All-Star Pitchers and Postseason Awards

Houston Astros prospect Mark Appel started the 2010 All-Star Game as a member of the Newport Gulls.
Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Keene’s Tommy Doyle and Danbury’s Nick Gallagher got the nod last week as their divisions starters in Sunday’s NECBL All-Star Game, the league deciding they were the best of the best. If you look at their numbers, the spots are well-deserved: Gallagher leads the South in ERA, Doyle has an abundance of strikeouts and a microscopic WHIP and ERA.

A Jeff Zimmerman article I read a few years back, however, made me curious to see if either of the pitchers that got chosen as starters end up winning that season’s Robin Roberts Pitcher of the Year Award like Laconia’s Tim Viehoff did last season?

I decided to look back in the league’s history to 2002, which is as far as I could tell that the league began naming All-League Teams. Each season, the NECBL names a Pitcher of the Year, a Top Pro Prospect, and First and Second Team All-League. That makes for two awards a season that a starter could win, as well as a nod to one of the team’s.

First off, I looked at how often the Pitcher of the Year winner was that year’s All-Star Game Starter. Out of 14 possible Pitcher of the Year winners, seven — or 50% — of them started the All-Star Game. Three of those players have come in the last four years, with Viehoff, Plymouth’s Thomas Jankins and Vermont’s Alex Haines all earning the honor.

Last year’s matchup, between Viehoff and Mystic’s Willie Rios, was historic. Rios was named the Top Pro Prospect, just the fourth to win that honor and start in the All-Star Game. Rios was also a second-team selection while Viehoff was the first, so the two combined for four total honors – just the third in league history.

In 2011, Haines was both the Pitcher of the Year and the Top Pro Prospect, also earning a first-team selection. His opponent, Newport’s Dan Wright, was no slouch, as he was also a first-team nod. The other time two pitchers combined for four was in 2010, when Newport’s Mark Appel (Top Pro Prospect, first team) faced Danbury’s Mike Hauschild (Pitcher of the Year, first team).

Most of this makes common sense. To win an end of the season award, you have to have a good start to the summer. However, pitchers do tail off, which is why 10 of the 28 pitchers didn’t receive any sort of postseason recognition. That includes 2014 starter Richard Vrana (Sanford), 2013’s Will Blalock (Laconia), and 2011’s Justin Wiley (Laconia).

That makes this year so interesting. Doyle and Gallagher are among a talented group of pitchers dominating the NECBL this summer.  Winnipesaukee’s duo of Denis Lyman and Andrew Politi easily could’ve been picked over Doyle, and there’s strong cases for the likes of Sanford’s William Tribucher and Valley’s Mark Washington. Gallagher has plenty of competition as well. It’ll be interesting so see where the pair end up, as at least one starter each of the last 14 years has earned some form of postseason recognition.

Competitive Balance in the NECBL

A few years ago, Matthew Namee of Bill James Online came up with the index of competitive balance. Devised to measure how balanced major league baseball currently is and how it's evolved over time, I decided to apply it to the NECBL.

Namee's formula is very simple, as for each league/year, he subtracted each team’s winning percentage from .500; then, he took the absolute value of that number and multiplied it by 1000. Here's the 2012 Northern Division.

Team	Pct.	Score
Newport	.756	256
New Bedford	.595	95
Laconia	.415	85
Sanford	.366	134
Mystic	.225	275

You then calculate the average score, which, in this case, was 169. That is the division's Competitive Balance Score or CBS. Theoretically, a perfectly balanced division/league would be zero, and a totally imbalanced league would score at 500. Of course, those extremes would never happen as every year in NECBL history has scored from 58 to 133.  At 169, the 2012 Southern Division was the most imbalanced division in league history.

On the contrary, the most balanced division in the NECBL's 21-year history was the 2013 Northern Division. This was a league that was decided on the last week of the season, as just 5 1-2 games separated teams one through four.

Team	Pct.	Score
Keene	.614	114
Vermont	.545	45
North Adams	.500	0
Holyoke	.489	11
Saratoga	.467	33
Danbury	.395	105

There is no visible trend over time, as the league has alternated between balanced years and very imbalanced years. Here's a look at the average CBS scores over time.

2014	111
2013	60
2012	127
2011	127
2010	87
2009	108
2008	104
2007	76
2006	109
2005	83
2004	70
2003	120
2002	119
2001	105
1999	129
1998	109
1997	58
1996	122
1995	76
1994	133

As you can tell, it's gone up and down. There's a good bit of year-to-year variation, but it can be broken up into ERAs. From 2011-12, the league had two of it's most unbalanced seasons while the stretch from 1998-2003 was very similar. Here's a chart of the year-by-year outlook.

This year, the NECBL is dropping again. Even with bottom-feeders Danbury and Keene pushing up the score, the league is currently on pace for their second-lowest season in the past five years. The Northern Division is currently at 79, but the top five teams, removing 8-22 Keene from the picture, are just 48.

As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to drop a comment with your thoughts below, and reach out to me on Twitter @bradleysmart15.