Scott Fennessy: 2015 National League Recap

The NL was an interesting ride. Unlike previous replays where there was the elite, then the teams you “padded your stats against” there was a smooth transition from the upper echelon to the truly horrible.

Read Scott’s AL Recap!

Perhaps it’s irony that when I got this set it was to get to the World Series faster than the Chicago Cubs, that I failed in that regard, but DID get the 2017 World Series participants two years ahead of schedule. I haven’t rolled the games yet, but we will see if LA gets their revenge of sorts.

While I won’t say I enjoyed how the overall standings ended up, the chase for the pennant was one of the better ones I have ever had. It made me glad that I didn’t do a set of games for each team, so I could watch the drama unfold at the end of the year.

W L Pct.
Dodgers 90 50 .643
Cardinals 88 52 .629
Pirates 81 59 .579
Cubs 80 60 .571
Giants 78 62 .557
Mets 75 65 .536
Rockies 71 69 .507
Nationals 68 72 .486
Diamondbacks 65 75 .464
Reds 63 77 .450
Phillies 62 78 .443
Marlins 59 81 .421
Braves 59 81 .421
Padres 59 81 .421
Brewers 48 92 .343

Los Angeles Dodgers 90-50

The Dodgers were a very good team, and perhaps better than I expected. They survived a very difficult season, and fended off the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs in one of the closest races I have ever had.

The Dodgers moved into first in Late April, but saw the Cubs move ahead of them for a short spell. Then it was the Pirates, and later the Cardinals. Even though the Cubs and Pirates spent more time beating each other up, the Cardinals never went away, I mean NEVER went away. LA didn’t clinch until game 138 of a 140 game season.

One of the few weakness of the Dodgers was their ability to stay healthy, especially at third base. It was like 1901 all over again. Justin Turner .292 was going to be the starter but went on the DL 4 times. Corey Seager .303 spot started for these games and moved into the lineup for the final 3 weeks of the year.

Yasiel Puig .270 21 HR drove in the pennant clinching run and was very hot as the season ended. Andre Ethier hit .314 to finish second in the batting title by 2 points. He and Adrian Gonzalez tied for the team lead in RBI with 85 and both hit 16 homers. Yasmani Grandal led the team with 24 homers but hit just .225.

Pitching was a big part of the Dodger machine. led by the best 1-2 punch in baseball, Zack Greinke 21-10 2.65 and Clayton Kershaw, the pitcher of the year at 25-4 1.91 ERA, .78 WHIP and 267 K’s. He basically won the pitching “triple crown” plus a couple other categories as a bonus.

The bullpen was very good or very bad. J.P. Howell was almost perfect at 22 saves in 22 tries and had a 1.29 ERA. Kenley Jansen, who will certainly be the closer in the future had a 2.41 ERA, and Eric Surkamp, who as a D had a 1.45 ERA was a big bonus.

St. Louis Cardinals 88-52

The Redbirds looked to be the team to beat all year. Even when not in first they were always on the doorstep. Unfortunately, several players underperformed enough for them to come up just short. Jason Heyward looked more like 2016 Heyward. Vastly underperforming his card at .266 with 7 homers but did steal 32 bases.

Matt Carpenter hit 27 homers, but just .239. Jhonny Peralta hit .268 and Yadier Molina hit .295, despite several DL stints. September callup Randal Grichuck hit .279 with 10 homers. Cody Stanley hit .267 filling for Molina.

John Lackey 16-9 3.01 ERA was a big help in the chase of the Dodgers. Helped by POY runner up Carlos Martinez at 25-7 2.36. The missing ingredient was Jamie Garcia 5-2 2.99 ERA and a no hitter on September 7th, and Adam Wainright 4-4 4.26 missing almost the entire season.

The bullpen was not super spectacular, but efficient. Trevor Rosenthal was their closer, and best pitcher with 28 saves and a 1.66 ERA. Kevin Siegrist didn’t pitch as much as I should have but was 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in limited work. Carlos Villanueva 0-2 1 SV and a 3.60 ERA got innings I should have given to Siegrist.

Steve Cishek was the “win bandit”, stealing victory from defeat. Steve was 5-0 with a 2.16 ERA in middle relief. Marcus Hatley was a D* but still had a 2.9 ERA and 11.09 K per nine innings.

Pittsburgh Pirates 81-59

The Pirates and the Cubs battled each other at a level rarely seen on an APBA board. In 12 games at least one player was carried off the field. They finally held off a Cubs charge in the final week to stay in third by just one game.

Sterling Marte struggled through the first half and finished with 20 homers and a .274 average to go with his 22 steals. Gregory Polanco, who has one of my favorite nicknames “El Coffee” stole 31 bases.

Andrew McCutchen had a pretty down year, hitting just .261 with 16 homers. Neil Walker missed some time but still hit .265 with 14 homers. Francisco Cervelli was the surprise performer on this team finishing with 12 homers and a .273 average, but the buccos catcher was one of 4 to lead the NL in triples with 9.

The Pirates were a strong pitching team, led by a pair of 20 game winners in Gerrit Cole and James Happ. They also had the deepest bullpen in all of baseball, armed with 5 A relievers.

Mark Melancon 0-1 16 saves 2.38 ERA led the way. Tony Watson 1-0 1.45, Jared Hughes 1-0 0.00 and Antonio Bastardo 4-0 1.50 ERA were the rotating set up guys. Arquimedes Caminero 1-3 2.66, Joe Blanton 1-2 2.66 and even D* Chris Volstad 0-1 1.28 were excellent options.

Chicago Cubs 80-60

Once again, I find myself asking “what the heck happened?” This team should have finished second at WORST. Part of it was underusing players, some of it was underperforming, and some of it was just bad luck with the dice. The Cubs had been in second and only 3 games behind the Dodgers as late as the first week of August.

With the Dodgers set to face the Cardinals and Giants, and the Cubs to face the Phillies and Padres, who were set to throw all D’s I was thinking “this is it”. And I was right; just in the wrong direction. In that 9 games, facing ALL D starters, they scored a total of 9 runs, and were shut out 4 times. I won’t use the words as they came out of my mouth, but my cat didn’t want to get too close after those games.

It wasn’t all bad news though. I didn’t really pay much attention to Anthony Rizzo, because he was so much like Frank Chance in my dead ball games. Roll the dice, get a couple of walks, drive in a couple of runs and bop a homer here and there. Next thing you know you have your batting champion, and MVP. Rizzo finished in the top three in 7 of the 10 categories that MVP voting counts.

Dexter Fowler disappointed but stole 36 bases. Kris Bryant hit .305 with 28 homers and drove in 91 runs. Javier Baez should have played more, but once in the lineup was much more productive than I expected. hitting .268 with 3 homers and 4 stolen bases, while allowing me to jump to fielding one.

And congratulations to Miguel Montero, who set the record for most strikeouts in a year. Playing in 137 games Miguel whiffed 142 times and grabbed 7 golden sombreros’.

Pitching was the problem in the second half. Jake Arrieta 22-6 2.66 ERA .87 WHIP and 248 K’s did everything in his power, including hitting a game winning homer to win. Jon Lester was sometimes the victim of bad luck but went 16-10 with a 2.93 ERA.

Unfortunately, that was it for starting as Kyle Hendricks and Travis Wood were huge disappointments.

The bullpen was not very strong either. Hector Rondon 1-1- 25 SV 2.89 ERA blew 5 games in April and set the negative vibe tone for the year. Justin Grimm 2-3 1 SV 1.96 ERA was good but walked too many batters to be the closer. other than a surprise season from Tommy Hunter, who put in a 1.73 in semi limited work the rest of the pen was horrible.

San Francisco Giants 78-62

The Giants are one of the few teams that finished about where I expected. They had a run at first, and only a furious Chicago final series saw them just drop into 5th.

Gregor Blanco hit .301 and stole 34 bases to set the table nicely. Hunter Pence was put into the lineup in September in an attempt to get more runners on base and he exceeded expectations, hitting .295 with 7 homers. He had a memorable night in Philadelphia, going 5 for 5 with 3 homers and 6 RBI.

September also saw Jarrett Parker put into the three hole, and WOW! No pitcher was safe when Parker stepped into the box. hitting .320 with 17 homers and 43 RBI in the month was quite impressive.

Buster Posey started off slowly but began to hit in early June. Once Parker started mashing everything in sight his number began to rise quickly. Hitting .286 with 18 homers and 86 RBI, Don Smith’s favorite catcher had a fine year.
Joe Panik hit .273.

While the pitching was not enough to stay in the top 4 it was not too bad. Madison Bumgarner was burned by too many great pitching performances across the upper division. Bumgarner went 24-7 with a 2.20 ERA and 205 strikeouts despite missing the final 3 weeks of the year. He also hit 5 homers and drove in 10 as a hitter.

Chris Heston won 14 and had a 3.28 ERA and Tim Hudson picked up 9 wins in limited work. George Kontos 1-2 27 saves also blew 6 games and had a 2.53 ERA.

Josh Osich 3-1 1 SV 1.89 ERA was a great setup man. Sergio Romo 1-1 1.25 ERA, Santiago Casilla 3-0 2.52 ERA, Yusmerio Petit 4-2 3.35 ERA and D* Cody Hall 2.43 ERA were superb in the pen. Unfortunately, several others had ERA’s over 6.00. Cory Gearrin 1-0 15.37 was probably the worst reliever of the season.

New York Mets 75-65

It looked like the Mets might finish in the lower division for a while. Thankfully hitting began to come around, but there were some players who clearly disappointed.

Curtis Granderson hit .287 with 21 homers. Mike Conforto was a September call up that hit .280 with 6 homers. Yoenis Cespedes was struggling all year. He still managed to hit 24 homers and 100 RBI but hit just .269 after a 12-game hitting streak.

David Wright spent most of the year on the DL but hit 6 homers and hit .275 while in the lineup.

The bench was almost better than the lineup at times. Kelly Johnson hit .269 with 12 homers and Juan Lagares hit .274 before being moved out of the lineup for Conforto.

Pitching was solid but lacked support at times. Jake DeGrom and Noah Syndergaard both won 18 and had ERA’s at about 2.70. Matt Harvey struggled at times but still finished with a 3.74 ERA.

The bullpen was pretty bad at times. Jeurys Familia 1-1 14 saves and blew 5 saves. Addison Reed was easily the best reliever, he was 0-1 with a .90 ERA. Hansel (no word on Gretel) Robles 0-1 2.62 ERA were the other good relievers.

Colorado Rockies 71-69

So, Colorado can certainly hit. Unfortunately pitching was a concern. I imagine that’s how it will always be in Denver. Charlie Blackmon is probably stereotypical of the modern leadoff hitter. He hit 12 homers, struck out 101 times and stole 38 bases. All while hitting a not so lofty .254.

D.J. LeMahieu contended for the batting title most of the year and finished at .295. Nolan Arenado had plenty of MVP votes as he hit .287 with 27 homers and drove in 98 RBI. He set a new FLB record 55 doubles.

Carlos Gonzalez is nearing the end of the line, but still led the team in homers and RBI with 31 and 103 RBI. Corey Dickerson looks to be the heir apparent, hitting 30 HR and hitting .274.

Nick Hundley underperformed his card, but despite missing some time due to an injury he hit .266 with 12 homers. Jose Reyes’ numbers are not eye popping, especially on this team, but what does stand out is his 12 homers, including a grand slam against the Padres. Considering Reyes only hit 5 in the real world, that’s a pretty big overproduction.

Ben Paulsen hit .267 with 12 homers before giving way to veteran Justin Morneau in the final month. Morneau hit just one homer but did hit .277. Tom Murphy .313 6 HR and Willin Rosario .278 led a good bench.

Because I had picked up the XB set the Rockies had 26 carded pitchers. Christian Bergman was the best starter, going 17-8, and Jorge De La Rosa picked up 16 wins. Chad Bettis 2-1 2.14 REA and Tyler Matzek 3-0 2.05 were outstanding September call ups. While they had a lot of relievers, they obviously lacked a shutdown closer. Justin Miller was the closer by default for most of the year and picked up 18 saves and had a 3.30 ERA. Boone Logan deserves a medal for having a 2.06 ERA in Denver, and Rafael Betancourt had a 1.11 ERA in limited use.

Adam Ottavino was the other September call up and being the only B* on the team was put into the closers spot and responded with 5 saves and a 1.80 ERA.

Washington Nationals 68-72

Baseball in DC. Different league, same results. Another subpar year in the capital. This was a team that just didn’t get the dice rolls. Danny Espinosa in my opinion overproduced his card, hitting .264 with 16 homers. Bryce Harper actually produced for me. Hitting .277 with 38 homers and 104 RBI was one of the few hitters the opposition didn’t want to see.

Clint Robinson hit .277 with 17 homers. Dernard Span was on the DL for a good portion of the year, but once in the lineup hit .304. Trea Turner was a September call up and played the final week of the year and hit .265 with 11 steals.

This is where the Nationals were expected to be solid. Unfortunately, they just didn’t get the job done. Max Scherzer 14-14 3.86 and Stephen Strasburg 13-14 3.96 were decent but seemed to lack the killer blow in many games. Jordan Zimmerman and Gio Gonzalez won 13 games, with ERA’s in the upper 3’s. The bullpen was a mixed bag.

Jonathan Papelbon saved 24 games and had a 1.61 ERA in the games he saved, but the blue 5 games with an ERA over 6 in those games. Matt Thornton 1-1 3 SV was briefly used as the closer. Drew Storen 4-1 3.43 was an excellent short reliever. The remaining relievers had ERA’s over 9.00 with Rafael Martin being the king at 14.59.

Arizona Diamondbacks 65-75

The D-backs had a chance to finish over .500, but on several occasions, they simply forgot how to hit. The bottom of the lineup was easily the worst hitting group in baseball.

Allen Pollock .280 21 HR, 41 SB and Ender Inciarte (whom I am really starting to like) .285 26 SB set the table for one of the better all-around players in Paul Goldschmidt. Goldy hit .305 with 21 bombs and stole 23 bases himself to make this one of the best trios in baseball at base stealing. David Peralta struggled early but finished with 18 homers while hitting .290.

Unfortunately, after that it went downhill very quickly. the bottom of the lineup hit a combined .221. The reserves weren’t much better, but Socrates Brito hit .320 as a pinch hitter.

The starting pitching was better than expected, and with any help with the bats could have been great. Randall Delgado went 15-13 with a 2.74 ERA and got a few POY votes. Josh Collmenter won 15. Robbie Ray 2-1 2.85 was good as a spot starter.

Brad Ziegler 0-1 24 SV had a 2.77 ERA and was pretty solid. Andrew Chafin 4-3 2.74 was the setup man. Dominic Leone had a 3.21 ERA as the middle man.

Cincinnati Reds 63-77

It was a difficult season for Cincy fans. Not much went well, and a teardown is in order. Billy Hamilton hit .247 with a FLB best 67 steals, and Skip Schumaker hit way more doubles than he should have at 52.

Joey Votto, who should have played in the 50’s was the Reds best player. Joey hit .279 despite a horrible July and hit 26 homers. Because nobody was on base ahead of him most of the time he only had 84 RBI. Ramon Cabrera was inserted in the lineup late in the year and hit .277. Zack Cozart was the best option on the bench and hit .289 with a pair of homers.

Well this was not a fun staff to work with. But having said that, it could have been worse. Despite being a D Raisel Iglesias was the team’s best hurler, going 11-10 with a 2.90 ERA. Jason Marquis, 10-17 who was never known as a strikeout master led the team with 219 but had a horrid 5.42 ERA.

Aroldis Chapman 0-1 24 SV 1.88 ERA was the bright spot in the Cincinnati universe, averaging 10 K per nine. The remainder of the bullpen could best be described as “yuck”.

Philadelphia Phillies 62-78

It’s easy to see why Ryne Sandberg quit on this team. Bad hitting combined with terrible pitching = lower division at best. There really wasn’t much to speak of in the lineup.

The only hitter worth mentioning was Andres Blanco, who hit .310 with 24 homers and drove in 91 RBI. Blanco led the Phillies in every offensive category except for stolen bases, which was done by Cesar Hernandez .248 21 SB.

The unarmed Phillies spent the summer basically with an all D rotation. They paid the price for that almost nightly. I am still trying to figure out how they DIDN’T finish last. Adam Morgan 14-15 3.69 ERA pitched like a C most of the time. It wasn’t until September when Jerad Eickoff 2-0 2.25 ERA and Aaron Nola 1-0 1.80 ERA gave them any graded starts.

The bullpen was pretty bad, and even the good pitchers got lit up. Ken Giles saved 23 games and had a 3.23 ERA. Jeanmar Gomez was a great setup man, going 3-1 with 1 save and a 2.67 ERA. Hector Neris 2-1 3.27 ERA struggled badly in August, or he may have had an ERA in the 2’s. After that it was really bad.

Miami Marlins 59-81

How to describe baseball in south Florida? Ugly stadium; ugly on field performance. There were some things to be excited about. The Marlins did have one of the better top of the orders in the NL. Dee Gordon hit .310 with 50 steals. Christian Yelich hit .277 with 19 stolen bases, and the beast known as Giancarlo Stanton hit .291 and led all of baseball with 44 homers and 115 RBI.
Adeiny Hechavarria, whom I have never heard of hit .289.

The bench was pretty good, and more like that of a upper division team than one of the worst in the league. Derek Dietrich, who subbed for the oft-injured Martin Prado hit .273, Cole Gillespie hit .306 and Miguel Rojas hit .377.

Well here is why you can hit as good as the Marlins did and still be bad. Chris Narveson 15-9 3.26 ERA was the only pitcher to hit double digits in victories.

A.J. Ramos, 0-5 13 SV, 15 blown saves and a 6.69 ERA pitched more like D than an A. Avery Morris did very well, going 5-3 with a 1.79 ERA. Mike Dunn and Chris Reed both had ERA’s just under 4.00, but after that it was pretty bad.

Atlanta Braves 59-81

I almost typed Boston Braves, having done all dead ball era stuff. Michael Bourn hit just .243 but did steal 31 bases. Freddie Freeman hit .276 with 21 RBI and led the team with 81 RBI. Nick Markis had a card that when I looked at it said “he’ll never reach these numbers”. Once again APBA makes me look dumb as he did hit the numbers. Finishing with a .303 average and 8 homers.

Unfortunately, the bottom of the order was pretty weak. Only Andrelton Simmons, how hit .285 and finished the year with an 11-game hitting streak. The bench was particularly bad, but Hector Olivera came in to play for a 3-game set late in the year due to injuries and actually hit .400.

Shelby Miller showed why the D-Backs were so willing to trade for him. Going 17-12 with a 3.12 ERA. Julio Teheran won 14 with a 3.33 ERA. Too bad the other starters were horrid and had ERA’s near 6.00 The bullpen was good but had moments where they were truly bad. Jason Frasor saved 19 games with a 3.46 ERA and Jason Grilli 1-1 with a 1.96 ERA. Edwin Jackson had a resurgence with a 2.77 ERA, and even David Aardsma went 1-2 with a 2.73 ERA. The other relievers had very high ERA’s and didn’t help much.

San Diego Padres 59-81

“America’s Finest City” certainly didn’t have “America’s Finest Baseball”. The Upton brothers struggled badly through the first half but had comebacks to have decent years. Justin hit 26 homers and stole 25 bases and Melvin hit .268 and stole 31.

Matt Kemp was probably the most consistent Padre, hitting .265 with 18 homers. Cory Spangenberg and Clint Barmes hit about .280 in pinch hit/sub situations. Jedd Gyorko was a huge disappointment, hitting just .208 with 18 dingers. Derek Norris led the team with 23 homers.

The starters had good performances that were not reflected in the won loss record. Tyson Ross, James Shields and Robbie Erlin all had ERA’s under 4.00 for an almost last place team in the 21st century.

Craig Kimbrel 1-1 23 SV 1.08 ERA nailed down the few close games that presented themselves. Joaquin Benoit 1-0 2.95 was an excellent set up man. Kevin Quackenbush 1-0 2.73 ERA and Dale Thayer 1-0 3.86 ERA were the only other reliable hurlers.

Milwaukee Brewers 48-92

My first Milwaukee team since my 1901 replay and things haven’t changed a bit. Another terrible season, this time finishing with the worst record in baseball. Very few things went right in beer town. Ryan Braun went on a 9-game hit streak in September to bring his numbers to respectability. He finished with a .262 average, 18 homers and led the team with 27 stolen bases.

Khris Davis hit .259 with a team high 35 bombs and 96 RBI. Adam Lind hit .255 with 21 homers. Ryan Gennett was also reliable for the most part, hitting 255.
Hernan Perez .340 and Jason Rogers .250 were the main stars on the bench.

Baseball’s best record is easily reflected in baseball’s worst pitching staff. Kyle Lohse, Jimmy Nelson and Jorge Lopez all won 8 to “lead” the team. Loshe went 8-19 but had a team best 3.11 ERA.

Francisco Rodriguez 0-2 22 SV 2.73 ERA was the closer. Michael Blazek 1-1 1.13 ERA, Will Smith 0-2 2.99 ERA and Rob Wooten 0-1 3.49 were the middle relief that was actually better than the rotation.

The remaining relievers were really bad, and Adrian Houser and Preston Guilmet were basically tossing batting practice.

Photo by Arturo Pardavila III from Hoboken, NJ, USA – Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo celebrates the final out of the 2016 World Series., CC BY 2.0, Link