (22nd)
July – 0.282 (7th)
August – 0.260 (12th)
September – 0.294 (12th)
San Diego’s weakness in the clutch is also confirmed in other indicators. Late & Close refers to a situation when the score is tied or one run behind after the 7th inning, or when the tied runner is on base. You can guess what it looked like at the end of the game. In this category, San Diego had a team batting average of only 0.195. It was the lowest in the major league, lower than 29th place Oakland (0.207).
The slump in San Diego’s batting lineup is disconcerting. Ahead of the opening, a lot of effort was put into the batting lineup. Bringing in Xander Bogaerts was a decision that involved taking on defensive losses. In addition, Fernando Tatis Jr. was also scheduled to return after completing the remaining suspension, so it was expected that he would improve compared to last year.
Manager Bob Melvin was conscious of last year’s Dodgers’ trio (Mookie Betts, Trey Turner, and Freddie Freeman) and called his four core players the Big 4 (Tatis & Soto & Machado & Bogaerts). However, the Big 4 that we trusted did not repay our faith. The San Diego Union Tribune, a local media outlet in San Diego, also recently reported that San Diego’s biggest failure is the Big Four. The Big 4 were more disappointing compared to Betts and Freeman of the Dodgers, who were competing for MVP.
San Diego Big 4 performance
Tatis [batting average] 0.261 24 home runs [ops] 0.784
Soto [batting average] 0.262 30 home runs [ops] 0.894
Machado [batting average] 0.252 28 home runs [ops] 0.773
Bogaerts [batting average] 0.272 18 home runs [ops] 0.764
The finger that hurts the most is Bogaerts. My grades were decent, but I didn’t do what I needed to do. Bogaerts’ scoring average was only 0.183. The batting average in scoring position after two outs was 0.177, and the batting average in Late & Close was 0.217. Additionally, Bogaerts had 21 double plays on the ground, the most in the National League. The batting average for 11 games in September is 0.439, and it looks like the bus has already left but is running at full speed.
The player’s responsibility is great, but it is not just the player’s responsibility. Coach Melvin’s selection of players was also not appropriate. It was difficult to understand why they insisted on playing Tatis, who is highly aggressive, at number 2, Soto, who has a good starting pitch, at number 3, and Bogaerts, who was struggling in scoring positions, at number 4 and 5. If the results are not good, changes should be made and additional measures should be sought, but it was surprising that no further attempts were made. For reference, it has been pointed out that Coach Melvin finds it difficult to understand closer Josh Hader’s excessive management.
There were times when San Diego wasn’t so lucky this year. But he couldn’t just repeat that he was unlucky. There was definitely a point where he was able to turn bad luck into good luck. By missing that turning point, the opportunity to make up for it disappeared. It was an inevitable failure that everyone was responsible for.
