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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
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