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Big Daddy Baseball League

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slant.gif (102 bytes) From the Desk of the Commish

Commish

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June, 2006

BDBL Mailbag

I sometimes struggle to come up with topics worth writing about once per month on this page.  So this month, I figured I'd leave it up to you to decide.  What topics are at the forefront of your minds as we head into the second half of this exciting 2006 season?  Let's find out.

Bi-Curious from California: Who is the best-looking GM in the BDBL?

You see, this is what I get for asking for "any and all questions."

I decided to let my wife answer this one.  I showed her the pictures of all the guys on the web site, and asked her which one (besides me, of course) is the handsomest.

Her response: "You're all a bunch of dorks."

Vinny from da Bronx: Too part question.  Yo, do you tink stinkin' Randy Johnson will ever be wort $11 million next year?  Or is dat damn rat bastard gonna suck all year for doz Vegas fans next year?  Second part: Is you really dat smart, dat you knew Johnson wood finally showed his age and break down so bad?  Did you pull a fast one on dat Flamingos guy and dump the Big Crapper at da perfect time?

Yes, I fooled everyone, didn't I?  I even managed to influence all the leading baseball prognosticators.  Coming into this season, here were some of the 2006 projections for the Big Unit:

PECOTA: 224.2 IP, 204 H, 39 BB, 192 K, 3.24 ERA
Ron Shandler: 203 IP, 180 H, 48 BB, 185 K, 3.59 ERA
Bill James: 218 IP, 178 H, 55 BB, 263 K, 3.05 ERA

Note: PECOTA also gave Johnson a 1% collapse rate (i.e. the percent chance that his EqERA would increase at least 25% relative to his three-year baseline EqERA.)

When I traded the big guy, I fully expected him to contend for an AL Cy Young award in 2006.  I think his struggles since that trade have taken everyone by surprise.  For some reason, we've gotten to the point where we're now shocked when a 42-year-old pitcher doesn't perform just as well as he did in his early 30's.  We've been spoiled by the likes of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Johnson himself.  Perhaps the big guy is finally starting to show his age.  Or perhaps it's just early, and he'll bounce back in no time.  No one really knows what will happen the rest of the way.  Not even you, Vinny.

J.Sickels from the Midwest: Do any of you guys use my info for drafting purposes?  Are there any future prospect evaluators in the BDBL?

Let me tell you a little story, J.

Back in the early-to-mid 90's, I dabbled in the stock market.  It began with a simple Fidelity fund, and a few stocks recommended by a friend of a friend.  Next, I bought a subscription to Money magazine.  Then, I bought a few books on how to buy stocks.  Then, I began making regular trips to the library to look up the latest financial statements for companies I was targeting.  I had a huge spreadsheet filled with complex formulas that I was certain would lead to more accurate predictions of the future.

After a while, I discovered that I got to be pretty good at it.  Many of the stocks I picked sky-rocketed in value over a very short period of time.  I would sell one stock, and buy another, then watch as that decision paid big dividends as well.  I began to think I had found my calling.  All those years I had wasted pursuing a career in the technical field, when I should have been studying finance instead!  I began giving advice to friends and family (whether they asked for it or not), telling them which stocks they should purchase immediately.  I added a page to my fantasy baseball web site that gave advice on buying stocks, and tracked the performance of all my past picks.  Somehow, I thought, I had stumbled upon some untapped ability within myself that I never knew existed.

Then, one day, my wife was flipping through the stations when she came across an interview with the CEO of some obscure technology company.  She liked the guy, and thought he had some pretty neat ideas.  Without doing any sort of research whatsoever, she took a quarter of her 401(k) money and bought stock in this guy's company.  That investment more than tripled over the next 18 months.

It was then that I figured out that I didn't possess any special, psychic financial ability.  The fact was, everyone was doing well in the stock market.  It was the mid-90's, for crying out loud.  Soon, I began taking losses, just like everyone else.  And soon after that, I canceled my subscription to Money, deleted my big spreadsheet, and took all my money out of individual stocks and put it into index funds.  That's where it still resides today.

I see many, many parallels between the stock market of the mid-90's and the baseball prospecting market of today.  It seems as though everyone believes he is an expert in the field of baseball prospecting these days.  Every ten minutes, a new web site pops up on the internet, created by some guy living in his mother's basement who is more than willing to share his opinions on minor leaguers (usually for a small monthly, automatically-recurring fee.)  These guys all believe they have the ability to predict the future using nothing but complex formulas on a spreadsheet.  And they all believe their formula is better than anyone else's.

But like my adventures in stock-picking, these guys all suffer from a delusion created by selective memory.  They overemphasize their successes and sweep their failures under the rug.  The fact is that no one owns a stellar track record when it comes to forecasting MLB numbers for minor league players.  Major League teams pay an awful lot of money to scouts and analysts whose sole job is to forecast MLB ability for amateur and minor league players.  And the success rates of those paid professionals aren't that much better than that guy sitting in his mother's basement.

Baseball prospecting isn't exactly a crapshoot.  There are certain things you can look for in a prospect to bump up the odds a little in your favor.  But all that means is that the odds of that stud prospect becoming a stud Major Leaguer increase from 10% to 12%.  In this way, baseball prospecting is a lot like horse racing.  But even the best tipsters lose more often than they win.  And even the best prospects with the greatest odds of success (Sean Burroughs, Rick Ankiel, Jesse Foppert, Brandon Phillips, Josh Hamilton, Ryan Anderson, etc.) fail more often than you'd expect.

As I demonstrated on this page a few years ago, the odds of a TOP hitting prospect becoming a completely useless waste of roster space are about 20/80.  And the odds for pitchers are even worse, at roughly 50/50.  And last year on this page, I demonstrated that the odds of a top amateur prospect making an impact on your BDBL roster are even greater.  If you happen to hit the jackpot on the small minority of prospects who actually become all-stars, it doesn't make you an expert.  It just means you got lucky.

Getting back to your question, J., I visit your web site almost daily, and I suspect that nearly every member of the BDBL does as well.  (Given that it's free information, you'd be foolish not visit your web site regularly -- if for no other reason than to be aware of what your fellow owners are reading.)  I also used to purchase your book every year, up until this past year.  But after a while I realized that your advice was no better than the advice available (often freely) through other sources.  So I've taken the money that I used to spend on your book and I put it into index funds.  Sorry, big guy.

Curious: How much money do you spend per year doing research for your fantasy team?

I didn't realize how much I spent until I added it up just now.  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I spent a grand total of $290.23 in the past year on books and web sites alone.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  Please don't tell my wife.

C. Carpenter from St. Louis: Who are the top 10 pitchers and hitters shaping up to be in next year's auction?  Will there be lots of money to spend?

Thinking about next year already, Chris?  We've still got half a season left to play this year!

It's really too early to even look at who might be available next January, as there is still four months of MLB season left to play.  But since you asked...

Top 10 Hitters* VORP Top 10 Pitchers* VORP
1. M.Tejada 24.2 1. C.Carpenter 21.7
2. C.Lee 20.1 2. T.Glavine 20.0
3. C.Blake 19.8 3. K.Rogers 18.0
4. C.Delgado 15.9 4. J.Santana 17.5
5. M.Ensberg 15.8 5. J.Smoltz 15.0
6. J.Vidro 14.9 6. P.Martinez 14.9
7. M.Alou 13.7 7. G.Maddux 14.3
8. N.Garciaparra 13.4 8. B.Zito 13.7
9. E.Renteria 13.2 9. B.Tomko 11.7
10. C.Guillen 13.2 10. D.Sanchez 9.1

* As of 5/15

The amazing thing here is that I had to go all the way down to the 62nd-ranked pitcher in VORP in order to find 10 pitchers that are free agents in '07.  And yes, that is Duaner Sanchez in the top ten.  (Like I said, it's early.)

A few of the names missing from these lists: Todd Helton, Mark Kotsay, Jason Varitek, J.D. Drew, Brad Radke, Craig Biggio, Eric Chavez, Ivan Rodriguez, Brian Giles, Manny Ramirez, Ben Sheets, Chipper Jones, Brad Lidge, Bobby Abreu, David Ortiz and C.C. Sabathia.

Did I mention it's early?

Confused in Texas: Guarding the lines. What are your views, and when do you do it? Every time I try it, I seem to give up a double in the gap.

I think this is another one of those cases where selective memory plays a big role in perception.  If we guard the line ten times, and nine times the batter lines out to the third baseman, and one time the ball is roped down the line for a double, the only thing we'll remember is that double.  Why?  Because it's unexpected.

The same goes for stolen bases on a pitch-out, and pitchers coming up with big hits at the plate, and all these other wacky things that seem to happen far too often in DMB.  Yet every time one of these "flaws in the software" is investigated, it always turns out that these events occur exactly as often as should be expected.

The only reason to ever guard the lines is to prevent a double down the line.  According to the DMB documentation, guarding the lines "reduces the number of ground balls down the line that go for doubles and triples in the corner, but increases the number of singles hit through the hole."  So, in your example of a ball hit into the gap, there is really nothing you can do to prevent that from happening.

I usually don't guard the lines before the 7th inning unless I'm facing a really good pitcher, and every run is precious.  And I usually don't guard the lines unless the batter at the plate is a threat to hit a double or triple.  There's no point in giving a guy like Luis Castillo better odds of slapping a single through the hole.

Buyer's Remorse: I went "Type H" on a free agent in the auction last winter, and he's stinking up the joint (in MLB) this year.  Please tell me I'm not alone.

Don't worry, Buyer's, misery loves company.  The reason why free agents seldom make good long-term investments is because you're paying top dollar for what is usually peak performance.  Most of these guys are coming off of career years in their early-to-mid 30's.  There's only one direction for their careers to go.

In this year's Draft Day Preview, I showed that Type H free agents have not fared well at all in Year 2 throughout BDBL auction history.  Yet despite that warning, we set a record for "Type H" free agents this year.  How has this group performed so far?

Player Winning bid 2005 VORP 2006 VORP* Diff
Roger Clemens  $19.00 80.2 0.0 -80.2
Josh Towers  $6.50 35.2 -42.6 -77.8
Livan Hernandez  $6.50 33.6 -31.5 -65.1
Rafael Furcal  $9.50 42.3 1.7 -40.6
Randy Johnson  $11.00 43.8 9.4 -34.4
David Dellucci  $6.00 28.2 -1.3 -29.5
Jeff Suppan  $5.50 27.5 -1.3 -28.8
Cliff Politte  $5.50 28.3 1.7 -26.6
Jeff Kent  $8.50 52.8 26.9 -25.9
Gary Sheffield  $11.50 47.5 27.7 -19.8
Bill Mueller  $5.50 24.8 6.8 -18.0
Michael Young  $10.50 72.4 54.6 -17.8
Aaron Fultz  $5.50 23.5 8.5 -15.0
Mark Ellis  $5.50 36 23.0 -13.0
Brian Roberts  $8.50 61.9 49.0 -12.9
Kevin Millwood  $10.50 50.4 39.2 -11.2
Mariano Rivera  $7.00 32.2 22.6 -9.6
Billy Wagner  $8.00 30.8 22.6 -8.2
Hector Carrasco  $6.00 30.5 24.3 -6.2
Mark Buehrle  $12.50 54.8 48.6 -6.2
Jim Edmonds  $12.50 44.2 39.2 -5.0
Randy Winn  $7.00 37.7 34.5 -3.2
Shawn Green  $5.50 29.4 29.8 0.4
Mark Mulder  $7.50 37 39.6 2.6
Tim Wakefield  $5.50 34.5 37.9 3.4
Raul Ibanez  $6.00 29.3 32.8 3.5
Pat Burrell  $8.00 41.3 46.0 4.7
Bobby Howry  $5.50 23.3 28.6 5.3
Melvin Mora  $6.50 32.6 39.2 6.6
Paul Konerko  $7.50 46.1 61.8 15.7
Shea Hillenbrand  $5.50 23.3 43.5 20.2
Jorge Posada  $8.50 26.8 48.2 21.4
Derek Lowe  $7.50 22.5 44.3 21.8
B.J. Ryan  $6.00 24.9 50.3 25.4
Scott Shields  $6.00 25.3 58.0 32.7
Jason Giambi  $9.00 50.6 84.8 34.2
Mike Mussina  $5.50 22.9 109.1 86.2

* Projected VORP at current pace, thru 5/17

As you can see, 22 of the 37 Type H free agents from this past auction have performed worse this year than they did last year -- in some cases, FAR worse.  You think that will make a difference at next year's auction?  Please.

Outside Looking In: Do you think if I start disagreeing with absolutely every opinion you put into print, I might gain enough popularity to get a trade offer?

Without a doubt, Outside.  Look how well that strategy worked for Marazita and DiStefano.

Toe, from the Sugar Cane Fields: What BDBL franchise has had the most busts with top prospects?

It depends on what you mean by "bust", and what you mean by "top prospect."  For the sake of argument, let's look at the #1 farm draft picks made over the past seven years, and the total MLB WARP1 of those picks:

Team WARP1
Silicon Valley 83.7
Marlboro 80.5
Allentown 75.4
Akron 67.6
Southern Cal 63.5
Wapakoneta 60.3
New Hope 52.8
Great Lakes 50.0
Ravenswood 41.7
New Milford 39.4
Manchester 30.4
South Carolina 28.2
Corona 25.5
Cleveland 21.7
Sylmar 20.1
Nashville 19.9
Las Vegas 18.8
Villanova 17.3
Kansas 16.8
Salem 15.0
Chicago 13.5
Atlanta 11.1
Bear Country 4.9
Los Altos 4.1

Are you as surprised by these results as I am?  Yes, the Los Altos Undertakers, with their long history of farm club success, have had more first-round flops than any other team in the league.  Their #1 picks: Chad Hermanson, Brad Baisley, Gabe Gross, John Buck and Justin Upton.  Of course, Upton should ensure that the Undertakers don't remain at the bottom of this list for much longer.

Silicon Valley's #1 picks, by the way: Marcus Giles (28.7 VORP), Barry Zito (42.6), Mike Stodolka (0), Eric Hinske (11.6), Corwin Malone (0), Jeremy Hermida (0.8) and Mitch Einertson (0).  So, even the best team in the league has seen four of their seven #1 picks return less than 1 career WARP1 so far.

Ozzie League fan: How about an analysis of talent transfer between leagues? Almost all trades this season have been interleague, and that has to have some affect on league strength in 2006 and the future.

If we use VORP as a measuring stick, 601.8 VORP points have been traded from the OL to the EL since the start of the off-season, while 717.1 points have gone the other way.  That's a difference of 115.3, which is pretty significant (but not significant enough to exceed our in-season VORP cap.)

Paul Bunyan, Minnesota: Who really is the Johnny Appleseed of the BDBL?

Paul, that should be quite obvious by now.  Despite what you've read in the polls, the Salem Cowtippers have distributed more talent from their farm club than any other team in the BDBL, using any measurement or criteria you could think of.  As much as people apparently hate to admit it, that's just a fact.

As has been pointed out, though, it's not really anything worth bragging about.  Trading highly-touted prospects for immediate value is just one of many strategies used to build a franchise and forge success.  I'll leave it up to you to decide how successful that strategy has been.

No Witty Fake Name Given: How do left-handed starting pitchers fare in the BDBL (versus expected results) as compared to right-handers? My GUESS would be that the lefties underperform as compared to the righties because it's so easy to platoon against them.

Your guess is correct, No-Wit, though the difference in DMB performance between lefties and righties probably isn't nearly as large as you suspect.  First, the raw totals:

Group IP H BB K HR ER
LH, MLB 58,778 58,763 22,520 43,387 6,691 27,620
LH, BDBL 58,825 59,950 23,604 43,297 7,008 28,763
RH, MLB 171,290 171,615 63,423 125,932 20,329 81,484
RH, BDBL 166,078 173,037 64,859 122,674 21,757 83,969

Now, by rate stats:

Group H/9 BB/9 K/9 HR/9 ER/9
LH, MLB 9.00 3.45 6.64 1.02 4.23
LH, BDBL 9.49 3.74 6.86 1.11 4.56
RH, MLB 9.02 3.33 6.62 1.07 4.28
RH, BDBL 9.38 3.51 6.65 1.18 4.55

And finally, by percentage of increase (BDBL over MLB):

Group H/9 BB/9 K/9 HR/9 ER/9
LH +6% +8% +3% +8% +8%
RH +4% +5% 0% +10% +6%

So, across the board pitchers of both handedness fare worse in the BDBL than they do in MLB.  More than likely, this is because of contraction from 30 MLB teams to 24 BDBL teams.  Lefties fare slightly worse than righties across the board, except in the home run department, oddly enough.  But the difference between the two is never more than 3% either way.

Ah, but wait a second.  You specifically asked about starting pitchers.  So let's narrow the study a little:

Group H/9 BB/9 K/9 HR/9 ER/9
LH starters +5% +10% +5% +6% +8%
RH starters +3% +6% +1% +8% +6%

Here, lefty starters seem to walk a lot more batters than expected, but they also strike out more batters than lefty relievers, and allow fewer hits.  And ERA remains unchanged at 8%/6%.

What does this all mean?  Well, if a starting pitcher posts the following numbers in MLB, here's what they would look like in DMB:

MLB: 200 IP, 180 H, 60 BB, 180 K, 15 HR, 3.50 ERA
LH, DMB: 200 IP, 189 H, 66 BB, 189 K, 16 HR, 3.78 ERA
RH, DMB: 200 IP, 185 H, 64 BB, 182 K, 16 HR, 3.71 ERA

In other words: don't sweat it.

Commish: I hear all the time that pitchers who walk a lot of batters get killed in the BDBL.  Is that true?

Glad you asked, Commish.  Let's take that same group of 2,526 pitchers we used in the study above and separate them into six groups based on walk rate:

Group # pitchers MLB ERA BDBL ERA % Change
< 2.5 BB/9 471 3.73 4.02 +7.7%
2.5 - 3.0 BB/9 379 4.11 4.40 +6.8%
3.0 - 3.6 BB/9 479 4.40 4.71 +7.1%
3.6 - 4.2 BB/9 436 4.38 4.56 +4.1%
4.2 - 5.0 BB/9 401 4.61 5.12 +11.0%
> 5.0 BB/9 360 5.01 5.28 +5.3%

The group that performs the worst, compared to their MLB numbers, are pitchers who walked between 4.2 and 5.0 batters per nine.  Oddly enough, however, the pitchers who walked more than 5.0 batters per nine underperformed less than any almost any other group.  And the pitchers who hardly walked anybody underperformed worse than almost every other group.

Go figure.

Okay, now you're wondering (at least, I know I am): What about the pitchers who strike out a lot of batters?  Surely, they perform better in the BDBL than pitchers with low K totals, no?

Group # pitchers MLB ERA BDBL ERA % Change
< 5.5 K/9 651 4.66 4.79 +2.9%
5.5 - 6.6 K/9 648 4.43 4.68 +5.6%
6.6 - 8.0 K/9 624 4.17 4.82 +7.5%
> 8.0 K/9 603 3.59 4.16 +15.9%

No.  In fact, the more strikeouts a pitcher has in MLB, the MORE he will underperform in the BDBL.  Shocking, isn't it?

As long as we're here, let's look at home run rate:

Group # pitchers MLB ERA BDBL ERA % Change
< .7 HR/9 599 3.34 3.83 +14.7%
.7 - 1.0 HR/9 621 3.91 4.38 +11.8%
1.0 - 1.2 HR/9 421 4.34 4.75 +9.4%
1.2 - 1.5 HR/9 488 4.73 4.84 +2.2%
> 1.5 HR/9 397 5.53 5.38 -2.7%

So there you have it!  If you want to draft a pitcher who will perform the closest to (if not better than) his MLB performance, go out and grab that guy with the low K rate, who walks a lot of batters and gives up tons of home runs.  Sure, his ERA will be over 5.00.  But at least he won't be a disappointment!

Sharky: Which is a better strategy to keep you competitive:

1. Sell off everything and completely rebuild with $60m in cap space, and no starting players, a) through the auction, and b) "buying" prospects/cheap players.

2. Play .500 each year, trying to win each year, looking for an opening, then when you realize you can't sell off some free agents, try again next year.

I've read this question two dozen times and I still don't get it.

The bottom line is that Sharky wants to know if his 2006 strategy will give him a competitive team in 2007, and that's hard to say at this point.  As always, let's first see if history can be our guide.

The last time a team had this much money to spend in the auction was 2003 (the very first BDBL auction), when the South Carolina Sea Cats had a whopping $58 million in spending money.  They used that money to buy Vladimir Guerrero ($16m), Mark Kotsay ($6m), Herbert Perry ($2.5m), Andy Pettitte ($8.5m), Darren Holmes ($4m) and Tom Glavine ($11.5m.)  What did all that money buy them?  A last-place finish with a 63-97 record.  Worse yet, Guerrero was injured in MLB and missed half of the season, and Kotsay, Pettitte and Glavine suffered through awful MLB seasons, which ate up $42 million in salary in 2004.  (Note: South Carolina did save $6m, though, by trading Guerrero for Andruw Jones.)

If history is any indication, then, this isn't a great strategy.  Trying to build a team by paying market value for overrated, aging superstars coming off peak years is never a good idea.  But it sounds like the Hammerheads also plan to use a good chunk of that money for "buying" bad contracts from other teams this winter in exchange for cheap and/or young players.

Of course, that strategy has been attempted as well in the past (though to a lesser extent) by the Los Altos Undertakers.  Two years ago, the Undertakers "bought" a $9 million Kevin Millwood off of the Hammerheads in exchange for prospects Chris Nelson and Brian Dopirak.  They also "bought" an $11 million Carlos Delgado from Ravenswood in exchange for a $7.5 million Jim Thome, getting prospects Franklin Gutierrez and Antonio Perez in return.  Of course, neither Gutierrez, Perez, Nelson nor Dopirak has panned out very well at all since then.

So that may not be a very good strategy, either.  Or maybe both strategies are good, but they just weren't executed well enough.  Who knows?  I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what the Hammerheads do this winter.

No Name: Somewhere on the board you mentioned that you didn't think any team in BDBL history had ever come back from being five or more games back at the end of Chapter Two. That's pretty sad. Why do you think that is? Do teams throw in the towel too early? What can we do to make this more realistic? Or is it realistic?

Actually, I was wrong about that.  In 1999, the Massillon Tigerstrikes were in last place in the Person Division (then called the "Petralli Division") at the end of Chapter Two.  They owned a record of 22-34, which was TEN games behind the division leader.  But they went 64-40 (.615) the rest of the way and won their division by five full games -- despite making just one trade (for Dante Bichette) the entire season.

In 2004, the Chicago Black Sox trailed by five games after two chapters, but ended up winning their division.  And that same year, the Cowtippers trailed the Zoots by five games at the end of Chapter Two, and won the division.

Aside from those three teams, no other team in league history has won the division while trailing the leader by five or more games after Chapter Two.  I think this is such a rare occurrence in this league for three main reasons:

  1. It is far easier to sell off stud impact players for prospects than it is to do the reverse.  First, the competition for those stud players is fierce, and the qualities that your fellow owners look for in young players is completely unpredictable.  Second, trading for prospects/young players is fun!  And third, there is ZERO risk for the team that is swapping their free-agent-to-be for some young flavor-of-the-week.  If you trade a superstar for a prospect, and that prospect doesn't pan out, so what?  There's no loss, since you would've lost that superstar at the end of the year, anyway.  But if you trade a good prospect for a superstar, and you don't get a championship out of it, you may have just traded away several years of cheap production for nothing.  (Unless, of course, you can trade for a stud superstar impact player without giving up anything of future value -- which seems to happen far too often in this league.)  That's the kind of trade that will keep you awake at night.
  2. When a Major League player or team gets off to a slow start, his GM believes that he/they will eventually snap out of it.  When a BDBL player or team gets off to a slow start, his GM immediately blames the software and assumes that level of performance will continue throughout the entire season.  The next thing you know, white flags are waving in the wind.  In 1999, the Tigerstrikes simply underperformed as a team.  There were no underlying reasons.  It just happens.  They rode out the slump, and it paid off with a division title.  There simply aren't that many owners with that amount of patience in this league.
  3. Everyone is afraid of missing out on the next big superstar sweepstakes.  If a contending team has a desirable young player on its roster, you'd better fold the tent quickly if you want to cash in.  Contending teams generally have less patience than non-contending teams when it comes to trading.  If a team is straddling the fence of contention, those contending teams will move on quicker than you can say, "Jeremy Hermida."  It is ALWAYS a buyer's market when it comes to superstars in their walk years.

So, is this realistic?  Of course not.  If a Major League team heads into the season with high hopes, but gets off to a slow start, and their GM begins selling off superstars for unproven prospects willy-nilly, what do you think would happen to both that GM and the franchise?  (Remember what happened to Jerry Reinsdorf in 1997?)  If the same thing occurs in the BDBL, though, there is zero backlash and zero consequences for the GM and the franchise (aside from maybe some snarky comments on the forum.)

The good news is that, thanks to our current rules, there are no longer any incentives for teams to give up early on the season.  But I'm afraid these early exits in the BDBL are, and always will be, the rule rather than the exception.

One of the Tony's: How many rule changes addressing "dump trades" are enough?

I don't know...until we get it right?  Maybe we're there already, who knows?  Unfortunately, no one can know if a rule will work as it's intended until it's been tested.  So we're all kind of stuck in this demented baseball laboratory, mixing and matching and poking and prodding and tweaking the rules until we're all satisfied with the outcome.  I don't think we've reached that point yet, but I may be wrong.

Another One of the Tony's: I wanna know why players don't just try to put the ball in play with two strikes. Why are they always swinging for the fences with two strikes? What exactly are the hitting coaches in the majors doing to earn their money? How hard of a concept is this to get across?

Because chicks dig the long ball.  No one earns $10 million a year hitting singles (except Ichiro.)