Two of the most critical factors of success in the OOTL are Power and OBP. Since the OOTL is an all-star pitching league and dice are used, a team’s hitting ability is only one of 4 factors of offensive success. In a previous edition we looked at speed/moving runner. In a future edition hitting will be evaluated, but today the ASSN will evaluate each teams Power and OBP.

Power:

As opposed to pitching it it difficult to evaluate power due to limitation of games and double-column cards with zeros in the first column. Obviously a double-column card loaded with 1’s in column two is stronger than one with limited second column 1’s, but the challenge of evaluating these differences becomes information prohibitive.  Therefore we chose to take a more simple approach with power as we believe our factors will give a clear enough evaluation without going into too much detail.

Key Factors Evaluated:
1) 1st Column 1’s at 66
2) Power numbers at 44
3) Other 1st Column 1’s and 5’s. (1’s are given 1 point and, since 5’s are not always HR’s, they count as .5 points)

As you can see from the chart below the Asian Tsunamis executed their draft strategy and built what we believe is a team that can take a run at the all-time home run record. APBA is much more fun to Tsunami leadership when they score runs so they made the sacrifices necessary to build a team that should score regardless of bad rolling days. Will it be enough to reach the end goal of a 5th championship? That remains to be seen. We will give our team evaluations in part 10 of this report, but as for power the Tsunamis are in a league of their own.

The Speakers, Wahoos and Lyme Bees are also loaded with power and will be a force with the long ball. Flat or negative power pitchers may end up with brown pants when going up against this group.  The Stars fell down to the average group because they were on the borderline and three first column ones are all on the same card of a limited use player. However they are still a power force.

Finally in a league of their own as well is The Plague. As we saw from the Speed/Moving Runners analysis, The Plague’s GM focus is on speed and they will have to take that route to get to the top.  A scary team at this point is the Speakers as they are second ranked in power, were one of the top teams in speed/moving runners and had one of the best rotations. It definitely looks like–at least early on–they will be under consideration for the top three playoff seeds.

OBP:

The second element we are discussing today is OBP. Again we are taking a lazier route in analysis rather than counting all BB’s, Rare play/Error opportunities and HBP ‘s on each card. However, we believe our MLB-actual OBP analysis will give us a strong directional ranking of teams without all the extra work.

Key Factors Evaluated:
1) Players with MLB OBP +.345
2) Players with MLB OBP +.375

Once again, the numbers indicate the Tsunamis at the top. This will be a strong combination of power and OBP so the Tsunamis could be positioned for success pending other evaluation factors to come. The Stars, Plague, Wahoos and AB’s are also above average on the OBP front. The Wahoos OBP/Power factors are also a great combination while the high speed graded Plague along with this OBP ranking could help position them high up in the standings. And what about the Stars Rotation, Power and OBP? Another team to look at strongly. Flat or negative control pitchers also may need some Shout stain remover when they face this group.

An interesting note is our champions are leading up the rear in this category. Very surprising but low OBP can often be balanced out by strong hitting cards. That answer will come in a later journal edition.

As you can see as we start combining these various factors, things start to take shape on the overall team rankings. However, we have several more evaluations to come including the final 6 spots, bullpens, hitting, and in the next edition, fielding!

Asian Sports Network (ASSN)