French Elite League – 2008 in Review – Paris UC

After looking at the German Baseball-Bundesliga a few weeks ago, we would like to continue in our review series with the French Elite League.

Paris University Club

After dominating Baseball in France many years during the 1970ies and 1980ies (they won their last title in 2000), including a streak of eleven straight championships between 1982 and 1992, the PUC has to go into the second division in French Baseball. For the second year in a row they finished in last place of the final standings, but in difference to last year, the league was filled with eight teams in 2008, which led to the relegation of the club from Paris.

This season they doubled their win total during the regular season, finishing with a 4-24 record in eighth place. In the play-down round they managed three more victories for a final record of 7-33 for the year. However the gap to seventh-place finisher CLERMONT-FERRAND (15-25) was too big. The PARIS UNIVERSITY CLUB is going to be replaced by the MONTIGNY COUGARS in the 2009 Elite League lineup.

What the stats say:

As a team they batted a sixth-best .231 (OBP .314/SLG .306), scoring a league-worst 186 runs. PARIS hit eight homeruns, five through Tim Stewart. As bad as their offense might was, the pitching and the defensive department even topped it. Opponents batted .281 against PUC in 2008, putting 415 runs on the board; just 266 of them were earned, thanks to 119 errors in 348 innings. The pitching ranked eighth with a 6.89 ERA.

The offense was led by Stewart and Douglas Rodriguez. Stewart batted .352 (.432/.624) with 22 extra base hits, 35 runs scored and 23 RBI. Rodriguez (.321/.372/.527) hit two homeruns, three triples, eleven doubles, scored 23 runs and drove in 18. Giacomo Baroni, Oscar Saavedra and Yukitori Shimura were the other .300 hitters, but only in limited time.

Stewart also appeared in 13 games on the mound, including five starts. He had a 2-3 record with a team-best ERA of 2.38 with 72 strikeouts (23 walks) in just 45.1 innings pitched. Baroni also excelled in a relief role, finishing the year with a 3.19 ERA and 37 K’s in 31 innings, while walking 21. Opponents batted just .183, respective .181 against these two hurlers.

PUC’s main starters were Fred Mouchet and Aaron Nobbe. Mouchet had a 2-10 record with an ERA of 8.40 in 19 games (ten starts). He struck out 39 in 84 2/3 innings, while walking 57. Nobbe had a 2-12 record and a 4.55 ERA in 15 games (14 starts). He had 78 strikeouts (36 walks) in 83 innings.

Overall the 2008 PARIS UC won five more games than the 2007 version and they had clearly a better season, but it was not enough to stay in the Elite League. They lowered their team ERA from 8.97 to 6.89 and also had a higher batting average (.197 to .231). Hopefully the club can regroup in the National 1 League and fight their way back into the upper level.