2005-06 Trans-Tasman Classic Preview
The battle between the Sting hitters and Steamroller Pitchers is the most intriguing one here. The Melbourne Sting bring together a great collection of young hitters, the top five in the lineup have all gotten at least 20 home runs over the regular season, and apart from Domenic Gordam (who misses out by .002), they all get on-base at least a third of the time.
The scary thing is they're all under 30 and the youngest of all, Koi-Sho Chu has been one of their most impressive at just 22 years old and is a lock for rookie of the year. Expectations were always high for Chu, he was drafted #1 in 2002, but he's certainly lived up to them with an All-Star appearance this season.
Only one injury for the Sting, with Shortstop Jai Collingridge out with a strained hamstring. He was batting .274/.391/.396 with 4.9 WAR
This young team will have a lot of experience and talent to contend with. The Steamrollers starting rotation is elite, even missing En-Guo Trentelman who was have a handy season until he ruptured a tendon in his finger. To finish things off, they have one of the best closers in the business with Apekaloma Vaka.
The Steamroller hitters though have never recovered from losing the Mackay Brothers in the last two seasons. I mean, you couldn't really do much to fill the gap left by two of the finest in New Zealand baseball but injuries have gutted the team to the point where they can only muster up three players with a wRC+ above 100. They have two rookies at the top of the order, a minor leaguer at the bottom, and a veteran (well, a 31 year old) who's well past his 3-time All Star peak and who put up a negative 1.0 WAR this season.
In a fair bit of relief, Melbourne doesn't boast a particularly great group of starters but they have a pretty impressive bullpen. If you can't get your runs early then you're going to have a problem.