Monthly Archives: August 2011

BaseballGB Fantasy League 2011: Week Twenty One

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BgbFantasyHeadlineWelcome to our weekly round-up of the BaseballGB Fantasy League competition. This is a mixed Head-2-Head league involving BGB writers and readers.
 
There are fourteen teams who pair up in different combinations each week, making for seven match-ups in any given week. The teams battle over twelve statistical categories, gaining one point for each category they win.

All the points are carried over into the season league table at the end of the weekly match-ups. The top six teams with the most points at the end of the fantasy season will go on to the playoffs during the last three weeks of September.

It’s now or never for the teams on the edge of the playoff race, as there is just one week to go until the fantasy playoffs begin. Which teams have improved their chances of a crack at the championship, which teams are hoping to snatch a place at the death of the regular season and who coped best with the fixture chaos caused by Hurricane Irene?

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  R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Weston-Super-Sox 30 6 33 7 0.29 0.84 2 1 50 1 6.5 1.73 12
Redbacks 17 4 16 2 0.27 0.79 0 2 8 0 6 1.5 0
 
 
So how did the Sox celebrate clinching a playoff place? By taking their foot off the gas? No, with a 12-0 sweep of Redbacks. Kev’s batters took all of the offensive categories without too much trouble thanks to Braun, Kemp and Victorino. Redbacks forfeited all of the pitching categories after failing to reach the 20-inning minimum – the first time that has happened in the league this year. It was hardly a vintage week for the pitching staffs, but Redbacks looked like they could have taken at least three categories had they pitched 20 innings.
 
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  R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
BD Yankees 28 12 37 4 0.3 0.89 1 2 52 0 5.1 1.35 9
daebhid2 21 6 18 4 0.25 0.78 1 1 19 0 6 1.44 0
 
 
The Yankees also had a shutout, defeating daebhid2 9-0, with Cano, Butler and Granderson doing most of the damage.  King Felix was the only pitcher to pick up a win and combined with Cain to take strikeouts, ERA and WHIP in another rough week for the pitchers. Reynolds and Ellsbury were Dave’s best players.  Continue reading →

Three NBL players have a chance of joining elite group with four or more national titles to their name

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Among the players on teams who have qualified for the NBL postseason, there are three who will be hoping to win a national title for a fourth time, those being Michael Osborn of the Flames, and Jason Holowaty and Will Lintern of the Southern Nationals (if you think I have missed anyone, please leave a comment).

Osborn (centre below) won it in 2000 with the Warriors and 2006 and 2010 with his current Richmond team. Holowaty (right below) won three straight titles between 2006 and 2008, the first with the Flames in 2006 and the last two with the London Mets, in 2007 and 2008. Lintern (left below) won it all with Brighton in 2001 and 2002 and with the Mets in 2008.

Going for four

The all-time list currently has nine members, and it is headed by long-time Warriors team-mates Brad Thompson (with nine) and Alan Smith (seven).

BST guide to this week’s early MLB games: Four days out of five

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CovHlSqThe chaos caused by Hurricane Irene over the weekend led to the postponement of a number of MLB games on the East coast.

Those games will need to be squeezed into the schedule somehow. The most likely approach will be for teams to play some double-headers over the next couple of weeks, therefore producing some additional early contests.

There aren’t any extra early games scheduled for this working week; however there is still some live baseball to watch before midnight UK time on four of the five days.

All times are in BST.

Monday 29 August

21.10. Florida at NY Mets (Sanchez – Dickey)

Both the Marlins and Mets had their last two games postponed, so the teams will be keen to get back to action on Monday.  This is the first game of a double-header from Citi Field.  Anibal Sanchez and knuckleballer R.A. Dickey are scheduled to pitch in the opener, with Ricky Nolasco and Dillon Gee being the probable pitchers in the second game. 

Tuesday 30 August

No early games

Wednesday 31 August 

18.05. Kansas City at Detroit (Paulino – Porcello)
19.10. Minnesota at Chicago White Sox (Diamond – Peavy) *ESPN America
20.10. San Diego at LA Dodgers (LeBlanc – Lilly)
20.45. Chicago Cubs at San Francisco (Lopez – Bumgarner)  Continue reading →

Two weeks left to submit your photos for the 2011 British Baseball Photography Competition

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bbpcThere are 2 weeks left until the 12 September deadline for submitting photos to the 2011 British Baseball Photography Competition (BBPC), which is the day after the senior National Baseball Championship finals in Hemel.

Entrants are invited to submit up to 24 photos during the contest, an increase of four on last year. A more significant change to the format is that the judging panel will determine only a shortlist, rather than adjudicating on the overall winner. The winning photo for 2011 will, instead, be determined by an online vote among members of the British baseball community. The winner’s prize will once again be a £100 gift card for a photography shop, donated by BaseballSoftballUK.

Some of this year’s entrants have also had their photos featured in BSUK’s fortnightly British baseball and softball e-newsletter Hot Corner, which you can sign up to receive via this link if you are not already getting it.

So far, 10 photographers have submitted a combined total of 84 images. Last year, at the close of the competition, there had been 129 photos submitted by 22 individuals.

For a reminder of how to submit your shots, visit the BBPC 2011 area on the Project COBB website. Be sure to read the full competition rules first. These are also available through the link earlier in this paragraph.

Harvey Sahker turns triple-play of 19th Century British baseball history items

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Project COBB logoThe 1890s section of the national champions archive is now looking more robust after three excellent discoveries by Harvey Sahker:

  1. The box score for the 1894 final (and thus a roster for the champs too).
  2. The championship-winning roster for 1895.
  3. And the line score for the 1897 final.

These are three very important additions to the archive.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Weaver stays with the Angels

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WHGB11As the football transfer deadline approaches on Wednesday evening, there will be a surge in rumours of high-priced deals and scarcely believable contract offers.  The stories will inevitably lead to debates on the wages that sportsmen earn and the role played by their agents.

We’ll see greedy stars accompanied by even greedier agents pushing deals through to boost wages and commissioning fees.  Maybe even demanding a ‘loyalty bonus’ from the clubs they are forcing their way out of, just to rub it in that little bit more to the fans working hard to afford the ever-increasing ticket prices.

Jered Weaver’s recent decision to spurn free agency and sign a contract extension with the Los Angeles Angels could be seen as a welcome contrast to this trend.  He signed a five-year/$85m contract extension knowing that he could have received more money had he tested the market after his existing deal expired at the end of the 2012 season.

His press conference comments in particular would have struck a chord with many fans that have sat bemused in a pub pondering why someone on £80k per week is so unhappy with his lot that he needs to jump ship for even more money.

As Weaver put it, “If $85 (million) is not enough to take care of my family and other generations of families then I’m pretty stupid, but how much money do you really need in life?”

The answer normally lies with the agent saying ‘as much money as you can get from whichever team is prepared to pay it’.  From a cynical point of view, the agent will say that because their commission will be higher depending on the overall value of the contract.  From a more realistic point of view, the agent will say that because they know teams will try and get away with paying as little as possible.

A sportsman, like any worker, is entitled to seek the best pay he can receive for doing his job and typically that aim is one of the primary reasons why a player will employ an agent in the first place.  Continue reading →

How today’s NBL games affect the play-offs and individual titles

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StatisticsI was at Hemel Hempstead today, where the Falcons were beaten twice by the Nationals, and have spoken to people present at the double-headers between Essex and Croydon, which the teams split (although Croydon are due another win from an outstanding game that they will claim as a forfeit over the Arrows), and between Lakenheath and Bracknell, which the Diamondbacks swept. And this is how I think the play-offs and individual titles will shape up as a result (but this needs to be confirmed by a league official in the case of the former, and by me — once I have all the stats in — in the case of the latter).

Play-offs
Going by the ruling in the 2010 BBF League Handbook that states that teams finishing tied in the standings, using games back for the ranking, are split by their head-to-head record, unless one has forfeited more than the other, then I believe teams should finish Richmond #1, Lakenheath #2, Southampton #3, London #4, Nationals #5, and Croydon #6. If this is indeed correct then Croydon will travel to Southampton this coming Saturday to play for a place against Lakenheath in the first semi-final at the National Baseball Championships the following weekend. Likewise, the Nationals will play London at Finsbury in a showdown for the semi-final spot against Richmond.

Individual titles
The major titles that were still to be sealed were the batting crown and the home run championship. Edwin Alcantara went 2-for-5 on the day, with one home run, and his team-mates Maikel Azcuy and Jose Perez were both without a home run. So Alcantara will have secured the NBL triple crown, the first since 2005, unless something very strange happened in Croydon or Bracknell.

The Lance Todd Trophy: One of the many connections between rugby league and baseball in Britain

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Today, New Zelander Jeff Lima was named as the 2011 winner of one of the most prestigious awards a rugby league player can receive, the Lance Todd Trophy. The trophy is given to the man of the match in rugby league’s Challenge Cup Final — won by Lima’s team Wigan this year — and it was named after a “New Zealand-born player and administrator, who was killed in a road accident during the Second World War,” as stated on the Rugby Football League’s website.

There are many links between rugby league and baseball in Britain, and the subject would make an excellent choice for a future article, but the connection that forms the focus of this short piece is Lance Todd himself: he served as chairman of Salford’s rugby league and baseball clubs.

Graham Rumble, British Baseball Hall of Fame Regional Expert for the north of England, spotted that Todd also managed a Lancashire select baseball team in 1935 against Yorkshire. The Lancashire line-up is shown below, and the full programme for the contest can be found in Project COBB’s digitized Anthony Taylor Collection.

1935-Lancs-line-up

Bonus Bank Holiday double-header at Dave Ward Field between the Pirates and Arrows

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With the sudden curtailing of the season, it comes as no surprise that National Baseball League (NBL) teams have been scrambling to arrange games on the final available weekend of the regular season. Of all the attempts I have heard, the classiest would appear to be that of the Croydon Pirates. They have a rainout to make up with Essex from earlier in the season, and an outstanding doubleheader against the same team, which they could rightfully have claimed as a forfeit (Essex were short of players that weekend) but sportingly offered to play the games if they could be fit into the calendar.

Once the Pirates’ protested win against the Mets from earlier in the season is added back into the system, they will have an 8-and-14 record. To reach the postseason, Croydon need to draw level with Bracknell in the standings (going on the “games back” column), as they have a superior record in contests with the Blazers this year, taking three of the four games.

Bracknell currently have a 9-and-13 record, and they are scheduled to entertain the Diamondbacks this Sunday. A sweep by them in that double-header would put them beyond the Pirates’ reach, but if they split, the Pirates need three wins against Essex to draw level (if the Pirates won two and lost one, this would not be good enough). If the Blazers get swept, then the Pirates need to win two of those three games.

So the Pirates could have claimed their two forfeit wins and agreed to play the rainout against Essex on Sunday. A win in this game would take them to the postseason unless the Blazers sweep Lakenheath. Instead, though, the Pirates have made a very sporting move in offering to claim only one win as a forfeit, and to play a double-header with Essex. If they split that, they’ll need to rely on Lakenheath taking two from Bracknell.

Phew! I hope that all makes sense.

If you lost me there — and I don’t blame you — there are two things you really need to know:

  1. Croydon and Essex will meet in a double-header on Sunday at Dave Ward Field (the enclosed diamond at Roundshaw Playing Field, South Croydon), with the first pitch scheduled for noon,  and the outcome could have a bearing on the make-up of the play-offs.
  2. The Pirates have shown true class in a week of desperate scrambling.

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British Baseball Beat: Postseason schedule announced

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BBBLast week’s column prompted various discussions about British baseball schedules and the postseason, alongside a thoughtful conversation starter by Joe Gray.

Since then, the 2011 postseason schedule has been announced on the British Baseball Federation website.

This contains a variety of key changes from the initial draft, with the number of games being reduced and the whole postseason being condensed and brought forward to the beginning of September.

Originally we were looking at a two-week period for the playoff stage over the weekends 10-11 and 17-18 September before a relatively late National Baseball Championship (NBC) event taking place on the weekend 24-25 September.   This has now been revised so that the playoff stage takes place on a single weekend (3-4 September) and the NBC has been moved forward by a fortnight to 10-11 September, hosted by Herts Baseball Club for the second straight year.

Both the National Baseball League and the AAA playoffs were originally going to be spread out over two weeks and a team would have needed to beat their opponent twice to make it through to the NBC. Now, qualification will be dependent on the outcome of a single nine-inning game in each contest.

So for instance in the NBL, the team with the third best win-loss record will face the team with the sixth-best record.  It looks like the Southampton Mustangs will get that third-best place, meaning that they will be playing under the pressure of knowing one defeat could bring their impressive season to an abrupt end.

The playoffs in Double-A and Single-A have undergone an overhaul.  At each level there will be a Midlands and North playoff and a South playoff with four teams involved in each group.  Continue reading →