The Joey Belle Times

Week 5 Power Rankings

2011-08-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

1. San Diego Surf Babies(71-42)--The Surf Babies have taken over the overall best record in Belle as well as the top spot in the power rankings!
Previously Ranked:6th(+5)

2. New York Necromancers(70-43)--New York has had a hard time scoring runs consistently recently. If they can't get that figured out then they will have a hard time being a true contender for the World Series.
Previously Ranked: 1st(-1)

3. Jacksonville Jinxed(67-46)--The Jinxed have been playing excellent ball as of late and have climbed 6 spots in the power rankings as a result!
Previously Ranked: 9th(+6)

4. Cleveland Katanas(67-46)--Cleveland has been playing excellent baseball as well. That coupled with some poor baseball recently by the Revenge has jumped Cleveland back into a tie atop the AL East. This could be an excellent race to watch.
Previously Ranked: 8th(+4)

5. San Juan Senators(65-48)--The Senators have stayed pretty steady for the most part of this season. They continue to go as far as their excellent pitching staff will take them.
Previously Ranked: 7th(+2)

6. Washington D.C. Revenge(67-46)--The Revenge have fallen on some tough times here recently, but there's no reason to think they won't rebound and make a very nice race for the AL East title.
Previously Ranked: 2nd(-4)

7. Oakland Surenos(67-46)--Oakland has a very good offense leading them atop the NL West. They will have to try and fend off the upstart Scottsdale team who has a very good offense of their own!
Previously Ranked: 3rd(-3)

8. Salem Goonies(66-47)--The Goonies are led by an incredible offense who has to be taken seriously as they march towards the playoffs.
Previously Ranked: 5th(-3)

9. Chicago Free Swingers(65-48)--Chicago has falled on some tough times trying to get their offense going a little more. Hopefully the friendly confines of Wrigley will help when their team is up to bat.
Previously Ranked: 4th(-5)

10. Little Rock Pebbles(63-50)--The Pebbles continue to play very good, steady baseball as they stay atop their division and in the power rankings.
Previously Ranked: 10th(E)

Power Rankings for Week 4

2011-08-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

1. New York Necromancers(59-27)--The Necromancers are led by a dominant pitching staff that has been stellar in the first half of Season 21. They continue to have one of the top defenses in the world as well.
Previously Ranked: 2nd(+1)

2. Washington D.C. Revenge(56-30)--The defending champs keep getting better and better as this season goes on. They have a top 5 offense as well as pitching staff. They will be strong favorites to get back to the World Series at this point.
Previously Ranked: 5th(+3)

3. Oakland Surenos(53-33)--Oakland has been playing some great baseball. They have been one of the hottest teams in Belle led by an awesome offense.
Previously Ranked: 10th(+7)

4. Chicago Free Swingers(51-35)--The Free Swingers continue to hang around in the highly competitive NL North. They have a great fielding team to help support a very good pitching staff.
Previously Ranked: 6th(+2)

5. Salem Goonies(53-33)--The Goonies continue to crush the ball. They easily have the best offense in Belle this season.
Previously Ranked:9th(+4)

6. San Diego Surf Babies(51-35)--The Surf Babies are lead by a great pitching staff as they continue to battle for the AL West division.
Previously Ranked: 4th(-2)

7. San Juan Senators(49-37)--San Juan hit a little bit of a rough patch, but they should get it back together and make a nice run towards the playoffs and division title.
Previously Ranked: 1st(-6)

8. Cleveland Katanas(49-37)--The Katanas have jumped into the Power Rankings for the first time this season. They have been playing solid all-around baseball. They have a top 10 pitching staff with an offense that is quickly playing better and better.
Previously Ranked: NR

9. Jacksonville Jinxed(50-36)--The Jinxed continue to play as well as their pitching and fielding will allow them too. If they can get a better offense going this team will be one to worry about.
Previously Ranked: 7th(-2)

10. Little Rock Pebbles(46-40)--Little Rock is also making their Season 21 debut on the Power Rankings. This team is lead by an awesome offense that has a very capable pitching staff behind it.
Previously Ranked: NR

Dropping out: Columbus Criminals, Syracuse Saltine Warriors

Power Rankings for Week 2!

2011-08-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

1. San Juan Senators(28-17)--The Senators have been playing some great baseball to vault themselves up into the top spot in the Power Rankings. Led by a top 3 offense the Senators have jumped out to a 6 game lead in their division.
Previously Ranked: 8th(+7)

2. New York Necromancers(29-16)--The Necromancers rode a 12 game winning streak at the beginning of week 2 here in Joey Belle, but they have come back down to earth since then playing .500 ball. They are playing in possibly the best division in Joey Belle so they will need to get their bats swinging more consistently if they hope to finally win this division.
Previously Ranked: 1st(-1)

3. Columbus Criminals(28-17)--Columbus is sitting awfully pretty with a 9 game lead in their division already. Obviously the class of the division so far, if they can keep up with their pitching they will run away with the division.
Previously Ranked: 2nd(-1)

4. San Diego Surf Babies(28-17)--The Surf Babies have vaulted themselves past mighty Salem here in the early going. They have a very good pitching staff so far and they will have to continue that if San Diego hopes to topple Salem from the top spot by season's end.
Previously Ranked: NR

5. Washington D.C. Revenge(28-17)--Wasthington continues to stay atop their division this season so far. They have a slim 3 game lead over Scranton. They have a top 5 offense and top 10 pitching staff so far in their bid to try and repeat as World Series Champions!
Previously Ranked: 6th(+1)

6. Chicago Free Swingers(27-18)--Chicago, along with San Juan, have been the hottest team in Joey Belle here in week 2 of the season. That has vaunted them into 2nd place breathing down the necks of New York in the NL North.
Previously Ranked: NR

7. Jacksonville Jinxed(27-18)--The Jinxed are lead by a good pitching staff and an even better defense here in the early going. If they can find a way to score more runs consistently this is a team that will run away with their division if everything stays as it is now.
Previously Ranked: NR

8. Syracuse Saltine Warriors(26-19)--Syracuse is the 3rd team from the NL North in the Power Rankings. They are only 3 games back in this very competitive division. Their offense should start putting numbers a little more consistently which should put everyone in the NL on notice.
Previously Ranked: NR

9. Salem Goonies(26-19)--The Goonies continue to slug the ball better than anyone else in the majors. If this team can get their pitching straightened out some then the rest of the world may not even have a chance.
Previously Ranked: 5th(-4)

10. Oakland Surenos(26-19)--The Surenos are locked in a tie atop the NL West right now. They have been playing very good baseball and should be in contention all season long fighting for their division as well as the wild card race.
Previously Ranked: 9th(-1)

Dropping out: Pawtucket Slater Paws, Ottawa Ice, Scottsdale Valley Vipers, and Scranton Stranglers

Hall of Fame votes

2011-07-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

Thought it might be cool to see how the final HOF votes ended up. Here is the list:
Joe Rivera 23
Juan Romero 16
Luis Piedra 11
Phil Kimura 10
Steven Vaughn 10
Rico Nunez 10
Alex Ramirez 7
Charles Bottalico 4
Pat Yamamoto 4
Lee Brooks 3
Jon Prokopec 3
Willie Magadan 3
Dwight Long 2
Hong-Jin Kobayashi 2
Lawrence Simpson 2
Valerio Santana 1
Martin Clifton 1
Charles Yamamoto 1
Darrell Womack 1
Ben Cortes 1
Al Kingman 1
Kelly Lewis 1
Jim Patterson 1
Harry Rodrigo 1

First Power Rankings for Season 20

2011-07-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for the unveiling of the Power Rankings in the Joey Belle Times? Just to give a little background into how The Joey Belle Times firgures them up. We take the overall record into consideration as well as the expected winning percentage. We also figure in the rank in 3 categories: runs scored, ERA, and fielding percentage. After the initial Power Rankings the number of wins since the last Power Rankings will also be figured in for each team. Without further ado:

1. New York Necromancers(13-7)--The Necromancers started a little slow, but have won 7 out of their last 8 and are getting some very good overall pitching. New York will probably only go as far as their offense carries them though.

2. Columbus Criminals(13-7)--Columbus has started out playing well in every faucet of the game. This team has already jumped out to a 3 game lead in their division.

3. Pawtucket Slater Paws(12-8)--Pawtucket has a suspect offense in the early going, but they haven't needed to do too much as the pitching staff has been phenomenal.

4. Ottawa Ice(12-8)--The Ice have been hitting the ball and scoring runs in bunches. The pitching staff has been solid, but if they can bring it up a notch it will be hard for New York to hold them off.

5. Salem Goonies(15-5)--Going by strictly record this is a shock. The Goonies have absolutely crushed the ball. They have outscored everyone else in the league with 2nd place 14 runs behind them. Conversely, they have some pitching and fielding problems in the early going.

6. Washington D.C. Revenge(12-8)--The reigning World Series Champions' are playing solid baseball. They are in the top 10 in ever faucet of the game.

7. Scottsdale Valley Vipers(13-7)--The Valley Vipers have picked up right where they left off in first place in the NL West. They are powered behind a very good lineup and just enough pitching to get the job done.

8. San Juan Senators(11-9)--The Senators have a decent pitching staff that is made a little better by a very good offense.

9. Oakland Surenos(11-9)--Oakland's record doesn't correctly reflect how this team is playing. They have a solid offense behind a very good pitching staff. If this team continues to play well they will definitely improve in the wins column.

10. Scranton Stranglers(12-8)--The Stranglers have one of the worst pitching staffs in the majors in the early going. However they also have one of the best offenses in Joey Belle. They like to play in some high scoring games.

20 questions with coach34

2011-07-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

1. What should we call you?
Wool or Coach34- I go by Coach34 on a couple of message boards

2. Any hobbies or favorite pastimes besides HBD?
not really these days with having 2 young kids

3. How did you fall into HBD?
somebody posted about it on a message board I frequent and I checked it out- been hooked ever since

4. How many teams do you run? How many hours per week do you pour into your teams?
6 right now, but cutting down to 5 or 4....and I spend 6-7 hours a week

5. Married? Children?
yes and yes. Have 2 with ex-wife, and 2 more with new wife- ages 14, 9, 2, and 4 days

6. City/State you live in? Hometown where you grew up?
Shreveport, La...born and raised in Jackson, Miss

7. Occupation? Do you check in on your teams often during the workday?
On my 3rd career- was a HS football/baseball coach, then surgical sales, now a stay at home dad for the next year

8. Who is your favorite baseball player of all time?
Nolan Ryan

9. What makes you laugh?
people tripping and falling in public, Sam Kinison, Dice Clay, Chris Rock

10. Top 3 all time movies?
Goodfellas
Pulp Fiction
Caddyshack

11. What popular song past/present do you most identify with?
Wherever I May Roam- Metallica (I've moved 11 times in the last 7 years)

12. Real baseball team you grew up loving? Still in love with them?
Cubs because of Harry Carey- not as much because the front office is so damn stupid

13. Tell me 2 things you wish you knew about particular Joey Belle owners?
ages of other owners I guess

14. You're fairly outspoken as a Joey Belle owner. Why?
I'm a loudmouth in real life

15. What is your GM philosophy?
I'm a Steinbrenner- all about winning now- worry about down the road later

16. Any special meaning for your WIS nickname? Your Joey Belle team name?
it's the name I've been called for 20 years- and I wore 34 in college because of Nolan Ryan- Free Swinger pretty much described me as a hitter

17. Who is/was your favorite Joey Belle owner? Why?
Me

18. Which MLB Commissioner do you admire or identify with most? Why?
Kennesaw Mountain Landis- had to come in and clean up cheating and the throwing of games- tough job and had to make some unpopular decisions

19. General pet peeves about the HBD game?
DITR is a waste of time- feel there should be some sort of penalty for losing 100 or more games 2 seasons in a row

20. If I was Joey Belle Commish for a day I would...
keep status quo

20 questions with davidbutler9

2011-07-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

1. What should we call you?
David, db9

2. Any hobbies or favorite pastimes besides HBD?
I love all sports, baseball is probably my favorite sport followed closely by football. I also love playing poker, and spending time with my kids.

3. How did you fall into HBD?
I was online trying to find some baseball sim games and found whatifsports.com and fell in love with HBD.

4. How many teams do you run? How many hours per week do you pour into your teams?
I currently run 5 teams. i probably spend about an hour to an hour a half on each team per week.

5. Married? Children?
I am married with 2 wonderful children. I have an 8 year old son and a 3 year old daughter who thinks that she's the boss.

6. City/State you live in? Hometown where you grew up?
I live in Lafayette, IN which is the home of Purdue University. I grew up just outside of Lafayette, IN

7. Occupation? Do you check in on your teams often during the workday?
I work as a restaurant shift leader and yes i do if we are not too busy.

8. Who is your favorite baseball player of all time?
Ryne Sandberg

9. What makes you laugh?
my children

10. Top 3 all time movies?
Billy Madison
8 Men Out
The Hangover

11. What popular song past/present do you most identify with?
I really don't know if I identify with any songs.

12. Real baseball team you grew up loving? Still in love with them?
Chicago Cubs-I will always love the Cubs no matter how stupid it may be:)

13. Tell me 2 things you wish you knew about particular Joey Belle owners?
I enjoy playing against the other people in Joey Belle. I hope to get to know all of you a little better and that you all like the 20 questions idea, so we can all get to know each other a little better.

14. You're fairly outspoken as a Joey Belle owner. Why?
I am outspoken in real life as well. I have gotten more outspoken here partly because I feel that I should as the commish as well. I normally have an opinion about something, but i think that the great thing about life is that not everyone agrees and that we can all hopefully come to compromises on most things. I think it's important that people feel free to express opinions in a respectful manner.

15. What is your GM philosophy?
pitching and up the middle defense surrounded by very good, quality hitting

16. Any special meaning for your WIS nickname? Your Joey Belle team name?
not at all. i'm not very creative with my nicknames

17. Who is/was your favorite Joey Belle owner? Why?
i'm not sure i have a favorite. i like everyone here.

18. Which MLB Commissioner do you admire or identify with most? Why?
i don't know if i admire him and i certainly don't identify with him but i think that bud selig has done a better job than most people think. he has made a few mistakes, but i think overall the game is in a very good place now.

19. General pet peeves about the HBD game?
i wish that they would tweak the ditr's more. there still isn't much improvement in most of those players and i've still never had a ditr who became a major league player

20. If I was Joey Belle Commish for a day I would...
do whatever blanch13 was doing. he was a great commish

Welcome to Season 20 in Joey Belle!

2011-07-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Season 20 everyone! We have 5 new owners this season! They are slin2678, kbrick, djbradford, dillontt, and bcinsk23. I hope that they all enjoy this great world that we have here! Good luck to everyone this season!

20 Questions With bdrose

2011-04-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

1. What should we call you?

BDR is what I put on video games, when I used to be good enough to get on the high score screen, that is.

2. Any hobbies or favorite pastimes besides HBD?

Fantasy Baseball (sense a theme here?)

3. How did you fall into HBD?

Was also a fan of Strat-O, so heard about a baseball sim called WhatIfSports.

4. How many teams do you run? How many hours per week do you pour into your teams?

2 teams only. check them after every cycle, at least.

5. Married? Children?

Yes, I'm Al Bundy.

6. City/State you live in? Hometown where you grew up?

Westchester, NY. Originally from Montreal, the Great White North.

7. Occupation? Do you check in on your teams often during the workday?

Magazine publisher. Hell yeah I check from work.

8. Tell me 5 things nobody in Belle knows about you.

Went to college with Barack Obama for one year.
Carry in my wallet a picture of a salmon I caught, but not my wife.
I own a fantasy baseball magazine.

9. What makes you laugh?

Pina Coladas, getting caught in the rain, the taste of champagne. Wait a minute, what was the question again?

10. Top 3 all time movies?

Princess Bride, Pulp Fiction, The Empire Strikes Back.

11. What popular song past/present do you most identify with?

Geez, that's too much like a Miss America question. Let's just say R.E.M. is my fave band.

12. Real baseball team you grew up loving? Still in love with them?

Sadly, the now defunct Montreal Expos. Went to hundreds of games growing up, that 1994 strike KILLED us. Tim "Rock" Raines deserves to be in the HOF.

13. Tell me 3 things you wish you knew about particular Belle owners?

What the hell is Crump's secret to success? That's all.

14. You're fairly outspoken as a Belle owner. Why?

Silence is overrated.

15. What is your GM philosophy?

It's more fun trying to win with a smaller budget. Not more likely though, as my record shows.

16. Any special meaning for your WIS nickname? Your Belle team name?

Nope, just flowed, evoking the series.

17. Who is/was your favorite Belle owner? Why?

Our fearless commish, for running a very solid league, with a great blog.

18. Which MLB Commissioner do you admire or identify with most? Why?

Bart Giamatti. Short reign, but had integrity.

19. General pet peeves about the HBD game?

Coach hiring, especially the dearth of Fielding instructors.

20. If I was Belle Commish for a day I would...
abdicate the throne.

20 Questions With toddcommish

2011-04-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

1. What should we call you?

Todd is fine. Commish is fine. MikeT refers to me as "TardCommish".

2. Any hobbies or favorite pastimes besides HBD?

Not really. Before some of the anti-gambling legislation, I was a fairly regular online poker player with occasional dabbling in poker blogging. Now I mostly sit on my couch and yell at my sports teams.

3. How did you fall into HBD?

I'm old school, which means that the Bill Simmons article from years back started me on the dark path of SLB. I dabbled in the Basketball and Hockey sims before being one of the lucky few in the Ruth World (2nd world launched, and now the first world simmed). And as someone once said "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny"

4. How many teams do you run? How many hours per week do you pour intoyour teams?

3 HBD teams. Charter member of all three (Ruth, Moonlight Graham, Joey Belle). And I'll have at least 20 seasons in all three. I spend about an hour a day going over my HBD teams, longer if it's pre-season.

5. Married? Children?

Married for over 20 years to a beautiful SoCal blonde. Two kids; the boy is a senior in high school, entering San Jose State (my alma mater) as a Computer Science major in the fall. Daughter is 15 going on 16, and if any of you dirtbags even look at her, I will have your eyes removed.

6. City/State you live in? Hometown where you grew up?

Pleasanton, CA... between San Jose and Oakland. I grew up in Sunnyvale, CA

7. Occupation? Do you check in on your teams often during the workday?

HR Training Manager, and of course I would never dream of using company resources to check my WIS teams. I'm shocked that you would even ask.

8. Tell me 5 things nobody in Belle knows about you.

I lost on Jeopardy in 1988 (some might know this because I've bragged about it in the past)
I bowled a perfect game... for real. None of that Wii crap.
I'd leave my wife for Paula Creamer
The worst day of my life was when my dog died, worse than when my dad died.
I did a LOT of psilocybin mushrooms in my 20's

9. What makes you laugh?

The misfortunes of others. We all laugh at it, I just admit it.

10. Top 3 all time movies?

Shawshank Redemption, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Good Will Hunting

11. What popular song past/present do you most identify with?

Identify with? That's a toughie. If you want to amend the question to "movie", I'd say "Good Will Hunting". I don't identify with songs.

12. Real baseball team you grew up loving? Still in love with them?

San Francisco Giants. The WORLD FUCKING CHAMPIONS! You bet your ass I still love them!

13. Tell me 3 things you wish you knew about particular Belle owners?

Is rlahann really liberal, or does he just do it to irritate others?
Why would you want to be a commissioner with all these difficult owners?
Why would anyone spend $20 for a season just to tank and try and get the #1 pick and waiver priority in the following year?

14. You're very quiet as a Belle owner. Why don't you speak up more often?

I'd speak up if it was something that I legitimately cared about. This league has been remarkably free of anger and hostility, and I'd like to thank you for that. Besides, my team isn't good enough to chirp about, and isn't bad enough to bitch about. Plus, I don't know enough about most of these guys to really rip into them (like we do in MG)

15. What is your GM philosophy?

I prefer to build through the draft and free agency. I put a LOT of time and effort into the draft. Trades tend to be too much of the "I'll give you Juan Uribe and Julian Tavares for Albert Pujols" types of ridiculousness. The whole trading psyche is based on "I'm gonna take advantage of you"... and tends to frustrate me.

16. Any special meaning for your WIS nickname? Your Belle team name?

Predictably, I set up the ToddCommish name years prior to WIS through Yahoo, and yes, I was the commissioner for a fantasy football league. It was the first thing that came to mind.

I originally had the San Jose Bad News Bees when the world started, but got sick of the extreme ballpark. When given a chance to move, I chose a western conference team with a neutral ballpark, and unimaginatively went alliterative with the team name.

17. Who is your favorite Belle owner? Why?

Screw all you guys. I hate all of you. Until you let me win.

18. Which MLB Commissioner do you admire or identify with most? Why?

You've done a great job with this league. RobTracy originally started this league with an "alleged" five-season commitment. That fell apart roughly a week into the first season, and the league was rudderless for a long time. Now, it seems to be rolling along and has steadily climbed the list of "best leagues."

19. General pet peeves about the HBD game?

No peeves about the game. More peeves against the owners that don't seem to get the game and seem to want to either blow up the team/league, or bitch about the game until admin changes it.

20. If I was Belle Commish for a day I would...
not do a damn thing.

20 Questions With blanch13

2011-04-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

1. What should we call you?

Dan

2. Any hobbies or favorite pastimes besides HBD?

Yeah, hiking and camping for a long time. More recently, dabbling with martial arts and social dancing.

3. How did you fall into HBD?

I did just literally fall into it a couple of years back. I had played Purebaseball a few years back and enjoyed that a lot, but the whole thing didn't run very well. Played a lot of Strat-O-Matic as a kid, so I have a long history with the baseball sim thing.

4. How many teams do you run? How many hours per week do you pour into your teams?

I have 4 teams now, and spend virtually no time on them. Pretty much all my HBD time is spent on commissioner duties and blogging here - probably 3-4 hours a week.

5. Married? Children?

Divorced with one daughter who's graduating from college next month.

6. City/State you live in? Hometown where you grew up?

Happily reside currently in Austin, TX. I do actually come from the same hometown as Joey Belle - Shreveport, LA.

7. Occupation? Do you check in on your teams often during the workday?

I'm a self-employed sales and small business coach - I do a lot of 5-minute check-ins.

8. Tell me 5 things nobody in Belle knows about you.

I don't think anybody in Belle knows anything about me, but here goes:

1. I'm kind of a crazy, only-child, Type-A personality.
2. I once had to negotiate with gangsters when I lived in Singapore.
3. I'm 56 years old.
4. Was an all-state SS in high school ball in La.
5. I do all my work by phone.

9. What makes you laugh?

George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Lenny Bruce. That should confirm my age.

10. Top 3 all time movies?

Hard to pick a top one, so in no order:

The Shawshank Redemption, Rashoman, and Pulp Fiction

11. What popular song past/present do you most identify with?

I don't think I identify with popular songs, but when I think of my favorites they're frequently something by Led Zeppelin or AC/DC.

12. Real baseball team you grew up loving? Still in love with them?

I lived and died with the Yankees for a long time, starting in the Mick's last good year ('64) and going through about '78-'80 (when I got to see a number of the Reggie/
Randolph/Guidry/Chambliss/Nettles Yankee-era games). Now I think the Yanks are the evil empire...it just seems unthinkable to me that you can have 1 (or a few) teams with such a huge resource advantage over the the other teams.

13. Tell me 3 things you wish you knew about particular Belle owners?

Hmmm...favorite food, favorite baseball player of all time, and best HBD "secret trick".

14. You're very loud as a Belle owner. Why do you speak up so often?

Just a function of being commish...I'm pretty low-key in my other worlds.

15. What is your GM philosophy?

Still figuring that out. I do find that once I have a team in contention I tend to get bored with it...I think I like the building process more than anything else.

16. Any special meaning for your WIS nickname? Your Belle team name?

Nah, I usually get my team names from one of those internet team name-generator sites.

17. Who is/was your favorite Belle owner? Why?

I'll have to pass on that one.

18. Which MLB Commissioner do you admire or identify with most? Why?

I honestly don't know enough about any of them or the issues they've dealt with to comment intelligently. On the larger admin side of baseball, I'd have to say I admire Branch Rickey the most. He had to have a lot of vision and balls to bring in Jackie Robinson when he did, and contributed many other innovations.

19. General pet peeves about the HBD game?

The only real gripe I have is that prospects are pretty much sure things, and that fact in itself creates the urge to tank. I really think it would be a huge improvement if they could address that somehow. Seems like it would be pretty easy to "fuzzy up" the draft and IFA's. Another interesting approach might be to offer an "HBD Premium" version, with fuzzier scouting and maybe a "revenue model" component (where your available $$ goes up or down with W-L record and perhaps some other factors).

20. If I was Belle Commish for a day I would _______________ .

I guess I'd do what I'm doing...trying to get in a good bit of blogging.

Pittsburgh Lands Snyder

2011-04-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

Pittsburgh and Austin have swung a mega-prospect trade, featuring the 2 players rated the top prospects at their positions in recent JBT articles.

The Alleghenies get reliever Chris Snyder, Season 15's #18 pick overall. Not sure what his projections looked like back in Season 15, but he has developed better than just about any prospect I've ever seen (for example, his vR improved 30 points over his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pro seasons). Snyder appears to be an excellent fit for Pittsburgh, who has outstanding young talent just about everywhere on the roster except the bullpen. He's expected to jump into the closer role immediately.

Austin gets a pretty nice haul in return - C Orlando Aguilera, RP Ruben Villanueva, and OF Miguel Zorilla. Aguilera was one of last year's top IFA's and was recently named Belle's top catching prospect by both the JBT and the accompanying owners' poll. He looks like he'll be a .300/35 homer guy when he hits the majors in Season 21 0r 22. Villanueva looks to be a serviceable reliever; Zorilla will have a spot as a platooner against righties.

Interesting deal for both teams. Pittsburgh has a couple of relatively young catchers on the ML rosters now, so they used a big chip to go get what they needed. Austin is looking a couple of years down the road, so they moved a ready-now pitcher for what is probably more value in the future.

Best Prospects: Relief Pitchers

2011-04-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

To get this list, I eyeballed the Season 15-18 IFA's and drafts, pulled out what looked like the top 13, estimated their future ratings and plugged those into a spreadsheet I use to rank pitchers in amateur drafts.

What I learned from this look was that relief pitchers are about the only place you can regularly find draft or IFA bargains - the average position of the draftees was #15 (ranging from #2 to #32) and the average bonus for the IFA's was just $5.4MM (numbers for the 13 I evaluated). The 13 are also all really close - I'd love to have any - so the poll on who the top ones are should be interesting.

#1 - Chris Snyder (Sea 15 #18 overall, Austin - currently AA): best combination of vL and vR you're likely to see anywhere...put together with very good control, velocity, groundball and P1, and Austin has themselves a great closer for the next dozen seasons. His second pitch is only pretty good - the only flaw.

#2 - Zoltan Steinbach (Sea 15 #23 overall, Little Rock - currently AAA): just really good across the board - his worst rating is a vR of 75 (I'm not counting velocity as a rating that matters a lot, although it does affect strikeouts). Very good groundballer with excellent pitches...what a find for the Pebbles.

#3 - Wally Darwin (Sea 18 #2 overall, Toledo - currently Low A): The Mud Hens expended an awfully high draft choice on this guy but it might be justified (same with Browning, and both because they'll throw a ton of innings along with putting up quality numbers). Darwin projects to be a very high-control, command-type pitcher who's really tough on righty batters. One really good pitch and a good second pitch - the only very minor thing separating him from the top two is that he'll only be good - not great - against lefties.

#4 - Blaine Knight (Sea 15 #9 overall, Detroit - currently ML): excellent control, very good splits, keeps it down. Pitches: Excellent P1, OK P2, his third pitch is going to hurt him some.

#5 - Joseph Kida (Sea 16 IFA, Jacksonville - currently AAA): Power lefty with great control, will absolutely destroy lefties. Righties will have trouble, too, but will at least have a chance. P1 great, P2 pretty good. Will give up some longballs.

#6 - Roy Waters (Sea 18 #23 overall, Richmond - currently Low A): like #3 Darwin, this pick depends on development. I think Waters will improve well - he has good makeup and his vR in particular is already very high. At maturity, his ratings won't be as high across the board as the top - 5; his vR will likely make the 90's, but others will be in the 70's.

#7 - Derrick McFeeley (Sea 17 #32 overall, Oakland - currently Low A): great find at the end of the first round for the Surenos. Another soft-tosser who will have generally good ratings across the board...just lower than those of the top 5.

The best of the rest (no particular order):

Alexander Browning (Sea 17 #2 overall, Toledo - currently ML): that vR only gained 3 points in his second pro year, and looks like it will only reach low 60's. I think he'll still be good, but clearly righties are going to beat him up on occasion.

Yuniesky Jiminez (Sea 17 #10 overall, Scottsdale - currently AAA): pretty good overall; again, the vR is the real suspect. I think his will develop better than Browning's but his is starting pretty low.

Pete Prince (Sea 17 IFA, Ottawa - currently High A): outstanding bargain for a $2.6MM bonus. Won't have great splits but his pitches are already really good...and he has 2 more years of solid development to go.

Albert Dominguez (Sea 17 #16, Vancouver, currently AA): This is probably the guy who has a chance to jump into the top group. He's the extreme flyball pitcher of the bunch - I think he'll have some outstanding seasons but will always be plagued by homers.

Albert McMichael (Sea 16 #13 overall, Scranton - currently AAA): will be very solid...all his ratings are pretty decent for a ML pitcher now, and he has another solid year of improvement in front of him. Also will be susceptible to the longball.

Yovanni Velazquez (Sea 18 IFA, Pawtuckett - currently AAA): I had to throw in one crapshoot and this guy is it. I really have no idea what his projections are, but his groundball rating and first 2 pitches are already really good. If his splits develop at all, this guy could end up being a really nice closer. What do you want from a closer? Either a strikeout or nothing out of the infield. It's conceivable that this guy reaches 100 on both Vel and GB.

What's the Difference Between 0 Scouting and 18 Scouting?

2011-04-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

The signing of IFA Albert Crespo by Scranton gives us a good opportunity to see how much difference there is between "High" and "Low" scouting budgets.

First, a correction. In the last post, I said there wasn't a place to see int'l scouting projections on an IFA after he signs. Incorrect.

When an IFA first shows up on your scouting radar, your int'l scouting dept tells you about it in your main message inbox (the one on the left, just above division standings). Turns out that if you don't delete that message, and you look at the player card within that message, the player card there retains the int'l scouting projections even after he signs.

Let's look at Crespo through the eyes of Detroit scouts. We have very high (18) int'l scouting, and our advance scouting is as low as it gets (0). That's a pretty big difference.

To our int'l scouting department, here's what Crespo looks like (projections):
Range - 73
Glove - 85
Arm Str - 76
Arm Acc - 89
Contact - 67
Power - 63
vL - 65
vR - 51
Eye - 41

To our advance scouting department (the 10 year-old nephew in Tampa), here's what Crespo looks like:
Range - 59
Glove - 100
Arm Str - 81
Arm Acc - 100
Contact - 73
Power - 61
vL - 58
vR - 40
Eye - 34

If we say that the int'l projections are "accurate", how much do you miss by with scouting of 0? And does 0 always miss high or low?

Here's the % that 0 scouting was off from 18 scouting (negative #'s mean the advanced - $0 - estimated lower than the int'l - $18)

Range: -19.2%
Glove: +17.6%
Arm Str: +6.6%
Arm Acc: +12.4%
Contact: +9.0%
Power: -3.2%
vL: -10.8%
vR: -21.6%
Eye: -17.1%

Which Scouts Are Showing Me This Player Card?

2011-04-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Since we have a couple of relatively new HBD'ers, I thought I'd put up an explanation of one of the more confusing aspects of the game - the whole projected ratings from 4 different scouting departments thing. I've run into even veteran owners in other worlds who had some misconceptions around this, so maybe a review is in order here.

First things first: current ratings are the player's actual abilities right now. They are exact and everybody sees the same thing regardless of what they spend on scouting. This is important and frequently misunderstood - if I spend $20MM across the board in scouting and see a pitcher's control as 82, and you spend $0 across the board on scouting, you will see that pitcher's control as 82. You and I will see each current rating of every player as exactly the same number. Scouting has absolutely nothing to do with current ratings.

Projected ratings, on the other hand, are always estimates (from some scouting department or another) of what the player's ratings will be. They are never exact, because they can't be - a player's development is heavily affected by future events (namely, how good his coaching is, how much his team spends on training, and injuries or lack thereof. It's also affected by the player's makeup rating). Projected ratings are determined by the level spent on various scouting departments - higher spending yields more accurate estimates but they're still estimates.

Advance Scouting: When you're looking at a player card of a player on a roster (yours or another team's, majors or minors), the projected ratings you're seeing come from the advance scouting department.

High School and College Scouting: when the amateur draft players show up every year, and you're looking at them on the GM's Office >> Player Development >> Amateur Draft Prospects screen, the projected ratings you see there (and on the player card) come form the high school and college scouting departments. Until the player signs, the HS and Col projected ratings are also what show on the GM's Office >> Player Development >> Amateur Draft Results and the World Office >> Reports >> Draft History screens. Once the player signs, all the above (except one) change. When the player signs, wherever you look at him (except on the Amateur Draft Prospects screen), you're seeing the projected ratings from Advance Scouting.

The Amateur Draft Prospects screen is unique in that it retains the HS and Col projected ratings even after the players sign. It's the only place (that I know of) that you can get an idea of what different levels of scouting spending tell you. Example: you spent $20MM on Advance Scouting and $12MM on College. Your #1 draft pick is a college 2B that your scouts said had a projected CON of 97; once he signs your Adv says he projected CON is 88. You know your Adv is going to be fairly accurate in this case...by comparing the ratings on this screen against what Adv scouting yields, you can get a feel over time of how much "difference" different levels of spending make.

Note: the Amateur Draft Prospects screen goes away after the season, so (unless you copy them to a spreadsheet) you only have access to these ratings for the current season.

International Scouting: works the same way as the HS and Col scouting except that there's nothing (that I know of ) that retains the Int'l scouting ratings after the player signs. There obviously is an Int'l Prospects Page (analagous to the Amateur Draft Prospects page), but once the player signs he doesn't show up on that page anymore.

Hope this was at least a little helpful. Comments welcome.

Best Prospects: Catchers

2011-04-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

For purposes of these rankings, I'm saying "prospects" are players who are listed as having 0 years of ML experience as of this season. So, we'll have some guys on ML rosters showing up.

Our top catching prospects are largely switch-hitters (4 of the 6) and either late first-rounders (4, picked 17, 18, 18 and 29) or Season 18 IFA's. They're mostly hitters with decent-to-good receiving skills, but we've got one defensive prodigy in the group. Rochester is the proud parent club for 2 of our future star C's.

#1: Orlando Aguilera (Sea 18 IFA, Pittsburgh - currently AAA): The lefty-batting Dominican is quite advanced for a 19 year-old - he could probably play in the majors now but will certainly benefit from more seasoning. Doesn't have a great arm but in time will be an above-average pitch caller. Let's face it, he'll make most of his future millions with the bat. He projects to a .300 hitter with 30-35 and occasionally 40-HR power. Multiple All-Star Games and Silver Sluggers, possibly an MVP or 2 (although C's don't seem to get nominated).

#2: Fernando Belliard (Sea 18 # 17 overall, Detroit - currently AAA): College product has superb contact and on-base skills - maybe a .400+ OBP guy - but only 15-HR power. Projects to a B arm and B pitch-calling. A plus: he'll be an absolute ironman, IF he can avoid injury (health is the biggest ratings concern). Could make several All-Star teams.

#3: Daniel Twitchell (Sea 18 #18 overall, Rochester - currently Low A): Almost identical to Belliard - switch-hitting college C with good contacts skills and good against both LHP and RHP. Not quite up to Belliard's defensive skills or durability, but a better health prognosis. Also a multiple All-Star candidate.

#4: Michael Hammond (Sea 16 #29 overall, Oakland - currently ML): What's with all the switch-hitting C's? Hammond slipped in the Season 16 draft due to the 36 Health rating, and the Surenos gladly scooped him up at #29. This guy will hit - .300/30HR's is a distinct possibility. Average arm and slightly above-average pitching calling, the big question is whether he can stay in the lineup - he's had a couple of injuries already but they haven't hurt his development too badly.

#5: Enrique Sojo (Sea 17 #18 overall, Rochester - currently AA): Another switch-hitting C for the Riot. Sojo has a howitzer attached to his shoulder, but will occasionally shoot one into the outfield (way into the OF). Already a decent pitch-caller and could get to B+ level. Could develop into a .260-.280 hitter with 20-25 HR power and decent walk totals, although he might see some severe slumps against RHP.

#6: Kazuhiro Suzuki (Sea 18 IFA, Scranton - currently Low A): Won't win any awards for offense, but projects to one of the best defensive catchers in Belle history. Already a very good pitch caller, it's just a matter of how good he'll be. Bazooka for an arm and extremely accurate. Will get some walks and hit for some power, but most years will average .200-.240. Makeup may hurt development a bit.

The Rest Of The Opening Day Recaps

2011-04-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Let's start part 2 of the openers in the NL.

New York opened against Syracuse with a 4-1 home win. The Warriors got a run in the first off Necromancer starter George Titan, but only 3 hits the rest of the game off Titan and 3 relievers. SS Matty Cortez drove in 2, while RF Steve Bryant and 1B Ellie Roenicke had solo shots.

Pawtuckett welcomed Toledo to McCoy Stadium with an 11-3 pasting. CF Ricardo Delgado and 2B Luis Diaz both cranked a pair of homers for the Slater Paws, while Matty Coco connected for Toledo. Pawtuckett starter Mike Franco was a little shaky, allowing 8 hits and 3 runs, but got the win, while Tom Salazar picked up a 3-inning save.

San Juan visited Louisville and came away with a 6-4 win. The Senators used a big 4-run 5th (Brendan Keeler 2-run homer)to take a commanding 6-1 lead. Louisville rallied to 6-4, but San Juan CF Graham Black gunned down Edgar Romero trying to stretch a base hit to a double to end the game. Ramiro Fuentes tossed 8 innings for the win.

Scottsdale prevailed in a 10-7 slugfest at home against Oakland. 1B Sammy Gonzlaez had 3 hits and 4RBI for the Vipers; SS Rod Goldberg had a pair of hits and 2 RBI for the Surenos. Scottsdale starter Kennie Frascatore wasn't very effective (7 hits, 5 earned runs in 5 IP) but got the win.

Detroit opened at Rochester and banged out 15 hits en route to an 8-1 thrashing. The oldtimers shined - C Harry Encarnacion cracked a pair of homers and drove in 6, while DH Robert Franco pinged out 5 singles. Dan Cirillo got the win (#171 on the career) with 7 strong innings.

D.C. hosted Cleveland in a battle of AL East heavyweights. The Revenge posted 4 in the 2nd and made it hold up, holding off the Katanas for a 4-3 win. LF Dave Pressley knocked in 3 for D.C.; Luke Joyner and Jacque Fitzgerald hit solo's for Cleveland. Rob Workman allowed 2 runs over 8 innings to pick up the win.

Little Rock's Yamid Reynoso and 2 relievers rolled into El Paso and shut out the Sun Kings 4-0. CF Alex Woodson paced the Pebbles' attack with a 2-run homer.

San Diego's new-look offense exploded for 10 hits on Omaha and swamped the Middle Americans 9-2. Brand-new Surf Baby Carlos Manzanillo blasted a pair of homers and drove in 5...2B Carlos Pineiro and LF Alberto Pinzon contributed 2 hits and 2 runs scored apiece. Solo homers by DH Macbeth Crawford and 2B Robb Stein accounted for all the Omaha scoring. Starter Jimmie Feliz scattered 4 hits and a walk over 6 innings to earn the victory.

AL West Season 19 Preview

2011-04-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Salem won 101 to handily take the West for the 4th straight time. Ottawa by 2 games. Portland gained 5 wins (80) for second, and San Diego had a nice pickup of 16 wins (78) for third. Boise (now Omaha) also improved, getting 5 more wins for 72. The Goonies didn't have an easy playoff run - they lost 2 games each to Richmond and Pittsburgh - but got hot at the right time, sweeping Chicago in the WS for their first Belle Championship. On the awards front, the Goonies' Carlos Escuela won his second consecutive MVP.

SALEM didn't rest on any laurels during the off-season - the roster has changed quite a bit due to free agency, trade and promotion. The Goonies scored 941 runs last year and led the world in HR's (298) - the offense should be equally as proficient this season. It looks like LF Christopher Booker will lead off and DH Jose Vargas will hit #2 - you know you've got a lot of sluggers when a guy with 600 career homers is a table-setter. Marquis Seo (against RHP...platoon partner Terry Schafer will do the honors against lefties), 2-time defending MVP Carlos Escuela (gunning for his 3rd straight 140+ RBI season), rookie CF Placido Chavez (Season 14's #7 overall) and RF Ray Krause occupy the RBI slots. There's not a soft spot anywhere - rookie SS Charles Richardson (Sea 14 supplemental) was a .300 hitter for his minor-league career. Former Cy Young winners Ruben James and Vic Benitez anchor a rotation that gets a boost from the promotion of Sea 15 #1 overall Tim Branson. 18-game winner Rudy Merritt and Ernest Terrell round out a very deep rotation. What has happened to closer Jacob Franklin? He's posted 3 straight 5+ ERA seasons...a poor start may prompt the Goonies to turn to Geoff Sosa for closing chores.

PORTLAND: Considering their extreme pitchers' ballpark, the Bar & Grillers offense is doubly impressive (814 runs last year - 5th). Sharp-eyed 2B Victor Miller and old pro Roy Drew lead off...2nd-year SS Hong-Gu Kim, 1B Brant Cooney, LF Ray Henley, and 3B Frank Suzuki follow and will be the prime power sources.
They'll definitely do some running - 8 players had 10+ stolen bases last year. Portland depends on a huge ballpark to keep their rather low-caliber pitching staff from getting shellacked. Among the starters, #1 Augie Fujiwara seems to have the best stuff for the big park, while setup man Mule Hampton may be the best of the relievers. Of the AAA talent, C Willie Picasso (Sea 15 IFA) appears most capable of helping this year...likely as a DH.

SAN DIEGO trailed the field in runs last year. Some of that was due to the ballpark, and with the signings of Carlos Manzanillo and Quilvio Suarez, the lineup's looking pretty good. Suarez and LF Alberto Pinzon are both solid #3-type hitters; 1B Stan Burnett, Manzanillo, and RF Corey Anderson supply ample power; even the SS and CF positions - Archie Blake and Eduardo Sierra - offer a little offense. The 4th-ranked pitching staff gets a boost from FA signees Tomas Cruz, Eduardo Valentin and Glen Moore. Jimmie Feliz is the #1 starter...Cruz probably becomes #2 with Fernando Nieto at #3. Closer R.J. Quevedo is a good bet to improve...Glen Moore and Eduardo Valentin should be solid as setups.

OMAHA was one of our more active off-season traders, moving longtime franchise centerpiece P.T. Navarro and bringing in OF Benj Cooper, 3B Thomas Lambert, RP Andres Sierra and 1B Jolbert Cruz. The Middle Americans were an average-ish offense last year; they'll hope for some power from Lambert, Cruz, and DH Macbeth Crawford; some nice on-base numbers from CF Andrew Corino and SS Fred Ruffin at the top of the order; and more steady production from 2B Robb Stein (.280/24/80) to improve that. The pitching needs more improvement - they need a big season from Gail Henry, the #7 overall pick in Season 16. Omaha may have rushed him a little, but he's their best bet from the farm system. Wayne Evans is the other starter who looks capable of breaking out...he's also the rare player whose current overall rating is higher than his projected, without any of his individual current ratings being higher than projected (???). Jorge Feliz (Season 10 2nd-rounder) gets a shot at the show after 9 minor-league seasons...he joins what has to be termed a mediocre bullpen.

PREVIEW

Salem is clearly the class of the division and should handily repeat. San Diego might make things interesting for 2nd, and a wild-card berth is not beyond belief. I'll pick the Surf Babies for 2nd and Portland for 3rd, with Omaha improving some but still taking 4th.

Will contend for the MVP: Carlos Escuela (SAL), Hong-Gu Kim(POR)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Ruben James (SAL), Tomas Cruz (SD)
Will contend for the ROY: Placido Chavez (SAL), Tim Branson (SAL), Gail Henry (OMA)

Opening Day In Belle!

2011-04-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Regular season is underway, with half the teams playing their openers in the PM cycle. Let's take a quick look at the opening games, starting in the AL.

In Cincinnati, Columbus spoiled the Waste Managers' home opener with a 6-2 win. Criminals' 2B Fernando Espada collected 4 hits, including a double and a homer, and starter Eduardo Pena fanned 6 and allowed just a run in 6 innings.

Scranton upended Pittsburgh as Rich Grace and Hal Maurer shut down the vaunted Alleghenies offense. CF Juan Lopez homered for the Stranglers in the 5-1 win.

Charlie Cosby and 5 relievers shut out Austin, 3-0, as Richmond opened its South title defense with a home win. Ernest Farr slammed his first AL homer to pace the offense.

Augie Fujiwara twirled a complete game shutout for Portland; they knocked off the defending World Champ Salem Goonies at home, 3-0. SS Hong-Gu Kim drove in all the Bar & Grillers' runs with a homer and a single.

Chicago nosed Ottawa, 5-4, in the Ice home opener. Wth the score tied at 4 in hte top of the 9th, Swingers' SS Julio Prieto singled, stole second, and scored on Theodore Beckett's single. Ottawa threatened in their half, getting a pair of hits, but Roger Lawson steadied and got the save.

Jacksonville blew open a 2-2 tie with 7 in the 9th for a 9-2 road win at Burlington. George Kipling drilled a bases-loaded triple to key the big inning for the Jinxed; Russ Guthrie got the win with 2 scoreless innings in relief.

Luis Redondo thanked Mexico City for his new contract with 6 strong innings - the Red Hot edged New Orleans at home, 3-2. LF Damaso Castillo delivered the game-winner - a 3-run homer in the 4th.

Vancouver opened at home in a promising way: back-to-back-to-back solo homers in the 1st inning (Carlos Cairo, Derek Walker and Sammy Reyes). But Vegas starter Luis Cortes and 2 relievers shut down the Victory on 4 hits the rest of the way, and the 69ers got a big 5-run 5th for a 5-3 road win. C Gabe Borland homered and drove in 3 for Las Vegas.

NL East Season 19 Preview

2011-04-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Jacksonville got a little better for the 4th straight year, winning 86 and taking its 3rd straight division title. Pawtuckett improved by 8 wins (to 79) and edged Burlington (up 5 wins to 76) for second. Toledo struggled, dropping 16 wins to 45. The Jinxed surprised Ottawa with a sweep in the first playoff round, but lost to New Orleans in the DCS.

JACKSONVILLE: the defending champs didn't do a whole lot in the off-season, signing SP Domingo Guillen and trading for RF Hack Bush (although they may not be done with their roster yet). Bush joins a competent offense that does a little of everything but is superlative at none. 2B George Kipling picked up his 2nd Silver Slugger last year and is the best overall hitter on the squad. LF John Li (29 HR, 28 SB) and 3B Matthew Ryan (28 HR, 23 SB) both bring power and speed to the attack. C Jason Griffin is quietly building a near-.300 lifetime batting average. Although not much of an offensive contributor, SS Julio Jose has won 4 straight Gold Gloves. Gary Ramsay is slowing down a little at 36 but still commands "ace" status. After him the rotation is a grab-bag of #4 types - the Jinxed will hope for 1 or 2 to get hot. Eric Langston looks like a starter, but has excelled in a middle relief/super setup role. Russ Guthrie was superb as a setup man last year...Emmanuel Matos was shaky in his closer trial. There are some potential reinforcements at AAA: RF Nick Mottola (Sea 15 supplemental) is ready if Bush falters and RP Joseph Kidda (Sea 16 IFA) looks like he could be a boost to the 'pen.

PAWTUCKETT welcomes #1 starter Mike Franco back from a season lost to elbow surgery. Is Franco worth 7 wins (# of games they finished behind Jacksonville last year) to the Slater Paws? Like the Jinxed, the rest of their rotation is sketchy, although Vinny Suzuki has been pretty consistent (4.10 career ERA) over his 3 seasons. Jesus Diaz really came into his own as a closer last season (35-of-38 saves, 2.22 ERA). If he can repeat that the race could tighten up considerably, although he could really use some better setup help. Derek Foster's power is slipping, but he loves McCoy Stadium and his HR totals should still be impressive for a year or 2. Lefty-throwing Ricardo Delgado would be better off defensively in CF, rather than 2B, but is verging on superstar status either way. CF Luis Diaz is also a 40-HR threat, and rookie DH Eliezar Rivas (Sea 15 IFA) should be able to more than replace the production lost with the departure of Joe Rivera. Rivera apparently ends his career #1 on the all-time HR list (710) and #2 in RBI's (1907). Pawtuckett has some nice prospects in AAA - IF Amp Faulk (Sea 17 #4), SP Jerry Strong (Sea 17 #8), and RP Yovani Velazquez (Sea 18 IFA) - but they're all likely to stay in the minors all season.

BURLINGTON: the Lake Monsters' no-name pitching staff has always been pretty good in cavernous Mustain Stadium - this year should be the same. They usually end up working in 6 starters - R.A. Everett, Sammy Canseco and Jim Mitchell may be the best bets for breakout seasons. Closer Carl Hume and setup men Tommy Fabregas and Carlton Locko are quietly effective. You wouldn't expect Burlington to be a big run producer in that ballpark, but they need to find a way to manufacture more runs. RF Theodore Beckett defected to Chicago; replacing him with Rule V draftee Rich Foster is a big step back. The LF platoon of Harris and Bell should be pretty good in the on-base department. 1B Wilt McDowell and C Daryl McDonald are about the only threats to drive the ball...there are a few too many holes in this lineup for any offensive improvement.

TOLEDO has some interesting new faces, both from free agency and promotion. SP Jesus Javier and RP Victor Sosa will bring some veteran talent to the pitching staff. Season 15 #2 overall, Matty Coco makes his much-awaited full-season debut - he's the pre-season favorite for ROY. Season 14 2nd-rounder Phil Feller and Season 17 #2 overall Alexander Browning will also break camp with the big club. It might be a season early for Browning, but the Mud Hens hired him a good pitching coach and are settling back to watch him grow up on the job. Closer Tomas Martin rounds out a pretty nice bullpen. This isn't a great team yet, but they'll give Hens fans some exciting moments this year...keep an eye on their record in 1-run games.

PREVIEW

This looks like a dead heat between Jacksonville and Pawtuckett to me. Franco's return narrows the gap for the Slater Paws, but I don't think it's quite enough to get them over the top...Jinxed take their 4th straight by a narrow margin. Burlington gets 3rd again; Toledo makes a big jump and might give the Lake Monsters a scare.

Will contend for the MVP: Ricardo Delgado (PAW), Matty Coco(TOL)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Gary Ramsay (JAX), Mike Franco (PAW)
Will contend for the ROY: Matty Coco (TOL), Eliezar Rivas (PAW)

AL North Season 19 Preview

2011-04-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Detroit won 85 (up 7 wins) for its first division crown in 10 seasons. Cincinnati (down 18 wins), Columbus (down 28 wins) and Rochester (down 10 wins) all had their seasons fall apart and won 62. The Gangstaz upset Cleveland in the first round before falling to Pittsburgh in the DCS. The North picked up one of the post-season player awards, with Detroit's Miguel Rivera winning the ROY.

DETROIT continues to recycle over-the-hill vets while their prospects mature. They lost last year's entire opening-day rotation to free agency or trade, and only 2 of them have contracts elsewhere. On a historical note, it looks like the end of the line for Teddy Nelson, a long-time fav in Burlington who ends up with 113 wins and a 3.97 ERA; and Denny Perisho, who banged 442 career homers and picked up 3 Series rings with the Austin organization (as the old Jackson Holes). The Gangstaz will try to catch lightning in a bottle again with oldtimers SP Dan Cirillo (36), 3B William Kwon (37), C Harry Encarnacion (37), and SP Jacob Martin (37). They join a core group of youngsters who have some promise: LF Bonk Liniak (Season 17 ROY), 1B Miguel Rivera (Season 18 ROY), SP Burke Jordon (Season 16's #9 pick), and RP Blaine Knight (Season 15's #9). Prospects Tomas Park (Season 17 #1 overall), Fernando Belliard (Season 18 #17) and SP Yadier Eusebio (Season 18 IFA) will spend the entire season in AAA but could see the Show next season.

CINCINNATI saw most of their lineup dip below career norms last year - runs were down by 50 from Season 17. But it's a solid crew that's mostly well under 30. 1B Martin Munro has 35-40 homer potential, DH Norberto Pujols (.258/32/90 as a rookie) has 50+ homer potential, and COF's Solano and Munoz can both put up .300+ with 20-30 homers. SS Midre Dunn had a breakout .282/23/80 (with 43 SB's) season as a sophomore, and is on the verge of superstar status. The staff went from middle-of-the-pack in Season 17 to last in Season 18 (Team ERA of 5.45) - big improvement needed. FA agent Amos Christians is only marginally likely to help (4.78 career ERA)...same with rookie Howie McMasters. Carlos Javier may be the most likely starter to give the Waster Managers a breakout season...Matty Maduro and Edgar Perez both could on the relief side, but are anything but sure things.

COLUMBUS might be the most inexplicable story of Season 18. After a long winning tradition they went through rebuilding seasons from years 13-15, then improved to 80 and 90 wins in Season 16 and 17. A return to form and a couple of power prospects should get them back on track. The new-look lineup starts with 1B Craig White (Sea 15's #4 pick), a switch-hitting big-time power prospect, and LF Ben Flynn (Sea 14's #33 pick by Oakland), another power hitter who came over from Syracuse in last year's Theodore Maxwwell trade. 3-time Silver Slugger Fernando Espada is probably heading back to 2B, where he should be an All-Star and SS for another 6-7 years. CF Fred Watson joins Espada as a top-of-the-order speed threat, and DH Pascual Pena is almost a sure bet to improve on last year's .257/27/107. The Criminals scored 933 runs in Season 17 and 763 last year; you can bet the farm they'll be over 850 this year. Out of Al Escobar, Daryl McCorley, Eduardo Pena, Khiry Robinson, William Innoue and Hector Romo, Columbus should be able to find 2 or 3 decent starters. In the bullpen, Rolando Gomez and Julian Lopez are just adequate.

ROCHESTER seems content to keep their payroll low this year and score an IFA or 2. Their ML roster is currently incomplete to say the least, with no OF's. Among the hitters that are there, rookie C/DH's Einar Gonzalez (Sea 14 2nd-rounder), Earle Nash (Sea 12 2nd-rounder), and Ivan Sobkowiak (Sea 13 2nd-rounder) are the best. Among the pitchers, SP Edgard Hernandez (Sea 13 2nd-rounder) and RP Carlos Jacquez (Sea 14 #24) look like the best bets to be ML contributors. The Riot is expected to fill out their ML roster from their ample supply of AAA 2B shortly.

PREVIEW

Well, I'd get accused of sandbagging if I counted myself out, so I'll refrain. I do think the Gangstaz are likely to take a step back this year...you can get lucky on scrap-heap FA's only so often, and there's no 3rd straight ROY coming. Cincy and Columbus would both be better even if they didn't have any promising rookies coming up, and they do. So it looks to me like a 3-team race...I honestly expect Columbus to win it. Detroit noses out Cincy for 2nd, with Rochester exiting the race early.

Will contend for the MVP: Midre Dunn (CIN), Fernando Espada (CLB)
Will contend for the Cy Young: none
Will contend for the ROY: Craig White (CLB), Ben Flynn (CLB)

NL South Season 19 Preview

2011-04-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: New Orleans won a franchise-high 107 and cruised to its 3rd straight South title. San Juan won 88 for second. Mexico City dropped off 8 wins (67), while Louisville improved by 5 wins to 56. had its second straight sub-.500 year (74 wins). The Senators knocked out Vancouver and lost to Chicago in the DCS; the Privateers topped Jacksonville in the DCS before bowing out to Chicago in the NLCS.

NEW ORLEANS lost a chunk of pitching in free agency (#1 starter Jesus Javier, swingman Tomas Cruz and setup man Tuck Barkley). Don't think they'll manage a 3.25 team ERA again, but they should still be good. Magglio Nunez, Fred West and Omar Chavez anchor the rotation. Wesley Telford is one of the NL's best closers (88 saves the last 2 seasons) - he's setup capably by Theodore Curtis and Kelly Nelson. If William Kim would pitch the way his rating suggest he could, the Privateers' staff might be special again. Former MVP Sid Selby (CF) ignites the offense; another former MVP, Richie Scheffer (.276/34/110), RF Kevin Grabowski (.280/46/118), 3B Clarence Richard (.313/35/99) and 1B Nap Myatt (.287/30/121) supply the power. The unheralded catching duo of Quilvio Nunez (a former 2nd-rounder) and Juan Vazquez (a former IFA who commanded a whopping $1.6MM bonus) combined for a remarkable .324/22/81 with 117 walks last year.

SAN JUAN didn't do a lot in free agency (although adding C Brendan Keeler for less than $2MM a year was a coups) because they didn't have to; they have one of the best young nuceli in the NL. It starts with the front 3 of the rotation: Season 17 Cy Young and ROY winner Rex Gragg (24), Season 14's top IFA Ramiro Fuentes (25), and Season 9's #6 overall Vince Cross. It continues with setup man extraordinaire Pascual Moya, 23, who notched 7 wins and 10 saves in 132 innings. It extends to the offense with 1B Phillip Cooke, who has 3 All-Star appearances, 2 Silver Sluggers and 2 Gold Gloves in 3 seasons; LF Kenneth Scoroposki (.270/27/99) and finishes up with rookie 3B Pablo Ortiz, a Season 14 supplemental pick. Mix in oldtimers Tim Murray (2B, age 38), SP Nick Rando (33, 2.80 ERA last year), SP Midre Jose (30) and the 3-headed catcher committee of Keeler (versus RHP), Ryan Adcock (versus LHP), and Marlon Linden (defense), and the Senators may have themselves a 95-win team this year.

MEXICO CITY is struggling with the out-year effects of big free agent contracts. They went all-out in Season 15, signing Gary Goodwin to a max deal and CF Wally Reid to a near-$10MM a year deal (it worked, they won the division), then added SP Frank Huff in Season 17 on a $50MM+ deal. Goodwin's still good at 32, although his power and durability (not high to stat with) are on the decline. Reid and Huff, though, have declined badly...Reid hasn't been a CF for a couple of seasons, and will barely hit 90 games this year. The team elected to re-sign FA starters Pedro Encarnacion and Luis Redondo (favorable contracts both), but the net result is they're maxed out on payroll, have no C's or SS's on the big-league roster, and have the 38-Dur Dicky Hudson at 1B and the 46-Dur Reid in CF. SO the Red Hots are incomplete at the moment...I think they'll end up trading Encarnacion, Redondo and Goodwin to get some cap space and prospects, but that remains to be seen.

LOUISVILLE will be leaning on some rookies to get things headed in the right direction. Timo Owings (Season 14 Supplemental pick) showed some nice power (26 homers) in his Season 18 LF audition. John Sauveur (Rule 5) could be the best bet at SS. Jair Barrios (Sea 14 IFA) and Brad Johnstone (Sea 17 #24) join the rotation but are probably just placeholders until they hit arb. Most of the ML roster is young and of marginal talent, so the payroll is headed down for awhile. The real focus for a couple of years is going to be on prospects like Damian Schmidt (#1 overall last year) and whoever they take at #2 this year.

PREVIEW

New Orleans has had their way with the division the last few years, but this could be the season San Juan catches up. Season 17's rookie sensation (ROY and Cy Young) Rex Gragg has recovered well from last season's injury and is poised for a big comeback year; his supporting cast is generally young and on the way up. The Privateers' key players, on the other hand, are starting to see a few nicks in the ratings due to age - given their free agent losses, I think they'll slip a few games. I see a close race, with San Juan pulling it out. New Orleans be a close 2nd and will contend for a wild card. Mexico City is impossible to predict at this point; Louisville should improve a little but the focus is on building the minors.

Will contend for the MVP: Phillip Cooke (SJU), Sid Selby (NO)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Rex Gragg (SJU), Ramiro Fuentes (SJU)
Will contend for the ROY: Pablo Ortiz (SJU)

AL East Season 19 Preview

2011-04-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Pittsburgh won a Belle-best 109 to end Cleveland's run of 12 straight East titles. The Katanas "slumped" to 102 wins (their worst since Season 7) but claimed a wild card. Washington D.C. fell off 13 wins (87) but still took a wild card for the 5th straight year. Scranton appeared to be finally getting somewhere with its rebuilding, and improved 11 wins to 72. Cleveland and D.C. both went out in the first playoff round. The Katanas' Edgardo Valdes won the AL Cy Young - the 3rd (different) Cleveland hurler to do so in the lat 4 seasons (Lorenzo Rodriguez in Season 17 and Aaron Torres in Season 15) - and the Alleghneys' Kaz Lim took the FOY.

PITTSBURGH: The Alleghenies' only significant off-season moves were to re-sign Rafael Brogna and say "sayonara" to Kaz Lim and Maximo Cota...with their farm system spewing out talent every year, no FA moves were needed. With Jung Wanatabe (Season 12's #1 overall), D'Angelo Cerda (Season 11's #1 overall), and Douglas Burnett (Season 14's #5 overall) at the 1,2,3 SP spots, Pittsburgh has Belle's best starting rotation (and probably a guaranteed playoff ticket for the next 8 years or so). They have a young bullpen that hasn't proven itself at this point - if there's a weak spot on the Alleghenies, this is it. On offense, career SB leader Neifi Foster leads it off; Brogna (107 RBI last year), 1B Gene Cuddyer (100+ RBI each of his first 4 seasons), RF Joaquin Alvarez (45 HR's last year) and 3B Bucky Daal (105 RBI last year) form a stout run-production nucleus. There's a wealth of talent chomping the bit at AAA: last year's IFA prize, 19 year-old C Orlando Aguilera, could contribute but probably spends this year in AAA; SS Neftali Rodriguez (Sea 16 IFA) is ready but blocked by ML SS Pedro Mendoza; Season 15 IFA Ruben Villanueva could probably help the bullpen and will likely get the chance.

CLEVELAND manged to hold off time a little longer by re-signing LF Jacque Fitzgerald, SP Billy Brocail, SP Lorenzo Rodriguez and RP Chris Lofton. Fitzgerald (.290, 34 HR's), along with 1B Luke Joyner, (.324), 2B Bill Priest(.383 OBP), RF Otis Langston (33 HR's, 103 RBI), the Johnson/Wheat C platoon (41 HR's combined), and DH Scott Becker (35 HR's, 113 RBI), lead a still-dangerous offense. The staff is starting to get a little age, but still sports 3 CY winners (Rodriguez, Edgardo Valdes and Aaron Torres, although Torres has moved to the bullpen). Brocail and Luis Gabriel are excellent as starters 3 and 4; Lofton is solid in the bullpen but may not have enough help.

WASHINGTON, D.C. brings back Season 18's roster intact. Miguel Mesa was having a monster season last year when herniated disc surgery interrupted it; he makes his return and triggers the offense. RF Mark Gang has been terrific (and consistent...OPS's of .882 and .874) in his first 2 seasons. They'll hit in front of perennial All-Star, 1B Eric Brantley. The Revenge count on DH Matt Flores and C Brutus McKinley to protect Brantley in the lineup. D.C. put up 937 runs last year (3rd) and should be around that total this year. The rotation is high-quality and very deep: Omar Carraso at #1 (14-6, 3.06), former Cy Young and ROY winner Rob Workman at #2, Esteban Velaquez (12-10, 3.27) at #3, talented but yet-to-reach-his-potential Al Aybar at #4, and steady Fausto Ontiveros at #5. Larry Sutton is solid as a setup guy, but Allen Reynolds struggled in his first year as closer (5.03 ERA).

SCRANTON is looking to the future, although they posted a nice 11-win improvement last year. They may have gotten the best player in last year's draft in CF Brent Hartzell at #3; he murdered rookie pitching last year and plays in Low A this season. They have a bunch of prospects at AAA - most will spend the year there, although SP Alex Lee (SEA 15 IFA) and LR Wellington Pizzaro (SEA 15's #22) are close to ready and could get the call this year. The ML offense benefits from the addition of free agents C Odalis Gutierrez and CF Albert Harmon, who finally gets a chance to be a full-time player at age 30. 2B Sandy Weston is their most accomplished table-setter (.365 OBP); LF Ricardo Pulido (.303/22/77) and DH Ralph Bryant (.263/21/86) are the primary power threats. The Stranglers' young staff wasn't very good last year (5.24 ERA). I'd expect some improvement, although it's not a super-talented group. RP Shep LaRue did have a nice rookie season, and probably is the best bet to put up good numbers long-term. Veteran Hector Martin might be the best pitcher on the staff - he could be a decent trade chip at the deadline.
PREVIEW

Pittsburgh has the best starting rotation in Belle, led the AL in runs scored last year, and a farm system that keeps pumping out talent. It's a tough combination - I think they'll win the division by more than last year's 7 games. Cleveland may slip a little, but they're still dangerous; D.C. had an off year last year - with their rotation they could easily win 100 (like they did 2 years ago). 2nd is a tossup here - Katannas and Revenge could both win 95-100 and might both get wild cards. Scranton may not improve much or any at the ML level, but their cadre of young talent gets a year closer.

Will contend for the MVP: Gene Cuddyer (PIT), Eric Brantley (WAS)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Jung Wanatabe (PIT), Omar Carrasco (WAS)
Will contend for the ROY: Alex Lee (SWB) and LR Wellington Pizzaro (SWB)

NL West Season 19 Preview

2011-04-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Vancouver improved by 6 wins (to 93) and captured its first-ever West title. Oakland fell off by 10 wins (84) and missed the playoffs for the first time since Season 11. Las Vegas dropped 14 wins (83) and missed the playoffs for just the 2nd time since Season 4, and Helena (now Scottsdale) picked up 1 win to 64.

VANCOUVER begins its NL West defense minus SP Dan Cirillo and IF Brad Hart, plus SP Dale Barker and IF Sammy Reyes. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same crew that won 93 a year ago. Carlos Cairo's big year (44 HR's) ignited the Victory last year - they'll need that again plus another good season from slugging C Derek Walker. 2B Troy Harris' best power days are behind him...same story for Reyes but between them 2B should still be a plus on offense. 1B Gerardo Rodriguez may be the best leadoff/on-base threat, although his .439 OBP (in 236 AB's last year) may be a little much to hope for again. Vancouver's best pitcher - Craig Hague - occupies kind of a swingman role, seeing long relief, the occasional start, and some short relief duties. Cesar Mendez, Carl Benson, and Midre Estrada were their most effective starters lat year (all under 3.25 ERA's in part-time starter roles), although Barker probably gets 32 starts. It's a very deep bullpen headed by closer Adam Lieber (36 of 39 save ops last year) - 7th-inning leads aren't a sure thing for any team, but they're in good hands with the Victory.

OAKLAND mounted a fairly active off-season campaign to regain the top spot in the West after a 2-year absence. Emil Morales joins the infield - he may get 500 AB's in a super-utility - role (think "Cesar Tovar" for those of you old enough to remember the guy who played all 9 positions for the Twins in a 1968 game). Rod Goldberg moves in at SS, John Tomko and Louie Paniagua join the rotation, and Benito Rivera and Odalis Torcato plug into the bullpen. The Surenos maintain a dangerous attack (819 runs last year- 4th); C J.T. Burns, LF Erubiel Maduro and RF Wilfredo Feliz are still 3 of the most dangerous hitters in the NL. Feliz and 1B Valerio Bonilla are 2 of the best top-of-the-order guys anywhere...both could get 95 walks. Haywood Maxwell and Humberto Roque complete the rotation, which leans toward groundballers with good pitches, rather than high-split guys. P.T. Lincoln handles the closing responsibilities...Brad Matusz will get his 100+ innings, but the other 6 relievers will all see a lot of action, too.

LAS VEGAS had some big FA losses but stayed quiet in the off-season. 1B Miguel Rios, C Bill Wengert and RF Hughie Bruskie are all plus bats; SS Lance Belitz and 3B Domingo Batista are better than average at their positions. If the 69'ers could get a good leadoff hitter in CF (currently no CF's on the roster), they'd have a pretty good-looking lineup. Luis Cortes and Adrian Jensen are a solid front 2 in the rotation...3, 4, and 5 should be OK but nothing special. Juan Gomez and Al Borges might be the best closer/setup combo in Belle. Vegas looks a little incomplete still - they may add another significant player or 2, or they may decide to
retool for a season.

SCOTTSDALE may have outdueled Chicago for the "Most Active Off-Season Team" award. When the smoke cleared, what came out was a much better offense than the one that only put up 583 runs last year, and maybe a little better staff than the one that was middle of the pack last year. There's really no hole anywhere in the lineup - 2B David Lee is the only one there purely for his defense, and he's at least adequate at the plate. Jim Olson is the best-hitting SS of his era. RF John Tamura may be the key to the offense this season: if he can stay in the lineup and play 140 games (a big "if")....400 OBP and 30 HR. Pitching starts with Kennie Frascatore. The 4th pick of the Season 11 draft had a fantastic rookie season (16-8, 2.62) - he's been good in the 3 seasons since, but not at that level. With a much-improved attack, his win totals will go up, but if he can get back to his rookie form this team is going places. #2 starter David Elcano has been very solid his first two seasons, and Fox probably improves the #3 spot. Closer Brett Holmes has good setup help in Tuck Barkley and Dingo Hawkins, but the rest of the bullpen is suspect.

PREVIEW

This might be our best shot at a 4-team race, although right now it looks like Vegas is likely to fall out of it. I think Scottsdale will have the best offense of the group, plus the only real ace in the division (Frascatore). I think the Vipers will win it in a close race. Vancouver and Oakland will be motivated to battle all year...can't see #2 in this division getting a wild card.

Will contend for the MVP: Jim Olson (SCO), Erubiel Maduro (OAK)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Kennie Frascatore (SCO)
Will contend for the ROY: Tyler Wilson (LV)

AL South Season 19 Preview

2011-04-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Richmond won 88 (for the 4th time in 6 years) to take a close 3-way race. Little Rock improved by 9 wins (to 82) for second, and El Paso improved by 11 wins to 81. Jackson (now Austin) looks like it finally reached the end of its long dynasty (11 South championships in 13 years), falling 14 wins to 78. Richmond won its first-round series but fell to eventual World Champ Salem in the second round. The South was shut out of post-season awards last year.

RICHMOND made its biggest off-season move before off-season, snagging former NL ROY Ernest Farr off the waiver wirer at the end of last season. Other than that its only significant move was the release of SS Trent Gray, heralding the beginning of the Pat Hasegawa (Sea 14 IFA by Jacksonville) SS era for the Poor Men. Farr gives Richmond a wealth of bats at COF, 1B and DH (maybe too many...trade, anyone?). Farr, Redondo, Gallagher and Garland will jockey for COF time and backup Ennis and Olivares at 1B and DH. Clearly, scoring runs won't be a problem (813 last year - 6th). Pitching might be another story...Cosby and Gil at the front of the rotation are good, but whoever occupies 3,4 and 5 are potential trouble (although Todd Quinn has been very good his last 2 seasons). The bullpen looks very deep with Wiki Batista closing and 3 solid setup men in Juan Martinez, Rafael Tejada and Vince Valentine. Juan Fernandez (#10 overall pick in Season 14) will almost certainly get the call at Game 20 and could make a big difference for this team.

LITTLE ROCK: Pebbles fans are regularly consulting their scorecards this Spring; the team had 9 notable FA departures, and 8 new faces in from FA and waivers. The has a decidedly more defensive tilt, with slick-fielding Davey Molina likely the new SS, 2 CF's (Barry Snopek and Alex Woodson) among the FA signings, and a pair of superb pitch-callers (but light hitters) at C. They'll depend on old hands Frank Schmidt (1B) and Victor Perez (RF) to handle the bulk of the run production. Yamid Reynoso had a great (13-10, 2.50) first season in Little Rock - they'll need that and maybe more from him again to contend, since the rest of the rotation is iffy at best (Ozzie Dawley had a very nice Season 18 with a 2.71 ERA, but look for something more like his career average - 4.36). Good thing there's a deep, talented bullpen (Paul Shibata, Clyde Jackson, Vicente Rivera and sophomore Collin Prior closing). Their best ML-ready prospect is also a reliever - Season 15 #23 overall Zoltan Steinbach.

EL PASO: Wow, I thought Little Rock was hard hit by free agency. The Sun Kings lost 3B Quilvio Suarez and SP's Raul Arias and Jacque Butler along with a bunch of other guys. They countered by signing Jerry Bernero for 3B and starters Tomas Martin and Javier Batista, but I don't know if they came out ahead on this swap. Martin and Batista join Harold Bryant, Mickey Beckett and Hideki Martin in the rotation - you know, this could be a decent group in a pitchers' park (which theirs is). With rookie (1.15 ERA in a cup of coffee last year) David Campos and Quilvio Rodriguez in the 'pen, the staff could be OK. How they're going to score enough runs is another matter. For starters, they'll need a return to Season 15's near-MVP form by RF Lance Reed - he returned to a career norm last year after 2 terrible seasons. Next, they'll need better-than average seasons from 2 or 3 from 3b Bernero, DH Trenidad Guerrero, LF Tom Fischer, and the Romero/Maxwell 1B combo. Finally, they could really use a good leadoff man...maybe it's CF Davis, although his .317 career OBP isn't terribly encouraging.

AUSTIN also had a bunch of FA activity, but they mostly seem to be shedding salary to make an IFA play. Johnny Collier remains the best pitcher in Belle, but this could be the year - he has 3 years left on a favorable contract, and probably 3 more years before ratings declines start to erode his value. Del Mendoza, Butch Percival and Carlos Ramirez should be a capable 2/3/4 group, although they won't get much bullpen help initially. Jiggs Daniels (Season 15's #29 overall), Dan Nelson (Season 14 2nd-rounder), and Chris Snyder (Season 15's #18 overall) will provide significant bullpen help at Game 20. Watch Snyder...he's going to be very good. On offense, they'll depend on the threesome of Don Burns, Dennis Hewson and Carl Serrano for the bulk of the run production, although at 38, Wilson Costello may have a few more moments in the sun.

PREVIEW: Richmond will score runs, and if their pitching holds up they could run away with it. Even if their pitching falters, I think they have enough extra offense to make a deal to bring in an arm. Austin has 3 good rookies coming this year and more in the low minors, so their rebuilding effort is underway. They'll trail the field this year (and probably next) - whatever deal they make for Collier will be a key to their future. Little Rock and El Paso both had to do a lot of retooling - hard to predict. Both were only 5-6 games out of the wild card last year, so a hot season or 2 could put either in.

Will contend for the MVP: Ernest Farr (RIC), Lance Reed (ELP)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Johnny Collier (AUS), Harold Bryant (ELP)
Will contend for the ROY: Juan Fernandez (RIC), Chris Synder (AUS)

Complete Your Hall Of Fame Ballot!

2011-04-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

Opinions can very, but everyone needs to cast their HOF vote. Here's my take on the leading candidates:

Alex Ramirez (CF/2B): Suffered from short-career syndrome (10 seasons), but not a stretch to say he was the best-hitting infielder (1B aside) in Belle history. .964 career OPS - 70 points better than Nunez, 93 points better than Piedra, and 10 better than Lon Andrews, the only non-1B IF currently in the Hall. I don't know where the 480 HR's stands career-wise among IF's, but it has to be near the top. Never hit less than 35 homers in a season. Minor gripe: should've been move to the OF his last 3 seasons...put up some ugly fielding numbers. He should be IN.

Luis Piedra (3B): On the plus side, he had a full career, was very consistent, and collected a nice stash of hardware. But is this really greatness? He wasn't a great power hitter (in the steroid era, no less) - his best season was 41. He wasn't a great on-base guy - career .349. Perhaps you can argue he was great defensively, but is a .964 fielding % great for a 3B? Very good player, but NOT Hall of Fame.

Skip Leon (1B): Career leader in hits and RBI, #2 all-time in HR's, 3 MVP's. No-brainer.

Dwight Long, (SP): I'm considering Long mainly because the 167 wins is a pretty nice total for HBD - I think it compares to about 240, maybe 250, in real-life. The 3.56 ERA is kind of borderline. Didn't win a Cy Young, although his 20-2, 2.26 in Season 9 would've done it in many seasons. I campaigned for Seanez for several seasons because of his underlying qualitative stats (OBP allowed, Slugging % allowed) - Long's are a fair bit higher. Really good pitcher, not HOF quality.

Rico Nunez (SS): Don't know if he's the best-hitting SS in Belle history (and he was a true SS, as his 3 GG's can attest), but I bet he's the best power-hitting SS in Belle history (417 career bombs). The Ernie Banks of Belle. Given his power #'s and excellent defense, he's Hall of Fame-worthy.

Steven Vaughn (SP): his case rests entirely on his 3 Cy Youngs. His win totals, ERA and underlying qualitative stats are all worse than Dwight Long's. I'm ambivalent...if he's deserving, Long is. On hold until I get through the rest.

Ignacio Santos (C/DH): This guy is #4 on the career OPS list, so by some measure he's the 4th-best hitter in Belle history. That would probably make him deserving even if he had only been a DH, but he caught 5500+ innings (versus 4700 as a DH...don't ask me how he got in 10 innings at 2B). No-brainer.

Juan Romero (closer): I guess I'm committing heresy here, but I can't vote for a guy whose only credential is a statistical fluke. Saves say nothing about how well a guy pitched, and when you really look at it, this guy wasn't that good. Career ERA of 4.00? Career OPS-against of .723? Romero was an average-to-decent pitcher at best...we've probably had dozens of anonymous middle relievers who were better. NO WAY

So, I'm voting for Ramirez, Leon, Nunez, Santos. Because the way our voting works we kind of have a bias against induction, I'm going to go ahead an vote for Vaughn as well.

NL North Season 19 Preview

2011-04-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

Season 18 Recap: Chicago won 103 to top Ottawa by 2 games. New York won 85 and missed a wild card by 3 games, while Syracuse had its second straight sub-.500 year (74 wins). The Free Swingers advanced to the WS, losing to Salem; the Ice were a surprise first-round loser (Jacksonville). The North pulled off a rare sweep of the post-season awards: New York's Ellie Roenicke won the MVP, Ottawa's Clay Merritt and Chicago's Bruce Friend shared the Cy Young, Ariel Chantres of the Necromancers scored the ROY, and Free Swingers' Roger Lawson earned FOY.

CHICAGO: I won't even try to go through all the off season moves; let's just say the lineup is better than the one that lead the league with 996 runs last year. There are big-time run producers at spots 1-8 in the lineup - four (Ramirez in the AL, Coronado, Johnson and Stokes) were either All-Stars or Silver Sluggers (or both) last year, and Woo's .296/25/101 season (CF) couldn't have missed by much. The first three rotation spots (Friend, Ramirez, Starr) are solid (or better); Lind and Newman in the 4 and 5 spots should be adequate. If there's any question mark about this team - and I'm not sure there is - it's the bullpen behind closer Roger Lawson. Trent Durbin was solid last year and free agents Bosco Swann, Mark Martin and Ernest Larocca were brought in specifically to shore up the middle innings.

OTTAWA: Compared to Chicago, the Ice had a quiet off season, although it did see the departure of longtime stalwart run producer Ray Henley. Ottawa's strength begins with the Big 3 of the rotation: Clay Merritt (co-Cy Young winner last year), Jorge DeJesus and Albert DeJean - with that trio up front, they might contend if they scored 600 runs. But they'll do quite a bit better than that - their 880 runs was #2 in the NL (albeit by a distant margin to the Free Swingers). Rookie RF Les Johnson will be counted on to fill Henley's shoes - if he struggles against RHP (a distinct possibility), the Ice can call on AAA OF David James, a Season 14 IFA. Season 15's #1 pick, 1B Edgardo Nunez, is also ML ready and could elbow his way into the ML lineup this year. 3B Ceasar Liriano is one of the best on-base/leadoff men in the game; LF Johnny Hernandez, 1B Dion Vitiello and 2B Brandon O'Halloran are the primary RBI threats. The bullpen has its issues, but Mike Simpson and Joe Rolls are solid and will get most of the work.

NEW YORK has the distinct look of a team making a big push to contend. They released a bunch of arb-eligible pitchers, and upgraded the staff with FA signings (SP Raul Arias) and trades (relievers Harry Gumbert and Quentin Houston). They improved an already-excellent team defense with 2 more FA signings: CF Alfredo Mercado and SS Omar Freeman. On offense, they're led by 2-time MVP and slam-dunk Hall-Of-Famer Victor Morales, monster power hitter (116 homers in his first 2 seasons) Ellie Roenicke, and veteran C Richie Elder (although Elder could be made expendable by 2nd-year receiver Oswaldo Nunez). The staff is headed by the electric Ariel Chantres, who posted a 2.25 ERA in just his 3rd pro season last year. He's capably backed by Arias, Tommy Lloyd and George Titan at the 2, 3 and 4 spots. Fausto Cedeno is getting long-toothed but still has the closer job; Gumbert and Houston will get the bulk of the setup innings. To make matters even worse for the rest of the North, the Necros have 2 high draft picks from Season 16 ready to go in AAA: IF Alfredo Reyes (#2 overall) and SP Damian Figgins (#4) - they'll get the call by Game 20 at latest.

SYRACUSE looked like they were headed for all-out rebuilding after letting a bunch of older guys go FA (including career .332 hitter Marquis Seo) and trading 2B Theodore Maxwell for a trio of prospects. Then they stunned Belle by signing Jesus Gomez to a max deal, and the 4-team race in the North was on. They'll try to contend with pitching and defense: the Campbell/Kelton C platoon is call pitch-calling and no-hit, and the primary utility men Bundy and Lee are defensive specialists. The only sure-thing offensive contributors are Gomez at SS, Marte at 2B and Chong in CF - they'll hope for some run-producing surprises among 1B Walter Wills, RF Trenidad Medrano and AAA callups Buddy Offerman, Patrick Weaver and Rodrigo Pineda. They're ace-less, but the front 3 of Daniel Tankersly, Trent Diaz and Butler should be very good; the key to contention may be how well some combo of Dion Hull, Clark Jensen and Efrain Jhang perform in the 4 and 5 spots.

PREVIEW
Tough to bet against Ottawa's pitching, but I think Chicago improved themselves on both sides of the line in the off season and has to be the favorite. New York will be much improved, especially on the pitching side - they look like a solid contender. If Syracuse was in the AL North, they'd run away with the pennant; in the NL North, I think they come in 4th with an impressive record. Chicago wins it, with Ottawa and New York taking wild cards.
Will contend for the MVP: Jesus Gomez (SYR), Ellie Roenicke (NY)
Will contend for the Cy Young: Jorge DeJesus (OTT), Ariel Chantres (NY)
Will contend for the ROY: Damian Figgins (NY)

Syracuse GM Rugby1 On the Gomez Signing

2011-04-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Syracuse fans are already making "Gomez Saves" banners!

It took a max contract and all of the free agent signing period to land Jesus Gomez. We identified him as the one we would go after at the end of last season.

We had a number of aging vets with higher salaries coming off the books with some promising youngsters ready to take their places. The Maxwell trade (Theodore Maxwell and Dingo Hawkins to Scottsdale for Buddy Offerman, Trenidad Medrano and Eduardo Tavarez) cannot be overlooked here, either. We were ready to give Max the big deal he was looking for but when the opportunity to get three good young players for him arose we took it. Including Dingo Hawkins in the deal gave us more payroll room too.

My first season in the league saw the franchise lose Victor Morales to a max contract and later Raphael Brogna. So we knew Gomez would probably be getting a contract in the same stratosphere.

Our management determined if any player was worth a max contract it was him. In addition to his hitting and fielding talents I like his high durability, health and make up ratings.

Our initial plan will see him at SS with Marte moving to 3B and he will be hitting 3rd or 4th, to be determined during spring training. Since then we have made moves to strengthen the bullpen and hope to be back in contention this season.

FA Signings Top Record

2011-04-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

When Alex Woodson (Little Rock) and Jacque Butler (Syracuse) simultaneously put pen to paper at 3:14 this morning, Belle set a new league record for most Type A and B Free Agents changing teams in a season (33).

Since the monster Gomez contract, Syracuse has brought in a pair of P's (Butler and Crash Carter), Chicago shored up its bullpen (Mark Martin), Scranton completed its CF platoon (Albert Harmon), New Orleans replaced the departed Jesus Javier in its rotation (Pedro Gonzalez), Oakland nabbed a former FOY (Benito Rivera), and Salem signed an insurance SP (Ozzie Calderon).

Off season activities conclude tonight with the Rule 5 draft.

MAX Deal For Gomez!

2011-04-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

Syracuse has swallowed hard and made Jesus Gomez the highest-paid player in Belle, awarding the former Scranton and San Juan star a 5 year, $110MM contract.

Gomez, 27, was a Season 12 international FA ($19.1 bonus) signee of the Scranton organization. He needed just one minor-league season and won the AL ROY in Season 13 with a .334/28/126 effort. In 6 full ML seasons, he has 3 All-Star appearances, 3 Silver Sluggers and a Gold Glove.

After consecutive sub-.500 seasons (following 7 straight with 90+), many observers believed the Warriors were entering a rebuilding phase. But the signing signals an unmistakable intent to contend. With $12MM or so still available to spend and a good number of FA's still unsigned, we expect some more moves. The already very-interesting NL North just became even more so.

The last cycle saw 4 other Type A signings:

San Diego topped the apparently-vigorous bidding for Tomas Cruz, paying $53.6MM over 5 years for the former New Orleans swingman. Look for Cruz to move into the Surf Babies' rotation and get a big boost from the huge ballpark.

Chicago corralled lefty bat Theodore Beckett for $15.9MM over 3 years. It's currently a crowded OF for the Swingers, with Beckett, Gant, Davis and Stokes competing for PT.

Scranton grabbed iron-man C Odalis Gutierrez for 2 years, $11.2MM. If he hasn't already, he'll probably set the record for most games caught during his tenure in Scranton.

Burlington signed defensive whiz David Lee for 2 years, $8MM. He's likely the starting 2B for the Lake Monsters this season.

FA Builds Toward Big Finish

2011-04-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

We're in the competitive phase of free agency now, with no doubt lots of players weighing multiple offers. And more teams have jumped into the action:

New York won the services of SP Raul Arias with a 5-year, $31MM contract. Arias has 95 wins and a 3.93 ERA over 8 big league seasons.

Andres Padilla landed with Cleveland for 3 years, $14.8MM. The Katanas also re-signed Lorenzo Rodriguez for 5 years, $38.75MM, and have come through free agency with the team almost intact.

San Diego won the bidding for one of the younger leading free agents, 27 year-old IF Quilvio Suarez. He gets $36.5MM over 5 years.

Scottsdale continued the spending spree, adding Brad Hart for 2 years, $4.24MM per year. Hart appears to be the leading contender for the 3B job for the Vipers.

El Paso signed its 4th Type B free agent, SP Javier Batista. Batista has 41 wins and a 3.83 ERA over 6 ML seasons.

Dan Cirillo heads "home" to Detroit. After a 2-year sabbatical to Vancouver, the world career leader in complete games returns to the franchise that signed him as an IFA way back in Season 1. He gets $7.2MM for 2 years.

Portland landed a RF by getting Ray Henley's signature on a 2 year, $6.74MM deal. Barring injury, Henley will join the 1000-RBI club this season.

Little Rock got career 300-HR man Victor Perez for 2 years, $7MM. Perez could see action at both 1B and LF for the Pebbles.

Look for the pace of signings to pick up in the next cycle.

Catching Up On Offseason Moves

2011-03-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

The high activity level of this offseason continues...

The Free Swingers (who else?) pulled off an interesting trade with Columbus, getting the extremely powerful but wildly inconsistent Andrew Davis, and sending over last year's surprise .300 hitter, Walter Day. Davis had a promising Season 17 with the Criminals, hitting .290 with 32 homers in only 379 AB's, but saw his OPS drop nearly 300 points in last year's terrible campaign. Day was a second-rounder who had spent 4 seasons in AAA before getting his shot last year, and he made the most of it. This looks like a deal where Columbus is opting for a more predictable commodity, and Chicago is betting the friendly confines of Wrigley will be more compatible with Davis' big uppercut swing.

On the FA front, New York snared a good defensive SS in Omar Freeman. He should be a step up offensively from last year's SS Mateo Cortez. Freeman signed for $23.5MM over 4 years.

Chicago struck again, landing Elroy Gant for $30MM over 4 years. The Free Swingers have now assembled one of Belle's most impressive lineups - the NL looks like it will be hyper-competitive this year, but Chicago has to be the early favorite to repeat as NL Champs.

Jacque Fitzgerald re-signed with Cleveland for $22.8MM over 4 years. There would be something odd about Fitzgerald in anything other than a Katanas uni...well, we know what cap he'll be wearing on his HOF plaque.

More Big FA News

2011-03-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Some more A/B free agent signings earlier today:

El Paso signed a pair of Type B players: former Jacksonville reliever Quilvio Rodriguez (2 years, $2.6MM) and former Little Rock SS (and Season 12 AL ROY) Jerry Bernero (3 years, $16.9MM). The Sun Kings join Scottsdale as the most active FA players so far, with 3 A/B signings each.

Toledo added Victor Sosa (2 years, $7.6MM) to the bullpen...can the Mud Hens shake things up enough to get into the NL East race? They've added SP Jesus Javier and RP Sosa on pretty nice contracts. Young superstar 2B Marty Coco (#2 overall in Season 15) and RP Phil Feller (a second-rounder in Season 15) are ML-ready. These guys could make some noise this year.

2 very big names also re-signed with their old clubs: Rafael Brogna returns to Pittsburgh for 3 years, $15.2MM, and Mexico City pulls off their second re-signing, getting Pedro Encarnacion to come back for 5 years, $42.5MM.

Surenos, Free Swingers Make A Deal

2011-03-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

Oakland has been shopping IF prospect Benj Green all over the Winter Meetings; they found a taker this morning, and surprise...it's the super-proactive Chicago Free Swingers.

Chicago gets Green, Season 15's 7th overall pick. He's a defensive whiz who can handle either 2B or 3B and could hit .250-.270 with 15-20 HR's. The Surenos get SP Louie Paniagua, a SP with 46-48, 4.25 ERA lifetime numbers, Wolf King, a less-talented version of Green, and $5MM cash.

The trade continues what is becoming a decidedly National League trend in the offseason: of the trades and A/B FA moves made so far (with each side of a trade counting as 1 "move"), the NL has made 21 moves to the AL's 6.

Big First Day For Free Agents

2011-03-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

Six type A/B free agents signed this morning, with a couple of other significant signings going down.

Scottsdale continued to be the biggest off-season mover and shaker with a pair of A/B deals. They ignored injury concerns about John Tamura, inking the OF to a 3-year, $6.8MM per year contract, and committed $4.4MM a year for four years to reliever Tuck Barkley.

Starter Tomas Martin got a nice $5MM bonus as part of a 2-year deal with El Paso; he joins an increasingly-solid rotation for the Sun Kings.

C Macbeth Crawford joins the new Omaha franchise on a 2-year, $7.8MM deal. A catcher for his entire career, he'll be the regular DH for the Middle Americans.

Chicago jumped into free agency to get reliever Bosco Swann for 3 years, $4.8MM per year. This is likely the first of many free agent signings by the Free Swingers, who are looking for a return ticket to the World Series.

Toledo made a splash with a 3-year, $21MM deal for SP Jesus Javier. Javier is coming off one of his best seasons and shows no signs of slowing down at age 35.

In a mild surprise, Mexico City rewarded Luis Redondo for 13 years of loyal service with a 3-year, $26MM contract. Redondo is capable of having as good a year as anyone - he has a Cy Young over the fireplace - but is coming off his two worst seasons (both 5+ ERA).

Salem quietly added more offense, getting Marquis Seo for a bargain $3.5MM a year for 2 seasons. Seo's power isn't what it used to be, and he needs quite a few days off, but he's still a solid .300 hitter.

Tip For Rebuilding Teams

2011-03-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't bright enough to figure this one out before it happened, but I stumbled onto it so thought I'd share.

One of the problems many rebuilding teams face is the lack of minor-league talent coming up to the majors. It's tough to piece together a contender entirely through free agency (and even when you do it's easy to end up with some bad contracts in the out years). You have to get some young, cheap talent coming up, so you go to work rebuilding through the draft and the international market.

Any time you can do something to get one more piece for the future, it's quite a bonus. I stumbled onto one way in Season 17, when I took over the moribund Buffalo franchise (now Detroit). Here's what happened:

I had the #1 pick in the draft, and also thought I would get some comp picks for Type B free agents (I ended up with 4). So the basic rebuilding goal for the year (get 1 star-caliber prospect and 1 or 2 others who had a shot at ML careers) was in pretty good shape through the draft.

I also wanted the team to be much more competitive than the 49 wins my predecessor had posted in Season 16. Since I would only lose a 2nd-round pick by signing a Type A FA (the "top 16 discount"), I targeted C Richie Elder and signed him pretty early to a 4-year, $5.6MM per year deal. I figured he'd be a cornerstone of the offense for 4 seasons, that his ratings wouldn't decline much over the course of the contract, and that I might not get another chance at a Type A for a 2nd-rounder.

Richie started hot, although my team struggled as expected. I started looking around for trade possibilities. I contacted several teams about Elder and got only minor interest and a couple of so-so offers. Then I took a look at the New York Necromancers. They were clearly a team on the way up. They had a loaded farm system and needed a C. They had rookie monster Ellie Roenicke at 1B, and more importantly, nowhere to put former #19 draft pick Miguel Rivera. Seemed like a natural.

We made the deal, and I think it's worked out well for both teams. New York just missed the playoffs the last 2 seasons, but is still improving. Richie's been solid and shows no signs of slowing down. Rivera would've still been in AAA with the Necromancers (or traded somewhere else), but instead won AL ROY for Detroit last year.

Rivera isn't an All-Star. He lacks power for a 1B and needs too many days off. But he's a good fit for my ballpark...he's a switch-hitter and his value isn't based solely on his power rating. If and when my team becomes a real contender (unlike last season's crazy-lucky squad), he'll probably be a part of it. A great pickup for a cost of the #61 pick in a not-great draft.

A lot of things went right for that to fall into place. I got a fairly young FA for a pretty good price, and found a ideal trade partner. I could very easily still have Elder on the roster, which wouldn't be so bad.

I'll definitely try to pull this off again with another rebuilding team...there's very little downside in signing a Type A when the only thing it costs you is a 2nd-rounder.

Updates to Single-Season and Career Records

2011-03-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Been a couple of seasons since we updated all the records, and there have been a few changes of note.

The only single-season record set last year was Roger Lawson's 53 saves, which tied the mark originally set in Season 14 by Syracuse's P.T. Lincoln.

On the career records front, Skip Leon finally packed it in last season, falling 51 hits short of 3000. Among active players, Matt Wallace (2628), William Pierce (2622), and Rafael Brogna (2523) are in hailing distance of 3000, but it's 33 year-old Victor Morales (currently 2581 hits) who seems a lock to be Belle's first member of the 3000 club.

Skip did manage to sneak past the 2000 RBI mark, finishing at 2020.

Joe Rivera stroked 24 homers last year to become the "Babe Ruth of Belle" - first to reach 700 homers (currently on 710).

Victor Morales scored 125 runs last year to extend his career mark to 1855. With probably another 6 productive seasons ahead of him, he could well surpass 2500 runs scored by the time he's done.

Neifi Foster swiped 65 bags last year to move past Lon Andrews on the career stolen base list - the new mark is 658.

Biggest Free Agent Class Ever Set To Start Signing

2011-03-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

Based on the number of available players, the JBT is projecting that this season will be the biggest ever in terms of the number of Type A and B free agents signed.

Season 16 saw 32 A/B's signed, the biggest number so far. There are at least (we usually miss a few) 44 A and B free agents available.

Over on the hitter side, there are at least 25 A/B's available, headed up by SS Jesus Gomez. Gomez will no doubt command a mega-contract, but may well be worth it. Just 27 (the poster child for why you don't want to take players to arb 3 times), he already has a ROY, 3 All-Star Games, and 3 Silver Sluggers on the CV. Other top names among the position players are OF's John Tamura, Theodore Beckett, and Ray Henley; C Odalis Gutierrez; and future Hall-Of-Famers Jacque Fitzgerald and Rafael Brogna.

Among the pitchers there are at least 19 A/B's, including SP's Jesus Javier, Lorenzo Rodriguez, Theodore Fox, Jacque Butler, Pedro Encarnacion, and Luis Redondo; and relievers Fausto Cedeno, Crash Carter, Bosco Swann and Tomas Cruz.

The first signees (the ones who get only one offer and decide to take the bird in hand) should be inking deals in the morning; stay tuned to the JBT for the latest in free agency and other off-season news!

Trades Heat Up On Arb Day

2011-03-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

One day before free agency starts, trades have started heating up, with numerous teams getting in on the action.

Defending WS Champ Salem jumped into the trade fray in a big way, landing New York's Christopher Booker for RP Harry Gumbert, 2B prospect J.P. Bennett, and RP prospect Gerald Fisher. Booker may be a 1-year rental, but well worth the price for the champs to replace the departed Elroy Gant. The clincher for the Necromancers may have been the inclusion of Fisher, a sleeper 3rd-rounder with lousy stamina, but a wicked sinker and decent splits.

Chicago continued downsizing the payroll this morning, sending reliever Odalis Torcato to Oakland for catching prospect Junichi Yosida. Torcato was the 5th pick in the Season 12 draft (Jacksonville franchise), but has been disappointing in 4 ML seasons, posting a 4.71 ERA in just 179 innings. Yosida was the 32nd pick of the Season 16 draft (Oakland); he could be the Free Swingers' backup C this season.

The Surenos struck again, picking up IF Rod Goldberg from Rochester for SP Tony Familia, a supplemental pick last season. Goldberg may move into the starting SS role for Oakland.

Scottsdale made its 2nd blockbuster deal, sending RF Trenidad Medrano (#7 pick in Season 13), 3B prospect Buddy Offerman (#12 pick in Season 17), and RP prospect Eduardo Tavarez (Season 16 IFA) to Syracuse for 2B Theodore Maxwell and reliever Dingo Hawkins. Maxwell, the 8th pick of the Season 14 draft, teams with the just-acquired Jim Olsen to give the Vipers the best-hitting middle infield in Belle. Syracuse appears to be in sell off veterans/rebuild mode...is Clarence Marte next?

Vipers, Free Swingers Make 1st Trade

2011-03-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

The Scottsdale Valley Vipers and the Chicago Free Swingers have made the season's first trade, and it's a big one.

The Vipers get highly decorated (4 Silver Sluggers, 5 All-Star Teams) SS Jim Olson from the Free Swingers in return for 2B prospect Javy Matos (Season 15 #5 overall), RP prospect Trent Durbin (Season 14 #46 overall) and OF prospect Al Mesa (Season 15 IFA).

Scottsdale's motivation for the deal seems pretty clear: they have prospects to give and need some offense to support an excellent young pitching staff. Chicago had $85 million already committed to ML payroll and alternatives at SS, so Olson was expendable. Both teams are expected to make strong bids to contend in their respective divisions.

In other trade news, Jacksonville and Detroit agreed to a smaller deal. Veteran OF Hack Bush, coming off an injury season, goes to the Jinxed for minor league SP Carl Hardy. Jacksonville appears to have been shopping for a lefty bat; Bush was Detroit's highest-paid player - they probably figure he was expendable since they won the division without him last year.

Welcome To All and Especially Our New Owners

2011-03-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome, all to Joey Belle Season 19.

We have 3 new owners this year. Starting in the NL, new has taken over from elgman and moved the franchise to Scottsdale. New is anything but new to HBD, with 91 seasons and 9 World Series titles to his credit.

At the other end of the experience spectrum, mikeyfrog joins us for his debut HBD season. He takes over one of the most storied franchises in Belle history, the 11-time division champ former Jackson Holes, now moved to Austin as the Horned Frogs.

Last but not least, our new AL West combatant is coachmoss with the Omaha Middle Americans. Coachmoss has 5 playoff appearances among his 14 seasons.

Good luck to our new owners this season!

Awards Review

2011-03-12T08:10:00.000-08:00

AL MVP: Carlos Escuela won his 2nd straight; JBT predicted correctly and also opined that Cuddyer would get up to 10 votes - he got 11.

AL Cy Young: Edgardo Valdes won with 14 votes to Cerda's 8; JBT missed on this one - we thought Cerda's higher win total would be persuasive.

AL ROY: Rivera won pretty easily. JBT was correct and predicted a "hefty vote total" - Rivera's 17 votes were the 2nd-most.

NL MVP: Ellie Roenicke's big power year powered him to the highest vote total (18) - correctly forecast by JBT.

NL Cy Young: Clay Merrit and Bruce Friend share the award. JBT correctly picked Friend but overlooked Merrit.

NL ROY: Chantres edged Day 13-11. JBT was right in predicting a close vote, but we thought Day would prevail.

Goonies Sweep For First Championship

2011-03-12T07:01:00.000-08:00

In another surprising twist to a surprising playoff season, Salem swept Chicago to earn its first-ever Belle World Championship.

Both teams had ridden some savvy free agent signing to division championships. The Free Swingers signed 7 free agents in the off-season, most notably P's Milton Starr, Del Ramirez and Roger Lawson. The Goonies spent liberally themselves, inking Ruben James, Geoff Sosa, Jacob Franklin and Jose Vargas.

Chicago had a tough route to the Series: a 5-gamer over San Juan (losing Cy Young co-winner Bruce Friend in the process), then coming back from a 2-1 deficit to beat New Orleans in 6. Salem lost former Cy Young winner James late in the season (for the entire playoffs), survived a Round 2 dogfight with Richmond, then knocking out defending champ Pittsburgh in 6.

Game 1 was in doubt until the 9th. Leading 3-2, Salem posted 4 in the top half (Escuela and Krause homers) for a 7-2 opening win.

Game 2 stayed close as well but was less in doubt. Chicago got only 3 runners into scoring position; Merrit, Franklin and Tollberg combined on a 5-hit shutout. Chavez (twice) and Hardy homered in a 6-0 win.

Game 3 may have been the Swingers' chance to get back in the series. They got solo homers from Stokes and Durbin, but could manage only 2 more hits. Placido Chavez cranked 2 more longballs for the Goonies, who took a commanding lead with a 4-2 win.

Salem smelled blood on Game 4, jumping out to a 10-1 lead after 4 innings. Credit for not quitting...they battled back with 5 runs, but the Goonies proved too tough. Salem held on 10-6 for the series sweep and their first Belle World Championship.

Congrats to both cmthieme and coach34 on fantastic seasons - on to Season 19.

PITT Blitzes DET To End Gangstaz' Season

2011-03-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

The World Champion Alleghenys totally dismantled (and that description is an understatement) Detroit in the 2nd round, outscoring the Gangstaz 33-4 in the 3-game set. It's hard to pick out only a couple of Pittsburgh standouts, but you'd have to say Bucky Daal and Rafael Brogna with 7 RBI each.

Detroit GM blanch13 was philosophical about the shellacking: "Our plan is to build long-term and be competitive while we do it. Our division competitors were down this year and we got very lucky in the first round against Cleveland. I'm not surprised or discouraged about the way we played against Pittsburgh - we'll be back here in a year or 2 or 3 and our youngsters will be tougher for the experience."

In other playoff action, Salem and San Juan won to take 2-1 leads, and Jacksonville held off elimination with a clutch 8th-inning rally at home.

The playoffs continue this evening in the pm2 cycle.

z0601 On Upsetting Ottawa In Round One

2011-03-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

z0601 has advanced from being a rookie "grasshopper" asking a million questions (back in Seasons 14-15) to an accomplished owner with his 3rd straight division title. The JBT just caught up with z to get his thoughts on the big upset win over Ottawa in the first round of the playoffs:

Did you see the win over Ottawa coming? If so what made you think you could upset the defending AL champs?

To be honest, did I like our chances? Yes. Did I think it would happen? NO. For whatever reason, we seem to match up well against Ottawa in a short series and gave them all they could handle in the post season last year and almost pulled off a bigger upset then. Once I saw we would face them in the playoffs out of the gate again this season, I knew we had improved from last year could maybe win it in 5 games, but never in a million years did I think we would sweep them. I knew if we could get our starters to not put us in a big hole early, I believed that our bullpen could close out close games. Everyone had been saying all season long that our Bullpen was a liability because we had so many 1 run games this season and our luck would run out at some point. Our bullpen has usually not been the problem, it has been our starters not being sharp from the start and putting us behind early and having to climb out of a deficit in most games. The big question in my mind was how would we get across the plate and keep them from doing the same with our rock in the middle with Jose coming off the DL but we did.

What surprised you about the series?

That their normally dangerous hitters couldn't get on track and never really seemed to find a rhythm. I think if they had gotten some runs in Game 2 and built up their confidence, you would have seen a totally different series and most likely a different result. The fact we won the last two games by 1-run each still amazes. We could have very easily been looking at a 2-1 hole heading back to Jacksonville with two swings of the bat in either game.

How do you see your chances against New Orleans?

The fact that it is a short series is the only reason we have a shot against New Orleans in my opinion. In a short series anything can happen. Our starting pitching will be key once again, as will our ability to get some hits of their great pitching. If we can do that we have a chance, if not I think we might get the broom broken out on us which has happened before and is never a fun way to end a season.

Surprises Rule In Play-In Round

2011-03-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Upsets were the order of the day in Round One, with 3 teams with the lower regular season winning % taking home wins. Convincingly, too - no series went to 5 games.

Detroit topped Cleveland in 4 in a major shocker. The Katanas top-ranked regular season pitching staff was thoroughly mediocre, posting a 5.29 ERA against the Gangstaz' lineup of has-been's and castoffs. Harry Encarnacion hit .455 for DET while Robert Franco had a pair of homers.

In the other AL matchup, Richmond ousted D.C. in 4 games. The Poor Men won the critical close games, getting shutout efforts in Games 1 and 4 from Charlie Cosby and Juan Gil (plus relief help in both). Edgar Redondo had 2 longballs and 4 RBI for Richmond.

In the NL, Jacksonville stunned defending AL Champ Ottawa with a sweep. Other than the 3rd inning of Game 1 (4 runs), the Ice were clueless against the sneakily effective Jinxed staff. And J'Ville mustered just enough offense against and DeJean and Merrit in Games 2 and 3 to eke out 2-1 wins. Quilvio Marrero knocked in 3 runs for Jacksonville, but the MVP's of the series were the Jinxed staff - they held Ottawa to a .214 batting average and no homers.

San Juan's win over Vancouver may not have been a huge surprise (in fact, they swept favored Vegas in the first round last year for their first-ever playoff series win) but the way they did it was: they just beat the 'livin crap out of a very good Victory squad. They scored 5 runs in the first inning of Game 1 and kept pouring it on, outscoring VAN 27-5. The Senators OPS'd .874 for the series; Kenneth Scoroposki drove in 6 to pace the offense.

Awards: Who Should Win And Who Will

2011-02-28T09:32:00.000-08:00

AL MVP

Strictly a 2-horse race between PITT's Cuddyer and Salem's Escuela. Cuddyer had a truly impressive offensive season - his RC/27 was almost 40% better than that of the #2 player in that category (Leonardo Hardy), and he lead the league in average and OBP by a mile (and slugging percentage by a little). But Escuela was no slouch on offense, either - lead in HR's and RBI's. Three other factors argue for Escuela: 1. He played 21 more games than Cuddyer, so even though Gene got on base at a far greater rate, Escuela scored 34 more runs; 2. Defense - Escuela played a far more demanding position (and played it well - 15+ plays and a very good .974 fielding %); 3. Baserunning - Escuela undoubtedly created a few runs with his speed and tossed in 28 steals for good measure.

Escuela SHOULD win and WILL, although I think Cuddyer might pick up as many as 10 votes.

AL CY YOUNG

Great race, with probably 4 of the contenders (all but James) able to make a case. I've never been a big fan of wins or ERA as an indicator of how well someone pitched; in this case they're all pretty close on those stats anyway. WHIP is a little better and gives a clue: Valdes' WHIP was quite a bit better than all the others'. Dig a little deeper and you find that Valdes had the best OBP Against and best Slugging % Against (Burnett and Wanatabe were very close on slugging).

Valdes SHOULD win; I have a feeling Cerda WILL win in a close vote.

AL ROY

Not a great year for the AL rookies. Rivera lead the group in average, OPS, RBI. While Prior pitched well, he only got in 37+ innings. Rivera SHOULD win and WILL with a pretty hefty vote total.

NL MVP

I know the Necromancers missed the playoffs (could be awhile before that happens again, but that's another post), but Ellie Roenicke's season was so good, the other candidates are hardly worth mentioning. His 64 homers were the 6th most ever, the 3rd most in the last12 seasons, and the best of the last 5 years. It's hard to look up, but I believe his 161 RBI were the best in the modern era since Rivera's 167 in Season 13. Roenicke SHOULD win and WILL, with the highest vote total of any award winner.

NL CY YOUNG

This is a hard one. Two relievers in the mix, and they actually pitched better than the 3 starters (by OPS against). But they're relievers and have their own award, and neither one threw many innings, even for closers. Neither should win, and I don't think either will. We've actually had 2 relievers win CY's since Season 10: Season 13, when Geoff Sosa had a ridiculous 1.17 ERA and an even crazier .430 OPS against; and Season 15, when Clyde Jackson threw 211 innings in relief (and won 28 games). Lawson and Telford both had nice seasons, but nothing like those.

Of the 3 starters, DeJesus had the best OBP and Slugging % against, although Merrit was fairly close. Friend was the 3rd-best pitcher of these 3 - the 32 longballs produced a .411 Slugging-against.

There's probably an some kind of argument for all 3. DeJesus SHOULD win; I think Friend WILL win based on the 21 wins.

NL ROY

In many ways, the most interesting race this year.

Matos is really the only one with no case. The only reason he's on the ballot is the 30 saves - the most totally meaningless stat in any sport. He'll have some good seasons in the future, but he got hit pretty hard as a rookie.

Chantres and Moya are a pretty easy comparison because they both pitched 132 innings. Moya was pretty good...ballot-worthy for sure. But Chantres was truly dominant.

That leaves the 2 hitters. Day had the better offensive numbers, and gets some bonus for versatility - played 4 positions and filled in at DH for 3 games to boot. CF Chong held down the tougher defensive assignment - with 8 assists and 10 "+" plays (along with 8 errors), he wasn't GG caliber but certainly got the job done. Throw in 29 bombs and you have a pretty compelling story.

It's a tough call. I'll say Chantres SHOULD win because his performance was the most dominant. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if either Day or Chong took it (and it wouldn't bother me - Chantres only appeared in 18 games). I'll guess that Day wins it in a very close vote.

Regular Season Wrap-Up

2011-02-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

Parity in Belle? Kind of a novel idea but it may be where we're headed. The playoffs will have a decidedly different look this year.

In the NL North, Chicago capped a great regular season by sweeping defending NL champ Ottawa in the season-ending series to capture the division. The Free Swingers set a new franchise record for wins with 103. They go into the playoffs as the #2 seed; the Ice are in at #5.

In the East, Jacksonville takes the division for the third straight year, and posted their best record since Season 10 (86 wins).

Down South, New Orleans claimed the #1 seed and their 3rd straight division crown with an excellent 107-win season. With some key players eligible for free agency, this may be the do-or-die year for a New Orleans championship. San Juan posted their 2nd straight 88-win season and is in as the #6 seed.

Out West, Vancouver breaks the OAK/LV stranglehold on the division with its first title. The Victory make their first playoff appearance as the #3 seed. This is the first year in Belle's history that we won't see either OAK or in the playoffs.

In the AL North, Detroit continues to improve and makes the playoffs for the first time since Season 10. They're in as the #4 seed.

The AL East has a new champ for the first time in 13 seasons. Pittsburgh has advanced to the World Series the last 2 years as a wild card (and won last year), but couldn't claim Eastern preeminence until wresting the division title from Cleveland. The Alleghenys have the #1 seed; the Katanas are in as #5. The division gets a third playoff team with Washington D.C. taking the #6 seed.

In the South, Richmond won a hard-fought race to win it's 2nd division championship in 2 years. The Poor Men take the #3 seed.

Finally, Salem wins the West for the 4th straight year. They get a first-round pass as the 2nd seed.

Congrats to all the playoff teams!

Inside The Gangstaz' Draft Top 10

2011-01-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

Thought this might be a little entertaining, at least for the more analytical draft geeks among us. Interested in your comments on "our" thinking and analysis. Yes, I plan to do a first-round draft review again this year.

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Drafting At 17 this year, we knew we'd have a good shot at getting a very solid player IF we put enough into scouting. Given we're in a rebuilding phase, the college and high school scouting departments had to compete for funds with the int'l department, but still came away with a respectable $17MM and $15MM with which to scour the land.

Without any supplementals or a 2nd-rounder, we really concentrated our draft time on building our top 10. We're as intent as anyone on grabbing the occasional 3rd, 4th and later-rounders who become ML players, but in our experience those instances are more the result of deep drafts than us spending time re-ranking prospect #'s 50 and up. The time payoff for us seems to be NOT MAKING A MISTAKE with the #1 pick.

Task one when the prospect list was released was pegging those players we thought were no-brainer top-fivers - those players who weren't likely to fall to us at 17 but were the stars guaranteed to make it big.

As is our habit, we started with pitchers. We considered Ted Parris and Reid Regan, who both have very high projections but seem to be starting too low to realistically approach them (really, has anyone ever seen a prospect develop 30+ points in a rating?). We dropped these 2 into the next group.

Then we moved on to the high-OVR IF/CF group, where Brent Hartzell, Damian Schmidt and Alexander Powell caught our attention. Hartzell immediately looked like the real deal. High projections, but within reach of current ratings (with a couple of exceptions). His glove doesn't have a shot at reaching the ideal CF caliber...in fact, it probably won't hit 80. But his range probably WILL reach 90, and oh baby, that bat. We see something like 92/72/68/81/78 - plug him into CF and #3 in the batting order for a dozen years and watch the awards roll in. We immediately installed Hartzell as #1 on our board.

Then we looked over Schmidt. Our scouts were split. They liked the very high contact, power and eye projections - even if he falls well short of them (certainly likely for contact) he'll be pretty good - but were suspect of his very low glove and split ratings. We figured there was no way he would slip to 17, and if he did it would be a worthwhile risk, so after vigorous debate we made Schmidt our #2.

Powell looked like a nice player, but not a consensus top-5 guy. His defense was clearly not going to reach true SS status, his batting eye ceiling was low, makeup suspect, and health was a small concern. Exactly the kind of guy who could fall to 17. We moved him into the "consider more carefully" bin.

Then we spooled through the top OF/1B/C/DH and RP candidates. RP Darwin, RF Jung, 2B Foxx, Powell, 2B Alarcon, RF Guillen. We added these to the "next level" group with SP's Parris and Regan. Finally, we ran everyone through our own little spreadsheet ranking to get the "dark-horse" candidates (those with lower OVR's but who might prove more valuable nonetheless). We liked C Fernando Belliard, RP Roy Waters, RF Woody Webb, and C/DH Kory Delcarmen.

(We didn't scout eventual top-10 picks Graeme Burnett and Jerrod Gordon).

So, our "no-brainer top 5" group only included Hartzell and Schmidt. A little light on the top end of the draft

Our first cut on the next group had the relievers Darwin and Waters out front, but do you really want to "settle" for a reliever at #17? That bugged us, but both of these guys looked really good...Darwin being preferable due to better control and higher pitch count capability. The thing that nagged us about Darwin was his low patience - given the very long useful careers of pitchers, we like to draft guys who will re-sign when free agency is available. Darwin looks like he'll bolt - it's a long way down the road and honestly a minor concern, but still there.

Similar minor concerns with all this group: Jung's short on power (the low patience is a little less concern for hitters - by the time he hits free agency he could be well into decline anyway); Foxx seems to have lower upside than most of this group; Powell has the health and makeup concerns; Alarcon isn't a 2B defensively; Guillen's splits are starting too low; Parris and Regan we mentioned already; Belliard's a potential injury; Webb's a strikeout machine and a potential injury; Delcarmen...well, hmmm.

We spent a lot of time evaluating Delcarmen. We like those very high potential power guys. Reminded us of our old Austin farmhand (now Columbus OF) Andrew Davis, minus the OF capability. We looked up Davis, and found that after a very nice .290/32/86 debut (in only 379 AB's) last year, he's followed up with a stinking .195/16/39 so far this year. I guess that's 50's splits for you. Still, Delcarmen intrigued us. It looked like his contact, splits and eye could all surpass Davis. It didn't look like his PC would be enough for a legit C, but we still liked him.

Delcarmen was our "nemisis choice" - clearly not the pick to make but the one that seduced us. We knew we should move him down, if for no other reason than he's a lousy fit for our ballpark, but we couldn't do it. We imagined 70 HR's a year flying out of Comerica...we were infected with Jerry Jonesitis.

We thought we had a good shot at getting our #3 selection at 17, so we ran lots of scenarios. Most had Darwin at #3. We considered Jung a few times...he's the kind of hitter that seems to be right for Comerica. We admit we had Delcarmen in there at 3 for a few iterations. We looked at Parris there and just couldn't do it. The C Belliard kept growing on us - nice switch-hitter (the versatility of that trait has grown on us with the success of our youngsters Bonk Liniak and Miguel Rivera) and decent defensive potential - despite the health concerns.

Ultimately we settled on Darwin at 3 and Belliard at 4, and thought we'd get one of them (we did). What our top 10 finally looked like:

1. Hartzell - picked 3rd
2. Schmidt - picked 1st
3. Darwin - picked 2nd
4. Belliard - We got him at 17
5. Delcarmen - picked 57th
6. Waters - picked 23rd
7. Jung - picked 7th
8. Foxx - picked 6th
9. Powell - picked 20th
10. Webb - picked 49th

I think we dodged a bullet on Delcarmen, although he's a fantastic choice at 57. Darwin would've been nice, and I'm only mildly surprised he went at #2 - Toledo may not have even seen Hartzell (or they may have seen 150 innings of 2.00 ERA a year from Darwin and decided that was better). With the clarity of hindsight I think I would've moved Delcarmen out of the top 10, moved Jung up to 5th, bumped up everybody else 1 spot and put Sammy Alarcon (picked 9th) at 10.

Thundercats Take Schmidt #1

2011-01-22T07:19:00.000-08:00

The Louisville Thundercats staked their future on an uber-talented Norfolk, VA high-school senior this morning, making Damian Schmidt the #1 selection in the Belle Season 18 draft.

The pick is considered mildly controversial in some circles. Schmidt is described as "toolsy," "high-ceiling," and "having great potential" - usually euphemisms for "ain't that great now and not sure he's gonna be." There's no doubt the potential is there - he projects to a superior defensive 2B with plus power, a great batting eye, and very difficult to strike out - but like a lot of high school players, the big question is how much of that potential he can realize.

One scout opined, "they're gonna really have to coach the hell out of this kid...good coaching at every level, big training budgets...and then maybe in 5 years he'll turn into the perennial All-Star his projections say he can be." Another: "Look, he's always going to be vulnerable the tough righty pitchers. But that's OK. If he can get those contact and eye ratings up to his potential, it won't matter."

In any event, the Thundercats were sold on his potential over the other player the considered, CF Brent Hartzell: "We decided to choose Schmidt over Hartzell the center fielder," offered GM riverpirate, "because our projections show a better ability for contact and power. He is a player we can begin to rebuild around."

NL Review At Game 45

2011-01-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

NORTH
A recent 9-game winning streak has vaulted the Ice into the lead over the upstart Chicago Free Swingers. Pitching keyed the streak for Ottawa: in the 9-gamer they didn't allow more than 3 runs in a game. Clay Merritt (5-2, 2.87), Johnny Hernandez (.339/11/34) and Alex Martin (.351/8/29) have been standout for the Ice, while Chicago has enjoyed hot starts by Diego Coronado (.340/9/22), Jimmie Stokes (.327/11/34) and Bailey Johnson (.331/11/30). The big question here is whether New York can get back in the race. They won 82 last year and expected to contend, signing Victor Morales to a big FA contract. Morales (.311/10/26), Ellie Roenicke (.281/19/45) and Richie Elder (.328/6/19) have done their parts, but the pitching staff has slipped to a 4.48 ERA and blown 5 of 16 save opportunities.

EAST
The East has new respectability, with 2-time defending champ Jacksonville at 26-18 and resurgent Pawtuckett 2 back at 24-20. The Jinxed are doing it with pitching - they're 2nd in the NL in ERA at 3.68 and ace Gary Ramsay is 5-3, 1.99. Big question - can their bullpen keep getting away with it? They have a Belle-high 11 1-run wins and their expected winning % is .474 (vs. an actual of .578). The Slater Paws have been more balanced, getting good offensive contributions from CF Ricardo Delgado (.308/11/32) and Derek Foster (.305/11/38), and a monster start from closer Jesus Diaz (11-for-12 saves, 1.23 ERA).

SOUTH
New Orleans is pulling off a rare statistical feat: all 5 SP's (Fred West - 1.69, Jesus Javier - 2.33, Tomas Cruz - 2.72, Magglio Nunez - 3.13, and Omar Chavez - 3.18) are in the top 25 (top 16, in fact) in ERA. No wonder they're leading, although Mexico City and San Juan are hanging in, 6 back at 23-22. On the stat side, other division notables include the Senators' Phillip Cooke (.371/13/36) and the Red Hot's Damaso Castillo (.355/7/36).

WEST
Vancouver has opened a cushion of 5 over Las Vegas and 6 over Oakland. The Victory are solid on all fronts - 4th in runs, 3rd in ERA, tied for 1st in Fielding %. Albert Ortiz (6-1, 1.42) leads the NL in ERA; Carlos Cairo (.318/14/34) and Troy Harris (.302/11/37) are providing the offense. The 69'ers have reversed their usual pattern - they're 3rd in runs scored but only 10th in ERA. RF Hughie Bruskie (.335/18/39) could be making an MVP bid. Oakland is starting to look a little old, but RF Wilfredo Feliz (.337/10/22, 14 steals) and closer P.T. Lincoln (12-for-12 saves, 2.00 ERA) are keeping them in contention.

Around Belle At the 20% Mark

2011-01-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

We're about a fifth of the way into the season and some trends - both surprising and not - are starting to take shape.

AL North
Can the Gangstaz possibly be for real? With more or less the same squad as last season (who arguably OVER-achieved by winning 78 games), Detroit is sailing along at a .645 clip. Tony Carrara (1.000+ OPS), Pedro Sierra (1.000+ OPS) and Teddy Nelson (5-0, 1.25 ERA) are undoubtedly under some kind of performance-enhancing substance investigation. Can Columbus possibly be this bad? After 90 wins last season the Criminals have stumbled out to an 12-19 start. The culprit? Cold bats. After scoring 5.76 runs per game last year, they're dead last at 3.73 rpg this year.

AL East
For the first time since the Clinton administration, somebody other than Cleveland leads the east. Defending WS Champ Pittsburgh has Belle's best record at 23-9 -
1B Gene Cuddyer and RF Joaquin Alvarez lead the AL in homers (12); Kaz Lim is thriving in his new closer role (6-for-6 saves and 0.00 ERA). D.C. and Cleveland aren't rolling over - we could see 3 playoff teams from the East this year.

AL South
Looks like a dogfight shaping up, with El Paso, Richmond and Little Rock a game apart and traditional (11 of the last 13 division titles) champ Jackson just 5 back. On the stat front, El Paso's Trenidad Guerrero is hitting .411 and Richmond's Daniel Gallagher checks in with a 1.034 OPS. Could we see a 3 or 4-way race go down to the last week?

AL West
3-time defending champ Salem leads but the big story is the emergence of San Diego and its league-leading pitching staff (3,47 ERA) as a contender. Free agent Jimmie Feliz (3-0, 1.41) and second-year man Javier Benitez (3-0, 1.52) are thriving in Petco's voluminous dimensions, and they're getting plenty of help from the relief corps. Salem's Elroy Gant is among the league leaders in just about every offensive category, but the key to their playoff hopes in continued good pitching: the Goonies were 2nd in team ERA last year and are slightly improved (3.85) so far this season.

Off-Season Winners and Losers - AL West

2010-12-22T18:14:00.000-08:00

We're about to wrap up one of the biggest off-seasons (free agency-wise, at least) in Belle history - we could see some real shifts in the balance of power this year. Let's take a division-by-division look at who advanced their causes and who slipped backwards this off-season.

AL WEST

The Division Champ Salem Goonies probably made the biggest splash in the AL, adding stud SP Ruben James and late-inning relievers Geoff Sosa and Jacob Franklin. The did lose P's Al Taylor and Glen Moore, plus backup OF Vinny Ma, but come out way ahead. They were 2nd in the league in ERA last year - these moves could make them the favorite to reach the WS from the Junior Circuit. Off-Season Grade: A

Portland tried to keep pace with 3 big FA signings of its own: SP Al Taylor, OF Tomas Cruz and 2B Roy Drew. Their losses (SP's Nick Rando and Vance Scutaro) might be a bit more meaningful than Salem's, but Season 14's #4 pick, 3B Hong-Gu Kim, is ready to contribute and should pick up some of the slack. They should improve on last year's runs total of 753, but I think they've still fallen further behind the Goonies. Off-Season Grade: B+

Boise sat out free agency but didn't lose anyone of note; their biggest off-season move was the promotion of Season 14's #11 pick, IF Fred Ruffin, to the big league roster. The infield is a little overpopulated, but Ruffin will find plenty of AB's. Off-Season Grade: B

San Diego lost IF Alan Leach, although it's not a huge loss at this point in his career. They countered with 4 pretty nice FA pickups: SP Jimmie Feliz, who's coming off a pair of disappointing seasons but will love Petco's cavernous pastures; solid SS Archie Blake; reliever Glen Moore; and OF Alberto Pinzon, one of the top available hitters. The Surf Babies have 13 players aged 15 and under on the opening day roster...this version will be much-improved. Off-Season Grade: A

Headliners Galore In Free Agency

2010-12-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

The stage is set for perhaps the richest free agent class in Belle history.

Let's start with the hitters, where Victor Morales hopes to cash in the way he did 5 years ago, when D.C. maxed out to get him. He made the All-Star team every season in that contract and won the AL Silver Slugger in RF 4 times (with his 2nd MVP in Season 14 for good measure).

Right up there with Morales is former Syracuse standout Alberto Pinzon, a .299 lifetime hitter with 218 career home runs.

Hot-corner defense? There's Matt Ryan with his 2 Gold Gloves (plus 222 career homers).

For the power fans, there's Tomas Cruz (310 career HR's), 2B Roy Drew (302 career HR's) and Carlos Cairo (385 career HR's).

The pitching side might be better.

At 35, Gary Ramsay can still get it done, although he's coming off an injury season. It'll be interesting to see what lenght contract the bidding takes him to.

Ruben James has made the All-Star team the last 4 years, and of course, took home the Cy Young in Season 16. At 33, he's got enough good seasons left to fetch a pretty nice contract.

If there's such a thing as a "sleeper" among the top starters, it's Del Ramirez, who has posted an excellent 3.62 ERA over 10 seasons.

The relievers include 2 of the top 4 career saves leaders, Roger Lawson and Geoff Sosa, plus Jacob Franklin, who has a FOY and 273 saves himself.

Let the bidding begin!

Awards Review

2010-12-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

We had some very interesting awards races this year, including the closest MVP vote in memory. The recap:

AL MVP: Carlos Escuela breaks through to win with a .280/48/142 campaign. I voted for him, although I have to add that I think he benefited greatly from the lack of monster seasons from anyone else in the AL (especially perennial MVP contenders Morales and Brantley of D.C.). I thought Pascual Pena of Columbus had a better overall offensive season, but I don't vote for DH's unless their numbers are vastly superior to everyone else's.

NL MVP: This was a doozy, with the Privateers' CF Sid Selby winning with a mere 9 votes (Necromancers' Roenicke got 8 and Selby's teammate Scheffer polled 7, with Oakland's Feliz and Helena's Cooke with 4 apiece). Selby shows up on the ballot every year, probably because he's a pretty solid CF who steals bases and puts up decent hitting stats. His career year at the plate - .333/24/84, with a career-best 45 steals and league-leading 51 doubles - put him over the top. Roenicke had a strong case (.400 OBP with 52 homers and 126 RBI) - you have to think New York's failure to make the playoffs (they weren't really expected to...they had a nice improvement to 82 wins) cost him a vote or 2. Scheffer enjoyed the move to New Orleans' Zephyr Field with his best power season (51/150), but I get the sense voters viewed that RBI total as result of Selby being in scoring position so often. Cooke's and Feliz's seasons were only slighty less impressive versions of Roenicke's and Selby's. I voted for Selby.

AL Cy Young: Qualitatives vs. wins, and 3 Katanna SP's on the ballot. Qualitatives win this year - Lorenzo Rodriguez (16-6, 2.63 ERA) beats out 4 SP's with higher ERA's and win totals. I voted for Rodriguez.

NL Cy Young: Let's put Rex Gragg's season in perspective: if he had gotten 10 more IP's, he would've set new single-season records for ERA and slugging % allowed (the fact that the same could be said for several of Johnny Collier's sub-162 IP seasons does not lessen the accomplishment). Do Rueben James (222 IP) and Jorge DeJesus (225 IP) have valid arguments? You bet, but voters seemed to be in a "quality over quantity" mood this year. I voted for Gragg.

AL ROY: The versatile Bonk Liniak wins in what was a definite down year for AL rookies. Liniak is Exhibit # 479 as to the worthlessness of the contact rating.

NL ROY: The NL definitely cornered the rookie performances this season. and Gragg'sRoenicke's seasons were dominant; had Parra, Mitchell or Delgado been in the AL they probably would have won. I voted for Roenicke, but can't deny that Gragg's season was worthy.

First-Round Draft Analysis

2010-11-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

Note: Picks marked with ** are the ones I can only see with my advanced Scouting Department (budget of 6, which is basically my 8 year-old nephew in Florida reading "HBD America" a couple of times a month), so take my comments with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, I try to render an opinion on all picks if for no other value than entertainment.

1. Detroit Retro Gangstaz - Tomas Park, SP: The main thing you want to do with a #1 pick is NOT SCREW IT UP, so mission accomplished for the Gangstaz. In Park, they get a future ace, although it looks like it will be at least 3 seasons before his ML debut. Park features very good control along with excellent splits versus both righties and lefties. No dominant pitch, but 3 that are decent-to-good. Keeps it down pretty well. Good health and makeup predict he'll get close to projections. Bonus: eventually becomes a big innings-eater capable of complete games. GRADE A.

2. Toledo Mud Hens - Alexander Browning**, SP/RP: At bare minimum, he'll be among the most unique pitchers in Belle; when he matures, he looks like he'll be able to throw 50-55 pitches every other day, and perhaps as many as 100 every third day. More importantly, they'll be GOOD pitches. His right split looks like it may be a bit lower than you'd like for a 2nd pick, but a superior first pitch and good 2nd pitch should make up for that. High health and makeup give him a good chance to reach projections. GRADE: B+

3. San Diego Surf Babies - Willis Atkins**, SP: Atkins is a soft-toss junkballer with an arsenal of 4 good pitches, all of which dart downward. His control and splits aren't that great, and he looks like he's going to be better against lefties than righties. Overall, a rather strange player. Although I don't think he'll be great - yes, there were much better picks available here - I do think he'll be the kind of player who has some quite good seasons (mixed with some really bad ones). GRADE C

4. Baltimore Orioles - Amp Faulk, SS: The first position player taken looks like he'll develop into a Gold Glove 3B with superb contact skills, but it's not clear he'll become a great hitter. His batting eye is s0-so, and his splits are really going to have to go to get to the level you want in a #4 pick. Fortunately his makeup will contribute to that development...lavish a lot of expensive minor-league coaching on him and he just might reach All-Star status. Grade B

5. Little Rock Pebbles - Wade Charles**, SP: Interesting combination of extreme control and extreme velocity. Combine that with 3 pretty good pitches and a vR that could conceivably reach the low 80's, and you just might have something special here. Lefties will certainly give him some trouble, but he should be at least adequate against them. Also keeps the ball down fairly well...I think the Pebbles hit a homer with this one. GRADE A

6. Columbus Criminals - Gil Schofield**, SP: The locker-room scene after this guy's pro debut could be right out of Bull Durham (except for the part about walking 18 and hitting the bull mascot twice):

Larry Hockett: (while deflating the big plastic Oscar Meyer Wiener prop) "But Joe...this kid has some serious shit."
Joe Riggins: "Yeah (nodding and grinning while sipping a Miller)...serious shit."

Once again, my nephew in Florida isn't the most accurate advance scouting department, but he's telling me this could be the first guy I've seen in HBD to reach ratings of 100 on both control and vR. Serious shit indeed. His pitches are just OK and not projected to get a lot better, but I don't think that will matter if that control and vR come through. And there's the catch...42 health. No doubt a team or 2 passed on him for that reason. I think $20MM training and medical budgets just became mandatory for Columbus for the next 15 seasons. Still, you play big, you win big. GRADE A+

7. Mexico City Red Hot - Armando Franco, CF: Despite paltry splits, the Red Hots take a shot at a power-hitting CF with the 7th pick. Franco's range will eventually get to true CF territory, although I doubt his glove will. At the plate, he'll make good contact and draw his share of free passes, and the power will be superior. I worry about those splits, though - my college scouts show that projected vR at 41 - awfully low for a major league hitter. If you can get away with it anywhere, though, it's for a power-hitting CF or SS. GRADE B.

8. New York Necromancers - Jerry Strong, SP: The Necromancers add some much-needed pitching to their position-rich farm system. Should develop into a solid #2 or #3 starter with a decent 4-pitch assortment and good splits. His control has a long way to go to reach projections, but should get to a respectable low-to-mid 70's level. He won't get a lot of punchouts and occasionally "misses high" (= home runs). When his DUR and STA top out, he'll be able to notch 225+ innings. GRADE B+

9. Rochester Replacements - Francis Heredia**, RF: Probably the best hitter in this draft class, he projects to 80's contact and power, mid-70's eye and low 70's splits. Righty pitchers give him the most trouble - the key to his value is how much he improves there. Health and makeup are grade A, and he'll be a very good fielder with a plus arm in right. Solid speed and baserunning ratings are a nice bonus...this is the best all-around position player in this year's class. GRADE A+ - BARGAIN PICK

10. Helena Associates - Yuniesky Jiminez**, RP: Helena nabs a big-innings reliever. Like a lot of pitchers in this draft, has a long way to go and won't approach some of his projected ratings. Control should eventually top 80, and his fastball/sinker pitch duo will be very good. Already keeps the ball down well. If there's a flaw here, it's with his effectiveness against righties. With good development, though, it should be good enough. Future 120-inning setup guy. GRADE A.

11. Nashville Music City Ramblers - Rudy Moss, 2B: Gangstaz scouts had Moss all the way down at #35, citing less-than-inspiring splits (especially against lefties). Perhaps Ramblers' scouts were a little seduced by an OVR projection of 80 (or therabouts)? Still, a guy who gets to 80 range and low 70's for glove and contact should find steady work as a ML 2B. Offerman (#12) though, would have been a much better choice if available. Don't hate the pick, just guessing that much better choices were available here. GRADE C

12. San Juan Senators - Buddy Offerman, 3B: Pretty big steal to get this guy here (I had Offerman #2 on my board...probably a bit high but I didn't see 6 of the top 10). Switch-hitter is already well-advanced; with splits at 60, they should have no trouble reaching mid-to-upper-70's. Excellent power for an infielder, and a decent batting eye. Defensively, he should be at least a better-than-average 3B - great glove but a slightly underpowered arm - a Gold Glove or 2 is not out of the question. Bonus points: he'll be an ironman, possibly getting to 90+ DUR, and extremely good health and makeup point to max development. GRADE A+ BARGAIN PICK

13. Cincinnati Waste Managers - Fu-Te Cheng, SS: First true SS taken, and looks to be a good one. His defensive ratings, with the exception of Glove, should easily get to or surpass the recommended 85 for a SS, and the Glove might. The development concern here is that 38 makeup rating. On offense, he'll be better than most SS's against righties but barely adequate against LHP - he may end up in a platoon. In a weak draft, though, a solid pick at #13. Grade B+

14. Burlington Lake Monsters - Travis Riley, 2B: Somewhat like the Moss pick at 11, although I think Riley will end up being a much better hitter - he might get to 70 on both splits. He'll be a pretty good ML 2B, hit .250-.270, maybe have a .290 season or 2. DUR will make him a little short of a full time player, but that's a minor gripe. Makeup in the 60's may knock a point or 2 off projections. GRADE B-

15. Jacksonville Jinxed - Juan Gonzalez**, SP: This one has me confused. You take a guy with a vR of 35 with the 15th pick? With good development (and luck on the injury front), that vR maybe reaches 60. On the upside, his pitches could offset that...IF they develop completely (but pitches don't). Then there's the 45 health. So, this guy needs really big development to be a good ML pitcher, and his development is a big risk. The first Red Herring of the Draft.

16. Vancouver Victory - Albert Dominguez**, P: Another big-innings reliever...like 35-pitches-every-day big. Unlike many of the pitchers in this draft, he has ratings that are starting at high enough levels that he could reach projections. If that happens (and with his high health and makeup I'd say he has a good shot), he could be very, very good - high 80's control, low 80's splits, 3 pitches ranging from very good to decent. If he has a weakness, it's that he's a flyball pitcher, although he should be able to improve that in time. Minor flaw compared to all the positives. GRADE A+

17. Portland Bar & Grillers - Kyle Adams, SS: Would've liked this pick a lot better if his Glove was starting at 56 instead of 46, but it could still get to adequate ML 3B territory. Certainly will get there on the range and arm ratings. Would like to see better potential batting splits, but contact and eye could reach pretty nice levels. I could see this guy becoming an everyday 3B who hits .270...not much power, though. At this point in this draft, a safe pick. GRADE B

18. Augusta Polar Bears - Enrique Sojo, C: Very nice pick at this point. I know his right split is too low...it probably won't reach 50. So he might end up being just a versus-lefty platooner. But he doesn't have to be. He'll be good enough defensively that the Bears could give up some offense against RHP. And he'll handle lefties just fine. Bonus: he'll be the rare high-DUR catcher...he might be able to go out and catch 162 games at some point, depending on how his development advances. GRADE A

19. Jackson Holes - Britt Price, RP: Lefty RP features pinpoint control and a 4-seamer that's particularly tough on lefties. As with many southpaws, the question is how well he'll learn to handle righty batters. Given that his vR is starting at a respectable 53, he should be OK. My scouts suggest he'll top out at 61, which wouldn't be bad. If he gets to 65-67, he'll end up being at least a minor steal here. High makeup and health always help, and he has both. GRADE B+

20. San Juan Senators - Hugh Hearn, SS: Projects to be a very good defensive SS who can hit lefties...not too shabby for this draft. His glove and arm accuracy won't reach the lofty levels my scouts project (90's), but should be plenty good for a ML SS. Right handed pitchers totally befuddle him, but he should be better than average...maybe even pretty good...against lefties. This all makes him look like a vL platooner and defensive replacement. Not a bad role player pickup at 20. GRADE B+

21. Jackson Holes - Bonk Mouton, SP: The evil-twin SP version of Jackson's pick at #19, Britt Price: great control and vR's that may or may not get good enough. The difference is that Bonk isn't particularly great against lefties, and his first pitch is just good, not great. Doubtful he'll ever have good enough stuff to consistently get ML hitters out. GRADE C

22. Sioux Falls Stoned Presidents - Stu Wilkinson, RF: Already has pretty good power and batting eye - those will get to major league levels. He's so clueless against lefties, though, it's tough to see him attempting it - think Randy Johnson vs. John Kruk in the All-Star Game. He's got some work to do against righties, too, ut he could get there. His makeup will help but he'll need to avoid serious injury to make the Show. GRADE B

23. Boise Posse - Chad Lloyd**, SP: The draft is officially thinning out at this point. Lloyd has some potential, especially in the control department, but he has so far to improve that it's hard to see him getting past AAA. His splits could conceivably get to ML levels, if they were accompanied by a couple of outstanding pitches. Let's hope my advance scouts are missing on the low side for him (a decided possibility). Long shot to make the Show, but still not a bad pick here considering what's left. GRADE C

24. Memphis Mudcats - Brad Johnstone, SP: Possesses a pair of nice pitches - a 4-seamer and a slider - that look like they could reach major-league quality. And, he's pretty effective against righties...like, maybe 4-A effective. His control isn't much and lefties rip him. He'll enjoy a long and fruitful AAA career. GRADE C

25. Jackson Holes - Fred O'Connor, CF: Jackson gets a steal here. O'Connor's not going to win any MVP's, but he's good enough to be a ML centerfielder. He'll be pretty good defensively, and he'll hit righties well enough...he might be a .270 ML hitter. Lefties bother him and he doesn't have much power...probably tops out at 15 homers if he plays full time. The biggest knock on him - and the biggest threat to his ML hopes: injury-prone and looks like he always will be. Still, at this point in this draft, a major find. GRADE A+ BARGAIN PICK

26. Las Vegas 69ers - Zeus Wright, 3B: Pretty good find for this late. Zeus will have pretty good splits...maybe low 70's for both...but that's clearly his best feature. Not much power, average batting eye at best, and he'll definitely whiff more than his fair share of times. With time, he'll be an average 3B defensively. His health and makeup are both pretty high, so he could get pretty close to his projections. He could have a ML career as a utility guy. GRADE B+

27. Washington D.C. Revenge - Steven Romero, DH: Romero will be a decent major-league hitter - contact and splits in the 70's, with a batting eye that could get to the low 80's - but I'm not sure if he'll be good enough to be a major-league DH. I guess it's not impossible - he could have some .300 seasons with 15-20 homers, which isn't shabby. But certainly a little short of what you want in a DH, power-wise. Nonetheless, an excellent pick a this point. GRADE A

28. Syracuse Saltine Warriors - Bob Michalak, SP: This soft-tossing junkballer already has good command of a screwball and a slider; they'll reach big-league quality although his fastball probably won't. His control is decent and in time could be very good, although his splits (50ish to 60ish at best) will always limit his success. Thanks to pitch quality this is the kind of guy who could have some good seasons at the ML level...just don't bet on 2 in a row. GRADE A-

29. Pittburgh Alleghenys - Curtis Stein**, CF: Thanks to some pretty good power (outside chance to hit 80), a nice glove (maybe 80 again), and some blazing speed, this guy has a chance to make the majors. As what, I'm not sure...I don' think his range lets him play CF. He's not likely to hit lefties well enough to be a full time player. So,maybe a vR platooner, but more likely a defensive replacement/backup COF/pinch hitter/pinch runner type guy. Not bad at 29. GRADE B.

30. Salem Goonies - Ernest Adams**, SP: Projections don't look dreadful, but I think for most ratings he just has too far to go to make a ML pitcher. His control will be pretty decent, but those splits won't work. His cut fastball and sinker are good enough now that they could get to ML caliber, but I don't think they'll be good enough to make up for AAA splits. GRADE C.

31. Ottawa Ice - David Matos, SP/RP: With "maximum" development (and I'm saying a 25 -point improvement is "maximum"), this guy will have control/vL/vR of 76/71/70. Is that ML quality? With a couple of good pitches (which Matos will have), you bet. So he's a development task. His health and makeup are what they are (just OK), so playing time and coaching are critical. GRADE B+

32. Oakland Surenos - Derrick McFeeley**, RP: Looks to have very high potential (especially on the control and vR), but he has an awfully long way to go. These kinds of players are usually disappointing - regardless of potential, 25-28 points seems to be about the maximum improvement you ever see in ratings (and rarely that much). Still, if he improves 25 points in control and vR (to get to low 80's and low 70's), he'll be a ML pitcher. That's not a bad bet at this point in this draft. GRADE A-

33. New Orleans Privateers - Darren Weiland, RP: See previous comments on McFeeley. Weiland's vR upside is probably not quite as high as McFeeley's, although in reality they'll probably both and up in th low 70's. Weiland may be a bit more intriguing, with 2 pretty good pitches compared to McFeeley's one. Usefulness will be somewhat limited by his low STA and just-average DUR, but likely a ML pitcher nonetheless. GRADE A-

34. Cleveland Katanas - Enrique Gonzalez, 2B: The Katanas seem to have a talent for finding a bargain in the 30's every year, but this one is a real steal. Gonzalez will be a platooner, for sure, but a very good one. His contact, rR and eye ratings will make him a .280-.300 hitter, with an occasional gust up to .320. He'll be a good defensive 2B...throw in some SB's and excellent bunting skills and you've got a very nice player. I had him #7 on my board. GRADE A+ STEAL OF THE DRAFT

Mid-Season Report - AL

2010-10-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Just past the halfway mark and coming up to the All-Star break, let's take a look around the league. There are some familiar story lines and a few interesting surprises:

AL North
After a few rebuilding years, Columbus has returned to prominence and leads the division by 6. The Criminals' balanced attack (note: Wilson Costello could be making an unlikely MVP bid at .340/21/72) is 2nd in the league in runs scored, but their pitching has been average. Cincy and Augusta are hanging 6 and 8 back, while Detroit is currently looking pretty good on its 70-win goal.

AL East
Cleveland is in its familiar first-place perch, but it's not dominating as in years past. It's pitching is great as usual, but the normally-potent offense has fizzled by their standards (4th in runs). Jaque Fitzgerald is having his usual great year (.324/21/52), but the rest of the lineup is under par. Despite a pitching off-year of its own and non MVP-type seasons so far from Morales and Brantley, D.C. is just 3 back. Pittsburgh is right there at 5 back; Rochester is headed for its 3rd straight cellar finish and is in full-blown rebuild mode.

AL South
Richmond and Jackson are locked in neck-and-neck battle here. The Poor Men are doing it with pitching - starters Juan Gil (9-2, 3.21) and (5-2, 2.96), and Josias Rodriguez, and closer Wiki Batista (8 saves, 2.58) lead the effort. For the Holes, LF Dennis Hewson has 24 homers and SP Johnny Collier is 6-2 with a 2.45 ERA.
Little Rock and Nashville are just 9 back but showing no signs of challenging.

AL West
Salem is threatening to lap the field - they've opened up a 10 game cushion on Portland. The Goonies' formula is positively Weaver-esque: tough pitching (3rd in Team ERA) and longballs (Escuela, Grant, Vargas and Krause are the top 4 homerun hitters in the AL). The Bar & Grillers remain in the thick of the wild card race - with roughly half the homer totals of Salem, they may be shopping for power at the deadline. Boise has fallen off last season's 85-win pace and San Diego remains in rebuilding mode.

A Look Back At the Season 9 Draft

2010-10-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

As we look over the current draft class (and vomit), it makes us long for the good old days of Season 9, in which every first-rounder who signed is currently in the majors and a 23rd-rounder could make the Show. A nostalgic look back.

1	Alberto Pinzon	2B .912 career OPS, 1AS, 1SS
2	Robert Crawford	SS .754 career OPS
3	Charlie Cosby	P 83 wins, 3.49 career ERA, 2AS, 1 no-hitter
4	Erick Durbin	2B did not sign
5	Harold Bryant	P 81 wins, 4.42 career ERA
6	Vince Cross	P 39 wins, career 3.52 ERA
7	Quinton Iorg	3B did not sign
8	Jimmie Stokes	RF .823 career OPS, 1AS, 2GG
9	Alex Uribe	P 19 wins, career ERA 5.82
10	Jimmie Feliz	P 34 wins, career ERA 4.78, 1AS
11	Hugh Rivera	SS .747 career OPS
12	Trent Diaz	P 78 wins, career ERA 3.79, 1AS
13	Craig Hague	P 22 wins, 14 saves, career ERA 2.85,
14	Clark Jensen	P 54 wins, career ERA 3.86
15	Mickey Beckett	P 63 wins, 4.11 career ERA
16	Leonardo Hardy	CF .823 career OPS, 1AS, 1SS
17	Otis Langston	RF .913 career OPS, 1AS, 1GG
18	Lance Reed	RF .859 career OPS, 1AS
19	Ernest Farr	LF .858 career OPS, 1ROY, 1AS, 1SS
20	Larry Davis	CF .688 career OPS
21	Matt Flores	1B .834 career OPS
22	Carlos Javier	P 29 wins, 10 saves, 4.24 career ERA
23	Alex Garland	RF .944 career OPS
24	Derrek Betemit	P 48 wins. 4.57 career ERA
25	Flip Ingram	P 20 wins, 8 saves, 4.61 career ERA
26	Domingo Bautista	3B .718 career OPS
27	J.T. Burns	C .891 career OPS, 3AS, 1 SS
28	Matthew Haas	P 14 wins, 10 saves, 4.15 career ERA
29	Omar Freeman	SS .663 OPS, 2GG, 1AS
30	Enrique Velazquez	P 46 wins, 4.19 career ERA
31	Jason Griffin	C .749 career OPS, 1SS
32	Johnny Hernandez	2B .795 career OPS

Of 10 players signed with supplemental picks, 5 are in the majors currently. Round 2 has 13 major-leaguers, Round 3 has 5, Round 4 has 3, and Round 5 has 1.

The latest pick in the Season 9 draft to enjoy current big-league status: Helena's Jack Mieske, taken in the 23rd round with pick #739.

Elder Wants Out Of Detroit

2010-10-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

3-time All-Star catcher Richie Elder has told Detroit sports-talk radio station WDFN ("The Fan") that he's demanded a trade.

"This place (the Detroit Retro Gangstaz) is a f____n' zoo...it's not what I signed up for," he told the Fan's Shep and Sharp. "You got Danny Perisho out there trying to play first base in a wheel chair...hell, we might not have a pitcher who can hit 75 on the gun. This is a joke."

Elder is hitting .340 with 8 homers and 21 RBI for Detroit.

When reached for comment, Gangstaz GM blanch13 confirmed Elder's demand, and said he would listen to offers from other teams. "I know Richie's frustrated," he said. "We all are. If we can make a deal that helps our team, he'll get his wish."

Hot Starts - AL Pitchers

2010-10-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

ERA
Lorenzo Rodriguez (Cleveland) - 1.21
Mickey Beckett (Augusta) - 1.78
Jung Wanatabe (Pittsburgh) - 1.82

Wins
Ernest Terrell (Salem) - 7
Jung Wanatabe (Pittsburgh) - 6
William Inouoe (Augusta) - 5
Darryl McCorley (Columbus) - 5
Edgardo Valdes (Cleveland) - 5
Lorenzo Rodriguez (Cleveland) - 5
Luis Gabriel (Cleveland) - 5
Charlie Cosby (Richmond) - 5
Juan Gil (Richmond) - 5

Saves
Johnnie Hernandez (Pittsburgh) - 12
Roger Lawson (Cleveland) - 11
Tomas Martin (Augusta) - 10

NL Hot Starts - HItters

2010-10-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

OPS Leaders
Gary Goodwin (Mexico City) - 1.071
Yeico James (Toledo) - 1.049
Sammy Gonzalez (Helena) - 1.014

HR Leaders
Luis Diaz (Baltimore) - 15
J.T. Burns (Oakland) - 14
Christopher Booker (New York) - 13

RBI Leaders
J.T. Burns (Oakland) - 39
Christopher Booker (New York) - 36
Luis Diaz (Baltimore) - 36

Stolen Bases
Quilvio Diaz (Syracuse) - 13
Andrew Recchio - (Burlington) - 12
Jim Olson (Sioux Falls) - 12

AL Hot Starts - Hitters

2010-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

A little too early to say anyone's in the MVP race, but there certainly are some hot starts out there. Here's who's come out of the gate smokin':

Salem has a pair of sluggers atop the OPS standings. Jose Vargas is picking up right where he left off in last year's MVP season, at .375/8/17/1.225. Teammate Ray Krause is right there at .394/8/22/1.167. Detroit's Richie Elder is third at .380/5/14/1.154.

Cincinnati's Albert Munoz leads in HR's with 9 - 5 more sluggers are right behind with 8: Boise's Andrew Corino, Jackson's Carl Serrano, and the Salem trio of Vargas, Krause, and Carlos Escuela.

The Portland Bar & Grillers are getting some pretty timely hits from Frank Suzuki - he leads the AL with 34 RBI (that's a 220-RBI pace). Roy Drew of Augusta is second with 27 and the Criminals' Pascual Pena and D.C.'s Eric Brantley share third with 25.

Odd Occurrences Department

2010-09-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

In today's PM cycle, SP Fred West hit his first career HR at age 34 (a grand slam, at that).

The blast came in the 5th inning of the New Orleans Privateers' 12-2 romp over the New York Necromancers. Ironically, NY starter Ben Cox had intentionally walked Cookie Corder with 2 outs to get to West. Freddie then responded with HR #1 in his 194th career AB. With one swing, West also increased his career RBI total by 27%.

Hall Of Fame - Make Sure To Vote! PART 2

2010-09-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

OK, with the big 4 of Matty, Seanez, Romano and West covered, here's how I see the other top candidates.

Alex Ramirez gets consideration because he was the rare power-hitting 2B/CF. He's certainly a little short in the awards department - just 3 All-Stars and 2 Silver Sluggers. But he did top 60 homers twice and 50 another 4 times (and 480 total). I think he's just good enough on the strength his power game.

I put Rico Nunez right about on par with Ramirez. He wasn't quite the hitter Ramirez was (.894 career OPS vs. Ramirez' .964), but he was a pure SS for most of his career, and those 417 dingers are pretty impressive. Add in the 3 GG's at SS (doesn't sound like much, but the way fielding stats go it's really hard to do) and he may have a little bit better case.

Steven Vaughn's claim rests on his 3 Cy Young's (in fact, he won the first 3 AL CY's), which in turn rest on his win totals. He was a game-winner, for sure - almost 18 a season for his career. Here's my big problem with Vaughn: his contemporary (and teammate for 5 seasons in OAK) Thomas Sparks was a better pitcher by every qualitative measure (ERA, Whip, OAV, OBP against, and Slugging % against) over their entire careers, and I just can't see Sparks as a Hall-Of-Famer.

I'm going to go with Nunez with my 5th vote.

Hall Of Fame - Make Sure To Vote! PART 1

2010-09-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hall of Fame voting ends at the close of Spring Training - make sure to get your votes in!

Here's how I see the potential inductees:

NO-BRAINERS:

Rob Romano, Matty Vaughn, and Luis Seanez. Vaughn and Johnny Collier have been the best pitchers so far in Belle's history, although on most measures, Seanez compares very favorably to Vaughn. If Seanez had spent his whole career with Charleston, Jackson or Cleveland, he would've topped 200 wins as well. The objections to Romano have been his short career...would you kick Sandy Koufax out of the rl Hall for that?

SOLID CASES:

Dick West. Not quite the category of the Big Three, but solid. Wasn't the greatest power hitter around, but his .334 lifetime average is second only to Romano. And he had a fairly long career despite turning 27 in Season 1.

One-On-One With Fans-only

2010-09-15T08:12:00.001-07:00

Fans_only took over the Ottawa franchise, which hadn't had a winning season in 8 years, in Season 12. That season produced a 12-win improvement, to 77, and the team has improved every year, posting win totals the last 4 years of 86, 87, 98, and 102. Last season, of course, saw the Ice take the Belle World Series, the first for fans_only.

The JBT recently had a chance to sit down with fans_only and get his views on various things HBD, plus a couple of others.

Who is fans_only in real life?

My name is Darrell, I am 29 and I live about an hour outside Toronto with my wife and 2 kids. I work as a Quality Assurance Specialist for one of the largest grocery chains in Canada.

Favorite real-life sports team?

The two teams that I follow the most are the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Bruins.

You've improved the Ice every year since you took over the team, culminating in a WS title last year. Was there a key move or development that got you over the top?

When I took over this franchise they had a lot of young talent, but they were lacking power. I think trading for Ray Henley in season 14 and Tomas Cruz in season 16 really helped put my team over the top.

What will you have to do to repeat this year?

I am planning on keeping most of my team together with a couple changes. The biggest key will be keeping my starting pitchers healthy. There are a number of good teams in the NL and if my team falters due to injuries I could easily not even be in the playoffs.

The world is still talking about it so I have to ask you. What do you think about LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh joining forces in Miami?

Being from the Toronto area everybody knew that Bosh was leaving well before the season was over. As soon as all 3 of them announced they were going to play together I hoped they would somehow lose in the playoffs. Now I’m just interested to see how the 3 of them will co-exist and be happy with the amount they each get the ball in the long term.

In your opinion, which ratings are the most important when it comes to determining how successful a pitcher might be?

The first rating I usually look at is the splits vs LHB and vs RHB. After the splits I look at the control ratings as well as the pitch ratings. Another rating that I find to be a good indicator is the makeup. I have found most successful pitchers have at least a decent makeup.

If you could change one thing about HBD, what would it be and why?

I would like to see more players that get drafted outside the first few rounds make it to the majors. I know it would be difficult to create something more like real life where players that get drafted late can still become legitimate players but it would add another element to the game.

One-On-One With Crump123

2010-09-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

The JBT recently sat down with long-time Katanas GM Crump123 to find out who he is in real-life and get his thoughts on various HBD questions.

For the newer Belle owners, crump has put together one of the true enduring dynasties in all of HBD. Taking over in Season 2, he took a 48-win team and improved it to 103 wins and a WS title. Since then, the Katanas have only won under 100 games once, have 108 or more the last 9 seasons, and posted another WS title in Season 4.

Who is Crump123 in real life?

Jon, 31, Programmer for a Clinical Research Organisation in the UK. (And we were all positive you were some kind of die-hard Clevelander).

Favorite real-life sports team?

Manchester United.

You've put together an incredible run here...15 seasons and the fewest wins was 98...9 straight seasons of 108+ wins. But just 2 WS titles. What's up with that?

Tell me about it. I've felt i've had the best overall team in a lot of those seasons. I either got shut down by Jackson's pitching in the ALCS, or got swept by Zack in the WS (0-8 in back to back WS). I put it down to bad luck, and that quality pitching in the playoffs is a necessity, but it's impossible to get when you draft 30-32 every season.

The world is talking about it so I feel as though I have to ask you. What do you think about LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh joining forces in Miami?

Very little. :) Being European i'm not so hot the baseketball, i paid attention when Jordan played, since he played for my team... Beyond that a passing interest in knowing who is up and down. What i would say, is that clearly they are all big name players given the hype; but very rarely in any sport, do the big name players playing together get it done. If they can play without ego getting in the way then they have a shot, beyond that it'll be a huge disappointment.

In your opinion, which ratings are the most important when it comes to determining how successful a pitcher might be?

VsL, VsR, Control, P1 and P2 They're all important, VsL, VsR are the most, but even then the others still need to be usable.

If you could change one thing about HBD, what would it be and why?

Prospect development. Too linear, too obvious.

Favorite HBD team and why?

This one, we keep winning and they have Katana in the name. :)

Belle Welcomes New Owners

2010-09-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

Now that budgets are set, it's time to officially welcome our 3 new owners (all in the NL this year).

First, we have dabidbutler9, who is a veteran of 32 HBD seasons, most (and most recently) as an owner in Let's Play Two and Addicted Users. He takes over the prospect-laden New York Necromancers.

Next, we have elgman, new chief of the Helena Associates, home to 2 of the last 4 NL ROY's. He brings 31 seasons of HBD experience.

Finally, we welcome carlie1998, a relative newbie with 5 HBD seasons, but 4 playoff appearances and a WS championship already. He steps into a ready-to-win-now squad with the New Orleans Privateers.

The fortunes of our 3 new owners may be among the most interesting story lines of Belle Season 17...vote on it in the new poll!

New Management In Detroit

2010-09-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, new management has taken over the Buffalo franchise, moved it to Detroit, and started evaluating the organization.

What it's finding isn't a pretty site.

The Major League roster is kind of a mix of Bad News Bears, Beer League, and The Benchwarmers. There are a couple of legit major leaguers (Cookie Martin and Hack Bush). We'll probably give Bonk Liniak (Season 14's #17 overall) and Pedro Sierra (Season 11 IFA) every chance to win jobs. That's about it...the bulk of our pitching staff understandably declared free agency, along with 7 position players. I don't know if it makes sense to bring any of those guys back; Dan Cirillo's looking for a 4-year deal at age 34. I don't know...one of our best (and few) assets may be the couple of sandwich picks we could get from Type B's.

We've set a goal of 70 wins while investing as heavily as we can in scouting and the international market. If we think we can get a Type A free agent or 2 (at the cost of 2nd and 3rd rounders) who are easily tradeable, we might be able to turn them into 1st round prospects at the deadline. We're definitely going to have to innovate. We might have to petition the league to let a lucky fan pitch the 5th inning of every home game (if we have any fans show up)...we're not likely to have starters last that long.

New Records and Milestones Of Season 16

2010-09-09T18:45:00.001-07:00

We had a couple of significant single-season pitching records set last year, plus a slew of new career marks:

New Single-Season Records:

Richmond's Charlie Cosby tied the record for shutouts in a season with 5 (originally set by Midre Jose of El Paso/now San Juan in Season 14).

Jackson's Johnny Collier continued his assualt on the record book, lowering the mark for best Slugging % Allowed in a season to .278. The previous low was by Fred West (Columbus and Austin/now New Orleans in Season 14).

Career Records:

Career records change a lot every season, but we had some quite significant events last year.

The immortal Skip Leon barely squeaked past the 2000 RBI mark at 2001. He also pushed the hits record up to 2920, but that's probably as far as he'll take it. At age 40, he looks like he's ready for the rocker.

With a 38-HR campaign, Joe Rivera finally passed Leon for the career HR lead at 656. Rivera's still going strong - he's got a great shot at 700.

Johnny Collier improved several career standards he already held, but the real story was Cory Mitchell. With his excellent season for Jacksonville at age 37, he took over the career leadership in Complete Games with 64 (joined by Dan Cirillo), Quality Starts with 305, and Wins with 226. And for good measure, he pushed up his already career-best numbers for innings pitched (3466.3) and strikeouts (2836).