His manifesto includes sections on “Why Have a League at all?”, “What makes a League Successful?” and “What are the Fundamental Components of a Draft League?”.

A definite read for those thinking of starting a league or even those of us who are in an existing league. 

Right now, we have just three minor changes to the current APBA boards:

1) The Pitchers Hitting Card for pitchers with less than 10 at bats 

2) a 2B-9 and SS-10 don’t make an error with the bases empty

3) no rainouts.

To be sure, it’s a lot easier.    No extra rules to remember. 

But here’s the rub… some managers in our league are discontented with the way the boards handle baserunning.  See in the past, before the changes, our league allowed managers to coach baserunning and stealing separately.  You could coach a runner to not steal but let him fly like the wind on hits.  This sounds a bit like having your cake and eating it too but they do have a legitimate gripe.  More than one manager has invoked the time honored saying, “You just don’t make the first or third out at third base”. 

I, for one don’t like it when my runner gets caught stealing third especially when it’s my number one hitter, Jose Tabata on second and it’s Ryan Zimmerman whose at bat.  I could base coach Tabata but that would take away Zim’s juicy rbi hits.

This whole issue goes back to the accuracy vs realism dichotomy.  Is it realistic that Tabata would try to steal third with two outs?  Maybe not.  But it is probably more accurate in terms of numbers of caught steals in the context of the full season.

This much is for sure.  It is neither realistic nor accurate with our former method of coaching on hits and stealing separately.  Let’s face it, we never let our runners steal (outside of the 11s and 10s, of course) unless we had runners on first and second or a runner on second with a batter with a 22 on his card.  Talk about “playing the boards”.  We rarely had a runner caught in a steal unless it was during a hit and run play. 

One of our managers put it this way.  Playing it safe with the current APBA boards means that since the runner can’t get a good lead off the base.  That being the case, he’s not going to be able to take the extra base. 

To end, I will say this, there is one manager in our league who will base coach a non-Slow runner when there is a batter up with a 39 on his card.  Is he over cautious?  Or just a prudent manager?  Before you answer, he’s won more championships than anyone in our league. 

I’ll have to hand it to APBA.  They make the results on the Baseball boards crystal clear.  Rarely is there a board result which causes confusion.  It’s pretty much spelled out.  Sure you’ll see postings on the Between the Lines forum asking for clarification on this or that but mostly it’s a case of getting comfortable with the game and getting used how APBA spells out the play result. 

Occasionally though, there is that rare situation where even us seasoned veterans of APBA will get stumped.  A base situation with a rare number that doesn’t come along very often and the result can be read a couple different ways. 

We had something like that happen come up at our last league weekend.  One of those situations that makes us wonder, “Why hasn’t this come up before?” 

The Situation

Playing basic game with advanced rules.  Runners on first and third with less than two outs.  The runner on first is slow so manager is coaching him.  The defensive team has Fielding 2 overall. 

Manager rolls and the card result is 37 which is:

runner on 1st out stealing second; A-C PO-2B, other scores; *no score

The Decision

Now if you read the boards as is, the runner on third scores and the runner on first holds (because he was base-coached).  But we all know that was not the intention of the result.  This was a double steal gone wrong.

In the rare cases when we have a friendly dispute or just need a clarification AND have the luxury of having the rest of league in the same room, there’s a simple process.  We bring it to our fearless, Mike who is our commissioner for life.  And in most cases, he resolves the case quickly with a ruling. 

In this case however, Mike was the offensive manager so we brought it to our vice-commissioner, Rob for the final call.  In reality, it ends up being a 10-person discussion with everyone getting their say.  But again, Rob got the final call. 

It wasn’t hard to make actually,  The intent of the result was a double steal and coaching the runner negated both steals not just the slow runner’s.  It’s called as a strike and no runner scores.   

Again, there’s not a need for this on-the-fly judgment calls very often.  As complicated as the game of baseball is, APBA does a good job dotting their ‘i’s and crossing their ‘t’s.  But every so often, we get a little bit of this excitement at our league weekends that make them that much more fun. 

“Bad dice. That’s what it is. Bad dice. I can’t roll a 66 to save my life.”

These are typical comments we hear at every APBA get together.  When we’re down, we blame bad luck on our dice or perhaps lucky dice for our opponent.

The logical side of me has a hard time believing this.  I can accept that for a certain time period (a six game series for example) a manager may roll numbers that are favorable on a better than average probability but luck is a concept I don’t “roll” with.

Let’s get down to basics here. The APBA Basic Game (and Master Game) uses two dice which are six sided cubes.  Assuming they are not weighted, the chances of each side landing face up are 1 in 6.  The chances of a particular combination (say, a red ‘1’ and a white ‘6’) are one in 36 hence the thirty-six results on an APBA card.  Again, not rocket science but good to get to the basics.

In a typical APBA baseball game, we roll maybe 40 times maybe more.  That’s a pretty small sample size.  Over one of our league’s weekends, we’ll play 24-30 games.  Yes, it’s true some teams may hit a ‘hot’ streak but that’s a more credible sample size to draw from. 

But take a 162 game season’s worth of dice rolls and I think that the ‘good’ rolls and the ‘bad’ rolls are going to even out.  If not. take that man’s dice away.  Yet, I still hear claims of some managers perpetually having ‘lucky dice’.  When I advance my idea that the dice rolls do even out, I’m rebuffed by some. 

The claim?  They get their ‘good’ rolls when they really count. 

I don’t buy it. 

Perhaps it’s just a philosophical difference where there is no answer.  Or maybe we’re just arguing semantics.  A mathematical anomaly on my part is just plain ‘luck’ for someone else. 

The question is:  do some benefit from these ‘mathematical anomalies’ more than others? 

I open it up to you.  Do you believe in luck (good or bad) in APBA?

One of the trades I made in my league last week was a first.  It was made over Facebook.

It’s interesting to list all the different methods and mediums used to facilitate an APBA trade.  Here are all the ones, I can boast:

Phone

The preferred method for years before the electronic age.  In the days before cell phone plans, long distance bills were atrocious this time of year especially when haggling over that last player in a six player deal.

Postal mail

Yes, I can remember getting trade offers in the mailbox.  Today, I can’t even fathom the idea.

Email

When email came around, it was boon for managers in leagues.  Talking trade was so much easier and cheaper.  But beware!  Sometimes that inferred inflection doesn’t always communicate via text.

Texting

I actually made a deal via text a year or two ago.  I’d have to say that’s only for a certain breed of people.

Facebook

and now Facebook.  I honestly don’t know why we didn’t just do it over email.  Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t need to know what my team’s needs are.

Oh yeah, I forgot one.  In person.  Do we still do that anymore?

Trade #1

I trade Casey McGehee and Mike Cameron to the Moline Upperdeckers for John Buck and Rafael Perez.

and Trade #2… well, I can’t tell you about Trade #2.  I’ve been asked by the manager in this trade if I could keep it under wraps till after the postseason this weekend.

Ok, I’m adding #11 in my Top 10 Tips for trading in an APBA League.  “Don’t insist on keeping your trades a secret after they’re made”.  Announcing your trade gives it a sense of legitimacy.  Keeping it secret makes you wonder if you wonder if it’s a done deal or not.  It also makes it difficult to make further trades.

But back to Trade #1.  Let’s look at the card numbers real quick:

I’d like to break this deal down and show what made it feasible and attractive to both managers. I’ll show facets of the deal that aren’t necessarily visible just by looking at who got what.  Some may even say I’m trying to justify the trade (maybe they’re right).

Key Player…

No doubt, Casey McGehee was the key player in the deal.  He’s young and has plenty of potential.  It doesn’t hurt that he can hit NOW and can play pretty much every day.

Some background on McGehee, he was a surprise pick by me in last year’s draft.  I didn’t need a thirdbaseman.  My thought?  He could be valuable trade bait in the future (ta-da!).

…but not a Key Player for me

All that said about Casey McGehee (all true, I do like the guy even though he started out 0 for 20 for me last year), I had to face the fact that he didn’t have a spot on my team with Ryan Zimmerman already manning the hot corner.  The most time he’d put in would be playing those games that Zim had to rest.  He’d be relegated to pinch-hitting for the rest of the year.

I knew if I could get something of value for him this off-season, I should do it.

Covering Needs

With my long time catcher, Jason Varitek, retiring from the IAL, I needed help behind the plate.  With Johnny Buck available, he filled a need.  With Buck on board, I won’t need to spend a draft pick on a catcher (no more dreams of Buster Posey).

It doesn’t hurt that Buck had a career year and his card is pretty tasty.

The Enticement

Mike Cameron has lost a step or two.  He’s an OF-2 this year.  But the biggest numbers to look at with Cameron are his playing time (48 games and 162 AB).  I wasn’t willing to part with McGehee for Buck one-for-one and I needed pitching.  After much back-and-forth, the Upperdecker manager agreed to throw in Perez, a B reliever for Cameron.  I don’t know about your particular league but in the IAL, a B* is always in demand.  I dumped a non-player and got back a pitcher who will put in all of his quality innings.

A few notes

The McGehee-Buck part of the deal was in the works for a good month.  It took us that long to agree on the incidentals.  The deal went through many iterations before we finally arrived at something we were happy with.

No doubt, the Upperdeckers came away with the best player and five years down the road, that player will probably be the only one still playing in the league.  Perhaps that is the best gauge of a long term deal.  Unless, if you consider that I’ve freed up one rookie draft pick (or maybe two since I would probably would have to otherwise draft bullpen with only two graded relievers on my team).

Now I’ll just have to learn how to draft well.

But that doesn’t mean we’re not busy.  Oh no.  There is, of course, the usual trade talk between all the managers.   Besides that though, this is the time to present proposals to be voted on during the annual league meeting.  Our annual league meeting takes place about ten minutes before our rookie draft (our draft weekend is fast approaching on March 12th-13th).

Our commissioner wisely made an executive rule regarding league proposals.  All league proposals must be proposed PRIOR to the league weekend.  I believe this rule came about from frustration of managers formulating half-baked proposals on the fly and flinging them out during the league meeting.  I’ll give Mike, our commissioner, credit.  He holds to that rule.  “Hmm, that sounds like might work”, he say, “bring it up next year.”  Mike can be such a lovable hardass.

I’ll tell you a secret… I love our league meetings.  And I think I’m the only one.  Everyone else in the IAL dreads them.  Maybe it’s the sense of order or maybe it’s simply that for once in the year, all ten of us sitting at the same table trying to make decisions that affect our league.

Our constitution speaks to how amendments are enacted in two entries:

1) Amendments may be made before the start of a season by a majority vote.

2) Rules on player usage shall go into effect for the following season by a majority vote. For a player usage rule to go into effect for the current year, a 75% margin must be achieved in a subsequent vote.

“Rules on Player Usage” would be any rule that changes how a team uses its players (i.e limits rules, rules such as the DH, roster changes etc).  Rule #2 is put into place so that managers would have a year to reshape their team if necessary, to accommodate the new rule.  If there was overwhelming support for the player usage proposal for the current year, the 75% margin allowance is there.

Our league is becoming more and more “hands-off” when it comes to the game.  The prevailing thought is “Vote No” when it comes to any new modifications.  But that doesn’t mean we won’t have plenty of proposals to discuss.  We already have a couple on the table.

Personally, I don’t mind.

I lamented this to wife (yes, on occasion she will listen to me talk about APBA).  She said, “Don’t you wish you just had the higher pick instead?”  I don’t think she was insinuating that I intentionally lose on purpose to get the higher pick.  Rather, would I have felt better coming out of the weekend with a losing record (and therefore most likely a higher pick) knowing I had no chance for a playoff bid anyway? 

The answer, of course is absolutely not.

The higher pick is the silver lining on the dark cloud.  It’s the light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m not a ultra-competitive guy but winning is too much fun and it’s why we play the game of baseball AND the game of APBA and we all know that.  To not to try is not fair to our competitors.  Unfortunately, we all hear stories of teams from other (most likely newer) leagues and how they perhaps slack off a bit once they are out out of the playoff race.  It takes a league with a solid core of members who are dedicated to the well being of the organization to not let that happen. 

Earlier in our league’s history, we had a draft structure implemented so that the highest ranking non-playoff team would have the first pick, the next highest would have the second and so on.  After the last place team (who would have the 4th pick), the last place playoff team would get the next pick and it would go on up to the first place team.

This particular system is probably ideal for newer leagues and leagues with “issues” (I’m being diplomatic here).  The advantage of this system is teams that are out of playoff races are still fighting to get that high draft pick and aren’t slacking off because that B starting pitcher in the draft sure looks good right now.  Note: it also works better for leagues who allow a liberal amount of teams into the playoff pool.

For our league, we grew out of that system.  It certainly has it’s disadvantages.  If you have a last place team that genuinely needs help and they don’t get that first pick they desperately need year after year, you’ll get a frustrated manager.  We eventually went to the last-to-first after much discussion.  And it’s worked pretty well for us. 

So win I must.  I’ll end up with the fourth or so pick and be happy with it.  Maybe next year, I can coax my team start their winning ways a little earlier in the season. 

For the managers in our (ten-team keeper) league, it’s a last ditch effort to maybe get one more rookie pick for the upcoming 2011 draft.  Let me explain…

In the past (way way back), when APBA didn’t publish as many cards per team, our league had a simple rule.  If a player on your team didn’t get a card, he was eligible to be dropped in lieu of a rookie draft pick (if there a chance that he might come back and he was GOOD enough, you could keep him uncarded on your roster but that’s another topic).  It was a simple as that.

But APBA expanded the teams to 30 players total, 20 regular plus 10 XB.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great thing.  For solitaire players, that allowed them to replay seasons at more accurate level.  But it meant players with 30 at-bats were getting XB cards when they hadn’t before and our league teams weren’t able to cover their positions. 

So we went to strict playing limits to determine if a player was eligible to be dropped.  Specifically, here are our rules:

125 or more at bats constitutes an eligible card for position players.

21 or more games or 50 or more innings constitutes an eligible card for pitchers.

So, for example Jason Varitek, who got 123 at-bats for Boston this year (and plays for my Twin Cities Thunderchickens) would be eligible to be dropped in favor of a rookie draft pick for the 2011 draft despite the fact APBA gave him a card. 

I personally like the new rule (it’s not really new… we’ve had it place for a while).  It’s cut and dry.  Also, the eligibility is based on actual player usage not based on APBA or anyone else.  One further reason our league likes this rule is that we know at the end of the MLB how many picks our teams have.  We don’t have to wait for APBA to ship the cards or post the carded roster. 

But as I said at the beginning, there is one more hope for an extra pick (or two).  There will be an occasional player who exceeds our eligible player limits but yet still doesn’t get a card even an XB card.  It’s very rare but it does happen.  It’s noted that it’s more likely that a player who was traded late in the season (and perhaps didn’t have the impact otherwise) would be left off.

This year, only player in our ten-team league fell into this category.  Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Johnson pitched 26 games and his manager would have had to keep him for the year had APBA decided to give him a card.  But APBA gave his manager in our league a gift and didn’t give a card.  One more draft pick for him!

He asks:

How do you guys feel about owners trying to pull a fast one and dump guys right after they get hurt and when the ink announcing their imminent DL stint is still wet?

The jist of Ambrosino’s is this:  how ethical or acceptable is it for a manager to make a lopsided trade with the knowledge of inside information such as an injury that hasn’t gotten to the big news outlets yet.  In today’s world of news feeds, Twitter, smartphones etc., it’s hard not to stay up-to-date but it can happen. In those cases, is there such a thing as an unethical trade?  Or is it every man(ager) for himself?

In short, is ok for a guy to pull a fast one to help his team, bridges be damned?

I guess this issue rarely comes up in some APBA leagues and probably comes up more often in others.  Our league (the Illowa APBA League) has been together for over 35 years now but more to the point, we rarely have turnover.  We’ve had two new managers in the last ten years.  I think it’s accurate to say that our league in it as much for the social aspect as much (or more so) than the game itself.  While we all want to get the most out of our transactions, we’re not ready to swindle our buddies.

Now, that may be true in every  league.  Newer leagues, larger leagues, maybe leagues that are geographically are farther apart.  And frankly, leagues with more “win or die” dynamics.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily judging this different way of looking at the ethics of trading.  It’s not the league’s responsibility for looking out for your team.  If you lose out because the relief pitcher you got in a trade was about to go on the DL and you didn’t know about it, it’s your loss. 

But it’s not how I do business either.

Another issue to be considered, what is the role of the APBA league commissioner should a potential lopsided trade be made?  Do they have the power to veto trade if they deem it not in the best interests of the league?  Perhaps one good reason??  A newbie manager in the league who’s getting his feet wet. 

Finally, a quick anecdote: 

In the IAL, we’ve never had an incident of swindling that I know of but it’s come close.  One manager traded Jim Edmonds to another just before our season was going to start.  This was a blockbuster deal so you know it was back when Diamond Jim was GOOD.  After our our day was done, we went down to the hotel bar to down a few and watch sports on TV bar.  That was ESPN News told us that Edmonds had just been injured. 

BUT.. the trading manager had no idea of Edmonds’ injury and if I recall correctly, he recovered enoguh to give his new manager a few good years at the plate. 

Still a good story…

I’d love to hear your comments.