22
April

Call for your league’s innovations and tools

Devoted reader Steve Stein writes in an email:

 

“How about a post on cool tools your APBA league has devised?”

 

I think partially this is Steve’s nice way of saying “Tom, get off your butt and update the blog, wouldya?”.  And that’s a fair point, I’ve been so involved with covering the University of Illinois baseball team the APBA Blog has been put aside temporarily.  My bad. 

But Steve has a good idea.  What good tools or dedicated systems has your league devised to make stat-keeping, schedule-making,or any part of running a league easier or more effective?

Steve goes on with some of the innovations that his Transcontinental Baseball League have implemented.  But instead of springing them on you now, I’d like to include as part of a larger and more detailed article with more input from other leagues. 

So this is a call to those of you in leagues.  Please share your league’s innovations and tools that make your commissioner’s and stat-keeper’s and webmaster’s lives easer. 

Just email them to tbz@apbablog.com

thanks!

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22
April

Roberto Clemente Memorial League changing addresses

home21 John Briggs emails me to let us know that the Roberto Clemente Memorial Baseball Association has changed web addresses.  You can now find them at http://www.rcmba.com/.

If any other leagues change addresses, feel free to let me know.  Also, if you want to tell us about your league, just fill out the quick and easy form. 

Here is our League Directory so far. One of my goals is to put them into a table format. 

-tbz

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11
April

Matt Kading draft update plus drafting time limits… do you have them?

Ricky Moore of The Matt Kading Memorial APBA League checks in and gives us a report on their league’s 2010 draft:

 

Tampico went into Saturday’s 2010 Matt Kading Memorial APBA League draft needing to add depth, especially in the field. Stogies General Manager Ricky Moore was pleased with his 10 selections, but still unhappy with his draft tactics.
“I out thought myself several times,” he said. “At times I didn’t have a grasp of where a particular player would go. Though, overall I’m please.”
Moore said just one of the 10 players the Stogies selected wasn’t on his original list.
After trading away the top pick in the draft for starting pitcher Chris Carpenter, the Stogies got back into the first round with a pre-draft trade.
With the ninth overall pick Tampico selected catcher Buster Posey.
“All the talk had been about Posey going earlier,” Moore said. “I was pleasantly surprised he was there. Posey was hard to pass up with the ninth pick.”
Tampico’s second selection was outfielder/first baseman Kyle Blanks. The Stogies had Blanks targeted with their first pick but were able to get him with their second pick.
With two big hitters on-board, Tampico went after picked up depth, a heavy hitter, a veteran pitcher, a reliever and two prospects.
The depth came in the form of utility players Jayson Nix (39th pick), Ronny Cedeno (98th pick) and Wilson Betemit (99th pick). Second baseman/first baseman Rusty Ryal (86th pick) should provide power.
Jeff Weaver (74th pick) could be a veteran influence for the pitching staff, as both a starter and reliever. Jesse Chavez (81st pick) will add bullpen depth.
The Stogies are hoping they hit it big with their prospect picks, outfielder Matt Colvin (75th pick) and reliever Donnie Veal.
“Overall I’m happy with the way things went,” Moore said. “I love the draft and I love trading around. But, I can still think of four times that things didn’t go right. But I still think we have a great squad that people are going to enjoy seeing play.”
Moore also mentioned additional deals could be made in necessary before the season opens on April 1. Varied due to pre-draft trades.

 

Here are their first 5 picks:

 

ROUND 1  
1 Indy Colts Lilly, Ted SP CHC
2 Indy Colts Hanson, Tommy P ATL
3 West Lake Loggers Pujols, Albert 1B STL
4 Rock River Catfish McCutchen, Andrew CF PIT
5 West Lake Loggers Zito, Barry SP SF 6 min 18 sec
6 Pompano Sugar Kings Bumgarner, Madison SP SF 5 min 6 sec
7 Meddybemps Lakers Pineiro, Joel SP ANA 2 min 46 sec
8 New York Knights Oswalt, Roy SP HOU 51 sec
9 Tampico Stogies Posey, Buster C SF 4 min 50 sec
10 New York Knights Wells, Randy SP CHC 34 sec
11 Ontario River Kings Latos, Mat SP SD 55 sec
12 East Saint Flyers McGehee, Casey 3B MIL 5 min 31 sec
13 Dyersville Spirits Lee, Carlos N. LF HOU 8 sec
14 South Florida Chupacab= ras Kawakami, Kenshin SP ATL 2 min 19 sec
15 Ontario River Kings Rasmus, Colby CF STL 3 min 43 sec
16 North Coast Clippers Kouzmanoff, Kevin 3B OAK

 

You can see the Matt Kading League’s full draft here.  Thanks to Ricky for sharing MKMAL’s draft results.

For the table above, I was going to clip out the drafting times but on second thought, I thought maybe they were a little interesting.  So I left them in. 

It’s not in my league’s constitution but the Illowa APBA League implements a time limit for picking in the draft.  We have 5 minutes for draft picks in the first round and 3 minutes thereafter.  If a manager doesn’t have anyone chosen by then, the turn passes to the next person.  The manager who passed then can choose when they are ready. 

I’ve found that in my experience, if my time is running out (yes, it does happen), it’s better to pass to the next manager than to make a hasty pick.  If I really wasn’t sure who I was going to pick, chances are the next manager isn’t going to take anyone who I really wanted anyway.

Usually, the first round goes pretty fast anyway.  we all pretty much know who we want.  I can see in many cases that was true for The Matt Kading League too (Carlos Lee in 8 seconds, FTW!).

Let us know if you have any kind of drafting time limits, whether you do your drafts in person or over email/chat. 

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