"Big" Mike McCoy and What Could Have Been...
I'm going to throw some odds at you...
There is a 1 in 54,093 chance you could die from a hornet, wasp or bee sting.
1 in 60,000,000 chance you'll be killed in a plane crash.
1 in 10,000 chance you'll find a four leaf clover.
1 in 3,700,000 chance of dying by shark attack.
1 in 100 chance you are ambidextrous.
1 in 2,800 chance you'll die on your birthday.
And in 2015, there was a 1 in 4 chance that if Mike McCoy entered the batter's box, he was going to go yard.
Well...kinda. Let me explain.
I guess that's not technically correct. Mike McCoy had 89 at bats in the 2015 season and was credited with 40 hits (17 singles, 1 double, and 22 home runs) out of those 89 at bats. He had 119 plate appearances, 7 fielder's choices, 17 strikeouts, and 30 walks. But when you take away all the technicalities (like fielder's choices and walks not really counting as 'at bats') and just look at his hits vs at bats, you've got a guy who hit .449 and in 24.7% of those at bats resulted in balls sailing over the outfield wall. That's insane, right? I'll answer for you - yes, that is bananas.
I asked him once how he hits so many home runs and his response was, "It's either hit a dinger or not run." Now that's a kindred spirit. Running to first base is for the birds!
Did he have the biggest odds of home run hit per at bat that year? No. Andrew Westcott (that year's home run king) hit 27 home runs in 78 at bats (34.6%). Zach Daniels of the Plain White Tees hit 14 home runs in 45 at bats (31.1%). But right behind them, we've got Mike McCoy with 24.7% chance that if he got a hit he was going to touch all four and hi-five in the dugout.
So if Mike McCoy only had the third highest likelihood of hitting a bomb per at bat why am I freaking the f*&k out?
Well, in short... it shouldn't have happened. Not to discredit the obvious talent and skill "Big" Mike McCoy has at the plate but there's several reasons why his dinger to at bat ratio would have reasonably been lower.
First, we still had a crapload of pitching talent in the league that season. Huge names like Nick Kappra, Steven Adkins, Jacob Fischer and Paul Hesson were still hurling the ball at batters. Oh and need I even mention that Jeremy Ray and Drew friggin' McClanahan were pitching masterpieces that year as well? McClanahan basically manhandled teams by pounding the strikezone until the game was over and Ray dominated teams with his pitching variety and change ups. While McCoy didn't take Ray deep that year, he did go yard on McClanahan on 04/14/2015. And let's not forget that this isn't the only time he's hit a homer off of McClanahan when he ended McClanahan's 11-game streak where he gave up no runs. This essentially made him a living legend... but that's an entirely different article for a different day.
Second, he was on a losing team. I believe it was the French king Louis Philippe I that said, "When darkness is at its darkest, a star shines the brightest." I don't think it will surprise many that being on a losing team usually isn't as fun as being on a winning team. Many preseason predictions had Wifflin' Dixie finishing dead last but the franchise pulled off a .400 winning percentage that season (8-12 record) and surprised many, myself included. But the team only put up 29 home runs altogether with 22 of those being McCoy's. 56 of the team's 113 RBI's belonged to McCoy as did 107 of the 238 total bases. The team collectively had a scoring problem where McCoy was undoubtedly the star of the team on the offensive front. But when you have teammates who cannot get on base and keep the momentum going you end up with fewer at bats and less chances to hit bombs. I believe this is what made him chase balls more often rather than take more walks. He still managed to walk 30 times (7th most in the league that year) but struck out 17 times. Wifflin' Dixie had the second most strikeouts at 86 (only 2 strikeouts behind the Plain White Tees). I know that if I was likely going to be left on base I'd be more open to swinging at anything to drive runs in rather than watching a teammates strike out.
He had the fifth highest amount of fielder's choices (7) and third highest left-on-base (23) meaning he sometimes either hit the ball in the wrong spots or his teammates just weren't effective base-runners. But to leave this many people on base means that far-too-often "Big" Mike McCoy found himself at the plate with two outs. And that's just not setting someone up to succeed. Someone like McCoy on a struggling team has to show up big with each at bat and one man can only do so much. But even if McCoy didn't leave 23 players on base that year and brought them all in... Wifflin' Dixie still would have had a -25 run differential. Many players would question even trying at that point. But try he did and for his efforts he had the fourth highest home run total to show for it that season. And not only was he the hero of his team but the toast of that year's All-Star Home Run Derby. So... silver lining, I guess.
Third, he never got to fully ride out his momentum. Have you ever seen a team catch fire like players could in NFL Blitz? We've all seen teams do it and it happened a lot in 2016 and occasionally in years prior to that but it never really happened at all on Wifflin' Dixie. They hit lots of ground outs and pop outs and McCoy had his turn come back around after each at bat much quicker than many other players experienced or it was time to go back out into the field and run around chasing balls in play. A team that cannot find an offensive rhythm and jack a few homers over the fence is not only failing to score effortless runs but wearing themselves out with all the back and forth from the field to the batters box and vice versa. And with that wear comes less likelihood of hitting home runs.
After the 2015 season had been completed, Patrick Rayl took over league commissioner duties and shook up the league with a major format change to a slow-pitch tournament style. Many teams courted McCoy for his talents, namely Sit On My Base, Beaver Fever and Make Wiffleball Great Again. But their wishes went unfulfilled and we had our first McCoy-less season in a year that would have undoubtedly been a breakout year for him. I cannot think of more fertile ground for a player like Mike McCoy to grow than that season. I have zero doubt that McCoy would have hit at least 30 home runs and likely would have been the Home Run King and I'll tell you why.
Just look at the reasons I listed earlier about the things that held him back. All those things (pitching talent, being on a losing team, and momentum) would have been mostly neutralized for him.
Let's start with the first issue, pitching. With the move to slow-pitch there's no fastballs or other difficult-to-follow pitches to chase after. Also there's very little that can be done to stop someone from hitting a bomb if you're going to lollipop a slow pitch to someone. Not much to expand on there, it just is what it is.
Now, let's look at the issue of being on a low-performing team. Even the worst team hit 21 collective bombs that year. And who is this worst team, you ask? None other than Beaver Fever, which is a renaming of the Wifflin' Dixie team from the year before (same franchise). They had a dismal -142 run differential and lacked the power hitting needed to bring in the runners home to even have a prayer of competing in most of their games. It's likely that McCoy would have ran into his amount of at bats problem that he faced in 2015 but he would have likely had a higher homerun to at bat ratio as well and been a much needed asset for Beaver Fever that year.
Being on a better team would have likely taken care of the momentum problem. If he would have entertained offers from more successful teams like Sit On My Base or Make Wiffleball Great Again he would have had FAR MORE at bats and even more opportunity to hit dingers. Just imagine the bat flips! There were some teams just a few games away from the title and had McCoy joined any of those teams he could have dramatically increased their probability of being formidable contenders in the points system that year. Some of these teams would really catch fire and hit bomb-after-bomb and McCoy would have been a perfect instrument in that situation to keep the momentum going. And I think many teams had their eyes on adding him to their 2016 roster because his bat would have likely been the difference between winning or losing and walking away with a championship or not. And because he didn't play that year we will never really know for sure what could have happened. But I think we can come up with some good guesses...
Let's entertain the possibility that McCoy would have stayed with the franchise he was already on - Wifflin' Dixie (later known as Beaver Fever in 2016). You might be thinking.... 'Josh, I don't care what team Big Mike would have been on in 2016, he would have jacked homers all day.' And sure, you might be right. But you are forgetting just how terrible Beaver Fever were that year. This is a team that got on base so scarcely that they only had 20 LOB (lef on base) for the season. There are some teams that did that in a week. I mean, sweet baby Jesus were they awful. I ran the calculations and the average number of at bats per team member for Beaver Fever that year was 26.8 at bats (so lets round up to 27 for simplicity's sake). If McCoy would have hit home runs at his 2015 rate of 25% of his at bats that's only 6.75 home runs (7 if you round up). Ouch!
As a league, there was an explosion in the frequency of home runs. In 2015, batters hit 387 HRs in 2905 At Bats (13.3%) but in 2016 the numbers rose to 665 HRs in 2303 At Bats (28.8%). The number of home runs nearly doubled with a little over 600 less collective at bats! This was in large part due to the league playing in a tournament format vs the regular season schedule. Nothing was promised and you had to win to continue to play to get more at bats or face elimination. So, for some players they had to make quick work to get as many dingers before being sent packing. And if you were on a team like Beaver Fever that regularly were eliminated in the first round... you weren't going to get many at bats. So I think that even "Big" Mike McCoy would struggle to get to double digit dingers on that squad even with it being slow-pitch simply because they couldn't win enough to get a decent amount of at bats throughout that year.
So let's explore the possibility that he decided to part ways with Beaver Fever prior to start of 2016 season and joined up with a very long ball heavy team like Make Wiffleball Great Again. As a team, they hit 82 HRs out of 360 At Bats, going long 22.7% of the time they got a hit. This obviously dwarfs Beaver Fever's 11.17% likelihood of hitting a home run with any hit achieved. But is that really so significant? Not really when you consider that he'd have an average of 51.42 at bats with Make Wiffleball Great Again. And if he hit bombs for 25% of his at bats, he'd hit 11.75 HRs compared to the 7 he'd hit with Beaver Fever. That's not a huge difference but it's a noticeable improvement.
And then there's the fact he could have joined the evil empire known as Sit On My Base (SOMB) that year as well. They had wrangled all the meandering top talent that off season with Brian Ball and Ryan Pritt on top of their already strong core so McCoy would have been a natural tool for their utility belt in 2016. Altogether, SOMB hit 167 HRs in just 454 At Bats, which means they were 36.78% likely to go yard with any hit they got. The average amount of at bats per player on that team that year was an immense 75.6 at bats. This is a substantial increase in chances to touch all four bases! If he hit a homer 25% of his at bats he'd likely finish 2016 with 18.9 HRs.
One thing that would be hard to account for is one of the limiting factors I mentioned early in this article: momentum. It is inevitable that had McCoy participated and played with Beaver Fever in 2016 he would not have put up very impressive numbers. The team just didn't get on base and couldn't bring anyone home. There was simply no momentum or kinetic energy of any sort for them. His presence would have provided a much needed boost to put some runs on the board but the problems that plagued the team that year would still persist as McCoy likely would have been the only reliable hitter on the team. So, it's a forgone conclusion that McCoy's performance would have been severely limited (and in vain) by the team and he'd be fortunate to hit 8 home runs on the year.
Additionally, I think something that sometimes aids momentum is prestige and team chemistry. Mike McCoy as a dude is just likeable. Teams with good chemistry and less stress play better. Prestige is an immeasurable variable in this game but it's one with merit and cannot be undervalued. If you've got a guy like McCoy joking around in the wings you're going to get the best you can get out of that ball club, talent aside. Beaver Fever would have unquestionably been a better team with him, even if it was just marginally better. If you watch some of the game video that year you'll see a lot of looking down, hat throwing, hands on the hips and other defeated postures exhibited by Beaver Fever. Had McCoy been there, they would have likely been walking a little taller and played harder. I'm equally positive that they still would have finished in the basement but they would have been more competitive nonetheless.
Two teams that could build momentum and routinely provide back-to-back jacks for long periods were Make Wiffleball Great Again (MWGA) and Sit On My Base (SOMB). Average home runs per teammate on MWGA was 11.71 and for SOMB it was 27.83. I am certain that McCoy would have mirrored or possibly exceeded these numbers and would have hit 15 to 30 home runs on either team. He would have been essential in starting and/or maintaining momentum on either team as he was one of the most reliable long ball hitters in the game. Many long term players in the league refer to 2016 as "the great padding" of stats that inflated numbers so greatly that career averages dramatically were affected as a result... but I'm not quite so sure. What I can definitely see is how not playing negatively impacts overall career numbers simply enough and I believe that if McCoy would have played in 2016 his career home run count would be among the largest in the league and it would have been well earned and not the result of "padding."
In 2018 (the league's final season), McCoy made a splash during his return to the league as the star player of the OD Bangerz. And I feel that his performance during that season proves my thesis on what could have been in 2016 had he participated. McCoy had his banner year in 2018, hitting a whopping 34 HRs and boasting a .434 AVG with 72 RBIs. Those are insane numbers! And while the team had some phenomenal hitters (Anthony Stidham, Justin Fairman, Rick Patterson and Ronnie Canterbury) his performance out-shined them all. Unfortunately, despite all that talent on the team, the OD Bangerz finished the season 11-13 (.458 win pct) with a -30 run differential against their opponents. And although it was ultimately a losing season, it was by far the most talented and successful team McCoy played on. But it does demonstrate that if you get enough at bats, even on a losing team, you have the opportunity to do some real damage at the plate and that's exactly what he did in 2018.
His career stats are a .404 AVG, 62 HRs with 138 RBIs. There is no deriding these numbers. There are many players who have had longer careers with stats that fall well below his career numbers. Yet I cannot help but wonder what those numbers would be had he graced us with his presence and skill in 2016. Andrew Westcott has the most career home runs with 109 but I believe Mike McCoy would have come close to a similar result or possibly eclipsed that number had he gotten more at bats. I'd estimate that he would have hit at least 30 HRs in 2016 putting his career dinger count at 92 if that were the case, easily putting him in the upper echelon of career home run hitters in the league. Notwithstanding, he's still one of the best home run hitters in the league. So, I suppose a star can still shine brightest regardless of the level of darkness...
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