With our 2018 regular season complete and a little bit of time in between now and the playoffs, we wanted to spend a little time profiling each of our teams and the journey they have taken to get to where they are. We’ll also go over some stats that we don’t typically publish, but we have in the archives that will make things a little bit more interesting. We will review each team in reverse order of standings. For the Falcons, unfortunately or fortunately, we start with you.

Record 2-12

Roster

Pitchers

Trades

The Falcons, very active on the trade front made the following player trades (we’re not going to include draft pick trades because we’ve lost track).

• Moe Abdalla and Sarfaraaz Karmali to the Owls for Raheel Rawjani and Salman Jiwan
• Minaz Noormohamed to the Eagles for Adam Mawji
• Miqdad Jaffer, Arif Hirji, and Salman Jiwan to the Lions for Imtiyaz Kara, Safder Jaffer, and Shahid Rahemtulla

Other Stats

Please note these stats do not account for any production by any players serving in a reserve capacity and reflect the team member’s output throughout the year, regardless of what team(s) they may have been on.

Team AB: 322
Hits: 122
XBH: 18
HR: 0
RBI: 60
Team AVG: 0.379
LOB: 77 (Runners Left on Base)
LOBi: 154 (Times the individual left runners on Base)
BA/RSP: 0.445 (Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position)
GB%: 22.2 (% Ground Balls)
LD%: 46.4 (% Line Drives)
PU%: 2.9 (% Pop Ups)
FB%: 28.8 (% Fly Balls)
FPSw: 48.6 (First Pitch Swinging %)

Analysis

On paper, the Falcons record of 2-12 seems wrong. The team as composed doesn’t seem to have a lot of players that you would think would struggle for this long. However, they were never really able to put it together. The measure of consistency they have been sorely lacking could be due to all of the roster changes they’ve experienced throughout the year. The team really hasn’t had a chance to gel.

There are multiple areas where this team can look to focus to improve going into the playoffs, and they have some areas of strength that they can look to take advantage of.

Hitting

The Falcons have a combined batting average of 0.379. The good news is that they hit above that average with runners in scoring position, so at least the players are able to rise to the occasion when pressed. The problem is that these numbers are still far too low to be competitive. 77 runners have been left on base, none more than Tanveer Husnani who has been left on base 17 times, but has also left runners on base 15 times himself.

The biggest hurdle this team will need to climb is the production of their captains – it’s clear that in their first year captaining both Abbas Nasser and Shane Worthington had to take on a lot more responsibilities and the added pressure has impacted their games. To be successful this team needs to hit a lot of singles and pick each other up. The other leaders on this team Imtiyaz Kara, Riaz Champsi, and Aadil Jaffer need to support their captains if they want to pull of a win against the Bucks in their first round matchup.

With only 18 XBH for the season they need to put away their desire to be a home run hitting team, hitting for power should be something that happens by accident and not with intention. Players that are coming to bat thinking this is going to be the day, need to put that thought to bed. This team has nearly half their hits coming by way of line drive and they need to continue and raise that number if they want to win.

Pitching

5 different pitchers have seen the mound for the Falcons. With the lowest ERA amongst them being Riaz Champsi’s 14.93, he will be the first to tell you that he’s not happy with that. The defensive strength of this team is in their ability to make outs on fly balls – this is most notably evident by the fact that 111 of the 149 outs they have made have been by way of the fly ball. The pitchers need to look to pitch high so that they can generate more of these to give the defence a chance.

The Falcons as a pitching collective throw a first pitch strike in 62.2% of cases. Which is a great way to influence batters swinging at bad pitches. The pitching strategy needs to match the defensive strategy and it’s not clear whether this has been the case for the Falcons. The pitching group should get together and figure out how they want to pitch and keep to that strategy all game long.

Overall

This is a team of potential not yet realized. They may need to get together for another couple games of bowling, have a BBQ or something – because these guys are playing for themselves and not each other. When they come together as a team and everyone embraces their role, they could be a dangerous team. Until that happens, they’re just going to be a 2-12 team that doesn’t realize that potential. The choice is theirs.