Worst Durham Bulls Team Ever?

 

In a word, no. That would be the 2016 Bulls under Jared Sandberg. They went 64-80 on the year and finished 12th in that year’s version of the International League. The current team is 45-48 and has risen up to 5th place overall. 

Looking back at the roster of 2016 we can see some vague similarities to this year. That is, none of the players stand out in our memory (admittedly fading a bit these days). Blake Snell put in a few innings, and a bunch of the rest had/have some major league time. But few stick out in my memory as being fun to watch on the field. 

I’m trying to seek a bit of context here. How much of the Bulls’ decline this year is simply a Triple-A decline? As much as I like to blame (and laud) the Rays for everything that happens here, maybe there’s something systemic going on. 

Here’s a thinkpiece that mentions some of the changes in Triple-A, but I don’t see any answers there.

I prefer blaming the Rays for any problems with the Bulls, and there’s some small evidence of that if we compare year-on-year team performance. It’s also fun to blame the managers, but other bad years (2005 and 2012) had managers who were greatly respected (Bill Evers and Charlie Montoyo).

So, I come back to blaming the Rays. You will notice that the Bulls almost always perform better than the Rays. I’m not enough of a geek to start running correlation coefficients on these data, but this year both teams are in decline and the Bulls peaked back in 2021. Is there a connection?

Inauspicious Start to 2nd Half

 

There was a moment last Thursday evening when all was right with the world. The Durham Bulls were above .500 for the first time in 2024. The pitching, hitting, baserunning, all of it, was OK. 

Did not last. In fact, the Bulls ended the week in a tie for last place. Standings. Not looking good as they head toward Norfolk for a three-game set.

Reset!

 

The Durham Bulls started and ended the first half of the 2024 season with a loss. In between they never managed to get above .500 or even remotely in contention. I am not used to this half-season business and the IL website doesn’t seem to be inclined to provide any information. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Patrick Kinas on the radio, I’m not sure I’d have known about it at all. Starting tomorrow, the won-loss records reset themselves (although the stats do not). That means the Bulls get to try again.

The Bulls ended the first half’s 75 games with a 36-39 record, putting them tied with Norfolk for 5th place in the 10-team IL East, 10.5 (10.5!) games back from Syracuse. They were 10th overall in the entire  20-team IL. Standings

We Bulls fans are not used to seeing a team perform this poorly. We often see a hiccup in the first year of a new manager, but nothing like this year.  The team is weak across the board.

Hitting

The team OPS is .774, which ranks them 11th in the 20-team IL. Plus they are very good at getting on base at .339 (14th). And they strike out a lot -- 713 times so far, the 4th worst in the entire league. Ronny Simon (66th), Kameron Misner (72d), and Tristan Peters (81st) are the only hitters ranked in the top 120 batters.

Pitching

Pitching is marginally better. With an ERA of 4.84, they are 9th in the league. Joe Rock’s 3.86 over 60 innings ranks him 7th in the league. But, he’s the only Bull in the top 30.

Base Stealing: Kameron Misner makes an appearance in the stolen base rankings at #6 with 22 and he’s only been caught once. Ronny Simon is the next Bull on the list, at 60th with 8, but he’s been caught 3 times.

Fielding? Nothing to shout about. They’ve let in 52 unearned runs so far this year. That’s approaching a run per game (.716 per 9 innings). The league average is .516.

Is there hope for the second half? Not much. The team pitching is showing steady improvement as are the run differentials. But overall hitting is pretty stagnant. And in any case, there’s a long, long way to go.

Five in a Row!

 

Are things looking up for the Bulls? Maybe. Certainly, they have a long way to go, but last week down in Jacksonville they did very, very well. And it shows in their numbers. The team OPS improved from .769 to .778 and the team ERA improved from 5.31 to 5.36. That’s still 9th out of 20 on hitting and 13th out of 20 on pitching. 

Nevertheless,  they are 6th in the IL East with only 18 games left in the first half of the season. Standings.

This week they are home against the Gwinnett Strippers, who play in the IL West. Looks like the Bulls have a slight edge in hitting. Gwinnett, however, is 4th in ERA in the IL.

Memorial Day 2024

 

Bald eagle on veteran's grave, Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Photo by Frank Gilk, Minneapolis Star Tribune. Stories by Jon Tevlin June 25 and August 10, 2011.

Memorial Day 2024

The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak

     Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them? 

     They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts. 

     They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us. 

     They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done. 

     They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave. 

     They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them. 

     They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this. 

     They say, We leave you our deaths: Give them their meaning: give them an end to the war and a true peace: give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards: give them their meaning.

     
     We were young, they say. We have died; Remember us. 

— Archibald MacLeish

A Slightly Better Week

 

The Durham Bulls are still in last place in the International League East. On the other hand, they did at least split their 6-game set with Gwinnett last week. We saw a slight improvement in ERA as well, so perhaps there’s some hope. But some of that improvement comes from Taj Bradley’s rehab starts and he will not be with the Bulls much longer (assuming that he’s still here).

Nashville is in town this morning. They aren’t have a very good year either.

Dismal Start for the Durham Bulls

 

I haven’t posted anything about the Bulls this year, new manager and all that. But the time has come.

In all the years I’ve been following the Durham Bulls I don’t think they have ever started off dead last. But here they are. Twenty-one games into the season and 5 games below .500.

Why? Pitching, pitching, pitching. 

They do have a team OPS of .843, but that is somewhat driven by that extraordinary 28 run game on April 9th and two 12-run games after that. Nevertheless, they have the worst record of the 20 teams in the International league. 

The pitching is dismal. The team ERA is 639, 19th of 20;  the WHIP of 1.57 is 17th; and the Opponents’ Batting Average is .282 -- 20th.

Will things get better at home (they’ve only played 6 of their 21 games at home this year -- thanks IL schedulers)? We can hope so. But they come home to face the best team in the IL this year. We’ll have to see.