Well, despite my offers and suggestions, I made it through the Illowa APBA League off season without making a single trade.
More to the point at hand, congratulations to Tedd and his Chicago Champions. On Friday night, they breezed through the playoffs and then swept the Rising Bamm! Beanos to win our World Series.
I looked through our records and was astounded (well, considering it was Tedd, mildly impressed) that this is his eleventh championship in our league history.
Our rookie draft commenced the next day after our annual league meeting which only I seem to enjoy. In all, 43 rookies were chosen. I had the first pick and as you can see from the photo above, I abandoned my idea of David Price and picked starter Tommy Hanson.
I got plenty of photos. The advantage of being the self-appointed photographer is there won’t be any photos of me. Here are some good pictures.
For what it’s worth, we updated our constitution. I honestly don’t know what’s new. We voted on one proposal. The commissioner proposed that our league adopt the DH. Thank goodness, it didn’t pass.
But in summary, fun was has by all. Interesting trades were made, there were strange draft picks.. in short, a normal Illowa convention.
Wieters third? Man, is pitching that scarce?
The big thing with the IAL is that our rosters are 26 man, with no minors. We also have strict limits (actual games and at bats, actual games and innings – D pitchers are doubled). It seems to me that this leads to more usage picks than most leagues. That said, Wieters would have been my #1. Tom, on the other hand, had Soto and very few pitchers. Hanson was my top pitcher.
-Highlanders manager, pretty pleased so far with Andrew McCutchen
I’ll echo what Rob says… because of our league’s format, we base our drafting strategy on a combination of pure talent and what we need to cover our limits.
And yes, I had Soto who had a off year last year but I’m expecting to come back this year in the majors. That said, I made a half-hearted effort to trade him when it was time for my #1 pick. No takers but that was just as well. This is not the time to trade Geovany.
I’m happy with Tommy Hanson for the future and he’ll be nice this year too. He won his first two starts for me.