This... is my Boomstick! Comparing Offensive Stats from 2012 to 2013

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

Feliz Dia de Los Muertos! Let us talk about things that have come and gone. A lot was made of the bat switch this past season, and a lot of fun was had with the bat switch this past season. But what exactly did the bat switch mean when all was said and done?

The trick to comparing 2012 and 2013 stats from WSEM is that you cannot take the numbers at face value. Since, the two seasons featured a different number of teams playing, and thus a different number of games played, you must first account for that by dividing the "counting" stat categories by the number of teams involved: 8 for 2013, 10 for 2012. After doing that you will see that the number of hits per team saw a modest increase of 15.6% this season. That is just about exactly what we were looking for with the switch. It led to a league-wide batting average of .263, which falls just north of the MLB average of .253. For comparison: the WSEM average in 2012 was .226.

Stat	% change from 2012-2013
H/team	115.6
2B/team	142.0
3B/team	62.5
HR/team	171.4
TB/team	132.5
BB/team	178.0
R/team	196.7
AVG	116.4
SLG	133.5
OBP	128.7

Stat	WSEM '12	WSEM '13	MLB '13
AVG	.226	.263	.253
SLG	.360	.481	.396
OBP	.355	.457	.318
R/G	2.43	4.78	4.17
PA/R	8.61	4.92	9.13

The power numbers are where things really took off. The .037 (16.4%) increase in league batting average led to more than triple that for slugging percentage, with a league-wide jump of .121 in that stat: an increase of 33.5%. Bolstering that inflation were the number of doubles per team increasing by 42%, while the number of home runs per team saw a staggering 71.4% increase. Obviously, the bigger barreled bats account for part of the boom, but can we really find them solely responsible for the power surge? After all: "band boxes" and "tail winds" were things evidently. The fact that triples per team decreased by 37.5% this past season seems to back up the shared role that smaller fields other factors also played in the slugging increase. Now for a related, but irrelevant, fun fact: there were only 7 triples hit in the 2013 season, and each came from a different player.

One more place the bat switch was hugely successful, and my favorite stat boom to see from 2012 to 2013, is how runs per team nearly doubled this season! That 96.7% increase moved home plate from the desert littered with 15+ inning 1-0 affairs to much more fertile tracks of land. Another way to look at the run production boost is how many plate appearances came between there were per run scored. In 2012 this number was 8.61, and it dropped sharply to just 57.1% of that in 2013: 4.92. Bringing a run around to score every fifth batter instead of every eighth or ninth certainly makes for much more exciting action for the 75% of the league who are not pitchers. Plus, when you look at the minimum number of plate appearances in a game (15 for WSEM, 27 for MLB), having our PA/R be a little over half the MLB makes it much more analogous.

One thing here that does not make the game more exciting, unless you are the Mayor or Billy Beane, is the big 78% jump in walks per team. Much like the HR/team numbers and overall slugging percentage, though, the big change in this one stat only corresponds to a league-wide on-base percentage increase of 28.7%, slightly less than double the increase in league batting average. In the spirit of full disclosure, I find myself quite responsible for the large increase in walks: in 2013 I had 46 walks, which perfectly matched my number of career walks from the previous two seasons combined.

The inflated walk total seems to be something that is already remedying itself. Pushing the mound back three feet was something we knew would make pitchers adjust, and those adjustments seemed to be made as the season went on: i.e. pitchers found the zone with more practice from 48'. Figuring I needed some facts to back that statement up for this article, I ran the numbers for five random pitchers. I took their walk totals over their first five games in 2013, then compared that to the rest of their season. All but one of those five pitchers saw a decrease in walks per inning as the season went on. These four all saw double-digit percentage decreases in their walks: 13%, 17%, 25%, and a Jim Price "wow!" worthy 67%. In addition, two of them were giving up less than one walk per inning over the second half of their season. The takeaway here? Pitchers are only continuing to get better from 48', and walks will settle down.

That is essentially what we expect heading forward: the offense had an up year last year with the changes, now - with no sweeping rule changes - pitching will start to counter. Managing the quality of competition in a Wiffleball league is a balancing act. Pitching will always be the centerpiece of Wiffleball; pitching prowess is the reason the ball exists, after all. But with the majority of players in the league never toeing the rubber, it is nice to see the pitchers take a slap across the face once in awhile.

Bingo Bango

		Coffee Time
		by Carl Coffee

Jason Hollister joined the Belgian Wiffles in the 2013 season and quickly made a lot of noise. The outspoken rookie was a part of the opening night games in Detroit where he went 5 for 8 which earned him a Munson. He later was traded to King Friday and helped the team stay in the playoff hunt until the last week. After it was all said and done, Jason had a very nice season and established himself as a very fine role player. What the league doesn’t know is Jason’s interesting past. A past so dark and strange, it is hard for me to write about.

Jason grew up in Gibraltar, MI, graduated from Carlson High School, and was semi-popular. The jocks liked him and the nerds didn’t hate him, so he was accepted in every social clique. After graduating in 2010, he was bored with his mundane life, so he decided it was time for
Jason Hollister, captain of the Wolfpack, during his days as Bangoa change. He didn’t know what he wanted to change, he just knew it needed to be something dangerous or exciting, or even twisted.

One boring afternoon, it finally hit him. Jason wanted to become a prostitute. At the time, male prostitution was a pretty popular profession thanks to the down economy, and that worried Jason. After more research, he found out that there were no clown prostitutes in the Metro Detroit area, so he would have no competition.

No one grows up in hopes of being an underground clown prostitute, but Jason didn’t care. For the first time in his life, he was doing something exciting. After he was done with his college classes or his job at the local Meijer, Jason would lock himself in his bathroom, apply his makeup, put on his goofy clothes and clown shoes, and would hit the town.

The first few months were very discouraging for Jason but he never gave up. Two out of every five people are afraid of clowns, so Jason only had 60% of people to work with. He sometimes wondered if he should leave prostitution and instead focus on children parties or even join the circus, but he stuck it out. He later gave himself a name, “Bango the Clown”, but that didn’t help much either.

It was the spring of 2012, and Jason finally caught a break. After roaming the streets of Melvindale one night, a Bachelorette Party Bus saw Bango and picked him up. These girls were drunk, but they knew the ‘bride to be’ had a twisted fascination with clowns, a twisted sexual fascination actually. Bango let the girls know his fee, and they paid up so their friend could have Bango for the rest of the night. Bango and the ‘bride to be’ did weird sexual clown stuff all night, and in the morning he went on his way.

Jason was on top of the world, but something happened that night. He developed feelings for this mystery girl. He was very discouraged and knew the #1 rule of prostitution was to never fall for one of your clients, and he fell for his first and only client. Jason was upset and burned his clown attire and threw away his makeup. Never again would he become Bango, never again would he sell his body. He was done.

The rest of 2012 was uneventful for Jason, and it wasn’t until his co-worker Jason Matt invited him to play wiffleball, where he was truly happy again. The rest of the league may look at Jason and see a quick witted role player who occasionally has a big game, but now you can look at him and see something else. You can now look at Jason Hollister and see a retired underground clown prostitute.

6-Pack Fun, Vol.6: Rivalries

		Coffee Time
		by Carl Coffee

Back in 2011, rivalries in WSEM were prevalent, but in the past two seasons they have died down. It appears that some are being reborn and created for this coming season, but let's look back at my favorite historic rivalries.

6.  Wicked Aces  &  El Diablos (2013) This was a quiet rivalry, but in a season where these two teams stood out above the others, it was still a rivalry on the field, nonetheless.

5.  Wicked Aces  &  Punchouts (2012) The Aces rarely lose, but the Punchouts had their number: going 3-1 vs. them in the 2012 regular season. If we had a list of biggest disappointments however, their non-played championship series would be #1.

4.  Flying Squirrels  &  DeLoppes (2011) When these two teams met in 2011, there seemed to always be something special about the games. Including what has to be the most dramatic best-of-five playoff series to date.

3.  Belgian Wiffles  &  Mattseals (2012) These teams just straight up did not like each other. Everything is fine now between the players, but in 2012 you couldn’t say that.

2.  Belgian  &  Squirrels (2011/12) Twice these teams met in the #4 vs. #5 playoff matchup and each team won one once. The last day of the season trade of Corbett for Skinner only made this rivalry better.

1.  Westside  &  Git r' Done (2011) No one can be surprised that this rivalry gets the top spot. Their facebook battles used to reach 200-300 comments in a matter of a couple hours and on the field it was always intense. Unfortunately for the Warriors though, Git r’ Done always seemed to have the last laugh after the games were played.