5 Storylines As We Close Out Session 16

08/12/2018

Hello, I'm Caleb Athen and welcome to my inaugural article here in the MLR. Today, with Session 16 almost over, I want to take a look at 5 stories going out of Session 16 and heading into Session 17.

1. The State of the 2nd NL Wild Card Spot

As it stands right now, there are 3 teams tied for the second wild card spot in the NL, the Phillies, the Expos, and the Rockies. At the time of this writing, all 3 are still in active games. The Phillies and Expos are currently locked in a 1-1 tie, so one of them will be 9-7 amd he other will be 8-8. The Rockies, however, are currently down against the Padres, 2-1 in the bottom of the 5th. The Brewers are currently down 4-1 to the Pirates, and if they lose, they might not be mathematically eliminated, but it'll be next to impossible for them to get in.

Looking at remaining schedules, Montreal plays at Seattle and then at Pittsburgh, Colorado hosts the Giants and then travels to Arizona, and the Phillies host the Brewers and then host the Rangers. Those are three pretty even schedules, with each team facing a potential playoff team. It's anyone's race to get that last spot, and if you ask me, I think it's going to go to whoever ends up winning the game currently going on between the Expos and the Phillies.

2. Who will win the AL MVP Race?
While the playoff spots for the AL are dominated by the AL East, the AL West has a lot of the big MVP candidates. With names like Dakota Carolina Montana, who is hitting a CRAZY .514, Barney Summers, who's not far behind with a .488 average, and Joe Trundle, who is ONLY hitting .308, but leads the AL in home runs, this race could come down to the very end. I feel the best chance that the AL East has at taking the MVP is in Michael Voorhees, who's batting .441/.513/.735. But who knows? We could get a complete and total surprise candidate that pops up here in the last two sessions. Devil Rays catcher Grimm Carp is a name that could show up, as he just needs to get a few more plate appearances for eligibility, currently batting .458/.536/1.042 with 4 homers. If he gets the eligibility, he could be the easy frontrunner.

3. Could the Blue Jays collapse?
A lot can happen in the AL in these last two sessions, including the Blue Jays missing the playoffs depending on if they can overcome the Orioles at the end of this game. If they fall to the Orioles, the Blue Jays will have lost 3 of their last 4 coming into a very critical Session 17 face off with the Indians. If the Indians manage to beat them, they will hold the tiebreaker over the Blue Jays for the playoffs and Session 18 becomes must win for Toronto, when they face off against the division leading Red Sox. Sure, they could avoid all this by just finishing off the Orioles this session, which would clinch them a playoff spot, but if they lose, the road to the Paper Cup becomes a very dangerous one for them.

4. Who will win the NL East?

While all eyes are focused on the two wild card races right now, the Cardinals and the Pirates are still quietly dueling over the NL East. With home field advantage in the first round on the line, neither team wants to back down from the top. The Pirates are currently leading the Brewers, 4-1 in the bottom of the 4th, and the Cardinals are coming off of a victory against the A's. Oh, and the best part? The Session 17 matchups for Cardinals and the Pirates? The Pirates will travel to St. Louis to face the Cardinals, and the Cardinals will go home to face the Pirates. If the Cardinals win Session 17, they will have the NL East clinched via tiebreakers. If the Pirates win, it will come down to Session 18, where the Pirates host the Expos, (who could very well still be competing for a playoff spot), and the Cardinals travel to Milwaukee to face the Brewers. Session 17 is very important to both of these teams.

5. Can Oliver Yu hold on to an unmatched statistic and take the NL Cy Young?

Oliver Yu is pitching pretty well. He's currently 4-0, with a 2.55 ERA. But the key statistic I'm looking at here is the 1.00 WHIP. He is currently in the Phillies/Expos game, having pitched 2/3 of an inning and given up nothing. This puts his current WHIP at 0.99, the only eligible pitcher in the entire MLR with a WHIP under 1. The question becomes if he can hold on to that, and if so, will he take the NL Cy Young? While the WHIP and his combined stats are impressive? He does not lead the league in any of the 3 Triple Crown categories, as he trails in Wins (Recently retired Jameson Poe with 6, and Darth Vader with 5), ERA (Hank Murphy with 2.14), and Strikeouts (Dan Gerzone with 58). Gerzone has a similar ERA to Yu in 20 more innings, but also has a losing record at 4-5. Hank Murphy has the ERA crown and a winning record (4-3), but is heavily lacking in the strikeout department (18). Darth Vader has the innings, the similar ERA, and the higher strikeouts (49), but seems to also allow significantly more baserunners (WHIP of 1.39). At the end of the day, I don't envy those who have to vote on the NL Cy Young, it's gonna be a tight race.

So that'll do it for me here. I hope that this gave you something to watch that you maybe didn't know about. Do you have any predictions for the answers to these 5 points? Good luck to all the teams and players going into Session 17!