This week, the APBA Game Company has released the list of players who will receive cards in the upcoming 2016 Baseball card set.
Those players who are bolded are considered “XB” by the Company. While there are no discernable differences in the actual cards, the Company has been making the artificial difference to help some leagues who use this as method to determine player eligibility for each team.
Note, this will be the LAST time the Company will do this. From the official announcement:
“This is the last season we will identify the XB players separately. Please change your league by-laws or use this warning period to develop procedures for your league to identify XBs for future years.”
Fair enough. In the past few years, the APBA Company has worked with leagues to help with the eligibility issue but it is time to move on and adapt to the 30 player team set. The Illowa APBA League has dealt with the issue by expanding our rosters to 30 players each. Now, if a very limited player gets a card, he is still on the league team’s roster. Hopefully, the expanded roster helps with coverage issues. We began this expansion process a few years ago a couple players at a time. So far, it seems to work well.
The biggest question our league has now is “how many players are available to play at one time?” Thirty players for one game was too many. We have tried a bench system where four players are picked to sit out an entire series. In theory, people liked the idea but in practice, it wasn’t working. Some are in favor of a “September call-ups” system where we stick with a 26-man roster but call-up the rest for the homestretch. That would give us the option to expand the rosters even further. For now, that’s a discussion for the future.
Up until now, I had three draft picks for my Twin City Thunderchickens. That is, three players retired or just flat-out didn’t play in 2016. Now that the carded list came out, I can add one more. Pablo Sandoval. That wasn’t a big surprise as “Panda” only batted six times for Boston.
Finally, there is the Kyle Schwarber question. Despite just four at-bats during the regular season, some APBA fans were wondering if he would get a card for the Cubs because of his surprise appearance in the World Series. He did not. Those APBA fans interested solely in replaying a Cubs-Indians World Series will have to create a card for him.
Why not just restrict the rosters to 25 players the same as the majors. You could expand to 30 in September if you wish.
When I am doing a team replay I keep my roster at 25 all the time. I rotate players in and out due to injuries, etc.