Superpesis roundup

Tahko are one of the teams who could finish in the top 8, but their final position hangs in the balance There are only a handful of games left in the season and for some, time is running out to achieve their goals. In this post I look at the table and which teams are on track to reach the spot in the table that they are hoping for. The table below shows the teams games that they have played, how many games they have remaining, their average points per game and the maximum  and minimum possible points per game scores they can achieve. Top 4 For some time the top 4 teams have set themselves apart from the others; Manse, KPL, Sotkamo and Vimpeli have in fact already secured a top 4 finish and therefore home field advantage in the postseason. Only 3 of them however will get a chance to pick their first round opponents. There is one obvious team that the top 4 teams will want to avoid - Joensuu. JoMa have caused problems for the top 4 this season, but they cannot finish higher than...

  Will Dahlström guide KoU out of the battle to avoid relegation The fortunes to Koskenkorva and Jere Dahlström couldn’t be more different in 2020: KoU struggled to keep their heads above the water and looked like contenders for relegation (if there had been relegation last year), whereas Dahlström helped guide KPL to the finals and win another silver medal to add to his collection. Questions about whether Dahlström was hanging up his boots and calling an end to his career were answered last week with the news that he would be returning to Koskenkorva for 2021. In this article I pose the question - will Dahlström save Koskenkorva from relegation this year? Dahlström’s career Anybody who has followed pesis will know the name Jere Dahlström and how he has dominated as a batter over the years. The experience held by Dahlström is immense, with over 1400 RBIs and close to 3000 successful hits than successful hits across 20 seasons in Superpesis. Dahlström has a solid collection of m...

The first Finnish Champions in 1922 - Helsingen Pallonlyöjat  It was 100 years ago on 14th November 2020 when the first test match for pesäpallo was played in Kaisaniemi in Helsinki and we are now currently in the build up to the 100 year anniversary of the Finnish championship. In this post I take a quick look at the world then and now and how the sport and the world it is played in have changed, before pondering in the next post - what could a heritage game look like next year as part of the celebrations? Welcome to 1920 At the time, there was very little to celebrate about - the world was recovering from the effects of the Great War, the Russian Civil war (which saw a lot of international intervention) and for Finland in particular, the Finnish Civil War. It was a desperate time for many and one aim for pesäpallo in particular was to help teach military tactics and skills in a recreational setting to help defend the country if threatened. This, amongst other things, was a k...

  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 ...

  Who were the best, worst and most efficient Pitchers in 2020? Since the end of the 2020 regular season I have been working on some statistical analysis of pitcher’s performance in games. When I first became interested in pesäpallo I was surprised that there weren’t any statistics for pitchers or team’s defence at all. At the time, there was very little in the way of statistics for fielders in baseball or cricket and it was in fact a major talking point amongst MLB fans and commentators. In both cricket and baseball however there has always been a method of calculating a pitcher/bowler’s performance, usually based on the number of runs scored against them measured against the number of batters they faced or innings/overs they played. Pesis didn't seem to have any equivalent, which led me to wonder two things: (1) why are there no statistics? (2) what would the statistics look like if they did exist? Why are there currently no pitching/defence statistics To answer this question,...

A new tournament could become a great symbol for the game and unite pesäpallo across Finland Just over a month ago, the Pessäpalloliito (Pesäpallo association) announced that the annual winter (pre-season) tournament was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. In the press release, the Pessäpalloliito stated that teams would still be able to play organised training games tournaments, but with the association’s approval. The association suggested that teams would have to “be creative” to create any tournaments... this got me thinking: what could a more expansive tournament look like in the future? What could a tournament look like now? With the Supercup now being cancelled and a hint that there may be a competition next year to mark the 100 year anniversary, I thought I should finally get round to putting my thoughts together in a post. Why change Halli-SM at all The truth is, there is no real reason to replace the current tournament; however the prospect of creating something new an...

Perttu Ruuska spent the 2020 season developing his game management skills What is meant by the tempo of the game? When you watch Pesis there is often a lot going on that doesn’t stand out immediately, especially if you are be to the game; however one thing that players and coaches talk about a lot is how to control the tempo of the game (especially pitchers). The easiest way to imagine this is to draw a direct example with American Football - the quarterback controls the tempo of the game and will either take a quick snap or take some time to adjust to the opposing team’s defence, in doing so the quarterback hopes to out play the opposing defence. The same is true in pesäpallo, but it is the pitcher who takes on the quarterback role and the batting/running team they are attempting to beat. If you are coming from baseball background, this can seem a little different to what your re used to; in baseball, pitch selection and location are the key tools to try and defeat the batter, n...

Jukka-Pekka Vainionpää wearing the Joker’s vest next to his teammates What is a joker? If you are coming from a cricket background, the joker can seem like a very strange concept indeed; in baseball, the joker is much more familiar than you may think. A joker is like a designated hitter in baseball, like you see in American League rules, but the role is much more tactical and has more scope than simply substituting a place in the lineup for a pitcher. There is no equivalent in cricket, so it is worth explaining what a joker is in pesis in some detail: The international rules state that “A team can use three different jokers at bat during each offensive half. The use of a joker does not cause any other player in the batting order to lose his turn at bat.” As to when a joker can be used: “The use of a joker need not be announced beforehand. A joker can take a turn at bat, if the player in the batting order hasn't settled at bat. A joker cannot be taken away from batting if he...