EXPANSIONIST EXTRAVAGANZA/2: ROUND 1 RESULTS

Back down the page at BBB you'll find the "set-up" for the Expansionist Extravaganza, our impish "NCAA-style" tournament with full-season face-offs between the fourteen first-year expansion teams and the two worst Dodger/Yankee teams in the Expansion Era. (Our thanks to "Magnum" and "Higgins" for their tireless efforts in support of this semi-inspired lunacy.)

And so, now, here is the overview of the Round 1 results--where eight teams survive (only to be foreced to walk over ground glass again...), and the other eight get to go home. 

As you can see, the top eight seeded teams all advanced to the second round. 

We've provided some of the seasonal details relevant to the specific match-ups, including the Pythagorean Winning Percentage (PWP) so that you can see how that matches up with the "actual" results. In the case of the '93 Rockies/'69 Pilots--the closest of the eight contests--it shows that Seattle actually outscored Colorado over the course of their season-length skirmish, but they seem to have been let down by their bullpen, which contributed to their sub-standard performance in one-run games. 

For the most part, home field advantage was a dominant feature in the first round: the winning teams combined for a .619 WPCT at home. Reflexive Yankee haters may be heartened, however, by that club's lackluster home performance against a pesky but outgunned Blue Jay squad. 

Little Albie dwarfed by Marilyn Monroe, 
June 1, 1962, at Dodger Stadium...

Some individual performances stood out in these "match-ups of the mediocre." The Expos' wild-ass pitchers threatened to break the all-time record for walks allowed by their pitchers (808, by a pennant-winning team no less, the 1949 New York Yankees), finally winding up just shy at 793. That afforded the Dodgers' Brett Butler a chance to have the career season of all career seasons, drawing 166 (!) walks, scoring 177 (!!) runs, hitting .355 and fashioning a .488 OBP. (If you're reading this, Brett, you can pay us later.)

Similarly, the clustered crapola on the '62 Mets staff bestowed many of the same benefits upon Albie Pearson (the 5'5" mighty mite who was quickly dubbed "The Littlest Angel" when he was taken by Los Angeles in the expansion draft). Pearson matched Butler's .488 OBP, drawing 161 walks, scoring 137 times as the Angels coasted into the second round.

On the pitching side of the ledger, teams matched up against weak-hitting opponents would often benefit from superior performances from hurlers who'd been a good bit less successful against the opponents they played against in the real-life year. This only stands to reason, of course, but it's interesting to see how much better some of these folks did. For example, the 32-year-old Tampa Bay Devil Rays rookie Rolando Arrojo, who had a tremendous season in the actual 1998 (14-12, 3.56, 133 ERA+), absolutely dominated the '93 Marlins (16-6, 2.95). And the Rays' bullpen was particularly efficient in that match-up as well, most notably Roberto Hernandez (27 saves, 2.72 ERA)... and that man for whom we've always had a strange yen, Esteban Yan (9-1, 2.45 ERA). 

While the Yankees were a bit sluggish, playing under their Pythagorean Projection by about five games, that couldn't be said for Roberto Kelly, whose performance was probably the greatest "upward outlier" of all the deviations generated by these match-ups. Kelly hit .382 with 259 hits and 41 doubles--almost 100 points higher in BA than in his actual 1992.

Let's wrap up for now; we'll get into greater detail as the rounds progress toward the ultimate showdown. For now, the dreaded Dodger/Yankee "final match-up" scenario is still in play. Here's what our "NCAA diagram" shows us for Round Two: stay tuned!