2
January

Positional rankings by Rotoprofessor

In time for the new year, Rotoprofessor has just come out with their 2010 MLB rankings by position. 

I believe I directed you their rankings last year.  When it comes to trading and drafting within our leagues, I find rankings helpful. and I think they do as good of a job as any.  As I said last year, these rankings are geared towards roto leagues but for the most part, we can glean some valuable info from them.

You can start with Rotoprofessor’s Who Should Be The Third Overall Pick In 2010?, an overall look at both leagues.  They are making a slightly glib assumption that Pujols and Hanley Ramirez would be going 1-2.  Personally, I’m glad have I have ONE of those players (and his initials are A.P.).

Here are the positional rankings by Rotoprofessor:

I chose Geovany Soto with the very first pick in our league’s rookie draft last year with the hope that he would solve our longstanding woes behind the plate.  Unfortunately, he let me down in 2009.  I’m glad I had a backup in Jason Varitek such that he is. 

I’m heartened to read in Rotoprofessor’s catcher rankings that despite his sub-par 2009, they haven’t quite given up on him yet.  They rank him #9 but don’t write him off either.

 

Despite his 2009 struggles, Geovany Soto still has to be viewed as a solid option in all formats.

 

Not exactly glowing words but I have hope.

2 comments

30
December

A look at Schedule Generator v 1.0.8

The APBA Blog gets an email regarding replay schedules:

 

Dear APBA Blog,
                      I have been playing APBA Baseball since I was probably 7 years old. My dad passed it along to me and I have never grown bored or tired of the basic game and love just tossing the dice. I like to play my teams from blind drafts and have had as many 12 teams in a league. The problem I face is that every time I want to add teams I can never get my schedule right. Is there a website that I can go to or can you guys pass along schedules via email?
                 Just curious,

Shawn

 

I’m assuming Shawn is talking about creating schedules that somewhat reflect MLB’s style but with the number of teams that the APBA replayer has chosen to use for his replay.  A tricky endeavor in cases indeed.  I’ve had this problem in the past myself.

One solution out there (which sadly was not available when I needed it) is a freely downloadable program aptly called Schedule Generator.  It’s in version 1.0.8 right now. 

I’ve never used it for a replay myself but I did just download it and gave it a couple schedule tests to see how it works.  After a few tests, it seems to work fine with a few minor bugs which have workarounds. 

 

schgen

 

The Schedule Generator allows up to 40 teams, two leagues with three divisions.  You can choose the amount of games, a balanced or unbalanced schedule and interleague play and even insert an All-Star break. 

SG outputs into a neat text file which can also be imported into Excel for further manipulation and editing (the program seems to be geared towards those who play Out of the Park, a text-based simulation baseball game as it generates a data file for the game as well). 

I did get an I/O error at times but deleting the existing schedule file from before fixed that. 

You can download the Schedule Generator from Cnet’s download site for free.

This may or may not work for Shawn.  Twelve teams in a league might be tricky but if he puts them in two divisions and chooses “Balanced”, it might work. 

There are more schedule programs out there and probably other ways to generate schedules.  If you know of any or have solutions that work for you, please let us know. 

1 comment

24
December

APBA card sets available for NCAA baseball

ncaaapba

Hallelujah! Just in time for Christmas, Steve Guthrie has once again come out with APBA cards for the NCAA.  Above you see secondbaseman Josh Parr who plays for my beloved Illini.

You can go to Steve’s web site to download the cards in excel file format.  Once downloaded, you can print them out to use.

 

Thanks Steve for putting in the work to make this possible.  Personally, I’m a huge college fan and this is a treat.

3 comments

15
November

Tips on trading

Advanced Fantasy Baseball has “Ten Fantasy Baseball Trade Secrets”.  It was posted last May and admittedly is geared toward fantasy baseball not APBA.  However, most of the tips still apply. 

Like #9:

 

Concern yourself with the end result more than the price. You may think giving up a certain keeper for a collection of players you would never keep is madness. However, if that collection of players would guarantee you a championship it would be a very small price to pay.

 

This one is a big one that a lot of us in my league seem to face.  Ok sure, in a vacuum, the shortstop you’re letting go is more valuable than the outfielder you’re getting.  But you already have three shortstops and are desperate for outfield help.  Getting that extra outfielder will save you from picking one in the draft and essentially free that pick up to use for something else. 

Maybe for a young prospect.

1 comment

29
October

Rose selling the APBA Journal

Francis Rose is selling the APBA Journal. 

Citing lack of time to devote to it, entrepreneur Francis Rose is attempting to unload the periodical dedicated the game of APBA.  AJ, which has been around since I was kid, was a great resource for those who played in leagues as well as solitaire replays. 

 

aj

a 1979 edition of the APBA Journal

 

I credit the APBA Journal for getting me into my current league, the Illowa APBA League.  Back when we didn’t have the Internet, email, or online forums, we had the APBA Journal Directory.  It was an annual directory opt-in list of APBA players that came out in the APBA Journal.  The IAL saw my name and cold-called me.  The person that called me??  Teddy Ballgame. 

That all said, the APBA Journal has pretty much been a shell of its former self recently.  The few times I’ve been to it recently, I didn’t really get much out it.  I missed the days that Eric Naftaly edited it. 

According to Rose, here is what’s available for sale if you want to make a go of bringing the APBA Journal back to its former glory:

 

1) the only known collection of original copies of the AJ – from the very first issue in 1967
2) almost every AJ from 1969 through 1980 in digital format (either JPGs or PDFs)
3) hard copies of all the reference packs sold by the former owner of the AJ
4) unlimited publication rights to all AJ content
5) contact information for customers with a history of purchasing Journal-related products
6) internet domain-name rights for several related web sites

Sound good?  Give a go!

15 comments

17
October

List of 2009 rookies

For those who will be entering draft time sometime soon, here is a list (in pdf form) of the 2009 rookies that our commissioner put together. 

For the players, it includes playing time including games at secondary positions.  For pitchers, it includes playing time as well as W-L record and ERA. 

One warning:  the list does NOT include rookie players under 125 at-bats and pitchers who are both under 21 games and 50 innings (those are our limits in the IAL).

Hope you find it useful.

No comments yet

30
September

APBA pitchers’ grades database. Any interest?

I want to run an idea past everyone and see if there is any interest in it. 

 

1. Would you find it helpful/useful/interesting to have an online database or spreadsheet that had the pitchers’ APBA grades and ratings for every season that the company issued?  Would you use such a site? 

2.  Additionally, if a wiki-style spreadsheet or database were set up so that anyone could edit the spreadsheet and add pitchers and their grades, would that be something you  would take part in helping with?

I’ve had a couple inquires and requests about web pages with pitchers’ grades and to my knowledge, there isn’t one in existence.  I know my friend Chuck from the IAL has expressed interest in the project. 

But before I go ahead with any major project, I want to gauge the interest in the resulting product. 

5 comments

18
September

Central Florida SABR will host two authors

For those in Florida, Rod Caborn wanted to pass this info on:

 

The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)  Central Florida Auker-Seminick Chapter will meet on Saturday October 31 at the Southwest Branch (Dr. Phillips) of the Orlando Library system, 7255 Della Drive. Orlando, 10 a.m-2:30 p.m.

 

Presentations will be make by George Gedda, author of The Dominican Connection and Peter Golenbock, author of the recently published biography of George Steinbrenner,The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire and numerous other baseball books. A Florida baseball trivia quiz will also be conducted.

 

Lunch will be available with a fee of $10 is requested to cover luncheon costs.

 

Contact Rod Caborn, 407-622-1365, rcaborn@mac.com or Dave Larson at tazlarson@aol.com.

No comments yet

23
April

Take part in an APBA League survey

Dave Walker emailed me today about a project he’s taken on.  He’s put up a survey for those involved in APBA leagues.  The best part is that all of us will benefit from its results.
Read more to find out more about it:
 
Tom -
 As a long-time fan of the both the cards and dice game and BBW, I have enjoyed the hobby through solo play, replays, and league play.
 
I am assembling a roster of current APBA leagues. I have opened a survey that asks 30 questions; the answers should fairly well define each league.  I will publish it on certain APBA-related yahoo or Delphi sites, including this blog!
 
I think it will be interesting to see all the variations of leagues that exist.  It may also encourage interested new members who could pick a specific format, or league size, for example.
 
If any of your blog readers are interested in providing information about a league that they run or participate in, I invite them to open the survey and fill it out:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB2293XLKNYUY

In the first five days of the survey, more than thirty leagues have reported in.  I suspect there are at least that many more!  Comments and questions are invited.
 
Thanks for your attention and support!
 
Dave Walker

 

I’d encourage all leagues to fill out Dave’s survey.  From what I hear, he’s already got quite a response. 

1 comment

8
April

Finding another APBA player or league in your area

I get a fair amount of emails because of this blog and I’d have to say he most popular question I get via email is “How do I find someone near me who plays APBA?” or “Is there an APBA League near me?” or something to that effect. 

Basically, it comes down networking.  I remember how I first joined the Illowa APBA League in 1980.  Back then there was no Internet or email.  But we did have the APBA Journal.  And the AJ printed out their APBA Journal Directory once a year.  Should you agree to be part of it, your name, phone number and home location was listed.  That’s how the IAL found me, for better or worse.   

But that was 30+ years ago.  Nowadays, things have changed drastically with forums, blogs, and web sites.

So when I get asked this question, my standard answer is to check out the APBA Between the Lines forum.  It’s very popular and does have a classified section that’s worth a try if you want to find someone in your area.

APBA- Between the Lines does require you to register but it’s free.

Most of this blog’s readers probably already know about APBA BTL but hopefully this post finds someone who needs this kind of information.  Also, if anyone knows of any other good method of APBA networking, post a comment. 

1 comment

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