What went wrong for IPV in 2020?

 

Sami Partanen and Tuomas Jussila were big names for IPV in 2020, but failed to secure a playoff spot

Prior to the 2020 regular-season, things look positive for IPV. Many people speculated that they would make the play-offs last year, even at the expense of Kitee. As the regular-season came to a close however IPV fell short once again and failed to reach the play-offs. In this post I analyse the positives and negatives for IPV in the 2020 season and wonder how they failed to make the top eight.

Pre-season

The Halli-SM tournament was not a great success for IPV, but there was still a lot of promising signs for the coming season. Mikko Kosonen’s 8 RBI from 11 attempts was the second best conversion rate in the tournament with runners on 3rd base. When you factor in the fact that IPV’s group games included the seemingly impenetrable defence of Joensuu, this statistic starts to look very promising indeed. Similarly, Juuso Lattu and Teemu Nurmio’s 15 successful hits each were joint second for the tournament. Despite the impact of coronavirus and the difficulties in player wages, IPV were set to start the season with all-star names Sami Partanen and Tuomas Jussila.

The season

The opening game posed a daunting challenge for IPV - facing the 2019 champions (Joensuu) away. Despite a tight game, it was IPV that took the victory after Sami Partanen’s short hit foxed the JoMa defence and broke the deadlock in the scoring contest. In hindsight, this would probably be the highlight of IPV’s season, as the team struggled to maintain results from one game to the next. But what went wrong? In 2019 the gap between 8th place Kitee and IPV in 9th was a single point, in 2020 IPV finished 4 points off the pace of PattU who had a nightmare of a season through injuries and games that seemed to slip through their fingers.

When you look at the statistics for the season, it is hard to see why IPV struggled. For runs batted in, Juho Toivola was 5th in the league with 62 and 2 home runs. Mikko Kosonen and Sami Partanen also made the top 30 finishing 25th and 26th in the league for RBIs. By contrast, PattU’s highest hard hitter was Joker Juuso Keski-Koukkari who was 14th in the league for RBIs with 48. In terms of base running, Teemu Nurmio was 4th in the league for runs scored with 39 and Tuomas Jussila was 14th with 33.

Looking at the successful hits statistics makes it even harder to understand, with Jussila finishing 2nd highest in the league with 154, Partanen in 4th place with 146 and Nurmio in 8th with 134. With 3 players in the top ten for successful hits, 5th highest for RBIs and 4th highest for runs scored, there clearly was no problem for IPV at bat?

So was the problem defensive? Well, it is hard to measure defensive statistics on the current system because they are simply not recorded. Instead, when I put together my pitching statistics spreadsheet I looked at pitching efficiency and consistency as well as the number of runs that were scored on average per game (ERA). I was shocked to see that one of the most consistent and efficient pitchers was IPV’s Joona Sikiö who had a weighted efficiency rating of 85.55 and was 4th in the league. In terms of consistency, IPV allowed roughly the same number of runs each game when Sikiö pitched, with him being the 3rd mot consistent pitcher. Although Sikiö only pitched in 16 games, Rasmus Surakka did a decent job against tough opponents for the other 8 games. So why did IPV fail to reach the top 8?

If these statistics show the strength of a team then IPV were out-performing the likes of Seinäjoki, PattU and Hyvinkää, all of which had pretty disappointing seasons. 

My thoughts

Clearly the statistics alone were not going to solve this mystery and I needed to go back and watch some games in more detail. The games I watched offered little to no. Clues about why IPV struggled in the season. They looked more solid at bat than PattU and better defensively than Hyvinkää. It was time to start looking at each individual game where they lost and ask the question “should IPV have won that match?” If so, “where did they fall short and why?”. 

The opening games were tough for IPV and they fought hard to stay in contention. The opening game against JoMa went to a scoring contest and their next 2 games against Kitee were lost 1-0 after tying the first jakso in each. From 3 games IPV had only scored 2 points despite some very tough and close games. IPV struggled against Manse in the first jakso in game 4 of the season, dropping would could have been a valuable point for the end of the season. Game 7 against Kankaanpää was an unexpected loss in the Supervuoro, despite winning the first jakso with a comfortable score of 9-4. The winning stroke from KaMa came off Arttu Ruuska’s bases loaded home-run and cost IPV the game. 

At the end of July IPV ground to a halt with disappointing lose to Manse (1-0 after tying the first jakso 4-4) and a supervuoro victory against KaMa after both jakso were tied. PattU’s 3 point win on 31st July was a big blow to IPV’s confidence, which seemingly didnt recover for their next game on1st August against a plucky Kempele. 

IPV simply fell short in the end, despite some strong results towards the end of the season, seeing off PattU in a scoring contest, taking a point against a fierce Sotkamo side and maximum points against Kempele and Kitee. Their final 2 games against Joensuu were practically written off as losses by fans and players alike. JoMa were on their best winning streak in the club’s history and IPV did not look like the side to stop the runaway freight train. 

So now that I have analysed the games in greater detail, where did IPV stumble? The answer is perhaps more so that they were unlucky because where they lost a point here and their, their season suffered far more than teams like PattU, Hyvinkää and Seinäjoki, who seemed to bounce back. Hyvinkää and PattU were fortunate to have strong results going into the final days of the season, whereas Seinäjoki’s start of the season was superb and kept them in the top 8 despite a dismal end to the regular season. IPV did not enjoy the same high points as those teams. IPV’s first 5 games saw the team make only 4 points, despite some seriously good performances. In contrast Seinäjoki took 11 points in their first 5 games. At the end of the season IPV scored 7 points in their final 5 games compared to 10 points for PattU and 9 points by Hyvinkää. 

In summary, despite some great performances in the season, IPV couldn’t convert them into wins or even points, with too many tied jakso and lost opportunities that they simply couldn’t recover from. IPV’s competition were just more efficient at getting results at either end of the season and in the end, that was just about enough to keep IPV in 9th place.

2021 - a new start

With 2020 firmly in the history books, IPV will need to look ahead and tackle the problems they faced last year. The departure of Partanen and Jussila means that other players will need to step into the roles they have left in the team. Jussila and Partanen are highly experienced and exceptional players who, no doubt, added a great degree of wisdom and experience to the team. For 2021 IPV have a chance to reset and start again in their quest for a playoff spot. Only time will tell if this will happen, but if IPV get a lucky bounce here or their, take points in games that looked like they would score none, they might just make it.  

Photograph

Cover - (c) Imatran Pallo-Veikot 2020