The Dayton Dragons finished the season at 58-82 on the season. They finished 7th overall in the Midwest League Eastern Division. In the first half they went 28-42, also finishing in 7th place. In the second half they improved a little bit to 30-40, finishing in 6th place in the division.
Impressive team stats
The Dayton offense was arguably the worst in the entire league. They scored 533 runs on the season, ranking 15th out of 16 teams and outscoring Burlington by 1 run. Great Lakes led the league with 712 runs. The Dragons were far and away dead last in on-base percentage at .303. They were 15th in the league in OPS at .645. They did finish 2nd in the league in sacrifice hits? It was a rough, rough season for the offense.
The pitching staff was a bit better, but they didn’t find themselves in the top half of hardly any stats within the league, either. They finished 12th in ERA at 4.16. Kane County led the league with a 2.82 ERA. They did finish 8th in total strikeouts.
Top Hitting Performance
Only two players on the team had an OPS over .700 on the season, and neither player had 375 plate appearances on the year. Brian Rey topped the list. He played in 66 games and racked up 259 plate appearances with Dayton. The 21-year-old hit .281/.326/.464 with 16 doubles and 9 home runs in roughly half of a season with the Dragons. Rey tied Pabel Manzanero for the top average on the team. His on-base percentage was 10 points behind Jay Schuyler who led the team. And his slugging percentage was tops on the team.
Top Pitching Performance
There were more than a few pitchers had found plenty of success this season with Dayton. Guys like Connor Curlis and Adrian Rodriguez threw 70+ innings with ERA’s in the low 3’s. Eduardo Salazar threw 106.1 innings with a 3.81 ERA, working both as a starter and reliever. Connor Bennett had a 2.27 ERA in half of a season before being promoted. But the top pitching performance, at least the one that gets my nod, goes to Matt Pidich. The 24-year-old reliever pitched in 39 games and threw 65.0 innings. His ERA came in at a robust 2.22 as he allowed just 42 hits and walked just 20 batters on the season while striking out 75 of the 263 hitters he faced.
Team MVP
These awards are always going to be subjective. However, this one felt a little bit easier to pick. Michael Siani played in 121 games on the year for Dayton, and while he didn’t stand out at the plate – hit hit .253/.333/.339 – that was right up there with anyone else who spent the entire season with the team. But Siani also stole 45 bases. His .333 on-base percentage was second best on the team.
And then there was the defense. The center fielder was a human highlight reel. There was hardly a week that would go by where he didn’t make multiple game-changing plays. Not only was he able to track down fly balls and line drives that had no reason to be caught, as a center fielder he racked up 18 assists. That’s a number that would make a right fielder stand out like a sore thumb – that he did it from center is mind bogglingly silly.
If you would like to see the entire stats for the team you can click here and head on over the team page at Baseball-Reference.