April Leader Boards
AZDD’s next night of roller derby is right around the corner this Saturday night, so I thought I’d feed you all the update on the league’s most notable statistics.
The most important, of course, is league standings.
1. Coffin Draggers … 3-0
2. Bombshells … 2-1
3. Runaway Brides … 1-1
4. Brutal Beauties … 0-2
5. Schoolyard Scrappers … 0-2
After their gritty win over my Bombshells last month, the Coffin Draggers are the only undefeated team and 1 win away from a one way ticket to the Championship Bout. Unless the Brutal Beauties pull off the upset of the year, it appears the Draggers may find themselves in a legit title defense scenario. And when I say “legit title defense scenario” I mean they’ll travel all the way back to the Championship Bout to defend their crown, legitimately.
Though the Brutal Beauties and the Schoolyard Scrappers share the same record, the Beauties hold the tie break as they’ve scored more points this season. They’re holding on to that lead by a mere 4 points. The Beauties have a season total of 123 points and the Scrappers 119 points.
After the awesome bout between the Coffin Draggers and the Bombshells, there were some shifts. Since these were the only two teams that bouted last month, their numbers were the only ones that changed. Skaters from the other three teams moved around on the board based on where the Draggers and Bombshells rested.
First up, the Jammers. These are the current AZDD Top Scoring Jammers.
The Runaway Brides’ Ellie Mayhem is still on top of the list, and she hasn’t bouted since February. She’s averaging 77 points a bout. AND, she still has two bouts to play. It’s gonna take a lot for anyone to see that #1 position. Perfectly possible, but its gonna be bloody difficult!
Ellie’s Jammed 32 times this season. That’s the second highest rate of Jamming after the Coffin Draggers’ Satan’s Little Helper who’s Jammed 38 time, however, SLH has one extra bout under her belt. At this rate, Ellie will probably Jam close to 60 times during this regular season.
I just hope some of the Unicorn’s magic has rubbed off on the rest of her Jamming crew during the two month lay-off the Brides have had. She’s not gonna win bouts against solid teams by herself. Next to her 154 points, the second highest scorer on the team is Strawberry SmashCAKE with 29 points. More balanced scoring is necessary.
Though she’s just outside the top 5, Craven Cadavers has joined the upper echelon of top scoring Jammers after her “where the hell did that come from” performance against the Bombshells. Last month she was 28 points out of the top 5. After one game, she’s now only 3 points out of the top 5.
Craven scored 43 points total in her first two bouts. Last month she scored 43 points in a single bout and doubled her overall point total. Yeah, I bet you’re asking yourself now:
Where the hell did that come from?
I don’t have an aswer for you. But I hope it goes away. Soon. 
The story on the league’s most efficient Jammers looks like this:
Lady Lawless has crept her way into the Top 5 this month, moving up 2 positions. Though she’s not posting 3 figures like the rest of the Top 5, that doesn’t matter here. Efficiency is her weapon. Her numbers show she’s just as efficient as everyone else when she wears the star, even though she doesn’t rock it as often.
The fact that she doesn’t is no one else’s fault but her own, unfortunately. Lawless likes to lay the big hits when she’s blocking and if she wants to Jam more, she needs to move away from that. The penalties she picks up Blocking takes away from her Jamming. She didn’t Jam the entire first half of the Dragger bout because of her high penalty point count. We had to keep her off the Jammer line to prevent giving up another Power Jam.
It doesn’t hurt your point totals and your average when you put up a 15 point Power Jam. Lawless is 1 of only 2 Jammers this season to put up that many points in a jam. The other one belongs to Deja Deja Vu of the Brutal Beauties. Lawless had to work a little harder for hers. That 15 point Jam came against 3 opposing Blockers from the league’s #1 team, the Draggers. Deja’s came agains the Runaway Brides and there was only 1 opposing Blocker on the track. In that instance, passing 1 means passing 5.
Here are your current AZDD Top Blockers.
The most apparent shift is seen at the top of the list.
Last month 3 out of the top 5 positions were occupied by Bombshells. Lady Lawless, Sho’Nuff, and Sweet Revenge all fell out of the top 5 after the scoring clinic put on by Craven Cadavers and Satan’s Little Helper. Those two skaters combined for 85 of the Draggers 111 points in that bout and unfortunately those three Blockers were put into defend them more often than not. They didn’t get the job done.
Sweet Revenges’ average took the heaviest hit. She fell out of the #1 position where she was boasting a 3.38 blocking average all the way down to #14 with a current average of 0.94.
Lora Stabs sits in practically the same spot as she was last month. That says one thing: consistency. After three bouts she’s still earning her team at least 2 points every time she steps on the track to block. While her average went down only slightly, she gained a spot on the leader board from last month now sitting at #6. That’s impressive considering her average barely moved after playing a team that averages a league high 115 points per bout.
Currently, the Top 5 belongs mostly to the Runaway Brides who are all rocking more than a 2 point Blocking average per jam. Solid. Unsurprising considering those are the same skaters who line up to Block for the league’s top scoring Jammer more often than not. This works out as it should.
I have to point out an anomaly in these numbers because it racked my brain for a minute until I figured it out.
When I was going through the numbers for the Brides it was obvious why Ellie’s Blockers are all at the top of the list: she scores all the points. However in her first two bouts, I noticed Ellie had scoring ratios to the opposing Jammer of -0.07 against the Draggers and 0.18 against the Beauties.
The negative ratio against the Draggers means on average she was being outscored by the opposing Jammer she lined up against by o.o7 points. The positive ratio against the Beauties is just the inverse; she was outscoring the Beauties Jammer she lined up against by 0.18 points on average. Mere fractions of a point, yes, but it begs the question that screwed with my head for a bit:
How is a Jammer who has Blockers with a 2 point average and scores almost 80 points a game not able to outscore an opposing Jammer by a point or more?
Answer: Power Jams.
A third of Ellie’s points this season come from Power Jams. So while her Blockers are enjoying the jams where there is no chance for ‘points against,’ her ratio to the opposing Jammer appears wimpy because the opposing team screwed up and gave the Brides an opportunity to set their deadliest Jammer on the track by herself.
I realize this is another reason I love the concept of the Power Jam. Statistically, they skew everything, and its awesome. Power Jams are games changers and the Brides take full advantage. As they should.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow nights bouts because 4 of the leagues teams are playing and the stats are gonna go nuts when Saturday night is all said and done. We’re gonna get to see most of the people you see sitting on these leader boards perform.
The Draggers will have completed their regular season and all the teams will have played three bouts. I know I’ll have a bit of work ahead of me updating and rearranging these leader boards.
Keep and eye out for them.
The Coffin Draggers take on the Brutal Beauties starting at 7pm followed by the Runaway Brides and the Schoolyard Scrappers. Roll by the Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum on 19th Ave and McDowell to be a part of the action or be labeled as a failure in life.
Ok, not really. But really though, its gonna be a lot of fun.
It always is.