From the Desk of the Commish

We're now one-third of the way into the 2006 season, which means it's time for my traditional "Stories of the Year" article.

If a man jumps out of an airplane at 20,000 feet, he is living life to the fullest. If he does it without a parachute strapped to his back, he's committing suicide. Right now, the New Milford Blazers are committing franchise suicide. Just like that man without a parachute, they may enjoy the ride for a while, but it will eventually come to an abrupt and painful end.

Once upon a time, the New Milford Blazers were the pitiful underdogs of the BDBL, and most of us quietly rooted for the day when Blazers fans could finally bring an end to their long period of suffering and witness their team actually win more games in a season than they lost-- perhaps even play some November baseball.

But a funny thing happened when the Blazers decided to tear down their team in the middle of last season, screwing up season-long pennant races and significantly altering the fates of several teams along the way. That decision, along with assistant GM Tony Peburn's arrogant trash talk on the league forum, has transformed the Blazers franchise into the most despicable, most hated franchise in the BDBL since the Stamford Zoots.

The Blazers were expected to contend for a wild card last year, and they were in contention right up to the point when they decided to blow up their team. Through that massive overhaul, they acquired several key franchise players to build around for the coming years. And for a while, it looked like the Blazers may have set themselves up nicely for years to come. But since the end of last season, here are some of the moves made by Peburn:

Peburn and Romaniello are clearly acting like people who don't plan on returning to the league next year. It is one thing to "go for it" by trading a key prospect or two in exchange for immediate value, or to sign a risky, big-money free agent. It is another thing, entirely, to trade away several franchise players for one-year fixes, take on several bloated, unwanted contracts, and sign the biggest, riskiest free agent in league history to a two-year, $39 million contract. Not only have the Blazers abandoned any goal they had of competing in 2007, but they have effectively destroyed any chance they had of competing in 2008, 2009 and beyond. It took the Blazers eight years to become competitive. It may take another eight years before their next above-.500 season.

If Peburn and Romaniello do return, what sort of franchise will they be returning to? Griffey, Colon, Alfonso Soriano, Mike Sweeney, Randy Winn and Jarrod Washburn are scheduled to make $37.1 million combined in 2007. Add in Clemens' $19.5m salary, and that's $56.6 million spent on seven players. That leaves just under $7 million to spend on 28 players. And given that all seven of those players will likely be vastly overpriced, this puts the Blazers in an impossible situation in 2007.

Going beyond 2007, there is no reason for optimism. With franchise players Bay and Haren gone, the Blazers' future consists of an overpriced Soriano, Washburn and Colon. The farm system offers no player likely to significantly contribute within the next three years. And with all of their star players being so overpriced, trading those players for good, young players will be difficult.

No Major League ballclub would ever operate this way. The New York Mets would never trade David Wright for Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell and Curt Schilling. Even though it would improve the Mets this year, it would kill the franchise going forward. You never see trades like this in real life because real-life GM's have to think about the future of their ballclub. The Blazers are under no such restrictions. They don't have to answer to an ownership group, or the press, or team accountants. They are therefore free to leap out of that plane without a parachute, and no one can stop them from doing so.

When we all agreed to run a franchise in this league, it was done with the understanding that we would all operate our teams in a way that is similar to a Major League GM/owner, giving due consideration to both the current and future states of the franchise. If we don't all agree to and follow this founding principle, then the league becomes something other than what it was intended to be. Right now, the BDBL is nothing but a distorted caricature of MLB, and that's a real shame.

We all have different reasons why we play this game. Some of us play because we dream of owning an MLB team, and this is as close as we'll ever come to actually doing so. Some of us play in order to pit our baseball knowledge against other like-minded fanatics of the game. And some of us play simply because we enjoy the camaraderie that comes with being a member of this fine league.

And then, there are those who play the game for one reason, and one reason only: to win that damn trophy.

Granted, winning the BDBL championship is the goal of every team in this league. But some of us take that goal to extreme measures. These guys aren't content to merely win a division, or make it to the post-season, or simply finish with a respectable record. No, no, no. A BDBL championship trophy is the one and only acceptable outcome to a season. And if these guys aren't 100-percent confident that their team can not only make the playoffs, but advance at least one round, they will dismantle their entire team in the blink of an eye and start building that championship-caliber team for next year.

For these teams, there are only two modes of operation: 1) sell off every marketable player on the roster in order to build a "superteam" for next year, or 2) sell off every marketable prospect in order to "win it all" this year.

The Chicago Black Sox are one of those teams. That much is undeniable. From the very beginning of the league, when John Gill selected a 21-year-old Andruw Jones with his #1 pick and a 24-year-old Darin Erstad with pick #3, the Black Sox have operated in on/off mode each and every season. As a result, they have either won 100+ games in a season (in 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2005) or they've finished below .500 (1999, 2002, 2003.) It is no coincidence that there is only black and white in the Chicago logo-- no shades of gray.

In this year's Pre-season Preview, I predicted another division title for the Black Sox, as I believed they were the strongest team in a weak division. But from the get-go it seemed that Gill had only one goal in mind: 2007. Chicago's 4-16 start provided a convenient excuse to begin the white-flag-waving process very early this year. On March 7th, just five weeks into the season, Gill placed his three most marketable free-agents-to-be on the chopping block. Less than 48 hours later, all three players were shipped off to the highest (or, at least, the quickest to respond) bidder.

Rather than spread the wealth around, Chicago traded all three of their impact players (Manny Ramirez, Ben Sheets and Matt Wise) to one team: the Marlboro Hammerheads. Not coincidentally, the Hammerheads sported the best record (22-6) in the BDBL in Chapter Two, and now seem destined to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2003.

The Black Sox owned a playoff-caliber team heading into this season. Any team with a lineup that includes Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Manny Ramirez and Vernon Wells, and a pitching staff that includes Sheets, Mark Prior, Brandon Webb and Jeremy Bonderman, should be expected to compete-- slow start or no slow start. And the Hrbek Division is wide open this year. But John Gill took one look at his team this past winter and decided it wasn't good enough to win it all. (Back in January, Gill wrote on the board: "I look forward to picking much higher next year and listening to the whining and crying of the people picking down low where I am this year...I can't wait til next year.") He then handed the ball to Chan Ho Park (5.52 CERA) and Carl Pavano (5.74) a total of eight times in Chapter One, which, not surprisingly, sabotaged his team's early record.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this strategy of "Stockpile and Purge" when it applies to a single team (and as long as it is done far less drastically than New Milford's "F the future" strategy.) In fact, the Chicago Black Sox have employed this strategy with phenomenal success through the years, winning 100 games in a season four times (a feat equaled only by the mighty Cowtippers of Salem) and two EL championships.

The problem is when you apply this strategy to a grander scale. What would happen if EVERY team in the BDBL employed this strategy? In any given year, there are only a handful of teams (maybe four or five at most) with a realistic shot at winning the BDBL championship. If every team in the league employed the Black Sox strategy, we'd have four or five teams "going for it all" and up to 20 teams dumping every decent player on their roster in an effort to build a "superteam." This process would repeat itself year after year, and the league would likely die a slow and painfully boring death.

Hopefully, the new rules we have instituted in recent years will make it tougher to build those "superteams," and will deter GM's from pursuing this strategy. As with most things, time will tell.

So far, we've seen one team whose strategy is to completely decimate the future of their franchise in order to compete in 2006, and another whose strategy is to fold the tent on a competitive team in order to build a superteam for 2007. And now, we come to the Mustangs of Villanova, led by GM Tony Chamra.

On this page three months ago, I predicted the Mustangs would not only win their division, but a BDBL championship as well. Part of my reasoning in making that prediction was that Villanova had so many marketable young players, they could out-bid any team in the league whenever a superstar impact player was placed on the trading block.

But unlike almost every contending team of the past, the Mustangs stubbornly refuse to part with any of their young players in order to help their cause in 2006. They believe their 2006 team is good enough to win without having to sacrifice any future talent. In fact, this quote from Chamra has become one of the most oft-repeated quotes in recent years:

This quote was in response to a BDBL poll concerning the predicted winner of the Higuera Division, where the Mustangs were trailing the Ridgebacks at the time. (Note: Villanova actually ended up "winning" the poll by a tally of 8-4.)

Amusingly enough, the Mustangs limped out of the gates in Chapter One, with a mediocre record of 15-13, which trailed the front-running Allentown Ridgebacks by four games. To make matters worse, Allentown then went out and snagged �ber-ace Johan Santana, causing little beads of sweat to form on Chamra's forehead.

But the turning point of Villanova's season came when these two teams met head-to-head (well, head-to-Tom's-MP) in Chapter Two. DiStefano, who actually prefers reading about his games after they've happened rather than seeing the drama unfold live and in person, must have gotten quite a morning wake-up call when he read the details of his team's four-game sweep at the hands of the Mustangs.

That series put Villanova just one game behind the Ridgebacks in the Higuera Division standings. But the two teams finished with identical 16-12 records in Chapter Two, which means that 'Nova is still trailing the defending champs by four games.

Will Tony Chamra finally release his vice-like grip on a prospect or two to give his team an added boost down the stretch? Or will he hold fast to his goal of winning the division without sacrificing any part of the franchise's future? Seeing the answer to that question unfold will be among the highlights of the second half.

After losing the Griffin Division to a tie-breaking technicality last year, the Silicon Valley CyberSox limped into the off-season. Their $15.5 millon investment from 2005, team MVP Adrian Beltre, suffered through a horrendous MLB season and promised to be a tremendous liability in '06-- both at the plate and on the team's salary cap. Their best pitcher from 2005, Ryan Drese, was every bit as horrible as Beltre (only $14 million less expensive.) And their 2005 closer, Keith Foulke, was so awful, the CySox paid $3.5 million just to get rid of him.

With the writing apparently on the wall, GM Greg Newgard began the ugly process of selling off whatever he could to gain value for 2007 and beyond. Staff ace (and NL Cy Young winner) Chris Carpenter was traded to New Milford for young ace-in-training Danny Haren. And the team's second-best hitter from 2005, Milton Bradley, was traded to the Allentown Ridgebacks for prospect Eric Hurley and journeyman innings-eater Brett Tomko.

At the auction, Newgard picked up closer Aaron Fultz for $5.5m. And with the 19th pick of the draft, Newgard tried to fill in some holes with unexciting players like Gary Matthews, Chris Spurling, Aaron Rowand and Doug Mientkiewicz. The result was an unexciting team that was ranked #22 in the first Power Rankings poll of the season, with a predicted record of 79-81 along with the following blurb:

My summary of the CyberSox in the Pre-season Preview wasn't any more optimistic:

One-third of the way into the 2006 season, however, Silicon Valley is sitting pretty atop the Griffin Division with a 31-25 record, three games ahead of the second-place Los Altos Undertakers. What happened?

Well, as predicted, the CyberSox offense has been brutal. They've hit just .248/.303/.387 as a team, and are averaging just 4.0 runs per game (10th in the OL.) They've only hit 48 home runs as a team (10th in the OL), and have walked just 138 times (the lowest total in the BDBL.)

If their offense has been so bad, then their pitching must be equally as good. And true to form, the CyberSox lead the OL in ERA at 3.47. They are tied for the fewest hits per nine (8.0) and walks per nine (2.6) averages, and they've averaged fewer than one home run allowed per nine. As you might suspect, several CyberSox pitchers are outperforming their MLB numbers:

Pitcher	MLB ERA	BDBL ERA	Diff
Carrara	3.93	4.38	+0.45
Drese	5.78	6.28	+0.50
Fultz	2.24	3.26	+1.02
Haren	3.73	2.59	-1.14
Hasegawa	4.18	0.81	-3.37
Hoffman	2.97	2.18	-0.79
S.Kim	4.90	4.09	-0.81
W.Rodriguez	5.53	1.59	-3.94
Silva	3.44	2.89	-0.55
Spurling	3.44	2.05	-1.39
Street	1.72	1.32	-0.40
Tomko	4.48	4.83	+0.35
Total	4.02	3.08	-0.94

Meanwhile, the Sylmar Padawans, who were predicted in this space to win the Ozzie League title, are five games behind the CyberSox and four games under .500 (26-30.) The Padawans pitching, which was supposed to be phenomenal, ranks in the middle of the pack (6th in the OL) in ERA at 3.89, while the Sylmar offense has been nearly as awful as the CyberSox (.249/.312/.406 as a team, ranked 8th in the OL in runs scored.)

I think the assumption is that the Padawans have just gotten off to a bad start, while the CyberSox are bound to fall back to earth at some point. So far, Newgard has not made any bold moves to sacrifice any future value to help this year's squad. And Sylmar GM John Duel has been eerily quiet as well. But maybe things won't change. Maybe Silicon Valley's pitching staff will continue to thrive in their Dodger Stadium model, and maybe Sylmar will continue to flounder around the .500 mark. Maybe all the pre-season prognosticators were wrong. Maybe 2006 is the CyberSox's year.

Sure enough, the Infidels got off to a slow start (caused by mysterious underperformance from a handful of hitters and pitchers), Potrafka waved the white flag earlier than anyone expected, and Santana was hastily shipped off, sparking an uproar among the teams that didn't get him. I still maintain that Potrafka would've been better off waiting until later in the season to trade Santana, but that's now a moot point.

As usual, the recipients of the biggest trade chit of the year were the Allentown Ridgebacks. This marks the third time in five years that Tom DiStefano has won the bidding war for the most coveted player on the mid-season trade market, and Santana's mid-season impact ranks right up there with Curt Schilling in 2002 and Barry Bonds in 2003. Santana joins Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy and Felix Hernandez in the Allentown rotation, which begs the question: Is this the best rotation ever assembled in the BDBL? Let's compare:

Team	IP	ERA	H/9	BB/9	K/9	HR/9
2006 NMB	853.0	2.84	8.00	2.18	6.85	0.78
2006 ALN	760.2	2.87	7.64	1.96	8.46	0.75
2002 ALN	860.0	2.90	7.61	2.20	10.38	1.05
2005 ALN	778.2	2.95	7.89	2.22	8.77	0.67
2006 VIL	802.3	2.98	8.12	2.30	6.24	0.68
2003 AKR	814.2	3.04	7.25	2.28	8.28	0.77
2005 SCS	812.2	3.09	8.73	2.39	5.81	0.80
2004 SCA	915.0	3.09	8.11	2.16	7.35	0.72
2000 STM	889.1	3.13	7.87	2.28	8.56	0.84
2004 SAL	822.4	3.29	7.58	2.79	7.50	0.85
2003 ALN	915.3	3.30	7.84	2.31	10.08	0.96
2001 AKR	787.3	3.44	7.48	2.51	8.00	1.03

The numbers above represent only the MLB numbers of the top four starters in each team's rotation. As you can see, the current Allentown rotation owns the second-best ERA of any pitching staff in BDBL history, as well as the lowest walk rate. Due to the fact that their #4 starter (Hernandez) pitched only 84 MLB innings, the Ridgebacks rank last among these teams in innings-- though that won't be much of a factor come November.

When you consider that the Ridgebacks have owned the top three starting rotations in BDBL history, and four of the top twelve, it's no wonder they've won two BDBL championships. With Santana, they could be well on their way to winning number three.

In pre-season league-wide polling, the Salem Cowtippers received zero out of ten votes to win the Butler Division (the only team in the division to receive zero votes.) And in the first Power Ranking of the year, Salem appeared at the very bottom of the list, ranked #24 out of 24 teams with a predicted record of 57-103, along with the following observation:

Yet here we are, one-third of the way into the season, and the legendary Cowtippers of Salem are sitting with a record of 28-28, just two games out of the wild card lead. How did this happen?

Well, for starters, while most people were concentrating solely on Salems' lackluster platoon combos at shortstop (Nick Punto and Yuniesky Betancourt) and catcher (Chad Moeller and Pat Borders), the rest of the offense was all but forgotten. The top five hitters in the Salem lineup (Luis Castillo, a Corey Koskie/Vinny Castilla platoon, Lance Berkman, Mark Teixeira and Magglio Ordonez) formed a strong core, and the Salem lineup featured an above-average hitter at every position aside from catcher and shortstop.

Also largely ignored was Salem's starting rotation, which featured four starters (Randy Johnson, Kevin Millwood, Greg Maddux and Bruce Chen) with 190+ innings and CERA's under 4.15. No other team in the Butler Division could make the same claim. In fact, there is only one other team in the entire BDBL (Akron) with four starting pitchers of equal ability.

Because the Cowtippers concentrated heavily toward players with future value in the draft, it only added to the perception that they had thrown in the towel on the 2006 season. However, when it became apparent that rebuilding would be difficult given the players they were offering as trade bait, the team's focus shifted to the present, and those two holes at shortstop and catcher were filled through trade with Rich Aurilia and Mike Piazza. Another hole in the bullpen was fortified with Scott Shields, Russ Springer and Mike DeJean. And before anyone knew it, the Cowtippers had become a force to be reckoned with.

Heading into the season, the Sea Cats just didn't look all that threatening on paper. Sure, Kenny Rogers and Gustavo Chacin are good pitchers, but neither one is a candidate to win the Cy Young award. Matt Clement, Kirk Saarloos and Kameron Loe filling out the back of the rotation? Bleh.

Their bullpen was decent, with Tom Gordon and Juan "Roids" Rincon forming a nice one-two punch, and the lineup featured two burly power hitters in Andruw Jones and Gary Sheffield. But really, there wasn't much here to get excited about.

The Sea Cats are currently sporting a record of 34-22, and are tied for first place (with the Southern Cal Slyme) atop the Person Division. They have outscored their opponents by 73 runs this season, which is the highest margin of any team in the league. Sea Cats pitchers rank #1 in the BDBL with a 3.41 ERA. And Sea Cats hitters are batting a respectable .273/.347/.453 as a team, and have scored 285 runs this season (6th-best in the EL.)

South Carolina owes a great deal of its success to the performances of their pitchers in Chapter One. I don't know if this is a BDBL record, but it should be:

Kenny Rogers was the Pitcher of the Chapter, with a record of 6-0 and an ERA of 1.42. Tom Gordon posted a 0.67 ERA in 13+ innings. Scott Baker, Andy Sisco, Solomon Torres and Kameron Loe combined for a 2.02 ERA in 62+ innings combined.

After surging to the top of the standings, and maintaining that position this past chapter with a 16-12 record, Sea Cats GM Tony DeCastro figured this team is for real. So he pulled out all the stops and unloaded several top prospects to boost his rotation with Andy Pettitte and Kevin Millwood. The result is a #7 ranking in that table above, showing the top starting rotations in league history.

In 2002, the Akron Ryche and Cleveland Rocks engaged in an exciting year-long battle to capture the Hrbek Division title. That is, it was as exciting as any battle could be between two teams that finished with 157 wins combined. With the Chicago Black Sox and Atlanta Fire Ants bowing out of the race early in the year, the division was seemingly being fought by the only two teams remaining that seemed to care enough to fight (and even that was debatable.) In the end, the Ryche came out on top, capturing the division during the final week of the season with a record of just 81-79.

Fast-forward four years and history seems to be repeating itself. The Black Sox have already laid down their arms and surrendered the division battle quicker than the French surrendered to the Germans in WWII. After a one-year reprieve, the Atlanta Fire Ants find themselves back in last place, where they have resided for five out of the past six seasons. All of which means the division is now back up for grabs between the division's two Ohio-based teams.

Currently, the Ryche lead the division by four games, with a record just two games above .500 (29-27.) Cleveland is next, at 25-31, followed by Atlanta (24-32) and Chicago (22-34.) Of the four teams in the division, the Ryche and Rocks are the only two teams that have outscored their opponents this season. The Fire Ants have been outscored by a whopping total of 68 runs. And the Black Sox? A league-worst 88 runs.

So far, neither team has gone out of its way to bolster its roster for the stretch run. Back in 2002, the Ryche stood pat all season long, while the Rocks traded several young players for immediate impact. Will history repeat itself? Or will the Rocks finally make it to the post-season for the first time in franchise history?

In 2001, the Marlboro Hammerheads selected a 20-year-old pitcher named Carlos Zambrano in the third round of the farm draft. Little did anyone know at the time that a game of "Hot Potato" had just begun:

2002: Marlboro traded Zambrano to Chicago for Mike Trombley.
2004: Chicago traded Zambrano (plus two others) to Marlboro for Ben Sheets (plus two others.)
2005: Marlboro traded Zambrano (plus others) to Chicago for Sheets (plus others.)
2005: Because that trade was announced one minute too late, both teams decided to back out of the deal, rather than wait another chapter.
2006: Marlboro traded Zambrano (plus others) to Chicago for Sheets (plus others.)

This latest Zambrano trade between Marlboro and Chicago also brought Manny Ramirez to the Hammerheads. As a result, Marlboro posted the best record (22-6) in the BDBL in Chapter Two, and now lead the Benes Division by a comfortable eight-game margin.

The Hammerheads' 36-20 record trails the Corona Confederates by just one game, but don't think that GM Ken Kaminski will just sit back and enjoy the ride. The last time the Hammerheads made it to the post-season, they carried a comfortable lead into the all-star break. But they then traded several of their top players, including Sammy Sosa, Steve Finley and Roy Halladay. And in the end, they narrowly won the division in the final week of the season.

It's been another rough year for poor Brian Potrafka. The numbers speak for themselves:

Hitter	MLB OPS	BDBL OPS	Diff
Dunn	927	660	-267
Franco	799	612	-187
Lawton	752	605	-147
Taguchi	734	515	-219
Werth	712	587	-125
Pitcher	MLB ERA	BDBL ERA	Diff
B.Kim	4.86	6.79	+1.93
Moyer	4.28	7.76	+3.48
Penny	3.90	5.19	+1.29
Od. Perez	4.56	5.94	+1.38

There's not much more to add, is there? Hopefully, this is just one of those wacky, early-season, small-sample anomaly type things. If it continues much longer, I fear for anyone living within a 100-mile radius of Potrafka.

The Stories of the Year (So Far)