Superpesis roundup

Iiro Kuosa extends his contract with JoMa for 2 more years Photograph from Iiro Kuosa Twitter (c) Iiro Kuosa 2019 The big stories Joensuu re-sign Iiro Kuosa for 2 more years Iiro Kuosa is one of the most celebrated defensive players in the game and his hard work this Halli-SM tournament has been obvious. Joensuu had some very strong defensive games in the group stages and Kuosa’s abilities were fully on display. Sadly pesäpallo shares a common problem with baseball statistics- a lack of defensive stats that can analyse how a player impacts on a game. When you watch his highlight reel however, it all becomes clear! Kuosa continues with JoMa, where he has played since 2017 and won 2 Superpesis championships.  “ Iiro is definitely one of the best outside players in the entire series and in his place the best in Finland. The negotiations were easy in themselves, as the player and the club both hoped for a two-year extension”  Jonne Kemppainen, Managing Director...

Current Superpesis (Naisten) champions Jyväskylän Kirittäret Photograph from Kirittäret Facebook (c) Jyväskylän Kirittäret 2019 To celebrate International Women’s Day I decided to write this post. Whilst my blog focuses on the men’s Superpesis, I am a big fan of the women’s game too - sadly the team I support disbanded their women’s team some time ago, so I have mainly followed the men’s game. Due to my many competing demands on my time, I decided just to focus on the men’s game for the blog; however it is important to recognise and promote the women’s game too. Popularity of women’s sport For decades (if not longer) women’s sport in general has taken a back seat to men’s and in some cases (such as the Football Association in England) been purposefully oppressed. In the modern age, many sports are playing “catch up” when it comes to promoting a women’s competition. Last year saw the creation of the Women’s Super League in Rugby League for example, which helped to boost equ...

In this post we take a look at who the best players were statistically during the group stages of Halli-SM 2020 and consider how their performances impacted on their teams success. Runs batted in Patrik Wahlsten (Koskenkorva) topped the table in runs batted in with 8, despite playing in only 2 games. Wahlsten’s success rating with runners on 3rd was a decent 61.54%  (8/13). Despite his impressive numbers Koskenkorva lost all 3 of their games. Henri Puputti (JymyJussit) was 6/6 with runners on 3rd base for the 2 games he played, leaving no doubt that he is a serious threat whenever he steps up to bat. However, as with Wahlsten, Puputti’s success did not translate into wins for his team. Out of the top 5 players in this category, the one that had the biggest impact on securing success for his team was Jari Törmänen for PattU, whose kunniajuoksu against Sotkamo was a turning point in the game and led to them winning the group. Runs Tuomas Raunio scored 7 runs ...

Record crowds attended Joensuun Areena to watch JoMa dominate in their 3 games Photograph from Joensuu Facebook (c) Joensuun Maila 2020 Now that the group stage is over, we take a look in this post at which teams performed best in our performance rankings. 1st Joensuun Maila JoMa are undoubtedly the team to beat at the moment. Whilst they scored a fair amount of runs in their opening 2 games against SiiPe and Kitee, the more impressive statistic was their defence. JoMa were outstanding in those 2 games and they held their opponents to just 1 run over 16 innings. The final group game was a little more expensive in terms of runs scored against them, with IPV scoring 5 runs over 2 jakso; however JoMa had a massive game and scored 14 runs in total to stamp their authority.  2nd Kouvolan Pallonlyöjat KPL had fairly low scoring games against newly promoted Manse PP and Tahko; however they looked the more dominant team in the games. KPL conceded 3 runs across 2 games an...

A big win for KaMa falls just short of what they needed to stay in the race for the last semi-final spot Photograph from KaMa Facebook (c) Kankaanpään Maila 2020 Koskenkorvan Urheilijat v Kankaanpään Maila 0-1 (1-1, 2-4) As the group stages come to a close, Kankaanpää had an outside chance to advance for the final spot in the semifinals. To get there they would have to beat Koskenkorva by winning both jakso and Vimpeli would have to lose to JymyJussit. Over the last 5 games between the two teams Koskenkorva have a slight edge, although it is worth noting that 4 of those games were decided in supervuoro or kotiutuskilpailu. Kankaanpää’s tournament started with a big win against JymyJussit, before stumbling in a low scoring loss to Vimpeli.   Koskenkorva’s 2 games in the tournament returned little, despite the fact that both losses had fairly close score lines.  First Jakso  Koskenkorva took to the plate first and Otto Kauppinen immediately found first base w...