Examining 15 Years Of League History In Five-Year Windows

Note: I updated this file with a corrected calculation for ERA+, which altered a few pitching and balance leaders (March 18, 2017).

The MMDA just completed its 15th season of play in its "online" era. This means we have comprehensive player, team and league data for every season from 2002 through 2016.

To celebrate this odd anniversary, I sliced the data into three five-years periods to see how things shook out. Which were the best regular-season teams from 2002 to 2006? Which teams dominated the playoffs from 2007 to 2011? Which players or teams established league records from 2012 to 2016?

Now we have the answers to these esoteric questions and more.

Granted, dividing the seasons into five-year buckets based on chronology is arbitrary. So at the end of this piece, I divide MMDA history into periods along lines that a historian might draw.

In the tables below PF stands for park factor. Pyth stands for Pythagorean record.

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I. Period One: 2002–2006

The best regular season managers from 2002 to 2006 as ranked by wins.

No	Manager	W	L	Pct	R/G	OPS+	RA/G	ERA+	Home	Road	PF	Pyth
1	Steven Tresca	470	340	.580	5.89	119	4.80	103	+23	+42	100	.589
2	John Tresca	451	359	.557	4.94	101	4.52	109	+21	+25	100	.537
3	James Bailey	450	360	.556	5.48	109	4.78	107	+30	+15	109	.561
4	Ray Ross	441	369	.544	4.62	94	4.13	115	+7	+29	93	.544
5	Mike Capriotti	440	370	.543	4.65	93	4.30	112	+26	+9	104	.538

Active MMDA Manager Register 2016

In the continuing tradition of lifting ideas from Baseball-Reference, I created an all-time register for the 20 active managers in the MMDA.

A similar table to the one that appears here also runs at the bottom of our site's Playoff History page, but even I sometimes forget it's there. So I embellished the data from that page and created a more prominent space for it here on the blog.

Thanks to commissioner James Bailey's record keeping from the early years of the MMDA, I had access to comprehensive won-loss and playoff data back through the 1995 season. So that's where I drew the line for this table. Five active managers played in the league in 1994 or earlier, but the results of those seasons are not reflected here.

Managers are sorted here by career wins. Remember, this data goes back only through the 1995 season.

No	Manager	Yrs	W	L	Pct	G	HighW	HighL	Playoffs	WSWon	PennWon
1	John Tresca	22	2047	1517	.574	3564	120	124	16	2	5
2	Ray Ross	22	2003	1561	.562	3564	117	92	18	2	5
3	Steven Tresca	22	1976	1588	.554	3564	108	123	17	2	3
4	James Bailey	22	1891	1673	.531	3564	105	102	13	1	1
5	Steve Frediani	22	1708	1856	.479	3564	106	116	9	0	3
6	Jim Baker	22	1614	1950	.453	3564	112	117	1	0	0
7	Matt Eddy	15	1239	1191	.510	2430	113	113	9	2	3
8	Mike Siddon	16	1193	1399	.460	2592	98	103	2	0	0
9	Mike Johnson	10	831	789	.513	1620	97	97	5	0	0
10	John Lamanna	7	642	492	.566	1134	108	78	6	1	1
11	Ryan McCabe	6	466	506	.479	972	93	108	1	0	0
12	Dave Jones	6	435	537	.448	972	88	106	1	1	1
13	Jim Derer	5	428	382	.528	810	101	87	2	0	0
14	Tim Ednoff	5	424	386	.523	810	99	89	2	0	0
15	G. O'Connor	5	399	411	.493	810	103	95	2	0	0
16	J. Gruttadauria	5	388	422	.479	810	87	94	1	0	0
17	Tom Edwards	4	317	331	.489	648	90	105	1	0	0
18	Clyde Elkins	4	283	365	.437	648	94	102	1	0	0
19	Mike Renick	2	83	241	.256	324	45	124	0	0	0
20	Kevin Kasunich	1	51	111	.315	162	51	111	0	0	0

Most Decorated Managers Of The Past Decade

Bill James once proposed a method for evaluating managers' worthiness for enshrinement in Cooperstown. He assigned weighted values to various accomplishments, such as World Series championships (eight points each), pennants not resulting in a championship (five), division titles (three), career wins (one point per 200) and 100-win seasons (one).

Last year, I applied James' manager standards to the past decade of MMDA play, and John Tresca's Northeast Huskies ranked No. 1 for the 2006-2015 period.

This year I applied those same standards to the past 10 seasons of MMDA play, 2007-2016, to see if anyone challenged John for the top spot. This time, however, I substituted top-four playoff seedings for division titles, because division titles are practically meaningless in our league format.

MMDA teams receive no bonus for winning their division and, in fact, just three of the past eight league champions won their division, whereas two teams that qualified for the playoffs as the No. 8 seed—2012 Goldenrod and 2016 Lake County—actually won the whole thing.

I included division titles in the table below, even though it does not count toward the final score. The Avg-W column is simply Wins divided by Years.

No.	Manager	Years	Avg-W	WS	Penn	Div	Top-4	Wins*	100-W	Total
1	John Tresca	10	98	1	2	8	8	978	7	53
2	Matt Eddy	10	94	2	1	5	3	941	2	36
3	Ray Ross	10	93	1	2	4	3	925	3	34
4	Steven Tresca	10	86	1	1	1	4	862	3	32
5	John Lamanna	7	92	1	—	3	4	642	1	24
6	Steve Frediani	10	79	—	2	2	1	794	—	16
7	James Bailey	10	85	—	—	4	3	853	1	14
8	Dave Jones	6	73	1	—	—	—	435	—	10
9	Jim Baker	10	78	—	—	1	1	781	1	7
10	Jim Derer	5	86	—	—	1	1	428	1	6
11	Tim Ednoff	5	85	—	—	1	1	424	—	5
	Ryan McCabe	6	78	—	—	—	1	466	—	5
	George O'Connor	5	80	—	—	1	1	399	1	5
14	Clyde Elkins	4	71	—	—	—	1	283	—	4
15	Mike Johnson	9	85	—	—	1	—	762	—	3
	Mike Siddon	10	74	—	—	—	—	742	—	3
17	Tom Edwards	4	79	—	—	—	—	317	—	1
	Jim Gruttadauria	5	78	—	—	—	—	388	—	1
19	Kevin Kasunich	1	51	—	—	—	—	51	—	0
	Mike Renick	2	42	—	—	—	—	83	—	0
* Teams awarded one point for every 200 wins

Top 10 Uncarded Prospects Omitted From 2017 Draft

By Matt Eddy

Shortstops Corey Seager and Trea Turner were the top two rookies in the National League in 2016, but neither will be available for selection in the upcoming MMDA draft. That's because both were first-round picks last year following September callups in 2015.

Yoan Moncada might be the most dynamic
power-speed prospect in baseball

The Scorpions took Seager No. 4 overall and the Huskies snagged Turner, who also plays center field and second base, at No. 15. Both teams appear quite wise for making those selections.

Despite the fact that this year's draft lacks Seager and Turner, two of the game's most promising young shortstops, it is not deficient in talent overall. For example, the only two American League players to receive first-place votes in rookie of the year balloting—Tigers righthander Michael Fulmer and Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez—are both draft eligible. So are the other five AL players to receive ROY votes.

The depth of the 2016 rookie crop is impressive, but of course not every rookie receives a card from Strat—and only carded players may be drafted in the MMDA. Still, just think how much better this year's draft class would look if some of the following rookies were eligible for selection.

To repeat: The following players made their big league debuts in 2016 but are not eligible for the MMDA draft in February. Keep tabs on them for the 2018 draft, because I can't be wrong about all of them.

1. Yoan Moncada, 2b/3b, Red Sox (now White Sox)

Moncada went just 4-for-19 with 12 strikeouts during a September callup with the Red Sox, but he has few rivals in terms of physical ability, not to mention a long list of credentials. The 21-year-old Cuban claimed the Baseball America Minor League Player of the Year award in 2016, for a season he spent at high Class A Salem and Double-A Portland. In 106 games overall Moncada hit .294/.407/.511 with 15 home runs, 37 doubles-plus-triples, 45 stolen bases and 72 walks. Just don't expect him to win any Gold Gloves.

The Red Sox traded Moncada and three other prospects to the White Sox for Chris Sale at the 2016 Winter Meetings.