On The Run, Volume 1- Number 12

April 01, 2017, 08:45:37 PM

I've been away from this league to say the least since the FA draft ended, some many weeks ago. Since that time, my other leagues have been in full mode of various varieties and I'm talking sim and fantasy. I've been playing fantasy for years, but simulation baseball has certainly opened my eyes to some of the finer details of baseball and the many aspects that go unnoticed in fantasy.

One of those great aspects is defense, bullpen composition and player skills above HR's, RBI's and stolen bases. That has been very apparent the last two days as I've watch two ranked SEC teams in Florida and Missouri. Missour has shown a vast improvement in first year HC, Steve Beiser, but they have quite a distance to go. They are a young team with several JuCo transfers mixed in at primary positions. Faedo and Singer executed the pitching plan precisely, which was apparent in their defense. Many balls that should have been base hits were hit directly at defenders or within a few manageable steps. Countless times with a runner at 1B and LHB, the 2B would be easily within 20 feet of second base and nearly straight behind the base. To me, the whole 3-4 hole was open on the right side of the defense. I guess it is just more apparent to me when the Tigers fail to execute than when others team succeed in their goals.

Anyway, quite a series with two one-run games so far although Mizzou came out on the short end of both games. As a baseball fan, I've been to many games this season and the weather hasn't been great so far with a lot of cold temps, wind and even a little rain. To say the least the turnout has been less than stellar and the fans that are there are pretty quiet. I've see more chatter in a morgue. Okay, I've never been in a morgue, but a lot of sitting on the hands fans. The occassional group of non-sober college students and high school kids to seem to liven up the place. My sons and I who are 6 and 11 joined in the rucous crowd on Friday night as two of those such groups were around us. The language was clean as expected otherwise we would have moved. Our small section of maybe 11 fans were pretty loud during the failed comeback attempt. I'll digress and I've yet to decide if I'll attend the series finale tomorrow. I need to mow for the first time and the warmer temps in the forecast and rain the few days prior has made the grass grow, a lot.

Brent