Care About the Australian League for a Second!

As mentioned in NotGraphs around the time of that wondersite’s inception, Australian people now have a baseball league. In terms of the level of play currently going on there, Carson Cistulli isn’t necessarily the guy to ask about that; however, the league features former and current Major and Minor Leaguers, so it’s not, as Charles Barkley would probably say, completely “turrible.”

In any case, with our vigorous, sunburnt friends now two months (about 30 games) into their season, I thought it might make sense to see which players have distinguished themselves.

SCOUT Leaderboards
Using SCOUT
As I have previously for the Arizona Fall League, I’ll use SCOUT as the primary means of assessing performance in Australia. (Click here for more on SCOUT, the metric that’s “sweeping” the “nation.”)

SCOUT Batting Leaderboard
Here is the SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Australian Baseball League.

SCOUT Pitching Leaderboard
Same verse, very similar to the first.

A Quick Note on Those Names
Here’s the percentage of those players I’ve ever even heard of before: 25.

Notes on Three Players
It appears as though three players, in particular, have distinguished themselves. They are: Grant Karlsen, Brandon Maurer, and Chris Oxspring.

Here’s what the internet says about them:

Grant Karlsen, C, Melbourne
• Is only 25.
• Apparently signed with Phillies in 2003.
• Put up this line, in age-18 and -19 seasons, through Rookie and Low-A ball: .175/.243/.190.
• Now has five home runs against a single strikeout in 70 AB, easily the most impressive ratio in the league.
• Here’s one of them (the home runs, I mean):

Brandon Maurer, RHP, Adelaide
• Is part of the Seattle system.
• Split time last year between the AZL Mariners and Low-A Clinton Lumberkings, striking out 20 of the 60 batters he faced.
• Sorry, that’s LumberKings, capital-K.
• Will turn 21 on July 3.
• Was profiled by the Adelaide Advertiser, and faced reporter Ken McGregor, who uses the metric system extensively.

Chris Oxspring, SP, Sydney
• Is the only one of these players with Major League experience.
• Is also oldest by considerably margin (34 in May).
• Did this in 12 IP for San Diego back in 2005: 8.25 K/9, 4.50 BB/9, 35.5% GB, 4.28 xFIP.
• Did this in 342.1 IP across three Triple-A seasons (2004-05, 07): 8.2 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9.
• That doesn’t really seem so bad to me.