Great moments in SOMBILLA history [8/07]
How the Franchises were built [/8/08]
All-time franchise players [8/07]
Successful lefty starters [8/07]
The cute ratings [8/06]
Bad boys of the SOMBILLA [8/06]
Who have we burned? [8/06]
All-time wins leaders [7/05]
The Making of Constantinople [7/05]
Mr. Irrelevant [7/05]
All-Time HR Leaders - [7/04]

All-Time HR Leaders - updated [7/05]

Injuries in the SOMBILLA [7/04]
Great Players on Bad Teams [7/03]
Designing Ballparks [7/03]
Original 1985 Dispersal Draft, revisited [7/03]
Comparing the Great SOMBILLA teams [7/02]
The Cut Lists [7/02] ]

How the Teams Were Built [7/01]

Racial profiling in the SOMBILLA (7/01)
Standings study [7/00]
Salaries in the SOMBILLA [8/08]
Salaries in the SOMBILLA [7/00]
Championship analysis [7/99]
Is There Excessive Focus On Early Draft Picks? [7/99]
The Cute Ratings [7/99]
What if the SOMBILLA was a Rotisserie League? [7/99]
Home and away analysis (7/98)
Rating the cards (7/98)
All-time Alphabetical Baseball (as published in Strat Fan Baseball Quarterly - Spring 1998)
Racism in the SOMBILLA (7/97)
1993 Draft Analysis (7/97)
1994 Draft Analysis (7/98)
1995 Draft Analysis [7/99]
1996 Draft Analysis [7/00]
1997 Draft Analysis [7/01]
1998 Draft Analysis [7/02]
1999 Draft Analysis [7/03]
2000 Draft Analysis [7/04]
2001 Draft Analysis [7/05]
2002 Draft Analysis [8/06]
2003 Draft Analysis [8/07]
2004 Draft Analysis [8/08]
Ages in the SOMBILLA (7/97)
The advantages of managing while pregnant (11/7/94)
North Dakota vs. Future Wax - which team was better? (7/27/94)
First picks overall in SOMBILLA drafts (7/27/94)
All-time franchise leaders [revised 7/04]
Who is the best manager in the SOMBILLA? (7/27/93)
Is lucky rolling statistically possible? (1/1/92)
Beer consumption per person per Strat-O night - 11/3/91
Twits Notes 1/9/91
Late season charges 11/27/90
2nd half charges 7/98
How good was Eric's team? (August 1990)
Fastest starts in SOMBILLA history:
Series splits (11/3/88)
Ralph Houk Rating (11/19/84)

_______________________________________________________________

GREAT MOMENTS IN SOMBILLA HISTORY (8/07)

It’s been > 10 years since this list was compiled. It is time to update and relook at the Great Moments throughout the years!

Early June 1979

Tsuan calls Arnie with the idea to form a summer Strat-O league.

June 1979

At the league’s second week of games, Arnie presents the acronym "SOMBILLA"

August 1979

Just before game #6 of the first World Series won by Tsuan in 6 games over Jed, Arnie says "Some didn't think it would go this far, others said 'it's going seven.' " (You had to be there.) 

November 1981

The draft almost got called off. This was the first winter league and we did the draft on a Friday night after work in my Marlborough St. apartment. Tsuan was sick and couldn't make it, but nobody wanted to reschedule, and we (Jed, Eric, Joel, Lou, [and I] were all ready. I called him:

Tsuan's female roommate: "He's sick and throwing up. He can't come."
Arnie: "What if we drafted by phone?"
She shouts the message to some unseen force. The message comes back.
"He says you wouldn't have the nerve."
Arnie: "We're ready to go."
She relays the message. Muffled sounds.
She says, "What about Lou?" (The new guy no one had ever met).
Arnie: "He's here, now".
Message shouted, "He's there now". More muffling noises.
Tsuan gets on the phone. "But I have all the cards".

And so, Joel and Eric drove over to Tsuan's apartment on Beacon Hill, got the cards, returned, and the draft was on.

January 1982

Don Sutton (Tsuan) no-hits Lou.

November 1982 

Vol. I No. 1 of the SOMBILLA newsletter.

Dec. '82 - Jan. '83

North Dakota loses 13 straight and 24 of 26.

March 1983

In her first year in the league, Robin wins the championship, sharing a team with Tsuan.

November 1983 

Joel wins 11 in a row to start the season.

November 1984

"Tsuan attempts to pull draft coup" becomes the first blasting.

November 1984

First SOMBILLA study, "The Ralph Houk Rating," which calculated a team’s inability to use its bench.

January 1985

First known usage of the phrase "2-20 man" by Arnie

May 5, 1985

"Eric Lost the Scoresheets" 

October 6, 1985 

League votes to expand/go to permanent league/elects first Commissioner.

Nov. 17, 1985 

Matt drafts Gary Redus 9th overall in permanent league dispersal draft.

December 1985

SOMBILLA featured in Strat-o-Matic Review: "Gamer introduces wife to S-O-M baseball on first date"

February 1986 

Arnie accidentally breaks chair at Jed and Joel's after missing game-winning homer. 

November 1986

Jed invents the "dash" technique for recording non-strikeout outs.

December 1987

Tom Henke pitches 12 innings in relief as last pitcher for Robin in 20-inning, 10-7 win over Future Wax. 

January 1988 

Mike Scott (Jed) no-hits Joel. 

January 1988

Eric Davis (a.k.a. Roger Maris) hits 19th homer off Jack Morris (a.k.a Tracy Stallard) to break George Foster's (a.k.a. Babe Ruth's) record. 'There will be an asterisk" declares Commissioner (a.k.a. Ford C. Frick).

January 1988

League original Joel stuns the league by announcing his resignation, effective at the end of the season. Despite pleas and threats from the league, Joel moves on with his life.

March 1988

The first World Series game 7 in SOMBILLA history. In the bottom of the 11th, FW’s Andrew has righties E. Davis, McReynolds, Schmidt, and Laudner scheduled up.

Either Yitz or Dave: "Should we put in Eichhorn?" (Historical note - Eichhorn had 0 hit and walk chances vs. righties but was vulnerable to lefties).
The other: "What if he pinch-hits for Eric Davis?"
The first one: "Do you think he'd pinch-hit for Eric Davis?"
Yitz: "He'd never pinch-hit for Eric Davis"

Yitz and Dave put in Eichhorn to face Eric Davis. Andrew pinch-hits Daryl Strawberry for Eric Davis. With Eric listening over the speakerphone, and me straining to escape to drive Robin's friend, Bev, to the airport, yet unable to bring myself to do it, Daryl Strawberry hits a homer off Eichhorn's card.

Yitz: "Fuck."

July 1988

"Tsuan Guruism" coined in summer newsletter

November 1988

Harold joins the league. He goes 3-17 to begin his SOMBILLA career.

December 1988

Arnie accidentally breaks chandelier at Jed and Joel's after 9th inning game-winning hit. 

March 1989

Mark McGwire wins triple crown for Matt. 

December 1989

SOMBILLA headline blares: "League uncovers ‘Raines-gate’: Commissioner to be burned at the stake, beheaded, and face firing squad; retains first place"

December 1989

North Dakota starts the season 20-4 with Yoknapatawpha close behind at 18-6, setting up a big 4-game series in Gackle Park. The Yoks sweep the series, pitching 3 shutouts and holding ND to 2 runs to set the mark for best first half (22-6).

January 2, 1990 

Danny Jackson, Tim Belcher & Randy Myers pitch a combined no-hitter for Harold vs. Future Wax .

March 1990

Eric finishes the season 44-12. 

March 1990

Eric beats Jed 4 games to 3 in the World Series on Sax's sac fly in bottom of the 11th. Two days later, Eric discovers to his horror an error in playing game 6 (ineligible pinch-hitter), but games are not played over. (There were a few reasons. One of the reasons was that if the games were played over and Jed won, it would be a ‘tainted’ victory. Instead, Eric was left with the ‘tainted’ victory).

November 1990

Clint joins the league, sharing a team with Dave.

February 1992 

Andrew wins 11 in a row to tie Joel's record. He finishes 12 games ahead of 2nd place Jed to set a record.

March 1992 

League votes to expand to nine teams and give Land his own team.

January 1993

Clint loses 44 of first 61 games as manager to break North Dakota losing percentage mark.

January 1993

Commissioner nearly resigns following allegations of bias against Clint.

March 1993

Eric defeats Dave 9-5 in the 7th game to win the World Series, despite being outscored by his opponents in the regular season.

January 1994

North Dakota was battling Future Wax for first place and acquired Roger Clemens at the trading deadline from Eric for 2 first round picks (after attempting to acquire him via loan, precipitating the Trading and Loan Scandal). Upon discovery of the Clemens trade, Andrew called Robin, the North Dakota manager's wife, to pursue a trade.

At the time of receipt of Andrew's call, Robin had played 38 games, 2 fewer than the trading limit. Two nights before, a scheduled 4-game series with Dave that would have put Robin over the trading deadline was postponed when Dave simply forgot to show up, luckily for Future Wax. Dennis Martinez was Robin's best pitcher that year, and one of the best starters in the league. Robin traded Dennis Martinez (and a 6th round pick) to her husband's nemesis, Andrew, for a second round pick (which became Sean Berry).

Martinez went on to win two games against North Dakota in the World Series, including a 2-1, 5-hitter against Saberhagen in a crucial Game 5 showdown. For two years after that, the trading of Martinez to Future Wax and Martinez's World Series success against North Dakota caused a small amount of marital friction.

July 1994

After losing the World Series to Future Wax in 6 games, North Dakota’s manager plays the teams against each other in a 2,000 game computer simulation, to determine which team was really better, and concludes that Future Wax really was the better team.

November 1994 

Robin, in first place by 2 1/2 games at 20-8, gives birth to Jinny Ryann Pollinger.

February 1995

Land discovers that he accidentally used Astacio for 2 more innings than allowed for the season during a win over Robin, and the game is decided to be replayed, with Land ahead, from that point in the 7th inning. After all the games are finished, Robin is still 1/2 game ahead of Eric, and the Land game is played over with Astacio replaced by Gott. Land hangs on to win 2-1 and the league has its first one-game playoff ever. Unfortunately for Robin, Frank Thomas was injured in the last series of the season, causing him to miss the playoff game.

Eric wins league's first ever one-game playoff (9-2) and goes on to defeat Matt in the World Series in 7 games. 

March 1995

Arnie resigns as Commissioner. Dave elected as the SOMBILLA's second Commissioner. 

November 1995

Randy joins the league.

March 1996

Game 7 of the North Dakota/New Orleans playoff series ends when, with ND ahead 4-3 in the 9th and NO up with 2 out and 2 runners on, Carlos Garcia hits into a clutch out.

March 1996

After years of futility, ending with mutilated, burned and/or frozen teams, North Dakota wins its first World Series 4 games to 2 over Future Wax, beating Dennis Martinez in the final game (see January 1994). That night, the North Dakota manager absolved the Bay City manager of all future discussion of the Dennis Martinez incident.

February 1997

Clint misses the playoffs by one game for the second year in a row.

March 1997

Dave resigns as Commissioner. Arnie re-elected Commissioner. Matt named league’s first Vice-Commissioner. 

February 1998

Randy beats Eric 29-6, to set the league’s single game run mark.

March 1998

Robin, Jeff, Brian and Clint are in the first 4-way rolloff for the first pick in the draft. Robin won (and chose Ben Grieve)

October 1998

Tom joins the league

October 1998

Carlos Hernandez makes his SOMBILLA debut, five years after he was drafted as a prospect, kept in the 'minors' for 3 years, cut in '96, then redrafted. Finally, after years of 10-hour bus rides, he made it to the big "SOMBILLA show". He came up in the third inning, struck out and was injured for three games.

October 1998

Harold beats Clint 29-3, the largest wipeout in league history

December 1998

In Eric's series with Clint, Lieberthal, in his first AB of the game, was HBP and injured. He was replaced by Stanley, who, in his first AB, was HBP and injured. With no catchers remaining, Eric used emergency catcher Robin Ventura, who, in his first AB, struck out and was injured.

January 1999

Mike Piazza of FW breaks the SOMBILLA single season HR record with his 27th He finishes with 30.

January 1999

North Dakota wins 11 in a row to tie league record

January 1999

Randy Johnson fans 20 New Orleans hitters

February 1999

Mike Piazza wins the triple crown for Future Wax

March 1999

North Dakota comes back to win final 4 games of playoff series over New Orleans after losing the first 3 games

November 1999

Randy wins 12 in a row to break the league record

November 1999

Shithead (with Clint at the helm) loses 11 in a row to tie the league record

February 2000

Clemens wins his 12th game for ND to set a new league mark

February 2000

First SOMBILLA ice hockey game with Jeff & Harold defeating Arnie & Matt 3-1.  Arnie complained that the choppy conditions negated any potential extra speed, and Matt complained that he had just moved a bunch of furniture the day before, and they both complained about the poor officiating

January 2001

Matt loses 14 games in a row to break the all-time consecutive loss streak

February 2001

Manila Folders break the SOMBILLA’s legendary single-season worst record at 10-43 (.189)

February 2001

E-mail from Arnie:

Eric has determined that if Clint wins five against Harold, I drop 2 of 3 to Robin, Eric wins only 4 of 7 against Matt and Jeff, and Randy sweeps Tom, then it's a five-way tie for 2nd place.

Holy shit!!  I checked the bylaws and they state "If more than 4 teams tie for 1st-4th, we'll play it by ear."  We could be headed for a constitutional crisis!

E-mail from Matt:

It's not a crisis. It's just a reaffirmation that our System works. God bless you all, and God bless the Strat-o-Matic Baseball Ivy League League, Advanced. (<<<Standing Ovation>>>)

E-mail from Eric:

And God bless the vice commissioner, for without his disaster-by-design season I do believe we would not now look like so many stowaways stuffed inside a steamer trunk.  Which only affirms my worst fears, that the Folders will rally round their Shemp-like leader and play the spoiler roll in true Stooge fashion, wherein the season will end in a melee of comedic chaos, and then fade to black abruptly without resolution.......

February 2001

N. Dakota’s R. Alomar finishes regular season with .411 batting average.

March 2001

New Orleans comes back to win final 4 games of World Series over Future Wax, after losing the first 2 games, to win first ever championship.

October 2001

Overheard moments before Tom arrived in Arlington:
Jack: "Which one is Tom? Is he the bald silly one?"
His Dad: "No, that's Eric."

October 2001

In the FW/MF series, in the 6th inning of the 2nd game, M. Ordonez batting against L. Hernandez, the 20-sided 'thing' split in half during a routine roll.

January – March 2002

Clint resigns from the league; league debates and finally decides to contract BiGDiG out of existence.

January 2002

Harold defeats Jeff in the league’s first ever 7-game sweep, hitting 27 homers and outscoring him 79-25.

March 2002

Future Wax wins World Series game 7, 8-7 against New Orleans with Pedro as the closer, the tying run on base, and Hundley, the winning run, at bat. Hundley grounds out.

November 2002

Harold walks Barry Bonds intentionally 18 times in a row as Bonds finishes the series 0 for 5 with 4 K's.

February 2003

ND scores 13 runs in the top of the first vs. Future Wax. In the record-setting first inning, ND recorded 15 hits (3 of them were tired rolls), 2 stolen bases, an error, and 2 homers all off the beleaguered Greg Maddux. A late FW rally fell short by three touchdowns as ND tied the league record for most runs in a game, winning 29-7. ND had a league-record total of 35 hits - Alomar, L. Gonzalez and Klesko had 5 each, while McGriff and Cabrera both chipped in with 4.

February 2003

A steroid-filled Barry Bonds smacks his 31st homer to break the SOMBILLA’s single season HR record. He finishes with 32.

March 2003

Jeff sweeps Matt to force a one-game playoff. He drives 75 miles to play one game, then defeats Harold 4-3 in 10 innings.

March 2003

Area 51 defeats the Wax in 5 games in the World Series for first SOMBILLA championship.

December 2003

Randy shows up at Tom’s old apartment (which he had moved from a year earlier) to play. After finally making it to Tom’s new house an hour late, their extra-inning filled series ends around 2 AM, with a Tom sweep.

January 2004

Unbeknownst to Eric, he ties the league record with his 12th win in a row.

January 2004

Eric’s Derek Lowe no-hits North Dakota.

February 2004

For the first time in four years, conditions were set for the SOMBILLA hockey showdown – and a rematch. Gametime weather: bright sunshine, 24 degrees and blustery winds.

Jeff started the scoring on a nice feed from Harold. But Arnie tied it up, putting on a Gretzky-like move through Jeff's legs. A score off a give and go with Matt appeared to give Matt and I a 2-1 lead, but it was ruled that Matt hadn't cleared the zone and the goal was disallowed (with little complaint). The seriousness of the game was never more evident when Jeff decked Arnie with a vicious elbow near the far boards (other observers would later say Arnie simply smashed into Jeff, who was just standing there, and just fell down). Good passing by Harold and Jeff led to the go-ahead goal, but a pretty pass from Matt led to an easy goal for me and it was tied 2-2.

Windchills were around zero, players were tired and sweaty, as all four dug deep after it was announced "next goal wins". Play stayed near the perimeter and close checking and quick reactions reduced scoring chances. Harold had the puck on the left wing. Matt left Harold to cover Jeff, who was heading for the net, at the same time I charged to cover Harold to poke the puck away.

Matt and I never saw each other. Time stood still as our two bodies and sticks became intertwined, and with that, our hopes at revenge, 'iced' for four years, crashed to the ice with us. Jeff potted the easy empty-netter and this year's hockey bash was history...

February 2004

A.J. Burnett wins his 12th game for Eric to tie league record.

December 2004

Tom begins season 23-5 to break the record for best first half record

March 2005

Tom wins his first league championship, defeating Future Wax in 6 games.

December 2005

Matt uses Pedro Feliz, a player not even in the SOMBILLA, in a series against Tom. Eric summed it up when he wrote: "Rosey Ruiz strikes again! Matt, you're a genius. I don't think any punishment is necessary. The mere exposure of the incident is enough. I stand in awe."

There was no comment from GM Jed "Hand to Forehead" Corman.

January 2006

Randy defeats Harold 6-5 in 17 innings. 41 players are used, including 14 pitchers, and there were 5 bunts, including 3 squeeze plays.

January 2006

Matt loses a record 17 games in a row, then shocks the league by announcing his resignation.

March 2006

The one-game playoff of 2006.

The first controversy erupted when North Dakota ended the 56 game season with only 2 innings of relief left for the one-game playoff. And starter Randy Johnson had only 4 1/3 inns available. Could Randy Johnson start? What happens after 6 1/3 innings? A flurry of e-mails skyrocketed around the league - with well-thought out issues, proposals, indignations and controversy. Finally, ND sent an e-mail entitled "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE" and agreed to adopt the FW proposal, but concluding that
"Randy Johnson will start this game in one hour…And I'm going to kick your ass."

FW won the game 7 -3.

The next morning (Sun. 3/4), Randy sent the following e-mail to the league:

"I was sitting down this morning to write to you all about the exciting season finale in which Jim Edmonds went 4-4, with 3 doubles and a home run, for 5 RBIs, leading Future Wax to a 7-3 victory over North Dakota.

But first I was going to finish my season stats by adding the 57th game to the regular season total. In doing so...discovered...to my horror...Zambrano's available innings for game 57 [were] 5.3, but he pitched 6.6 in the game -- clearly illegal.

Therefore, we are going to have to replay some or all of the game. We are going to need a ruling by Matt as to whether we should replay the game from the point of "infraction" (that is, after the first out of the 5th, when Zambrano's arm should have fallen off) or replay the entire game. (I want the former, Arnie the latter; there is nothing decisive in the bylaws, I think).

If all this wasn't farcical enough, after the game last night Arnie ripped his entire team in half. He will have to break out the Scotch tape to replay the game.

In his last act as Vice Commissioner, Matt ruled that the game had to be replayed in its entirety. Andrew responded angrily "I do not agree at all with the ruling...He made an honest mistake and in effect gets a 1972 Russian Basketball team "replay".

The game was replayed anyway.

Big Papi's solo blast held up through 6 innings, ND ominously stranding 7 runners through the first 6. Bonds led off the 7th with a triple (on a 1-5, out otherwise) and was knocked in by Chavez to tie it. M. Alou smacked his 21st homer in the 8th to make it 2-1 ND.

Bottom of the 9th, ND up 2-1. Bonds walks, Edmonds singles, Giles walks. Bases loaded nobody out for FW against a tired Gonzalez, the last ND pitcher. Infield in. But Chavez strikes out (on his card). C. Wilson up. Pujols fields it cleanly and gets Bonds at the plate. Clayton up. Tying run on 3rd, winning run on 2nd, ND one out away from the win. Clayton walks. Ford strikes out. Extra innings.

Bottom of the 10th, Burke walks. Berkman moves him over. Bonds hits an open single to left. The slow (1-9) Burke rounds 3rd with Crawford (0 arm) throwing. Randy rolls a 5. Game over, team ripped in half again.

M. Gonzalez, the last ND pitcher, with an arm that had fallen off, but was then glued back on, pitched the final 4 innings tired (and yielded no tired singles).

March 2006

With the winning run at bat in the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series, Tom’s Romero and Dotel strike out MVP Edmonds and Giles to beat Randy for his 2nd consecutive World Series win.

November 2006

The SOMBILLA’s Internet era gets underway with a rocky start as the Smoltz-gate controversy mars the Knuckle/Constantinople series.

December 2006

Jed travels over 300 miles to play 20 games in a hotel room in 24 hours, going 14-6 to take over first place.

February 2007

Randy wins game 56 with a 13th inning HR to clinch 4th place and avoid another one-game playoff with ND.

March 2007

Tom wins his third consecutive World Series against Randy, including his second consecutive game 7 one-run game.

 ________________________________________________________________________________

HOW THE FRANCHISES WERE BUILT [8/08]

      Which teams rely on their farm systems? Who has the most active front office? Who signs the free agents? This summer, I analyzed each team's current 45-man roster and reviewed how every player ended up on the roster. I divided them up into three categories:

      Farm system – Players who were originally drafted by the team and are still on the roster. In essence, these players are those who have spent their entire SOMBILLA career with one team.

      Front office – Players acquired via trade.

      Free agents – Drafted players who previously played for another team, were cut, and then picked up as free agents.

      Team

      Farm system

      Trade (front office)

      Free agents

      His own weird category*

      Future Wax

      42

      1 (Berkman)

      2 (Anderson, Cameron)

       

      Bay City

      43 or 44*

      *

      1 (Bradford)

      1 (Escobar)

      Constantinople

      43

      0

      2 (C. Pena, Church)

       

      Area 51

      40

      1 (Smoltz)

      4 (Percival, Grudzelanik, Vizquel, Guerrero)

       

      New Orleans

      40

      2 (Sheffield, Helton)

      3 (Carrasco, O. Cabrera, Phelps)

       

      North Dakota

      41

      2 (Glaus, Kent)

      2 (Alou, M. Ordonez)

       

      Knuckle Sandwiches

      41

      1 (Hafner)

      3 (Howry, Ankiel, Dye)

       

      Hibernia

      43

      2 (M. Ramirez, Tejada)

      0

       

      *Escobar was originally drafted by Robin, then cut, then redrafted by North Dakota, then traded back to Robin. This makes him eligible to be counted for Robin as both farm system and trade.

      Surprisingly, at least to me, there is not a lot of variation among us. All teams have between 40 and 43 players on their roster who were drafted originally by them. And all teams, except for Tom, have 1 or 2 players on their roster acquired via trade. The most variation is among free agents.

      In addition to the surprising lack of variability, the only other conclusion is that Durga's famous lament from 20 years ago still holds true. "This league hates to trade."


ALL-TIME FRANCHISE PLAYERS (8/07)

Who’s your best player in franchise history? I asked each tem to help with this one and received responses from all but Jeff.

North Dakota

Randy Johnson. An integral part of the team’s championship glory years (including one championship year when, due to injury, he was actually a 66-inning reliever). Has made the team virtually every year since 1993.

Constantinople

Alex Rodriguez*. Since 1996, he is either #1 or #2 in all cumulative statistics of note including 168 homeruns, which is almost twice that of the second place Manatee who had 97 homers. The consummate team player, he has been willing to change positions, be a defensive replacement and accept a part time role for an isolated year if that means the team having its best shot at winning a championship. The face of the franchise.

The Human Stains, et al

Well, if I'd kept hold of Clemens I would say he's the all-time franchise player. But since I traded him and still won several titles A.C. (after Clemens), I suppose I should select someone else. That said, since I also don't keep stats anymore, unless I'm competing, it's a hard call. Minus statistical reflection, I may have to elect Rafael Palmeiro as the all-time franchise player, since I had him virtually his whole career (thanks to one of the worst trades I'll wager RAT ever made).

But where would I have been without, say, Lenny Dyskstra, Von Hayes, Dale Murphy, Harold Baines, Orel Hershiser, Dennis Eckersley, even Dave Winfield for a few years? Or Mike Stanley? and what about----Steve Sax? And Mark Clear? (just kidding.) and Rick Sutcliffe? ah, the good old days....so I guess Palmeiro gets the nod, steroids and all.

Manila Folders

Mark McGwire, perhaps the best SOMBILLA season ever, winning the triple crown for the first, and only, time.

A close second would be Gary Redus, for defining the drafting philosophy of the team so well.

Jed

Which franchise? I think players I traded had more impact on the league so I'll go with Mike Piazza.

New Orleans

Mariano Rivera. 10th round pick in '96 draft. 'Nuff said.

Bay City

Pudge Rodriguez. Pretty sure he’s made my team every year since I drafted him, and he probably saved me dozens (hundreds?) of runs with his throwing arm (or, more accurately, the threat of his throwing arm). Honorable mention to 1st BC pick ever, Cal Ripken, Jr.

Future Wax

The most important player in FW franchise history is Barry Bonds, or __________ on his card. Bonds is a four-time league MVP (92-93, 94-95, 01-02, 02-03), holds the league records for homeruns (32), runs (74), OPS (1.465), and SLUG (.994). Since 1997, he has hit 42 post-season home-runs (stats for 01-02 are missing) over 90 play-off games.

* asshole



SUCCESSFUL LEFTY STARTERS (8/07)

Harold, on the heels of lefty Dontrelle Willis winning the Cy Young award asked how many lefties have ever won the Cy Young award? What championship teams have had lefties in the rotation?

The first question is easy – only 2 lefty pitchers have ever won the SOMBILLA’s Cy Young award. The first was Fernando Valenzuela for Yitz’s Learned Hands, back in ‘86-87. He finished with an 8-5 record and a 3.05 ERA for the 7th place Hands. And Dontrelle Willis, last year, was the second.

As far as lefties on championship teams goes, see below:

Year

Manager

Team Name

Lefties in the rotation

1979

Tsuan

Nazgul

Waits

1981-1982

Tsuan

Nazgul

Reuss, Underwood

1982-1983

Robin/Tsuan

Bay City Nazgul

Valenzuela

1983-1984

Jed

Evil Bunnies

None

1984-1985

Jed

Shithead

M. Young

1985-1986

Eric

Marakesh Express

None

1986-1987

Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

Hesketh

1987-1988

Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

None

1988-1989

Eric

Yoknapatawpha

None

1989-1990

Eric

Yoknapatawpha

None

1990-1991

Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

None

1991-1992

Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

Nabholz, Mulholland

1992-1993

Eric

Franz Josef Land

None

1993-1994

Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

None

1994-1995

Eric

The White Visitation

Fassero?*

1995-1996

Arnie

North Dakota

R. Johnson

1996-1997

Eric

Finn's People

None

1997-1998

Randy/Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

None

1998-1999

Arnie

North Dakota

R. Johnson

1999-2000

Arnie

North Dakota

Rosado, D. Wells

2000-2001

Harold

New Orleans

Leiter

2001-2002

Randy/Andrew/Tsuan

Future Wax

D. Wells

2002-2003

Jeff

Area 51

None

2003-2004

Eric

Gawd B

None

2004-2005

Tom

Constantinople

Redman

2005-2006

Tom

Constantinople

None

2006-2007

Tom

Constantinople

Sabathia

* not sure if he spot started.

13 of the 27 champions had no lefty starters. A compelling stat. And looking at the three champions with two lefty starters, Underwood (he of lefty-yanking rule fame), Nabholz, and Rosado were all spot starters, not regulars in the rotation. Meaning that half of all champions had no lefties in the rotation and the other half had one regular.


The Cute Ratings [8/06]

Presenting the nonannual Cute Ratings by Robin Perlow, guest columnist

To, I’m sure, no one’s surprise, Bay City is the cutest team in the Sombilla, with a whopping 21 cute players, easily topping runner-up A51, who has 14 cuties. Swarzluna has the fewest, with only 8 cute players, but only 9 truly ugly ones, whereas FW has 15 ugly guys (compared to BC, which has only 4 ugly ones—including trade pick-up Kevin Mench). Catcher is probably the least attractive position (I didn’t separate infielders or outfielders by position), with only 5 cute ones out of 29 in the league. MF has 2 of these, so 4 teams (CN, ND, NO, A51) have no cute catchers.

In my exhaustive search to determine the "cutest player in the SOMBILLA" (to replace the cut [and retired] Alex Gonzalez [not the Red Sox one] and the cut Steve Finley—the previous titleholders), there was no clear winner. I am forced to declare a tie amongst Khalil Greene (A51), Mike Cameron (FW), and newcomer J.J. Hardy (MF). My choices are purely subjective; thus, Cleveland heartthrob Grady Sizemore and former 50 Most Beautiful Person Mike Lowell didn’t make the cut. Certain players, including Matt Clement (SW), Nick Swisher (A51), Dan Johnson (FW), and Doug Davis (ND), would be more highly rated if they got rid of offensive facial hair—what I call the Billy Koch syndrome (a former BC player who, if not for his shaved head and chin fringe [the Jay Buhner look], would have been cute. Craig Wilson (FW) was much cuter as a Pirate with longer hair than as a Yankee (but this holds true for most players). A few current players (Jose Cruz, Jr., Ken Griffey, Jr., and Coco Crisp) are not as cute as their fathers (OK, I’m showing my age, and I’m anxious to get a look at Kyle Drabek, son of former BC ace Doug Drabek, who was highly drafted in MLB this June).

What follows are a few notes on the high and low lights of each team (from worst to first). Please note that if I was not familiar with a player’s looks, I relied on the MLB Web site, so some people may have been unfairly but unavoidably penalized for being non-photogenic.

SW (8)—Cutest player: Manny Ramirez (with the dreadlocks). Exceptionally unattractive bullpen (Turnbow, J. Tavarez, Rincon).

CN (10)—Cutest player: Brad Radke, ugliest: Wise. Giambi much cuter as an A in the pre-steroid days.

ND (10)—Cutest players: Rollins, Wily Mo, Francoeur (in fact, half the ND outfield is cute). Really ugly battery with Johnson pitching to either Bard or Castro. Travis Hafner (who’s actually from North Dakota) is the league’s ugliest DH.

FW (12)—Cutest players: Cameron, Nomar, B. Anderson, D. Johnson. Least attractive: Barajas, Penny, Jacobs.

MF (12)—Cutest players: Hardy, Zito (with hair), B. Roberts. Most attractive corps of catchers, with Javy Lopez and LaRue cute and Mauer not ugly. Tied with A51 for 2nd fewest ugly guys (6).

NO (12)—Cutest players Benson, Cano, Michaels. Best smile: former BCer O-Dog. Colon-Posada battery rivals ND’s for ugliest. Very cute infield with Soriano still at 2B for the coming season.

A51 (14)—Cutest player: Greene, Ugliest: Donnelly, Myers, Molina, Reyes. Another attractive outfield, with 5 of 8 being cute.

BC (21)—Cutest players: new draftees Cotts, Granderson, and Langerhans, along with usual suspects Blalock, Wakefield, and Hawpe (newly discovered as cute—I never knew what he looked like till I did this study—nor did I know what the cute draftees looked like [except Huston Street] ). Ugliest: former A51er Mench, Laird, and Tejeda (all either former or current Texas Rangers--but so’s Blalock, so it’s not in the water there).

 


BAD BOYS OF THE SOMBILLA [8/06]

Which league’s franchise doesn’t give a shit about societal mores? Who flaunts boorish, illegal behavior in the rest of the league’s face? Which team is the most gentlemanly, intolerant of criminal activity on its roster? This summer, the SOMBILLA spotlight team studies the bad boys of the SOMBILLA - detailing a team by team summary of arrest records.

Not surprisingly, Future Wax heads the shame roll. Tsuan and Andrew (and more recently Randy) clearly have an eye for stockpiling thugs, hoodlums and criminals. The question is, do their wives know about this predilection?

At the other extreme, Constantinople has a very scant bad boy record.   Tom & Land win the goody two shoes award.

Future Wax

Area 51/Hatchbacks/Sardukar

Manila Folders/Bunghole Quahogs

(Jed assumes liability for both franchise’s bad boys)

New Orleans

North Dakota

Swarzluna

 

Bay City


Constantinople

 



Who have we burned? [8/06]

Not really a study, just a compilation. Somewhat related to Study 3. Including direct quotes from recent summer newsletters:

2006 – As usual we burned Barry Bonds.

2005 - Robin had previously proposed resurrecting an old Canseco card and ‘injecting’ it, although she was vague about how that would be accomplished. As a result, we kept it simple and burned Barry Bonds.

2004 - There was a lot of sentiment around burning ‘alleged’ steroid user Barry Bonds. There was also a lot of momentum for burning another Future Wax bad boy, rapist Ramon Castro. Some tried to argue creatively that, if it hadn’t been for the steroids, Bonds would be a rapist too. In the end, that speculation proved to be no match for actual facts, and Castro was burned.

2003 - The winning choice was to burn David Wells, who was then burned. If we’d had a copy of his book we’d have burned that too.

2002 - The winning choice was to burn Ruben Rivera. The card of Derek Jeter watched and cheered.

2001 - The only nomination received was for Bobby Chouinard, who was then burned.

2000 - Nominations were received for John Rocker, Al Martin, Daryl Strawberry, and Bobby Chouinard, the most number of nominations ever. The votes were Rocker 5, Martin 1 (Eric abstained). John Rocker was then burned.

1999 - Wil Cordero

1998 - Tony Phillips and Wil Cordero

Previous to 1998, Robin was in charge of card burning decisions. At the ’97 draft, Land proposed formalizing the card burning process by allowing for nominations and putting the card burning to a vote. His proposal passed 7-2.

1997 - Mike Greenwell

1996 - Darryl Strawberry

1995 - Jack Morris

1994 - Matt Young

1993 - Gary Carter

1992 - Gary Carter

1991 - Gary Carter

1990 - Bill Buckner

1989 - Glenn Hoffman

1988 - Steve Garvey

1987 - Pete Rose

1986 - Pete Rose

1985 - Mike Torrez

1984 - Bucky Dent

Card burnings for  years prior have not been documented.


All-time SOMBILLA Home Run Leaders (updated 7/05)

Last summer, we presented the top 71 all-time SOMBILLA home run leaders (all those with more than 50).

Here is an updated list of the top 20:

Rank     Name                     HR

1

Bonds

297

2

Griffey

197

3

Piazza

169

4

McGwire

162

5

Ramirez

158

6

Sosa

147

7

Thome

146

8

Bagwell

132

9

Rodriguez, A

130

10

Thomas, F

127

11

Williams, M

127

12

Martinez, E

122

13

McGriff

121

14

Sheffield

120

15

Belle

116

16

Davis, E

113

17

Gonzalez, Ju.

112

18

Walker, L

110

19

Burks

105

20

Palmeiro

101


All-time SOMBILLA Wins Leaders

As promised last summer, here is the following list of SOMBILLA wins leaders, dating back from ‘83-84, the first year we kept stats for all the teams, through last year. A couple of years in there, (for example, last year) not all the teams did their stats, but this is the best we can do.

Hopefully, I got everyone. If you think of someone who should be on the list, let me know -and I’ll look into it. This list includes all those with 30 or more recorded wins:

THE MAKING OF CONSTANTINOPLE


Constantinople, thanks to the astute managing and GMing of Tom (and to a lesser extent, Land) won its first SOMBILLA championship 4 months ago – 13 years after being awarded an expansion franchise (Note: this 13 years is shorter than the 19 years it took the Yitz/Durga/Harold franchise to win its first championship, while Manila is on 20 and counting).

In the spring of 1992, the SOMBILLA voted 6-2 to award Land his own expansion team and become the 9th team in the league. (Arnie and Robin, who were and are good friends with Land, cast the only opposing votes. Arnie because he didn’t want to do the extra scheduling and stats, and Robin, on principle. Land did not hold it against us, inviting us to his wedding a few years later.)

A few weeks before the April draft, the other 7 teams were allowed to protect 30 players (then as now, rosters were 45 players). Since we (the established teams) were going to cut 10 of these people anyway, we basically screwed Land by giving him crap (or perhaps a slight upgrade from crap) expansion players to choose from. He was limited to 2 players per team. I recall that after he got the list he called me to ask if he was forced to actually take two players from every team. I said no.

He got 10 draft picks – last pick in every round, then we gave him the stack of leftovers, from which he chose 20 or so players to fill out his roster. We magnanimously gave him two weeks to do that.

1. Were any of the expansion pickups any good? Or even helpful? Well, in the ’92 Summer Newsletter, I posted the following analysis:

From

Who he took

Who he should have taken

Jed

Fisk, E. King

Bruno (.273), Deer (21 hr), Incaviglia (.278)

Arnie

Samuel, Maldonado

Honeycutt (2.88), Welch (2.99)

Matt

Carpenter, Orsulak

Carpenter (2.28) , Bichette (.314)

Eric

Eisenreich, L. Johnson

Eisenreich (.277) , Seitzer (.283)

Robin

B. Smith, O’Brien

Black (2.90), Jacoby (.280)

Harold

Hibbard, Treadway

D. Jones (2.25)

Dave

Ojeda

Ojeda (3.01 ), B. Witt (3.79)

Andrew

Mulholland, R. McDowell

R. McDowell (2.95) , Magadan (.300)

While I did some nitpicking analyses here, the fact is he had crap to choose from, since 2/3 of the guys on the list were about to get cut anyway. How did these 15 castoffs do? Did any of those 15 expansionists last? In the first year (in which Land finished 8th , beating out Jed & Clint), Samuel batted .291, Eisenreich .245, Fisk .231, while Mulholland was 3-9 (4.03), McDowell 2-2 (4.26) and Ojeda 3-3 (6.91). Samuel and Eisenreich were regulars.

At the ’93 draft, Land cut 7 of these 15 players. In year 2, ‘93-94, Orsulak, Maldonado, Mulholland and Carpenter were all on the 25-man roster, Mulholland going 5-8 (4.28) for the last place team. By year 3, ‘94-95 (last place again), only Terry Mulholland remained. (I recall that when I called Land at work, I would leave word with the receptionist that "Terry Mulholland" had called). In ‘95-96, when Land shocked the league by making the playoffs, none of this group contributed.

2. His fist draft? Tapani, Pagnozzi, Stanton, Joyner, Navarro, Do. Henry, C. Davis, P. Munoz, Mercedes, and A. Rhodes. 4 years later when he made the playoffs, Munoz, Davis, Joyner, and Pagnozzi were all on the team. In the ’96 summer newsletter, Chili Davis was named the best 7 th round pick (tied with T&A’s Mercker). Nobody else won a best or worst draft pick award.

3. Finally, what about the stack of leftover sludge? He had 20 picks. During the 2 week period he had to decide, a couple of astute managers were also scouting this "pile" and offered some trades to Land in return for him picking up some guys they wanted. First, the choices:

  1. Pecota

11 Taubensee

  • 2  D. Hansen
  • 12. F. Castillo

  • 3. P. Kelly
  • 13. Ashby

  • 4. M. Thompson
  • 14. W. Alvarez

  • 5. Belliard
  • 15. M. Williams

  • 6. D. Hamilton
  • 16. W. Ritchie

  • 7. Devereaux
  • 17. Pall

  • 8. L. Stevens
  • 18. Gott

  • 9. O. Nixon
  • 19. M. Freeman

  • 10. Rose
  • 20. Timlin

    Land immediately traded Stanton and A. Rhodes to Jed for Zeile. He also traded Thompson to Eric for a 7 th rounder in the following year’s draft. When Land made the playoffs 4 years later, Zeile, Hansen, O. Nixon and Taubensee all took part in the celebration. Nixon still holds the league’s all-time single season steal record (53 in ‘92-93)

    Check out that last guy! Literally, the 45th man on his roster, not even drafted, the last guy in the league and he’s having an all-star year in ’05. He was an ill-advised cut of Tom’s in 2002, the last remaining player on the original Constantinople.

    The ‘04-05 team

    Land hasn’t participated in a few years now. How many were Land guys and how many Tom’s? Researching the 25 players on Tom’s championship roster, here are a few facts:

    *RP note: He had the last pick in the draft and was choosing between Giambi and Mark Whiten. I counseled him to take the pre-steroid Giambi because he was so cute).

     

    The others:

    1999: Tom’s first draft – he and Land worked together. Abreau – 2nd round, Varitek – 6 th , C. Everett- 8th

    2000: Land and Tom still working together. Hudson – 1st, K. Wells – 4th, Dotel – 7 th

    2001: Land still active in Gming. It’s hard from the outside to know who was responsible for drafting whom. But at least until ’02, Land had a strong interest in participating as a GM. Herges – 7th round (cut in ’03 and redrafted in ’04).

    2002: The "contraction draft". Perhaps the low point of the Land/Tom marriage as there was some brief discussion of Tom getting Clint’s old team and finding a new manager for Land. In the end, they reached an amiable understanding. A. Jones – 1st , Nevin – 2nd (both former BiG DiG players), Mora – 13 th round (cut in ’03 and redrafted in ’04).

    2003: Tom may have been flying solo for this one. Borowski – 8th, C. Lee – 9th, J. Schmidt – 10 th

    2004: Land definitely AWOL. Ensberg – 1 st, Mora – 2nd, J. Guillen – 3rd , Redman – 4th, Herges – 4th, Bay – 7th , Stairs – 9th, Wunsch – 10th, Durham – 11th , Capuano – 12th


    MR. IRRELLEVANT

    In the NFL, the last player drafted is nicknamed "Mr. Irrelevant" and is feted to a week long party in California. Former Pats LB Marty Moore was drafted last and had a productive career for New England. So these guys can be good pickups, but there has to be some good scouting and some luck. We’ve even instituted our own tradition, shouting "Spooneybarger" to officially end the draft. Who are these guys? And who is the best Mr. Irrelevant?

    Year

    Name

    Drafted by

    Result after being drafted

    1985

    Rich Dotson

    Joel

    One season (0-1)

    1986

    Dave LaPointe

    Yitz

    DNP

    1987

    Don Sutton

    Joel

    DNP

    1988

    Andres Thomas

    Eric

    DNP

    1989

    Jody Davis

    Dave

    DNP (this was after a fine career with Yitz’s team)

    1990

    Fred Manrique

    Dave & Clint

    DNP

    1991

    Chuck Nagy

    Jed

    Three seasons (15-17)

    1992

    Dave Hollins

    Andrew

    One season

    1993

    J. T. Bruett

    Arnie (on behalf of Dave, as a result of a trade)

    DNP

    1994

    Lonnie Smith

    Arnie

    One season (.250)

    1995

    Danny Jackson

    Jed & Clint

    One season (3-5)

    1996

    Jason Giambi

    Land

    A great steroid-enhanced career

    1997

    Rob Deer

    Matt

    One season (.286)

    1998

    Larry Sheets

    Matt

    ? (no stats)

    1999

    David Ortiz

    Arnie

    Not a bad player

    2000

    Paul Abbott

    RAT

    One season (2-1)

    2001

    Mark Grace

    Harold

    Two seasons

    2002

    Jeromy Burnitz

    Harold

    DNP

    2003

    Tim Spooneybarger

    RAT

    DNP

    2004

    Doug Waechter

    Eric

    DNP

    2005

    Damian Easley

    Tom

     

    There is actually one Hall of Famer on this list. The problem is, when Joel drafted Don Sutton with the last pick of the 1987 draft, the guy was 42, and Joel was about to end his affiliation with the SOMBILLA. To me, that’s the worst Mr. Irrelevant pick. At least everyone else was trying. A pretty negligible list, with a couple of notable exceptions (as I write this, Ortiz just singled in A-Rod in the All-Star game). Giambi is the best Mr. Irrelevant, but after performance enhancing drugs are factored in, you have to go with Ortiz. Chuck Nagy is an honorable mention.

    Some of these guys did play in the league, although for most of those, their best Strat-O years were with other managers before they were redrafted as Mr. Irrelevant. For the record, this study was not my idea.


    All-time SOMBILLA Home Run Leaders (7/04)

    It’s been a long-time coming, but I finally did some serious data entry and have come up with the following list of SOMBILLA home run leaders, dating back from ‘83-84, the first year we kept stats for all the teams, through last year. A couple of years in there, not all the teams did their stats, but this is the best we can do.

    Hopefully, I got everyone. If you think of someone who should be on the list, let me know -and I’ll look into it. Next year, we’ll do the wins leaders:

    Here are the top 25:

    Rank        Name                      HR

    1

    Bonds

    264

    2

    Griffey

    193

    3

    McGwire

    162

    4

    Piazza

    159

    5

    Ramirez

    141

    6

    Sosa

    140

    7

    Thome

    128

    8

    Williams, M

    127

    9

    Bagwell

    124

    10

    McGriff

    121

    11

    Belle

    116

    11

    Martinez, E

    116

    13

    Davis, E

    113

    13

    Rodriguez, A

    113

    15

    Thomas, F

    111

    16

    Gonzalez, Ju.

    109

    16

    Walker, L

    109

    18

    Burks

    105

    18

    Sheffield

    105

    20

    Palmeiro

    101

    21

    Galarraga

    98

    21

    Mitchell, K.

    98

    23

    Strawberry

    94

    24

    Vaughn, M

    92

    25

    Klesko

    91

    25

    Ripken

    91

    Here’s everybody else with more than 50, although I’m less confident I got everybody.

    27

    Canseco

    81

    27

    Clark, W

    81

    27

    Murray, E

    81

    30

    Jones, C.

    76

    31

    Henderson, R.

    75

    31

    Murphy, D

    75

    33

    Ventura

    74

    34

    Giambi, J

    72

    34

    Lankford

    72

    36

    Williams, B

    71

    37

    Baines

    70

    37

    Bonilla

    70

    37

    Guerrero, V

    70

    40

    Tettleton

    68

    40

    Whitaker

    68

    42

    Dawson

    67

    43

    Jones, A

    66

    43

    Schmidt

    66

    43

    Tartabull

    66

    46

    Edmonds

    65

    46

    Hrbek

    65

    48

    Giles, B

    64

    48

    Justice

    64

    48

    Rodriguez, I.

    64

    48

    Sandberg

    64

    52

    Alou

    63

    52

    Buhner

    63

    54

    Brett

    62

    55

    Parrish, L

    60

    56

    Green, S

    59

    57

    Davis, G

    58

    58

    Fisk

    57

    59

    Delgado

    56

    60

    Winfield

    55

    61

    Biggio

    54

    61

    Mattingly

    54

    61

    Olerud

    54

    61

    Stanley

    54

    65

    Bichette

    53

    65

    Evans, DW

    53

    65

    Guerrero, P

    53

    65

    Vaughn, G

    53

    69

    Alomar, R

    51

    69

    Carter, G

    51

    71

    Helton

    50


    INJURIES IN THE SOMBILLA


    A recent e-mail chain that made its way around the league leads to this next study. Are injuries randomly dispersed throughout all the teams or does one team or a few teams receive an inordinate amount of injuries to its players?

    Ideally, we would examine a historical list of all players who have gone on the DL, say, over the past 10 years and add ‘em up. Or something like that. Unfortunately, I could find no such historical listing. So, I’ve come up with a few alternatives.

    1. Right now
    2. At the all-star break, 49 of the league’s 360 players were on the DL, or 14%. They were spread not so evenly among the league’s teams, ranging from a high of 9 players on the DL, (both RAT and Tom), to a low of 3 for Matt & Jed (only A. Boone, Beckett and Ohka). For the record, RAT’s DL was Williamson, J. Gonzalez, Mantei, Valverde, A. Ramirez, Griffey, Spooneybarger, R. Castro, and W. Miller. Tom’s DL was Mondesi, Mora, Stewart, Ellis, Hudson, Nelson, Borowski, Casey, and Nevin.

      But that’s just a snapshot in time. It doesn’t prove anything and you can’t draw any conclusions from it. Indeed, the snapshot would’ve been different in May, and will be different again in September (except for people like Ohka, Arthur Rhodes or Ritchie Sexson out for the season).

    3. Fluke injuries.

    Pitchers get sore arms. Players pull hamstrings. These are normal, almost expected. But occasionally, weird, inexplicable injuries occur to players. Is this a random occurrence by team or not? Well, some teams clearly are more susceptible to weird injuries. Coincidence? Here’s a collection of some of the strangest injuries over the years affecting SOMBILLA players by team:

    Robin:

    RAT

    Arnie

    Jeff/Dave/Joel

    Yitz/Harold

     

    Jed & Clint.

    Eric

     

    Matt:

     

    Tom/Land

     

    1. Deaths.

    On a more somber note, a few SOMBILLA players have actually died while on active rosters:

    1. Limited Players.
    2. For the only real ‘study’ here, I tried to look at limited players over the past 10 years per franchise. I made a point not to count mutants - guys with great cards drafted in spite of being limited. We’re looking at established roster people who are injured enough that they can’t get to 350 plate appearances and are hence limited. It’s not perfect - it won’t catch guys like Mo Vaughn who get injured for whole season.

      Unfortunately, the historical stats aren’t really up to where they should be to make this accurate. Unofficially, Tom & Land and Jeff both had 14 such players over the 10 years to lead the pack, followed closely by North Dakota with 13. The Folders and Bay City chime in with 12, while Harold and Jed had 9 each. Future Wax, surprisingly while hit with many unusual injuries (see above) had only 7 players over this time limited due to injury (they had plenty of mutants, who do not count). Eric brings up the rear with only 7, but that’s probably more of a function of all those years without stats than anything else.

       

    3. Conclusion.

    Robin’s team appears to have an inordinate number of injuries and deaths, but all teams appear to have been affected in one way or another. I was going to say that Matt appears least affected, but then I remembered Darryl Kile, whose demise rightly earned Matt a seat on the "couch of woe" on draft day.



    GREAT PLAYERS ON BAD TEAMS

    In 1972, Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies, went 27-10, with a 1.97 ERA to win the Cy Young Award. His team, as you may know, finished dead last, at 59-97, making Carlton’s season all the more remarkable. This summer, thanks to a suggestion by Eric, the league asks, "who have been the Steve Carltons of the SOMBILLA?"

    There have been some remarkably bad teams in the SOMBILLA. Here is a list of all the last place teams over the years:

    Year Team                       W  L  Pct  GB
    1979      Sardukar             20 30 .400  13
    1981-1982 North Dakota         14 36 .280  17
    1982-1983 North Dakota         19 31 .380  15
    1983-1984 Marakesh Express     23 27 .460  4.5
    1984-1985 Shellshock III Nazgul19 31 .380  10
    1985-1986 Manilla Folders      20 36 .357  15
    1986-1987 Sardukar             23 33 .410  11
    1987-1988 Sardukar             19 37 .339  20
    1988-1989 Bay City             21 35 .375  14
    1989-1990 Bay City             18 38 .321  26
    1990-1991 Bay City             23 33 .411  13
    1991-1992 Hatchbacks           21 35 .375  22
    1992-1993 Adirondack           19 37 .339  15
    1993-1994 Constantinople       21 35 .375  16
    1994-1995 Constantinople       19 37 .339  17
    1995-1996 Metrowest            18 38 .321  21
    1996-1997 Metrowest            19 37 .339  22
    1997-1998 Bay City             22 34 .393  12
    1998-1999 Kakania              16 40 .286  24
    1999-2000 Constantinople       23 33 .404  16
    2000-2001 Manila Folders       10 43 .189  27.5
    2001-2002 BiG DiG              18 38 .321  20
    2002-2003 Manila Folders       18 38 .321  16

    No doubt, there have been some pretty bad teams that did not finish in last place over the years. Indeed, on three occasions (85-86, 87-88 and 88-89) two teams finished at the bottom with identical records. But as always ties are broken based on head-to-head competition, and what better way to settle last place once and for all? I’d say this is a pretty fair representation of the worst SOMBILLA teams ever. The creme de la creme (or crap de la crap).

    So, have there been any great performances from this motley collection of SOMBILLA teams? Well, we only started keeping real stats for the league beginning in 1984, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty there wasn’t a single good performance from either of the two ND teams that were spectacularly bad during the SOMBILLA’s infancy.

    Fred Lynn of Eric’s ‘83-84 Marakesh Express was the first notable bad team high achiever, winning the league batting crown that year at .324 (that team also holds the record for being the best last-place team ever, finishing with a respectable .460 winning percentage). You have to shoot ahead 7 years to find another great performance – Robin’s Glenn Davis is still the only player to lead the league in homers for a last place team (19). Kenny Lofton was a stolen base leader for Jeff’s last place team in ‘96-97 (he had 19). The ‘99-00 Constantinople team had the only pitcher to lead the league in a major category from a last place team – he had 11 saves. The ill-fated BiG DiG team of ‘01-02 had Vlad Guerrero leading the league with a sparkling .754 slugging average. And finally, last season, Ichiro piled up 16 stolen bases to give the last-place Folders a league-leader. Some pretty lame performances in the long history of the league.

    The following is my best shot at the SOMBILLA’s all-time best performance for a last place team all-star team (I tried to stick to regulars, and not pick some shmuck who hit .380 in 32 at bats):

    Pos. Name         Team    Ave   HR   BI Comments

    1B Frank Thomas 97-98 BC .317   17   42
    2B Bret Boone   95-96 MW .335    5   27
    SS Cal Ripken   90-91 BC .286    6   30
    3B Chipper Jones96-97 MW .249   15   41
    3B George Brett 86-87 SA .295   10   29 Sentimental backup
    LF Kal Daniels  88-89 BC .311    8   27 Platoon player, only 122 AB
    CF Fred Lynn    84-84 ME .324   10   34 Batting leader, gold glover, 50 games
    RF V. Guerrero  01-02 BD .366   18   52 .754 SLG to lead league
    C  Gary Carter  86-87 SA .240   15   30
    DH Kevin Millar 02-03 MF .342   12   51
    PH Jose Canseco 91-92 HB .265   18   39
    PH Mo Vaughn    96-97 MW .288   17   37
    PH Glenn Davis  90-91 BC .239   19   34
    PH Julio Franco 91-92 HB .342    3   21
    PH Tony Gwynn   87-88 SA .332    5   31 13 SB

                                W-L   ERA   SV

    SP Jose DeLeon     92-93 AD 5-2   2.73
    SP Len Barker      84-85 ME 6-4   3.57
    SP Tom Browning    86-87 SA 7-7   3.36
    SP A. Fernandez    97-98 BC 8-5   5.58
    SP/RP S. Fernandez 90-91 BC 3-2   2.33   3
    SP/RP Jim Beattie  84-85 ME 6-2   3.30   1
    RP Niedenfuer      85-86 S3N3-2   2.19   2
    RP Bruce Sutter    85-86 MF 2-0   2.20   2
    RP Carman          86-87 SA 2-2   2.05   4
    RP Tom Henke       88-89 BC 5-2   3.47   3
    RP Jim Gott        94-95 CN 1-1   1.69   3
    RP Uegeth Urbina   99-00 CN 1-4   1.51  11


    Designing Ballparks

    Despite a plurality of the league against the concept of designing parks, we are still stuck with it. I was asked to do a study of the phenomenon of designing ballparks and whether this really leads to SOMBILLA extremism, whatever that means, and other heinous results.

    First, a few facts. This misguided rule was voted in at the 2000 annual meeting. Thus, we’ve played 3 seasons under this regime.

    Is there any correlation to success? Well despite the fact that only 8 of the league’s 26 teams (31%) over that period have used normal parks over the past 3 years, 2/3 (67%) of the league’s championships have been won by teams with normal parks. Of the 8 teams using normal parks, 4 made the playoffs (50%), while 8 of the 16 teams (also 50%) with designed ballparks also made the playoffs. Indeed, the only season in the last 10 years that North Dakota did not make the playoffs, was the one year that the team played in a designed park. One could argue that taken together, these two facts show that once a team reaches the playoffs, its success depends largely on whether or not it plays in a designed or a normal park.

    What about home advantage? Well, the home record for the 8 teams using normal parks over the past 3 years is 114-110 (.509). The home record for the abnormal parks was 261-241 (.520). Of course, there are other more important variables involved, like strength of team, to take any of these results too seriously. (That is, you could put together a team of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, etc. and compare them in an abnormal park against a team full of Lou Merlonis in a normal park – or vice versa - well, you get the idea).

    The two main criticisms of designing ballparks are that allowing so, has, counterintuitively, led to a lack of creativity in designing parks and ballpark extremism. The two are actually interrelated.

    As far as creativity goes, in fairness, it’s interesting to note that in ‘01-02, two of the teams using normal parks, Jeff & Robin, played in the same ballpark (Chicago AL). The other team using a normal park that year, Randy, played in Colorado, which was the most extreme hitter’s park available for both sides.

    Nevertheless, the lack of creatively in designing parks jumps out and hits you in the face. In ‘00-01, Tom, Harold, and Matt all played in the same designed park, which also happened to be the most extreme park favoring righties allowable.

    In ‘00-01, 6 of the 7 teams that designed their park used at least one dimension in the extreme (either a 1-19, BP HR or S, 1-2 HR, or the largest spread allowed between lefty and righty), including the three mentioned above. In’ 01-02, 5 of 6 teams played in an extreme ballpark (under that definition), and the other team, arguably, played in the extreme average park (HR 1-10 both sides). And last year, again 5 of the 6 teams played in an extreme park. Thus, it’s an indisputable fact that designing parks has led to ballpark extremism. (And, as a correlation, when 84% of teams that design their parks do so with an extreme park, the league suffers from a lack of creativity.)

    One of the responses to this fact is, "so what? Why is that a bad thing?" That’s a hard question to answer objectively. One could probably point to skewed home/away stats if we had such data, but we don’t. Although there seems to be no significant home field advantage (indeed, 2 of the 3 best home teams last year played in normal parks), we’re left with more subjectivity than objectivity. (If anyone has suggestions for data to look at in an objective study of this issue, I’d be happy to listen).

    So, subjectively, I ask in response to "so what?" whether it is a good thing that 2 of the 6 designed parks last year had HR 1-19 for righties, and 2 others used HR 1-19 for lefties? Or that 4 of the 7 teams designing parks in ‘00-01 used 1-19 for righty homers? Is that creative? Would they all end up in Colorado (which, ironically, is now the absolute extreme this year, 1-19 for everything) if they couldn’t design such parks, as has been suggested? Given that all of these teams had significantly reduced HR for the non- 1-19 side, I don’t think so.

    In short, it is indisputable that designing parks has led to extremism, and as a direct result of the quest for extremism, a lack of ballpark creativity. As to whether that’s good or bad, you’ll have to judge for yourself.

    Addendum number 1 - by Eric
    Thanks Arn. Another really nerdly terrific job. If the summer newsletters were to ever survive as the lone artifacts of humankind, I believe it to be a given that an alien race would never be able to decode our mysteries. Hell, it's tough enough for me, and I live at the center of a
    dark, human mystery.
            Okay, let's talk about Summer Study No. 4 - Designing Ballparks. It's classic Arnstudy, both fair and biased, and filled with many ingenious parentheticals. The data since our conversion to designer parks seems to bear out Arnie's thesis that we are dull and un-inventive and perhaps even frightened by our own freedom to choose. I, of course, am never dull, almost always inventive, but predictably terrified and distrustful of my own freedom. But that doesn't mean I want structure imposed from with-out. I just need to get laid (but that's another dark, all-too-human mystery).
            I would embrace (if embrace is the right word, and if a parenthetical is indeed the right place to question word choice) (...and it probably is...) Arnie's critique if it included a similar study of the three years prior to the advent of designerism. But I fear the results would show that extremism and lack of creativity exists within the smaller selection of Stratparks, and that being given the freedom to design merely allows us to
    mirror our own past choices. And then be smug about it, even if our team gets smoked at home. To wit: having scanned the available Stratparks for this year, only one seems to fill, in part, the criteria for my team as it exists now. I say "seems" because I am not an off-season in-putter of data or cruncher of numbers. It's too hot. The only thing I crunch is the ice in my rum and coke. And I say "in part", because while I like the lefty/righty homer differential of that Stratpark, I don't like the singles situation. (Which reminds me, I need to join a dating service.) Admittedly, though, I have no greater intuition or expertise today than other years in selecting
    numbers for a park. It's a crap shoot. So...
            In New Hampshire, motorcyclists are not required by law to wear a helmets. Seems pretty stupid to me, but I don't ride a motorcycle. The law essentially says that if you're dumb enough to get on a hog without a helmet then you're smart enough to accept the consequences of your choice, even if you wipe out and wake up brain-dead.
            I think Arnie has given us good information to work with. He exposes our lack of creativity and shows that we are apt to give in to our sporting hormones and go for the cheap thrills of excess. He shows that we are more alike than different, which, if he were an anthropologist, sort of makes him the Louis Leakey of Strato.
            But as Arnie says, the problem is ultimately subjective. Would putting an end to designer parks increase creativity and limit extremism? Subjectively, and perhaps even objectively, I'd say it wouldn't.

    Addendum number 2 - Arnie
    Slicing through the introspective laments, musings, and assorted and sundry silliness, Eric responded to this summer's study on designing ballparks by agreeing with the conclusion that the league has not shown creativity in designing ballparks.
        To quote:  "I would embrace (if embrace is the right word, and if a parenthetical is indeed the right place to question word choice) (...and it probably is...) Arnie's critique if it included a similar study of the three years prior to the advent of designerism. But I fear the results would show that extremism and lack of creativity exists within the smaller selection of Stratparks, and that being given the freedom to design merely allows us to mirror our own past choices."
        Tsuan and Jeff weighed in that they agreed with Eric (although I'm not too confident that they understood exactly what they were agreeing to).  For example, Eric later noted that he did not like the singles situation of a particular ballpark, and in doing so, reminded himself that he has to join a dating service.  Were they agreeing with this observation as well.
        In any event, I have gone back to the three years prior to the league's adoption of designing ballpark abominations, er, dimensions.  I was able to determine 7 of the 9 parks from '97-98, 5 of 9 from '98-99 and 7 of 9 from '99-00.  Here are the results:

        '97-98:  3 teams played in Colorado (1-19 everything) that year - Matt, RAT, and Eric.  Harold played in the opposite - LA, which had HR 1-3 and S 1 for both sides.  Robin played in the most extreme park against lefties - HR L 1-2, R 1-8 (although it favored lefties for singles 1-14/1-9). ND was extremely average - 1-9 for everything.  CN, then managed by Brian, showed some creativity, LS 1-3, LHR 1-7, RS 1-9, RHR 1-12.

        '98-99:  Jeff and I both played in Cinci, the park which most favored lefties (HR 1-16 for L, 1-6 for R).  Harold played in a park that favored righties (1-8/1-3 HR) and (1-15/1-12 S).  Matt played in the park that most favored righties (HR 1-18/1-9), although this park, like Robin's the year before, favored lefties for singles (1-10/1-7).  Robin's park favored lefties (1-15/1-9 HR), but was even for S (1-11).

        '99-00:  Matt and RAT both chose Colorado, but note that Colorado that year had L HR 1-16, and R HR 1-19.  Robin chose an average park (HR 1-10).  Jeff and ND both chose parks that favored lefties, but differently (1-14/1-9 HR for Jeff, 1-11/1-3 HR for ND).  Both Harold and Eric chose parks with singles - 1.  Harold's HR was 1-5, while Eric had 1-9 L and 1-12 R.

        Observations:  Extremeism cannot be avoided.  In any year, most teams will seek out an extreme hitter's park, extreme pitcher's park or a park that favors one side heavily.  It is likely that 2 or more teams will choose the same park (but no more likely than with designing ballparks).  But, when forced to choose among the 50 'real' parks, there does seem to be more creativity.  Sometimes, an extreme park for HR is opposite for singles.  This forces extremists to either choose that 'mixed' park or choose a park that's less extreme, with different creative numbers.  Other times, with the notable exception of Colorado, the parks that are extreme for homers at one end, are not extreme or are average for singles.

        Conclusion:  Extremeism cannot be avoided.  I do believe there has been a noticable (but not large) decrease in creativity due to designing parks.



    Comparing great SOMBILLA teams [7/02]

    Because I have all of the computer teams since 1989, I thought it would be fun to compare great SOMBILLA teams of the recent past. This study will be in three parts. First, I ran the past eight SOMBILLA champion teams in one league to see which team was the best, from the ‘94-95 White Visitation through the current reigning ‘01-02 Future Wax champions. I used each team’s actual home ballpark numbers (I knew saving all those old scoresheets would come in handy for something.) Here are the results (note the 168-game schedule)

                              W   L   Pct  GB
    ‘01-02 Future Wax        98  70  .583  --
    ‘98-99 North Dakota      90  78  .536   8
    ‘97-98 Future Wax        90  78  .536   8
    ‘95-96 North Dakota      89  79  .530   9
    ‘99-00 North Dakota      86  82  .512  12
    ‘00-01 New Orleans       82  86  .488  16
    ‘94-95 White Visitation  73  95  .435  25
    ‘96-97 Finn’s People     64  104 .381  34

    Playoffs

    ‘01-02 Future Wax d. ‘95-96 North Dakota 4 games to 3
    ‘98-99 North Dakota d. ‘97-98 Future Wax 4 games to 2

    World Series

    ‘01-02 Future Wax d. ‘98-99 North Dakota 4 games to 0

    Was last year’s Future Wax champion the greatest SOMBILLA team of all time? Now before we all jump on the ‘ridicule Eric’ bandwagon, let’s look at his champion teams more closely. That Finn’s People team was in fact a .500 team, finishing in 4th place at 28-28. Eric was one game ahead of two teams tied for 5th, 13 games behind Future Wax that year (41-15), before stunning FW and ND in the post-season. The computer only looks at these teams on paper. And on paper, that’s a .500 team. The White Visitation champions of 1995 also finished in 4 th place, and in fact, had to win a one-game playoff over Robin to earn the right to play more post season games. While I can program the computer with certain of Eric’s managerial tendencies ("Extreme Aggressive" relief usage for example), the computer cannot reproduce Eric’s great post-season managing abilities and inexplicable post-season karma. The computer blindly sees two 4th place teams (including a .500 team) and thinks they’d get pounded by these other teams. Would they?

    Average

    Wins

    Garciaparra ‘01-02 FW .365

    R. Johnson ‘95-96 ND 22-11

    Ramirez     ‘00-01 NO .349

    Clemens     ‘99-00 ND 21-7

    Piazza      ‘97-98 FW .339

    P. Martinez ‘01-02 FW 20-4

    Nilsson     ‘97-98 FW .329

    Saberhagen  ‘95-96 ND 19-16

    Bonds ‘97-98 FW .322

    Clemens     ‘95-96 ND 18-12

       

    Home Runs

    ERA

    McGriff    ‘95-96 ND 67

    P. Martinez ‘01-02 FW 2.91

    Griffey    ‘97-98 FW 59

    Clemens     ‘99-00 ND 2.95

    Bonds      ‘97-98 FW 56

    R. Johnson  ‘95-96 ND 3.76

    Ramirez    ‘00-01 NO 54

    Nomo        ‘96-97 FP 4.01

    Piazza     ‘97-98 FW 50

    Clemens     ‘98-99 ND 4.35

    RBIs

    Saves

    Ramirez ‘00-01 NO 158

    Hoffman    ‘99-00 ND 39

    McGriff ‘95-96 ND 153

    Wagner     ‘00-01 NO 34

    Bagwell ‘00-01 NO 146

    Wetteland  ‘95-96 ND 28

    Griffey ‘97-98 FW 142

    McMichaels ‘94-95 WV 27

     

    Jiminez    ‘01-02 FW 25



    MVP

    Cy Young

    Bonds   ‘97-98 FW 618

    Clemens    ‘99-00 ND 793

    Ramirez   ‘00-01 NO 603

    P Martinez ‘01-02 FW 754

    Griffey   ‘97-98 FW 594

    R Johnson  ‘95-96 ND 750

    Bagwell   ‘00-01 NO 587

    Wagner     ‘00-01 NO 723

    McGriff   ‘95-96 ND 568

    Clemens    ‘95-96 ND 584


    First team All-stars                           Second team All-stars

    C  Piazza      ‘97-98 FW                       Piazza     ‘01-02 FW
    1B Bagwell     ‘00-01 NO                       McGriff    ‘95-96 ND
    2B Kent        ‘01-02 FW                       Biggio     ‘00-01 NO
    3B Rolen       ‘98-99 ND                       Thome      ‘97-98 FW
    SS Garciaparra ‘01-02 FW                       Larkin     ‘99-00 ND
    LF Bonds       ‘97-98 FW                       Bonds      ‘01-02 FW
    CF Griffey     ‘97-98 FW                       B Williams ‘98-99 ND
    RF Ramirez     ‘00-01 NO                       Sheffield  ‘97-98 FW
    P Clemens      ‘99-00 ND                       Nomo       ‘96-97 FP
    P Martinez     ‘01-02 FW                       Clemens    ‘98-99 ND
    R Johnson      ‘95-96 ND                       R. Johnson ‘98-99 ND
    Wagner         ‘00-01 NO                       Wetteland  ‘95-96 ND
    Clemens        ‘95-96 ND                       Rojas      ‘97-98 FW
    Hoffman        ‘99-00 ND                       S. Reed    ‘99-00 ND

     

    Run no. 2

    For the 2nd run, I decided to let everyone play. I chose each franchise’s best team including all the years since I’ve had computer Strat-O (going back to the 1989 cards, or the ‘90-91 season). Future Wax, North the White Visitation and New Orleans were all plucked from the first run. (The highest finishing season in the first run was chosen, except for New Orleans, which had just one representative). Constantinople’s representative team was from last year, when Tom finished at 38-18, finishing in 2 nd place on a tie-breaker. Jeff’s team was the Metrowest team from the ‘98-99 season, which finished in 3rd place at 33-23, losing to New Orleans in 7 games in the playoffs. Matt’s team was the ‘94-95 Folders that finished in 2nd place at 32-24, beat Future Wax in 5 games, and then lost to the White Visitation in the World Series in 7 games. Robin’s representative was ‘92-93 Bay City, which finished in 1 st place at 34-22, losing to Future Wax in 7 games in the playoffs. For Jed & Clint, you have to go all the way back to their first season together, the last time that franchise made the playoffs – ‘91-92 – when they finished in 2nd place at 31-25 (losing in 6 games to Ross’s Raiders in the playoffs. Thanks to some serious research, I was able to use each team’s actual ballpark numbers from their season.

                              W   L  Pct  GB
    ‘01-02 Future Wax        99  61 .619  --
    ‘01-02 Constantinople    88  72 .550  11
    ‘98-99 North Dakota      87  73 .544  12
    ‘94-95 White Visitation  86  74 .538  13
    ‘00-01 New Orleans       83  77 .519  16
    ‘98-99 Metrowest         81  79 .506  18
    ‘94-95 Manila Folders    74  86 .463  25
    ‘91-92 Arkansas          64  96 .400  35
    ‘92-93 Bay City          58 102 .363  41

    Playoffs

    ‘01-02 Future Wax d. ‘94-95 White Visitation 4 games to 0
    ‘98-99 North Dakota d. ‘01-02 Constantinople 4 games to 1

    World Series

    ‘01-02 Future Wax d. ‘98-99 North Dakota 4 games to 0.

    Was last year’s Future Wax champion the greatest SOMBILLA team of all time? Is there bias toward the more recent teams or are those teams just stronger? Well, given that both the White Visitation and New Orleans fared better in this league, than in the first run, I’d say that it’s just a question of the quality of the teams, not the year of the cards.

    Average

    Wins

    Garciaparra ‘01-02 FW .350

    Maddux       ‘01-02 MW 21-9

    E. Martinez ‘00-01 NO .338

    Clemens      ‘98-88 ND 18-14

    Greer       ‘98-99 MW .335

    P. Martinez  ‘01-02 FW 17-4

    Ramirez     ‘00-01 NO .333

    L. Hernandez ‘01-02 FW 17-11

    Molitor     ‘94-95 MF .332

    Hentgen      ‘98-99 MW 17-10

       

    Home Runs

    ERA

    Sheffield   ‘01-02 FW 57

    P. Martinez ‘01-02 FW 3.20

    Ramirez     ‘00-01 NO 55

    Rijo        ‘94-95 MF 3.59

    M. Williams ‘94-95 MF 55

    R. Johnson  ‘98-99 ND 3.94

    Bagwell     ‘00-01 NO 52

    Farr        ‘91-92 AK 4.25

    L. Walker   ‘98-99 MW 50

    Clemens     ‘98-99 ND 4.29



    RBIs

    Saves

    Ramirez     ‘00-01 NO 169

    G. White   ‘01-02 CN 40

    Sheffield   ‘01-02 FW 155

    McMichaels ‘94-95 WV 33

    L. Walker   ‘98-99 MW 152

    Wagner     ‘00-01 NO 32

    Bagwell     ‘00-01 NO 150

    Wetteland  ‘98-99 ND 28

    M. Williams ‘94-95 MF 143

    Myers      ‘98-99 MW 23



    MVP

    Cy Young

    Bagwell       ‘00-01 NO 623

    P Martinez ‘01-02 FW 664

    Sheffield     ‘01-02 FW 596

    Wagner     ‘00-01 NO 600

    Ramirez       ‘00-01 NO 583

    Clemens    ‘98-99 ND 516

    L. Walker     ‘98-99 MW 578

    Park       ‘01-02 CN 503

    A. Rodriguez, ‘01-02 CN 571

    R Johnson  ‘98-99 ND 480

    First team All-stars                      Second team All-stars

    C Piazza       ‘97-98 FW                  Stanley ‘94-95 WV
    1B Bagwell     ‘00-01 NO                  E Martinez ‘01-02 NO
    2B Alfonzo     ‘01-02 CN                  Kent ‘01-02 FW
    3B M Williams  ‘94-95 MF                  Fryman ‘01-02 FW
    SS A Rodriguez ‘01-02 CN                  Ripken ‘92-93 BC
    LF Sheffield   ‘01-02 FW                  Belle ‘94-95 MF
    CF Dykstra     ‘94-95 WV                  Griffey ‘01-02 FW
    RF Ramirez     ‘00-01 NO                  L Walker ‘98-99 MW
    P Clemens      ‘99-00 ND                  G White ‘01-02 CN
    P Martinez     ‘01-02 FW                  Maddux ‘01-02 FW
    R Johnson      ‘95-96 ND                  Rijo ‘94-95 MF
    Wagner         ‘00-01 NO                  Wetteland ‘98-99 ND
    Park           ‘01-02 CN                  Hentgen ‘98-99 MW
    McMichael      ‘94-95 WV                  Hudson ‘01-02 CN


    Run no. 3

    For the last run, I decided to take each team’s best players from the last 5 years to form 9 "Superteams." Each team features the best players from the ‘97-98 season through the just completed ‘01-02 season (representing the 1996-2000 cards). No duplicate players were allowed, not just on one team, but in the entire league. I let the computer decide which team was able to use the best player. For example, Kevin Brown could have played for 3 franchises – Matt, Clint or Harold. The computer decided that the 1996 Kevin Brown (‘97-98 Manila Folders) was the best. A list of all the other players who could have played for 2 or 3 teams in this league, but did not:

     
    Using each team’s ballpark from the ‘99-00 season, here are the final standings:

                        W   L  Pct  GB
    New Orleans       115  45 .719  -
    Future Wax         95  65 .594  20
    North Dakota       95  65 .594  20
    Gawd B             88  72 .550  27
    Constantinople     75  85 .469  40
    BiG DiG            70  90 .438  45
    Manila Folders     66  94 .413  49
    Bay City           62  98 .388  53
    Area 51           54  106 .338  61

     
    Playoffs

    Future Wax d. North Dakota 4 games to 1
    New Orleans d. Gawd B 4 games to 2

    World Series

    New Orleans d. Future Wax 4 games to 2

    I think what this shows, unequivocally, is that Harold has had the most depth, by far, of any team in the league over the past 5 years. Or at least more of his players had great years between 1996 and 2000 than any other team. The funny thing is, only 4 of Harold’s 25-man roster were from his champion team of 2000-2001 (1999 cards). The breakdown:

    1996: Grissom, Hundley, Percival, Rivera

    1997: Al. Benes, Biggio, Erickson, D. Jones, Schilling, Spiers

    1998: Alou, Harnisch, Leiter, C Wilson

    1999: Bagwell, R Cedeno, Vizquel, Wagner

    2000: Glaus, Hidalgo, Jenkins, E. Martinez, Nen, Posada, Ramirez

    Average

    Wins

    Piazza FW      .342

    Schilling NO 25-7

    E. Martinez NO .322

    Clemens ND 22-9

    Ramirez NO     .310

     

    Caminiti BD    .308

     

    Bonds FW       .308

     
       

    Home Runs

    ERA

    McGwire MF 77

    Millwood GB   3.58

    Bonds FW   67

    Clemens ND    4.25

    Bagwell NO 61

    Fassero GB    4.32

    Sosa BC    57

    P Martinez FW 4.43

     

    Glavine GB    4.52

       

    RBIs

    Saves

    Bonds FW    168

    Hoffman ND    42

    McGwire MF  154

    Foulke GB     37

    Hidalgo NO  149

    Wagner NO     36

    Glaus NO    147

    Williamson FW 31

    Castilla FW 141

    Gordon BC     23

    MVP

    Cy Young

    Bonds FW        663

    Schilling NO  770

    McGwire MF      638

    Foulke GB     667

    Bagwell NO      613

    Clemens ND    666

    Burks CN        585

    Wagner NO     657

    A. Rodriguez CN 567

    P Martinez FW 626

    First team All-stars                     Second team All-stars

    C  Piazza FW                             I Rodriguez BC
    1B McGwire MF                            Bagwell NO
    2B Biggio NO                             R Alomar ND
    3B Glaus NO                              Castilla FW
    SS A Rodriguez CN                        Larkin ND
    LF Bonds FW                              Burks CN
    CF Hidalgo NO                            Edmonds MF
    RF Sosa BC                               Sheffield FW
    P Clemens ND                             Hoffman ND
    P Martinez FW                            R Johnson ND
    Foulke GB                                Smoltz BD
    Wagner NO                                D Jones NO
    Schilling NO                             Williamson FW
    Rivera NO                                Millwood GB


    THE CUT LISTS [7/02]

    Tom expressed an interest in having the historical record of all of the cut lists on record (which circulate as one big stack on draft day, and go back to 1989) and have them posted on the website. So this is really more of a historical data dump than a true study, although certain interesting facts can be gleaned. For example, who has been cut the most times? This is clearly an inexact science as some people literally put on their cut list – "Smith" or "Jones" or "Wilson, etc – and I refuse to go back and try and figure out who such person is (even if that would be theoretically possible.). As best I can tell no one has been cut four times. The following players have been cut thrice: Rick Aguilera, Stan Belinda, Mark Eichhorn, Joe Girardi, Lonnie Smith, Dick Schofield, Todd Stottlemyre, and Dave Valle. This also answers the question of who has been drafted the most times (except for any three-timers who are still in the league, like Jeromy Burnitz). But like death and taxes, inevitably, all players, even Cal Ripken himself, end up on the cut list [unless of course they are contracted out of existence]).


    Cut list 3/30/02


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    TTFKA Bay City

    Gawd B

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Area 51

    Constantinople


    Saberhagen

    Alan Benes

    Cal Ripken Jr

    Lansing

    Fasano

    Palmer

    Brocail

    Baldwin


    Fletcher

    Harnisch

    Sadler

    D. Cruz

    Beck

    Wohlers

    Swindell

    Rupe


    Rick White

    T. Jones

    Frye

    Payton

    Colbrunn

    Hocking

    Greer

    Thurman


    Bergeron

    Trachsel

    McElroy

    G. Vaughn

    Richard

    Johnstone

    Veras

    Timlin


    Hatteberg

    Wunsch

    E. Wilson

    Flaherty

    R. Ordonez

    Galarraga

    Huff

    Veres


    Lima

    Hairston

    Reames

    Nitkowski

    Bichette

    K. Rogers

    Randa

    G. White


    Grebeck

    S. Alomar

    Elarton

    Hampton

    Mahomes

    M. Williams

    Wendell

    Batista


    Hill

    Burkhart

    Stairs

    Fetters

    D'Amico

    Embree

    Wall

    DeShields


    Sheldon

    A. Boone

    Buford

    Cook

    Ledee

    K. Walker

    Eaton

    C. Guillen


    C. Smith

    Grace

    Dreifort

    JT Snow

    Oliveras

    Tavarez

    A. Gonzalez

    Stynes


    Shaw

    Speirs

    A. Brown

    Belle

    Mulholland

    Abbott


    Anderson


    Barrett

    D. Lewis

    A Fernandez

    Bernero

    Graffanino

    Piatt


    Vander Wal


    Rosado

    R. Rivera

    Aybar

    J. Wright

    Bell

    Rusch


    Clement


    Silva





    Mi. Williams


    Howry







    Truby




                     

    Cut list 4/1/01









                     

    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    TTFKA Bay City

    Dewey Dells

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Area 51

    Jed & Clint

    Constantinople

    Nagy

    T. Fernandez

    M Maddux

    Ju. Guzman

    Carlyle

    Moyer

    Blake

    Halladay

    Dunwoody

    S. Reed

    Widger

    Q McCracken

    John Valentin

    C Castillo

    Simas

    McGlinchy

    R. Henderson

    Brosius

    Wetteland

    Mayne

    W Veras

    Ed. Perez

    M Jackson

    Delucci

    Canseco

    Gooden

    BJ Jones

    C. Hernandez

    FPS

    B Anderson

    Grimsley

    R Brogna

    Chouinard

    Hentgen

    Offerman

    R Martinez

    Lampkin

    Grissom

    F Cordova

    Curtis

    Ram Ortz

    Wakefield

    Wilson

    H. Rodriguez

    Alvarez

    A. Nunez

    Grace

    W Gonzalez

    Spradlin

    Weiss

    Castillo

    Morris

    Gwynn

    Huskey

    Sanchez

    Irabu

    O Cabrera

    Stottlemyre

    Knoblauch

    Munoz

    Stanley

    Jaha

    Karros

    Benard

    Pote

    T Martinez

    Aguilera

    Mabry

    Thompson

    J Guillen

    K. Garcia

    Trammel

    O'Neill

    Erickson

    K Escobar

    E. Davis

    Navarro

    Lloyd

    Sauerbeck

    Nilsson

    Hermanson

    Sefcik


    Acevedo

    H Baines

    S Andrews

    Rincon

    Buhner

    Seanez

    Neagle



    Cone






    Tapani










    Cut list 4/2/00


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    TTFKA Bay City

    Clavius

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Metrowest

    Shithead

    Constantinople

    J Reed

    Olson

    B McRae

    Cather

    X Hernandez

    Taylor

    Greene

    Service

    Darensbourg

    Leyritz

    Girardi

    Osborne

    Jo Valentin

    Hoiles

    Ogea

    Tucker

    Jeffries

    C Perez

    Segui

    Mar Anderson

    Hayes

    Orosco

    Molitor

    Plesac

    Assenmacher

    B Smith

    Joyner

    Candiotti

    Davis

    Berry

    Portugal

    Nunnally

    Montgomery

    Cloude

    A Hinch

    C Davis

    Estes

    Bradford

    Pulsipher

    Bere

    Tabaka

    Gunderson

    M Clark

    M Caruso

    O Nixon

    Plunk

    Wilson

    Morandini

    Brantley

    D White

    Belinda

    Bergman

    A Gonzalez

    T Greene

    S Spencer

    Goodwin

    R Winn

    W Guerrero

    R Becker

    Bottalico

    R Myers

    B Higginson

    Radinsky

    Loiselle

    Lewis

    Mesa

    McMichael

    Relaford

    Ledesma

    Paul Wilson

    D Bell

    Osuna

    D Fletcher


    Corsi

    Gant

    TJ Mathews

    Lee

    Fontenot

    Moehler

    Guillen

    Wells


    J Carter

    Crabtree

    Stanton

    Rojas


    B Bohanan







    Hamilton













    Cut list 4/3/99









                     

    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    Bay City

    Kakania

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Metrowest

    Bunghole Quahogs

    CN

    Dickson

    Baerga

    Merced

    Eldred

    T Evans

    B Hunter

    Naehring

    Wilkins

    Hollandsworth

    Magnante

    T Ward

    Embree

    K Hill

    Lira

    D Nilsson

    Holtz

    Cordova

    Zeille

    Sojo

    Ochoa

    Tewksbury

    James

    M Wilkins

    Hershiser

    McDowell

    Grudzielanek

    L Johnson

    Conine

    Kev Mitchell

    Surhoff

    McDonald

    Wasdin

    Ayala

    Haynes

    Jaha

    Taubensee

    Gilkey

    FP Santangelo

    Drabek

    MacFarlane

    B Roberts

    Danny Patterson

    Steinbach

    Berroa

    O'Leary

    R Jefferson

    Orie

    Al Martin

    Fielder

    Mouton

    Mike Grace

    Blauser

    Hollins

    F Rodriguez

    Da Martinez

    Baldwin

    Vizcaino

    Sprague

    Stocker

    Bochtler

    Key

    Carrasco

    Valdes

    D'Amico

    Hanson

    Bonilla

    Stahoviak

    Sheets

    Holt

    Newfield

    Avery

    J Gonzalez

    McGriff

    Langston

    Jamey Wright

    Fassero

    Thompson

    K Ryan

    Clark

    Sanders

    Astacio


    D Jones


    Burkett

    Bautista

    Stephenson

    Holmes

    Florie






    Spoljaric



    Worrell




















    Cut list 3/29/98


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    Bay City

    Lagavulan 16

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Metrowest

    Bunghole Q

    Constantinople

    Belcher

    J Ruffin

    S Fernandez

    Bullinger

    Borbon

    Valle

    Cormier

    Hitchcock

    Acre

    Casian

    King

    Borland

    Sandberg

    Deer

    Cordero

    Slaught

    Hudek

    C Perez

    Fossas

    Howard

    Tarasco

    Pavlik

    Maddux

    Espinoza

    McLemore

    Slocumb

    Prieto

    Schourek

    C Garcia

    M Nieves

    T Worrell

    McCaskill

    Elster

    Wendell

    Wade

    Van Landingham

    Osik

    Bielecki

    B Butler

    F Castillo

    Sparks

    D. Martinez

    Ju Franco

    Watson

    Girardi

    Gil

    Smiley

    P Kelly

    J Walton

    Listach

    Wolcott

    Tettleton

    Leyritz

    Pagnozzi

    G Hill

    Petkovsek

    B Ruffin

    Lemke

    Karsay

    M Guthrie

    Everett

    Paquette

    Mieske

    R Cedeno

    Eisenreich

    R Pemberton

    Tartabull

    Stottlemyre

    Boggs

    Charlton

    Phillips

    Whiten

    Naehring

    Seitzer

    J Bluma

    Roberson

    Karcovice

    Eckersley

    Rogers

    Discarcina

    Foster



    T Goodwin


    B Brown

    Coppinger

    Bordick


    Sanders





    Rapp




    D Young




























    Cut list 3/29/97


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    Bay City

    Finn's People

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Metrowest

    Bunghole Q

    Constantinople

    Cummings

    E Anthony

    Henke

    Russell

    DeLeon

    Whitaker

    Oliva

    Perry

    P Munoz

    Leiper

    Ontiveros

    Ry Thompson

    Leskanic

    B MacDonald

    Puckett

    Lewis

    Javier

    G Pena

    Whiteside

    Pena

    Eichhorn

    Hamelin

    Me Perez

    Pirkl

    Pendleton

    Veres

    Reboulet

    L Gomez

    Henry

    Eischen

    Dykstra

    Rijo

    B Henry

    Greenwell

    Eusebio

    Hansen

    Sierra

    A Cedeno

    P Wagner

    Parent

    Swift

    D Johns

    Aguilera

    Henneman

    Gates

    G Williams

    Gagne

    Grebeck

    Bones

    Mattingly

    Mercker

    Alfonzo

    Lewis

    Belinda

    Hayes

    Cangelosi

    E Williams

    BR Hunter

    Plantier

    Carreon

    Blauser

    Murray

    M Perez

    Daulton

    Gonzalez

    Hosey

    Sabo

    Abbott

    Reuter

    Williams

    Carr

    Van Poppel


    Raines

    J Bates

    Manto

    Gaetti

    Haney


    Risley

    Bere


    T Scott

    Jacome


    Andujar

    Meacham


    Blowers

    B Munoz



















    Cut list 3/30/96


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    Bay City

    White Visitation

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Metrowest

    Freon Smugglers

    CN

    Kreuter

    Freeman

    M Munoz

    Tom Greene

    Burnitz

    B Harvey

    A Young

    Arocha

    Whitmore

    Kruk

    Howe

    PA Martinez

    R. Gutierrez

    Gomez

    Hesketh

    Ro Kelly

    D Jackson

    Cooper

    Stankiewicz

    Cox

    J Felix

    Trammell

    J Hernandez

    C Howard

    Easley

    McElroy

    Neal

    Bass

    Fermin

    S Mack

    Aquino

    Nunez

    Manzanilla

    Leius

    Nied

    Brumfield

    Huff

    Lieber

    J Voight

    Dawson

    Redus

    Stanton

    Barberie

    Reynoso

    Dar Jackson

    Van Slyke

    Torres

    W Chamberlain

    K Mitchell

    Whiten

    Ward

    Wallach

    Manwaring

    E Perez

    Dunston

    Cooke

    Ro Thompson

    Hrbek

    Nokes

    Becker

    Heredia

    Bo Jackson

    JR Phillips


    Jean

    R Mejia

    Trlicek

    O Smith

    Lind

    Quantrill

    Tewksbury

    Scanlon


    F Jose

    J Frye


    Polonia

    T Fernandez

    Dreifort

    Kingery

    Mulholland


    Mills

    R Gonzales


    Stinnett

    Morris

    Eldred

    Hamilton

    Miramda


    MacFarlane



    Darling


    L Smith


    Bautista









    Billy Taylor










    Cut list 4/1/95


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    Bay City

    White Visitation

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Mirkwood

    Haiti

    Constantinople

    Honeycutt

    Bottenfield

    Thigpen

    Winfield

    Kilgus

    Gallego

    Gutterman

    Charlton

    Hibbard

    Innis

    Trombley

    Rogers

    Pagliarulo

    Wertz

    E Davis

    Levis

    Wilson

    Williams

    Fleming

    Guthrie

    Jose Guzman

    Poole

    Lee

    Strawberry

    Arias

    Henneman

    McDowell

    P Clark

    D Stewart

    B Barnes

    Fletcher

    Rivera

    T Rhodes

    E Murray

    Farr

    Gott

    Lo Smith

    Shaw

    M Turner

    Snyder

    Boston

    Bedrosian

    LaValliere

    Carreon

    Deveroux

    May

    M Lewis

    Joe Oliver

    Bankhead

    Coleman

    Dibble

    Hulse

    P Smith

    Carpenter

    C Hernandez

    Lloyd

    Lilliquist

    Cuyler

    Incaviglia

    Amaral

    Belcher

    Howell

    Buechele

    J Abbott

    Lansing

    Greg A Harris

    Frohwirth

    Valle

    Offerman

    Darwin

    H Johnson

    Orsulak



    M Maddux

    Milt Thompon


    Nabholz

    Witt

    Anderson

    Monteleone



    Militello



    Morgan

    Belinda

    R Jordan

    Milligan






    Reuter



    Treadway






    Bosio













    Cut list 4/2/94


















    North Dakota

    New Orleans

    Bay City

    Hollowmen

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Hatchbacks

    Adirondack

    CN

    Brunansky

    Leach

    Greg W Harris

    Owen

    Elster

    Rasmussen

    Righetti

    Deer

    Mercedes

    Downs

    Harkey

    Jim Austin

    Seitzer

    Hurst

    Tackett

    T Burns

    Franco

    Ashby

    Welch

    Howe

    Gruber

    D Murphy

    Milaki

    Nokes

    Whitehurst

    Reynolds

    Stevens

    Calderon

    Eichhorn

    Greg Olson

    Sax

    Randolph

    Radinsky

    Neagle

    Reimer

    Blankenship

    M Gardner

    Morris

    Glenn Davis

    Fermin

    Wedge

    Willis

    K Miller

    Borders

    Sharperson

    G Bell

    Schofield

    Candelaria

    Pena

    Ryan

    Stottlemyre

    G Brett

    Mayne

    Maldonado

    McReynolds

    Pugh

    Chito Martinez

    Quintana

    Dave Hernandez

    Jefferson

    Bruett

    Nagy

    Henry

    R Rodriguez


    Olin

    Brantley

    Viola

    Harper


    Wedman

    Hickerson

    Oquendo



    Downing

    Pasqua

    Wakefield


    Cole

    Z Smith

    Tomlin




    Cotto

    Melendez


    Morris

    Freeman

    J Reed




    Olivares

    Magadan


    Gross

    Castillo



















    Cut list 4/3/93


















    North Dakota

    Ross's Raiders

    Bay City

    Franz Josef Land

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Hatchbacks

    Adirondack

    Constantinople

    Johnston

    Grey

    Bass

    Lefferts

    Ackerfelds

    Doran

    Holman

    Horn

    King

    Walton

    Spiers

    Stillwell

    Barry Jones

    Armstrong

    Barfield

    Kiecker

    Scioscia

    O'Brien

    P Guerrero

    Schooler

    B Black

    T Crews

    Berenguer

    Bailes

    R Sanford

    Browning

    Smith

    Gallego

    Valle

    Flanagan

    G Nelson

    Dressendorfer

    Cerone

    Meulens

    DeLeon

    Pall

    Osuna

    McGee

    Daniels

    T Burke

    Fraser

    Habyan

    Machado

    Delucia

    Ritchie

    M Moore

    Chameino

    Jacoby

    Hayes

    Reardon

    Scudder

    Decker

    Aquino

    Ojeda

    Stieb

    D Jackson

    Ruskin

    Lansford

    Sanderson

    Hanson

    Boddicker

    Incaviglia

    Rose

    Wallach

    Buechelle

    A Pena

    Gaetti

    T Wilson

    Gubicza

    Gibson

    J Clark

    Pecota

    Darling

    Wells

    Briley

    Yount

    Berryhill

    M Davis


    DeJesus

    Fisk

    Villanueva



    Landrum

    L Harris




    Eisenreich









    Belliard









    Samuel



















    Cut list 4/4/92


















    North Dakota

    Ross's Raiders

    Bay City

    Franz Josef Land

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Hatchbacks

    Adirondack


    Crim

    McGafffigan

    Tudor

    Girardi

    Agosto

    J Browne

    Burns

    Brunansky


    Honeycutt

    Geren

    Parrish

    Tracy Jones

    D Parker

    Gleaton

    Dayley

    Darwin


    Da Smith

    Brooks

    B Ripken

    Dave Anderson

    Duncan

    Hartley

    Magrane

    Higuera


    Sw Smith

    Worthington

    Santovenia

    Marzano

    Heath

    Plesac

    Mansigle

    Bo Jackson


    Webster

    Yelding

    Kipper

    Bolton

    G Wilson

    Garrelts

    Lemon

    Lo Smith


    Whitson

    Javier

    C James

    Leary

    Leonard

    Leiter

    Mulliniks

    R Harris


    Schofield

    Kittle

    Fitzgerald

    Rob Murphy

    Farrell

    McCullers

    Moseby

    Scott


    A Davis

    G Young

    OC Boyd

    Deshaies


    Neidlinger

    LaCoss






    Thon


    Gallaraga






















    Cut list 3/30/91


















    North Dakota

    Ross's Raiders

    Bay City

    "Team name unkown (Eric)"

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Hatchbacks

    South Dakota


    August

    Marshall

    J Nieves

    Uribe

    Dw Evans

    Ken Howell

    Stanley

    Worrell


    Cadaret

    Bautista

    L Medina

    Templeton

    Hawkins

    Pascual Perez

    J Davis

    M Williams


    Plunk

    Valenzuela

    Randolph

    Jeltz

    Cary

    Joyner

    Esasky

    Lynn


    S Fletcher

    Boone

    S. Davis

    Sutcliffe

    Herr

    Jack Howell

    Meyer

    M Wilson


    Whitt

    Liriano

    Jeff Robinson

    Holton

    Liebrandt

    O McDowell

    A Anderson

    Blyleven


    K Phelps

    Griffin

    Orosco

    Barrett

    McLemore

    Reuschel

    Bedrosian

    Ready


    McClendon

    Sheets

    Lilliquist

    Hernandez

    Wynne

    Jordan

    M Moore

    C Davis


    Lancaster

    Worthington

    SL Salazar

    C Washington

    Hudler

    McClure

    Hammaker

    Hough


    C Young

    Benzinger

    Komminsk

    A Thomas

    Oberkfell

    Morgan

    G Carter

    Heaton



    Pettis



    Dotson


    Show

    C Martinez









    Espinoza




















    Cut list 4/8/90


















    North Dakota

    LH's

    Bay City

    Yoknapatawpha

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Dave & Clint

    Plymouth


    P Perry

    Allenson

    B Fisher

    Dernier

    Durham

    Dempsey

    Campusano

    Jones


    Cox

    Guante

    R Horton

    Gossage

    Guidry

    B Stanley

    Meacham

    Guzman


    McMurtry

    Maldonado

    Rice

    Rhoden

    Musselman

    Rasmussen

    Sellers

    Mirabella


    D Robinson

    Terrell

    M Brantley

    Quinones

    Palmer

    K Gross

    Rick Leach

    Walk


    Shelby

    Wegman

    Carm Martinez

    Ashby

    L Parrish

    Gedman

    Flanagan

    Puhl


    Coles

    Youmans

    G Walker

    Kilgus

    Upshaw

    M Witt

    Dunne

    Aldrete


    LaPoint

    B Ripken

    D Schmidt

    Schiraldi

    Hudson

    Braggs

    J Clancy

    J Robinson


    Schofield


    F Williams

    Paredes

    Diaz

    E King

    R Robinson

    Ray


    Sveum


    Leiper

    Beniquez

    B Bell

    Minton

    Mohorcic

    Harris


    Cangelosi


    W Gardner


    B Hatcher

    M Schmidt

    Carman

    J Morris






    Krukow























    Cut list 3/31/89


















    North Dakota

    Learned Hands

    Bay City

    Yoknapatawpha

    Manila Folders

    Future Wax

    Hatchbacks

    Madagascar


    E Nunez

    Eichhorn

    Dravecky

    Correa

    Quissenberry

    Soto

    Cruz

    Tekulve


    Tanana

    Ruffin

    McCaskill

    Garber

    Dixon

    Williamson

    Ward

    Tabler


    Rawley

    Virgil

    Owen

    Wyneger

    Shirley

    Presley

    Buckner

    G Wilson


    Niedenfuer

    Dw. Murphy

    Kingery

    A Hall

    Sanderson

    Aguayo

    Forsch

    Ontiveros


    Schroeder

    Pedrique

    M Davis

    DeCinces

    Gullickson

    J Davis

    Andujar

    Dipino


    F White

    Morrison

    C Brown

    Da Evans

    Harper

    Wilkinson

    Sutton

    Swift


    Brock

    Bernazard


    Blyleven

    McRae

    Aguilera

    Dawley

    Buice


    Teufel

    Parker


    Fielder

    Hulett


    Lopez

    Petry


    Moreland

    G Mathews


    Clear

    Wilson


    Mitchell

    Power


    Foley




    Roenicke


    Lo Smith









    Cooper









    Madlock









    Duncan









    Burleson



     


    HOW THE TEAMS WERE BUILT

    This summer, I decided to look at each team in the SOMBILLA and determine how its GM acquired its players. Players can wind up on your team in two ways - via the draft or by trade. But drafted players can be looked at in two ways as well - the rookies, or SOMBILLA first timers, who came up from your farm system - and the free agents, those guys who have been in the SOMBILLA before, but who were cut by someone. An older one year wonder who has never been in the league is not considered a free agent for purposes here. The reason is that you discovered him and no one else - hence he counts towards your farm system totals.

    Here are the results:
     
    Team Farm system (i.e. draft) Trade Free agency Home grown percentage
             
    New Orleans 40 4 2 87.0%
    North Dakota 39 3 3 86.7%
    Constantinople 38 4 3 84%
    Other 99 36 5 3 82%
    Area 51 37 6 2 82%
    Manila Folders 37 4 4 82%
    TTFKA Bay City 36 3 6 80%
    The Dewey Dells 36 5 4 80%
    Future Wax 35 5 5 78%
    TOTAL 334 39 (10%) 32 (8%) 82%

    Surprisingly, there is not a lot of variation, although some observations can still be made. 82% of the league's players are still with the team that originally drafted them. In fact, a close look shows there is no secret to success, as last year's World Series participants, New Orleans and Future Wax are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of home-grown talent. This would seem to make sense - there are many paths to success, but drafting well and trading well in any combination, will get you there.

    Years ago, long-since departed league member Durga lamented that the SOMBILLA hates to trade. Given that only 10% of the league's 405 players have been traded, I'd say that's still the case. No one team appears to be any more trade happy than any other.

    As far as free agency goes, one of the arguments used by the league's vote (I want to say 'faction', but 7-2 was the vote) to increase the draft to 12 rounds was that, you'll need to cut more players in order to be able to draft the full 12 rounds. This will increase the pool of future potential recycled free agents. This year 16 of the 90 picks, or 18%, were actually recycled free agents, one more than last year. It will be interesting to see if this percentage goes up in future years.



    RACIAL PROFILING IN THE SOMBILLA (7/01)

    Always at the cutting edge of controversy, this summer, the SOMBILLA spotlight team, sponsored by the International Committee for Karma, Yada, yada, yada; the Politically Correct Oversight Order (ICKYPOO), revisits a familiar subject.

    Team White Latino African-American Asian '01 White% 97 White%

    Eric   30    5          9            1       67%        64%
    RAT    29    9          6            1       64%        64%
    Matt   27   11          5            2       60%        69%
    Arnie  27   11          7            0       60%        60%
    J&C    26   11          6            1       59%        67%
    Harold 26   16          3            1       57%        60%
    Jeff   24   14          7            0       53%        64%
    Tom    24   11          9            1       53%        42%
    Robin  22   12         10            1       49%        47%

                W   L  AA  A
    TOTAL 2001 58% 25% 15% 2%
    TOTAL 1997 60% 20% 20%
    TOTAL 1994 57% 19% 24%
    TOTAL 1991 66% 13% 22%

    The numbers were compiled with Robin's assistance (who of course not only knows what all our players look like but also knows who has nice buns and who wears gold chains, etc). There were only about 10 players whom she was not familiar with, so we found pictures on the Internet for them.

    As you can see, the league has made great progress in its integration efforts over the past four years, as only 3 of the 9 teams are whiter than they were four years ago. The league does have more Latino ballplayers than ever before - fully 1/4 of the league, although they appear to have replaced more African-Americans than white ballplayers. The black population in the league is at its lowest point ever. I am not certain of the causes of this, whether due to racism in real baseball, expansion, worse quality of African-American players in real baseball (I have read that basketball and football are now the sports of choice for many urban youths), or a less 'enlightened' league. And , we of course now have a new category, as the SOMBILLA features 8 Asian players.

    Eric, who back in 1991 in the inaugural study owned a team that was 80% white, has regained his title as 'Red Sox of the SOMBILLA', with the whitest team in the league. Bucking the Latino trend, Eric employs a mere 5 players of Latino origin, and has banned all Salsa music in the clubhouse. 'Southern Man' Harold has only 3 African-Americans on his team, replacing them with a league-high 16 Hispanics.

    Robin, always employing among the most minorities on her club, earns the most politically correct team honors, including a league-high 10 African-Americans. Matt, the league's most racist team 4 years ago, has made a few baby steps to see the light, as he employs one white, one black and one Latino catcher.

    This is probably a reflection on MLB as a whole, but across the league, 73% of the pitchers are white (82% for Eric), but only 34% of the outfielders. Tom has the most politically correct infield - only 27% white, while Eric (who else) has the whitest infield at 64%.

    One final interesting discovery was that New Orleans' Danny Graves is counted as Asian; his mother is Vietnamese and he was born in 'Nam.
     



    SOMBILLA STANDINGS STUDY [7/00]

    This summer, I decided to analyze the SOMBILLA's final standings over the years. Not team-by-team, but as a league. Of course, as a whole, all teams taken together will finish at .500. But the number of teams that finish with winning percentages does not have to be the same as the number of teams with losing records. (For example, last season, only 3 teams finished over .500). If there were no extraneous influences, you would expect the league to experience a sort of bell-curve effect, with most of the teams bunched in the middle, around .500, with fewer good or bad teams (.600 or .400 winning percentage), and even fewer great or awful teams (.700 or .300). What are the SOMBILLA's trends and why?

    You can divide the SOMBILLA into 3 eras. First, you have the 6-team, non-permanent league representing 5 seasons from 1979-1985. Then, you have the eight team permanent league, representing 7 seasons from 1985-1992. Finally, we have the current setup, a nine-team, permanent league that has been in effect from 1992-2000.

    For this final era, however, we had an expansion team, Land's Constantinople. This was a true expansion team, with no stars amidst a league of 8 all-star teams. Constantinople finished 8th , 9 th and 9th in its first 3 years, before surprising the league by making the playoffs and finishing 4th in its 4 th year. Although many teams other than Land have had bad teams 3 years in a row, expansion is an obvious reason for these years, and I decided it could taint the study, the purpose of which was to search for other effects on final standings. Therefore, the third era in this study, excludes those 3 expansion years, and instead includes the past five seasons - 1995-2000.

    In these graphs, winning percentage is on the y-axis (bottom) and the number of SOMBILLA teams during the graph era with those winning percentages is on the x-axis (left).

    In the years 1979-1985, while the peak number of teams is around .500, more teams are actually clustered to the right of .500 then to the left. In fact, the second highest peak (5 teams) is for the winning percentage range of .560-599.

    Back in those days, while a few managers came up with some really bad teams, it was generally easy to end up with a good competitive team, because each SOMBILLA team got to draft 4 major league teams and combine them into one all-star team. Talent was able to be pretty well dispersed in a league like this. Managing deficiencies and bad luck became more pronounced than talent. With this type of year to year league, even Joel could end up in first place (1983-1984) and T&A as they were then known, could easily come up with a stinker year (1984-1985).

    As the league entered the permanent years, the successful teams were able to stay that way by being able to retain their good players from year to year, In the new era, success was not as easy as it was when we drafted team-by-team each season, With a permanent league, you had to keep 80% of your team from year to year. So scouting and drafting became as important as trading. You couldn't be guaranteed to have a competitive team just by being able to draft 4 teams and combining them like the old days.

    While, as expected, many teams are clustered around the .500 mark, there's a solid community of teams that also finished between .440 and .480. Losing teams outnumber the winning ones. Here is where we can see the effect of the first 10 permanent league championships being split between T&A and Eric.

    In the current era, we see that the league has 'normalized' (although the study must be flawed because I don't see how we can call ourselves 'normal'). The league has reached maturity and we have a sort of stability - most teams end up in the middle, with a much smaller number of teams above .520 or below .480. This sort of 'predictive' balance manifests itself in a bell curve-like distribution.

    This is interesting in light of the recent success of RAT, New Orleans and North Dakota and playoff droughts by other teams.

    I think, however, in the new century, the SOMBILLA may be entering an unprecedented era of parity. The upcoming season, based on the 1999 cards, promises to be one of the most competitive on record. And a quick glance at this year's' All-Star count shows that parity (with the notable exception of one team) could certainly challenge this bell-curve.

    While I do think that conclusions can be drawn, and have attempted to do so above, I encourage others of you who have actually experienced managing teams that make up the statistical data in this study to think about other theories behind this data to draw your own conclusions about what it all means. And stop looking at me that way.



  • SALARIES IN THE SOMBILLA [8/08]
  • Which team is trying to buy a championship a la the Yankees? Who are the small market teams operating on a shoestring? Who are the big spenders and cheapskate owners? Should the SOMBILLA institute a salary cap?

    I let the computer choose each team's 25-man roster. The computer's not perfect in that regard, making a few surprising selections from amongst each team's 45-man roster, but I figure it got at least 20 of the 25 people correct for each team. And given that it's almost mid-August, that's good enough for me and this study without spending another week nitpicking each selection. Using the salary database available on the USA Today website, here are the results:

    1. Area 51. $174,583,395. Although we could call them the Yankees of the SOMBILLA, the amazing thing is that the Yankees payroll is actually much higher ($209,081,577). Think about that. We have an all-star league, yet the Yankees payroll is 20% higher than the SOMBILLA's highest team. Jeff clearly has the fewest wins per $$ spent in the league, but I guess the owner has deep pockets and doesn't really care. Number of millionaires: 20

    Five highest paid:

    A. Pettitte 16,000,000

    V. Guerrero 15,500,000

    Smoltz 14,000,000

    Teixeira 12,500,000

    Lowell 12,500,000

    1. Constantinople. $171,981,440. The fact that Tom's payroll is 2nd highest comes as no surprise, being a perennial favorite having won 3 of the last 4 championships. 10 of his players make $10,000,000 or more (they are, in addition to the top 5 below, Sheets, Sabathia, Guillen, Varitek, Howard). Number of millionaires: 16

    Five highest paid:

    A. Rodriguez 28,000,000

    B. Abreau 16,000,000

    T. Hudson 15,500,000

    A. Jones 14,726,910

    C. Lee 12,500,000

     

    1. Bay City. $158,114,084. Now we know the real secret to her successful season last year. The highest paid starting rotation in the league (Halladay, Oswalt, Buehrle, Escobar) makes almost as much as Hibernia's entire payroll. And her catchers (Pudge and V Mart) don't come cheaply either. Number of millionaires: 20

    Five highest paid:

    D. Jeter 21,600,000

    C. Beltran 18,622,809

    M. Buehrle 14,000,000

    R. Oswalt 13,000,000

    F. Thomas 12,560,000

    1. Future Wax. $155,109,713. The only surprise is that they rank only 4th highest. You'd think with 3 owners, they could afford to fork over a little more dough. Does anyone else notice that the top 4 teams in payroll were the four playoff teams last year? Their payroll is still higher than all MLB teams, other than the Yankees. Number of millionaires: 16

    Five highest paid:

    J. Santana 16,984,216

    C. Zambrano 16,000,000

    J. Thome 15,666,666

    B. Bonds 15,533,970

    A. Ramirez 15,000,000

    1. Knuckle Sandwiches. $148,860,748. All those computer and Internet expenses cut into the amount the team can spend on player salaries. Jed seems to spend generously on outfielders – Suzuki, Hunter and Holliday average over $14,000,000 apiece! Number of millionaires: 19

    Five highest paid:

    I. Suzuki 17,102,149

    T. Hunter 16,500,000

    D. Lee 13,250,000

    J. Beckett 10,166,666

    J. Dye 9,500,000

    M. Holliday 9,500,000

     

    1. New Orleans. $143,355,800. Harold likes to spend on his bullpen – Rivera, Wagner and Lidge are all high price. Despite the 'low' payroll, Harold is good to his team; free performance enhancing drugs are a staple perk. Number of millionaires: 17

    Five highest paid:

    M. Rivera 15,000,000

    A. Soriano 14,000,000

    J. Posada 13,100,000

    A. Dunn 13,000,000

    J. Garland 12,000,000

    1. North Dakota. $124,755,686. Playing in 400 seat capacity Gackle Park has always made it tough for this small-market team to compete for the expensive players. And forget about a TV contract when there isn't any TV in the state to begin with. Rumor has it that the controversial Berkman ($14,500,000) trade was simply a salary dump for the Pirates of the SOMBILLA. Number of millionaires: 17

    Five highest paid:

    M. Ordonez 15,768,174

    A. Pujols 13,870,949

    D. Ortiz 13,000,000

    T. Glaus 12,500,000

    J. Kent 9,000,000

    1. Hibernia. $84,262,880. Does anyone know what the hell Eric is doing over there with his revenue stream? With a payroll approximately the same as the Milwaukee Brewers, and not even in the same stratosphere as the rest of the league, this franchise is an embarrassment. Does he think we won't notice how he spends ticket receipts on illegal activities? Number of millionaires: 16

    Five highest paid:

    AJ Burnett 13,200,000

    P. Konerko 12,000,000

    D. Lowe 10,000,000

    A. Rowand 9,600,000

    C. Utley 7,785,784


    Salaries in the SOMBILLA (7/00)


    Who's trying to buy the championship? Who thinks that you can forget about scouting, managing, strategy, class, ethics, common decency, and the paying fans by throwing more money in the faces of the baseball players? In other words, who are the Yankees of the SOMBILLA? Always at the cutting edge of controversy, this summer's SOMBILLA spotlight team examines salaries around the league.

    Like 4 years ago, I chose each team's 25-man roster, with the help of the SOMBILLA computer drafter. I'd say together we're about 90% accurate; that is, I probably averaged about 22 correct of the actual men who will make up each team's 25-man roster in the upcoming '00-01 season, good enough for this study. All 2000 salaries were taken from those published by the USAToday website.

    1. Future Wax - $127,960,122

    The Yankees of the SOMBILLA. Actually, they're probably more like the Orioles of the SOMBILLA, since the Yankees actually do win championships with all of their spending. Future Wax's average salary of $5,100, 000 is more than double the average salaries of the SOMBILLA's highest paid team 4 years ago (Eric). FW has the highest paid catching, infield and outfield in the SOMBILLA. Incredibly, despite the SOMBILLA being essentially a 9-team all-star league, Future Wax is the only team actually outspending the Yankees ($115M), which probably tells you more about the team with the largest payroll in the history of professional sports than it does about the SOMBILLA. Top 5 salaries (note that Griffey doesn't even make the list):

      1. Mike Piazza   $12,071,429
      2. Pedro Martinez 11,500,000
      3. Greg Maddux    11,100,000
      4. Barry Bonds    10,658,826
      5. Gary Sheffield  9,916,667
      No. of millionaires - 20
    2.  North Dakota - $ 114,053,343

    It's probably no coincidence that 2 of the most successful teams in the league are coughing up the most mullah. Team's catchers are paid an embarrassingly league-low average of only $604,000. Up from 5 th in the poll of 4 years ago as the players demanded to be paid "like Eric's team." Generous owner has ensured no holdouts by paying whatever it takes. 2nd highest paid pitching staff in the league. Salaries up from just $54 million 4 years ago. Top 5 salaries:

       
      1. Randy Johnson  $13,350,000
      2. Bernie Williams 12,357,143
      3. Mo Vaughn       11,166,667
      4. Ray Lankford     7,600,000
      5. Roberto Alomar   7,196,756
      No. of millionaires - 19
    3. Bay City- $ 105,113,866

    No one ever accused Robin of not being good to her players. Salaries are up from $58 million just 4 years ago, when she had the 4th highest payroll in the league. She probably would have the highest paid catchers if she had anyone else to pay besides Pudge. One or two big signings and she could easily be no. 2 (no one can catch the Yankees, er, I mean Future Wax).

    Top 5 salaries:

      1. David Cone   $12,000,000
      2. Sammy Sosa    11,000,000
      3. Derek Jeter   10,000,000
      4. Shawn Green    9,416,667
      5. Ivan Rodriguez 8,600,000
      No. of millionaires - 18


    4. Manila Folders - $ 91,913,789

    After being the league's 3rd cheapest team 4 years ago, Matt has 'bought into' the concept of trying to win by paying well. Although he's trying to downplay his chances this year ("my team sucks"), he is still dipping into the vault to keep his stars fat, dumb and happy. I know Matt married into a little money, but I had no idea. Kevin Brown (see below) accounts for almost half of Matt's pitchers' salaries. This could affect morale in the bullpen. Top 5 salaries:

      1. Kevin Brown     $15,714,286
      2. Albert Belle     12,868,670
      3. Mark McGwire      9,333,333
      4. Dante Bichette    7,000,000
      5. Roberto Hernandez 6,000,000
      5. Chuck Knoblauch   6,000,000
    No. of millionaires - 15
     
     

    5. Metrowest - $84,797,889

    Although Jeff believes his team has a "great shot" this year, his players, underpaid and underfed, may think otherwise. Actually, the team average salary of $3,392,000 is only $285,000 less than Matt's - chump change for these guys. Heck we all make that in gate receipts each Strat-O game. Although he's paying almost $25 million more in salaries as he did in '96, that still isn't enough to prevent him dropping from 2nd highest payroll (back when he shared the team with Dave) to 5th overall now that he no longer has Stats Inc.'s financial backing. Top 5 salaries:

      1. Larry Walker $12,142,857
      2. Kenny Lofton   7,500,000
      3. Andy Pettitte  7,000,000
      4. Mike Mussina   6,786,032
      5. Carlos Delgado 6,600,000
      No. of millionaires - 16


    6. Clavius - $ 83,860,363

    It's no big secret why Eric's team has fallen from its championship highs of 4 seasons ago when he not so coincidentally had the league's highest payroll. He's had to trade some of his better players to finance his extravagant lifestyle and has paid for it on the field. He's hoping to field a better product this year, but seems unwilling to have to pay for it. Top 5 salaries:

      1. Tom Glavine $ 9,463,237
      2. Rafael Palmeiro 8,620,921
      3. Robin Ventura 8,000,000
      4. Brian Jordan 7,600,000
      5. Greg Vaughn 7,097,962
      No. of millionaires - 16
    New Orleans - $ 81,563,421
    Two years removed from the World Series, Harold has sold off his best players for baby furniture, and team morale is at an all-time low. Harold has an eclectic, warped mix of salaries. He has the highest salaried pitching staff in the league, including millionaires Leiter, Rivera, Erickson, Schilling, T. Jones, Harnisch, Wagner, Rhodes, Percival and Colon, yet spends the lowest of any team on his outfield - $10,480,000 (a paltry $2,100,000 per player). Top 5 salaries:
      1. Al Leiter     $7,750,000
      2. Mariano Rivera 7,250,000
      3. Craig Biggio   6,750,000
      4. Scott Erickson 6,620,921
      5. Jeff Bagwell   6,500,000
      No. of millionaires - 19


    8. Shithead - $ 76,934,570
    Four years ago I wrote "They've been trying to analyze why their team has the league's current longest playoff-less streak. Bad luck? Bad drafting? Not enough home games against certain teams? Nah. These guys are just cheap, plain and simple." It is just as valid today as then. They're paying their pitching staff a shocking league-low of only $19,800,000, almost half of it going to their highest paid player, Smoltz. The rest of the staff will be eating canned dog food again this year, averaging frighteningly low salaries of only $1,400,000. Top 5 salaries:

      1. John Smoltz    $8,500,000
      2. Chuck Finley    7,911,948
      3. Jay Bell        7,000,000
      4. Javy Lopez      6,250,000
      5. Henry Rodriguez 4,600,000
      No. of millionaires - 19


    9. Constantinople - $ 65,079,999
    Considering that the SOMBILLA is essentially an all-star league of sorts, it's a disgrace that Tom & Land pay their players less money than nine real major league teams (Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Texas, Arizona, Atlanta, LA, Mets). Don't tell their players that their puny average salary of $2,600,000 is still approximately 2500 times the average salary of Constantinople's citizens; they'll simply say "oh yeah? Well, Future Wax's players make 5000 times as much." It should be no surprise that they finished in 9th place last year. Top 5 salaries:

      1. Wilson Alvarez $9,000,000
      2. Ellis Burks     5,500,000
      3. Eric Karros     5,375,000
      4. Carl Everett    5,000,333
      5. Denny Neagle    4,750,000
      No. of millionaires - 15

    Championship analysis - 1999 Summer newsletter

    This summer's first study was suggested by Eric, and will be in three parts. First, he asks "How many fourth-place teams have gone on to win the championship?"

    The answer is four (and, not surprisingly, Eric is responsible for three of them):


    Of course, this begets the obvious follow-up question, "What is the breakdown of championships won by place?" The SOMBILLA has completed 19 seasons. Of the 19, here is the breakdown:

    1st place - 10 championships (53%)
    2nd place - 3 championships (16%)
    3rd place - 2 championships (10%)
    4th place - 4 championships (21%)

    The statistical conclusion I'd draw from this summary is that if you finish first, you have a 50-50 chance of winning the championship. The other 50% chance is split evenly among the other three playoff teams.

    Eric's next question is "Has there ever been a champion with more than three lefties on his or her staff, in any combination of starting and relieving?".

    Our statistical records go back to only Volume I of the SOMBILLA newsletter - '83-84. So, unless Tsuan can remember his first three championship teams, the research covers only the last 16 championship teams. Anyway, the answer is........Yes! The very first Future Wax championship team, in '86-87, had 4 lefties on its staff - Juan Agosto, Dave Righetti, Mark Davis, and Joe Hesketh - out of a total of 10 pitchers. Agosto, Righetti and Davis were all relievers, while Hesketh was the traditional lefty-to-be-yanked starter.

    Of the other 15 championship teams, the majority (9) had 3 lefties on their staffs, including last year's North Dakota team. Five others had two lefties on their staffs, and 1, Yoknapatawpha in '88-89 had just one - Rob Murphy. That team had only 8 pitchers on its staff (Murphy, Burke, Hershiser, Eckersley, Reuschel, Sutcliffe, DeLeon and Clemens), which I believe makes it the only team in league history with only 8 pitchers.

    To complete this championship study, Eric asks "Which players have won the most championships in the SOMBILLA. In other words, who is the Bill Russell of the SOMBILLA?"

    I suspect he asks this question off of Roger Clemens's sterling World Series performance this year (3-0). Although final stats do not exist for the SOMBILLA's first three seasons, some partial stats do, enough to reconstruct some rosters, not enough to determine who the lefty pitchers were (see above) but enough for this question. Note that, if you lump in Tsuan's old Nazgul champions (including the Robin-Tsuan Bay City Nazgul champion of '82-83) with Tsuan's Future Wax teams, only 4 franchises have ever won the SOMBILLA Championship. These are Nazgul/Future Wax, Jed's Evil Bunnies and Shithead teams ('83-85), Eric's various teams in the 80's and 90's, and North Dakota.

    Anyway, the answer is a three-way tie: Clemens, Daryl Strawberry and Orel Hershiser have all won 5 championships. All three won their championships with 2 different franchises. Also, all three players were drafted in the original 1985 permanent league draft, and all three are still active in MLB (although Clemens is the only one still in the SOMBILLA and Strawberry is only active on the streets of Tampa).

    Strawberry won one championship with Jed's Evil Bunnies (the last pre-permanent league champion) in '84-85, and 4 with Future Wax ('86-87, '87-88 (remember the homer in the bottom of the 11th of game 7 off Eichorn?), '90-91, '91-92).

    Hershiser won three with Eric (Marakesh Express '85-86, Yoknapatawpha '88-89, '89-90), and two with Future Wax ('93-94 and '97-98).

    Clemens won three with Eric (Yoknapatawpha '88-89, '89-90, Franz Josef Land '92-93) and 2 with North Dakota ('95-96, '98-99).

    Eight other players have won 4 SOMBILLA championships: Jesse Barfield, Tony Fernandez and Eric Davis (all with Future Wax), Dale Murphy (all with Eric), Dennis Eckersley, Cecil Fielder, and Rafael Palmeiro (Eric's teams and Future Wax), and Bill Doran (Jed's Evil Bunnies and Future Wax).

    What? No Bonds? No Griffey? No Maddux? Nope. These guys have won 'only' 3 championships.


    Is There Excessive Focus On Early Draft Picks? - 1999 Summer Newsletter

    During the days leading up to this year's draft, a number of changes to the league’s draft lottery were proposed. When the league’s anti-change faction weighed in against all proposals, I aligned myself with those conservatives by stating in an e-mail that there was excessive focus paid to the top pick overall (as well as the first round). I also noted that, in fact, it’s the later rounds of the draft that are the most important for building up a team.

    This summer, I decided to put the facts where my mouth is by researching the issue. I compiled a list of all players who played in the 1999 All-Star Game, as well as any player who received an MVP or Cy Young vote in the SOMBILLA over the last five years. Adding in these players included people like A. Belle, Bonds, and G. Maddux who didn’t make the All-Star Game, but have done well in the SOMBILLA. Also, since the point of drafting is not just to draft guys with good cards (or with the potential to produce good cards), but to also translate those good cards into good SOMBILLA performances, including these players ‘SOMBILLA-izes’ the study.

    A total of 95 players met the criteria, arguably the best players in the SOMBILLA currently and over the past five years. Once this list was compiled, I then went through to determine what rounds these players were drafted in and compiled the totals. Two players on the list, Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn, were actually drafted in the original 1985 permanent league (Cal third overall by Robin and Gwynn in the 5th round by Joel) and were excluded from the study, because I want to focus on the annual 10-round draft. Of the remaining 93 players, 5 were actually drafted twice – Jeremy Burnitz (3rd round by Matt in ’94 and 4th round by Jed & Clint in ’96), Al Leiter (6th round by T&A in ’89 and 1st round by Harold in ’96), Nagy (twice by Jed & Clint - 11th round in ’91 and 4th round in ’95 [after being cut in '94]); Offerman (3rd by T&A in ’91 and 4th by Land in ’97), and Mike Stanley (10th round by Dave in ’88 and 2nd round by Eric in ’94). I included both draftings in the study for a total of 98.

    Here are the results:

    1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th7th8th9th10th11th
    27   15  15 10   9   4   6   3   6   2    1

    At a first glance, you might think that the results prove me wrong. Well, I must say the results are probably intuitive, but may not actually prove me wrong. In fact, just over a quarter of the best players get snagged in the first round. Here’s where you get the blue-chippers like Griffey, R. Alomar, Jeter, McGwire, Canseco, P. Martinez and Frank Thomas. But the flip side is that fully ¾ of the very best players in the league do not get taken in the first round!! I’d venture to guess that more than 25% of the league’s cumulative scouting time is spent on that first round, yet, as I noted in the e-mail, it’s the other rounds that contribute the most star players.

    Rounds 2 & 3 are quite significant – in fact, more than half of the league’s best players are gone by the end of the 3rd round, which is probably not news to anyone. However, a lot of these guys get overlooked in the 1st round. Examples of these players are A. Belle, Barry Bonds (a .220 3rd rounder in ’87), Hoffman, G. Maddux (5.61 ERA 3rd rounder in ’88), Nen, Lima, Lankford, B. Williams, Piazza, Sosa (2nd rounder by Robin in ’90).

    By round 4, the so-called blue-chippers are gone, but ½ of the players who will be the SOMBILLA’s best players remain. You can snag the like of Burnitz, I. Valdes, Lofton, S. Casey, Palmeiro, Thome, and SOMBILLA Cy-Young winner Drabek in rounds 4 & 5.

    By round 7 when your opponents are filling up their roster with aging one-year wonders, people like Jay Bell, Juan Gonzalez, Barry Larkin, Larry Walker and Matt Williams are still out there. Aren’t these guys ‘blue-chippers’? Would a change to the draft lottery system help the less successful teams get players like this?

    It doesn’t stop there: In the 8th round you can draft John Smoltz, Harold Baines, and John Jaha. And check out this litany of 9th round picks: Randy Johnson (81st player taken in the 1990 draft), Jeff Kent (77th overall in 1993), Mike Lieberthal (76th in 1998), Fred McGriff (69th overall in ’88 and alas, cut in '99), and Kevin Mitchell (67th in ’87).

    And last but not least, Mariano Rivera, SOMBILLA Cy Young winner in 1997-1998, was taken 84th overall by Harold, in the 10th round with the 5th-to-last pick in the 1996 draft.

    Sure we’d all like a crack at that first pick. But for every McGwire or Griffey, there’s a can’t miss Phil Plantier or Reuben Sierra (see the complete list of 1st picks overall in the archives). We were all salivating over JD Drew, but where is he now? Of course, he may still end up being a superstar, but there are no sure things. Remember, half of the league’s best players are still available after the 3rd round. Is there excessive focus on the first pick overall? The first round? Should you care about jockeying for draft lottery position? The facts are here. You be the judge.


    The Cute Ratings - 1999 Summer Newsletter

    By Robin, guest columnist

    Ten years ago, I introduced “The First Annual(?) SOMBILLA Cute Ratings." I guess it’s now the Decennial(?) SOMBILLA Cute Ratings. Last time, I considered myself “fairly generous” with my ratings, to arrive at a total of 26% cute players in the league, but I was much more generous this time around. I rated every player in the league (although a substantial number were judged by poor-quality pictures in the Stats book or online, and I cannot be held responsible for misjudging anyone [either way] on the basis of these pictures) (Ed note: Robin does not give herself enough credit for actually knowing what at least 80% of the league’s players look like.) I came up with 165 cute players out of 405, for a total of 40.7% cute. I guess, to be more accurate, this is really the Attractive or Cute Ratings, as a much smaller percentage than 40.7% are truly cute. (Ed note: must be some sort of female-speak.) I gave one extra point to teams with very cute players and deducted one point for extremely ugly players.

    To no one’s surprise, once again I have the cutest team, with 25 cute players (16 in 1989), and this time Harold, with only 13, has the ugliest team. (Back in ’89, the Folders, ND, and Madagascar (Jed) tied for the least attractive team with 10 apiece.) Apparently, expansion has added a high proportion of cute players to the league. (Ed note: or perhaps as we age, ourstandards lessen a bit and we become less discerning. I’ll go sleep on the sofa now. )

    1. The Team Formerly Known as Bay City (25) – This team still has a player cited for cuteness 10 years ago (Ripken) as well as the starting catcher on the All-Cute team (Pudge Rodriguez). I also have 2 of the 5 players rated as Best Looking Prospects a decade ago (Brady Anderson & Tom Gordon) and traded the 3rd, ages ago, to Jed & Clint (Chuck Finley). The other 2 (Ed Jurak & Jeff Kunkel) are no longer in MLB. Sammy and Brady narrowly miss the All-Cute Team. This team currently features only cute players on the DL (Gordon, Frye, Sadler, Osborne, Floyd & McCracken). Cutest player: Sammy Sosa (and B. Anderson)

    2. Constantinople (22) – This team boasts All-Cute outfielder Ellis Burks (also praised 10 years ago, and whom I tried to trade for but ended up with the non-hunky Matt Stairs). Aside from NO, this is the only team with 2 cute catchers (Ausmus & Todd Greene). This franchise didn't exist a decade ago, so no other then & now comparisons can be made. Cutest player: Ellis Burks

    3. Metrowest (20) – This team, as the Hatchbacks, also came in third in 1989. Their strength is in the outfield, where the departure of Mike Greenwell and addition of the likes of Preston Wilson, Jeff Hammonds & Dye helps. No members of All-Cute Team here, though. Cutest player: Eli Marrero

    4. Bunghole (18+1) – This team gets extra credit for having the cutest player in the league (and in fact in all of MLB) – Toronto’s Alex Gonzalez, who beats out a crowded field (Jeter, A-Rod, Larkin, etc) for All-Cute shortstop. Interestingly, this franchise as Madagascar also boasted the cutest player in the league 10 years ago (Carlton Fisk). BQ has another All-Cute Team member in outfielder Mike Cameron, and has a potential cute successor to All-Cute catcher Pudge Rodriguez in AJ Hinch. Cutest player: Alex Gonzalez (also Cameron)

    5. Future Wax (18) – This team made a good trade (cutewise, and unfortunately for me, otherwise) in giving up the unattractive Morandini for Bay City's Billy Taylor. Ray Durham ties with Homer Bush for All-Cute 2nd baseman. They retain 1989 cutie Barry Bonds, who joins Griffey, Juan Gonzalez & Giles for an attractive outfield. Also tops the league with 8 cute pitchers. Cutest player: Ray Durham

    6. Clavius (17-1+1) The only team with both an extremely cute player (Steve Finley) & an extremely ugly one (Buhner). Ten years ago, the franchise, as Yoknapatawpha, was fourth cutest with 12. Overall, a cute outfield (Finley and JD Drew to name two), with only Baines & Curtis (along with the hideous Buhner) marring it, and a fairly cute pitching staff led by Lowe, Glavine & Stottlemyre. Cutest player: Steve Finley

    7. Manila Folders (17-1) Probably the least attractive outfield corps in the league with only Yankees Ledee & Spencer & old-timer D. White attractive. Trading with ND for Cirillo was a good move, but getting Beck wasn’t, as he earns Matt a demerit. Homer Bush (tied for All-Cute 2nd baseman) along with Relaford & E. Chavez makes for an attractive young infield. Traded away All-Cute outfielder Burks but still moves up from a tie for least cute team in 1989 to seventh cutest. Cutest player: Homer Bush

    8. North Dakota (16-1) Trading Beck saves Arnie from being the only team with two hideous players (although I gave serious thought to awarding a double demotion to Randy Johnson for being the ugliest player in the SOMBILLA). Only one of his six catchers (Hatteberg) is attractive. Starting pitchers (Lima, M. Morris, Cordova, Estes) and shortstops (Larkin and A. Nunez) are this team’s strengths. Glenallen Hill is the All-Cute DH and the team's cutest player.

    9. New Orleans (13) The ugliest team in the SOMBILLA. A very unattractive infield, with the only cuties Biggio, A.Boone & Spiers. As Learned Hands, this team ranked fifth a decade ago. Does have two cute catchers (S. Alomar & Hundley) – matching only CN. “Fat Toad” Irabu does not help pitching staff, and Tom Goodwin wasn’t cute enough to make Bay City’s outfield. Must work on drafting strategy as, out of 10 draftees, only Boone is cute from ’99 draft. Cutest player: Richard Hidalgo

    The All-Cute Team

    1B - Darin Erstad, Metrowest
    2B - Ray Durham, Future Wax and Homer Bush, Manila Folders
    SS - Alex Gonzalez, Bunghole Quahogs
    3B - Eric Chavez, Manila Folders
    OF - Ellis Burks, Constantinople
    OF - Mike Cameron, Bunghole Quahogs
    OF - Steve Finley, Clavius
    C - Pudge Rodriguez, Bay City
    DH - Glenallen Hill, North Dakota
    P - Chuck Finley, Bunghole Quahogs


    What if the SOMBILLA was a Rotisserie League? - 1999 Summer Newsletter

    Of course, we all know that Strat-O Matic is superior to Rotisserie 'baseball', where home runs equal stolen bases, there's no fielding (except for the Bill James version) and managing games doesn't exist. But since it's summer time, a time to be passive, I thought it might be fun to look at how the league's doing in various categories.

    Thanks to the free "Team Tracker" available on the USA Today Baseball page, I was able to compile team totals for SOMBILLA teams through July 18. Of course, there are caviats. I used all 45 rostered players for all teams. In the real Strat-O season, stats for prospects or others not on the 25-man roster would not count. Also, each team has a differing proportion of pitchers to hitters, so a team with more hitters on its 45-man roster might be able to hit more home runs than another team with more pitchers. And, true to real Rotisserie (but unlike the Strat-O we all know and love) fielding is irrelevant.

    The way Rotisserie works is simple. I chose 10 categories of stats. Each team is ranked against each other in all categories, and then the rankings are totaled. A team finishing first in all categories would have a score of 10, the worst score would be 90.

    The offensive stats were Batting Average, Home Runs, Slugging Pct, On-Base percentage, and Runs. I refused to do stolen bases because that would equate stolen bases to home runs, which is something a junior-high school Rotisserie kid might do, but not us. I substituted runs for stolen bases, figuring that runs also measure speed, but are more important than stolen
    bases.

    The pitching stats used were ERA, Homers Allowed, WHIP (walks and hits to innings pitched - a typical Rotisserie stat that actually has relevance to the SOMBILLA), winning percentage by pitchers, and saves.

    Anyway, I wouldn't put a lot of stock into this (how important to Strat-O is having a good W/L pct in real life?), but Jeff, you can if you want to.

    Stats through 7/18
     

    Ave HR SLG OBP Runs ERA HRA WHIP Win% Sv Total
    1. Metrowest .279 (5) 323 (1) .472 (3) .359 (3) 1330 (1) 4.23 (2) 101 (1) 1.39 (3) .544 (3) 30 (7) 29
    2. North Dakota .291 (2) 182 (8) .472 (3) .364 (2) 763 (8) 4.21 (1) 207 (8) 1.35 (2) .557 (1) 75 (3) 38
    3. Future Wax .292 (1) 223 (6) .516 (1) .373 (1) 765 (7) 4.69 (7) 154 (4) 1.473 (7) .450 (8) 73 (4) 42
    4. Constantinople .285 (3) 287 (3) .473 (2) .353 (5) 1118 (3) 5.38 (9) 140 (3) 1.474 (8) .413 (9) 90 (2) 44
    5. New Orleans .279 (5) 215 (7) .454 (7) .353 (5) 966 (5) 4.36 (3) 160 (6) 1.33 (1) .525 (5) 112 (1) 45
    6. Bay City .285 (3) 230 (4) .454 (7) .356 (4) 1089 (4) 4.65 (5) 137 (2) 1.48 (9) .518 (7) 38 (6) 51
    7. Clavius .276 (7) 224 (5) .457 (5) .342 (9) 903 (6) 4.41 (4) 155 (5) 1.41 (4) .553 (2) 27 (8) 55
    8. Bunghole Quahogs .276 (7) 289 (2) .456 (6) .347 (8) 1158 (2) 4.75 (8) 215 (9) 1.42 (5) .530 (4) 26 (9) 60
    9. Manila Folders .270 (9) 173 (9) .439 (9) .349 (7) 701 (9) 4.69 (6) 169 (7) 1.42 (6) .519 (6) 55 (5) 73


    HOME AND AWAY ANALYSIS - 1998 Summer newsletter

    For the first study this year, I wanted to do an update of the SOMBILLA study from five years ago, "Who is the Best Manager in the SOMBILLA"?   now found reprinted in the archives in its entirety. That study was done using the Bill James Pythagorean theorum for each team over a five-year period. The Pythagorean Theorum predicts team wins and losses with a formula using runs for and runs against. Differences in actual and expected wins are due to luck and managing. I reasoned that over a period of five years, luck would even out, leaving only managing as a factor. I started to compile the Pythaorean Theorums for the SOMBILLA's last 5 years, but after 'wasting' my time doing them for '93-94 and '94-95 I hit against a road block. We haven't been tracking runs against in the last 3 years! (And some teams haven't tracked runs for either). Bummer! That's one casualty of parenthood for me (not being able to do all the league's stats anymore). For the record, North Dakota had the most actual wins over expected wins (indictaing managerial ability) in the '93-94 and 94-95 seasons combined (+9).

    So, instead, I'll do a less exciting (and less controversial) study to answer which are the best home teams. We have been compiling home and away records over the last 4 seasons. Here are team won-lost records at home over that time:

    Future Wax      76-34  .691
    North Dakota    67-45  .598
    New Orleans     61-51  .545
    Bay City        58-54  .518
    Manila Folders  55-57  .491
    Lagavulan 16    55-59  .482
    Bunghole Quahogs53-59  .473
    Constantinople  50-62  .446
    Metrowest       48-64  .428

    Eric and Future Wax have played a different number of home games due to their screwup two years ago when they forgot to look at the schedule and played in the wrong park. The numbers don't lie - Future Wax is the toughest team to play at home - the Montreal Forum of the SOMBILLA. You know you'll never get a call in the last period, er inning, when you're in the Waxdome. But of course, a lot of this has to do with team strength. Future Wax also has the best overall record over that time. Which teams are most suited toward playing in their own parks? Again, using data from the last four years, here is the difference, per team, in the number of home wins over away wins:

    Metrowest       +10
    Future Wax       +9
    Bay City         +9
    New Orleans      +6
    Manila Folders   +3
    Lagavulan 16     +2
    Constantinople   +1
    Bunghole Quahogs -1
    North Dakota     -2

    A couple of surprises here.  Despite having the worst overall home record over the last 4 years, Metrowest has actually been more geared toward playing in its own park then any other team. (Or they're so horrible on the road that they've distorted the study). Future Wax's +9 is made up almost entirely of Andrew's bizarre '94-95 record, when he went 22-6 at home (a league record), but a league worst 9-19 on the road, good for a +13. Two teams, North Dakota and the Bunghole Quahogs actually do better on the road - chameleon teams that can adapt well to their opponent's parks (or they just choose the wrong home park). I'm not really sure what this study really shows, but like I said, it wasn't my first choice. 


    Rating the cards - 1998 Summer newsletter

    A lot of managers rate players different ways. One of the most common, is "Linear Weights" This is a basic formula, whereby each result has a different value. For example, homers are 7 points, triples are 4, doubles 3, singles 2, etc. Slugging percentage is a form of linear weights, assigning 4 bases for a homer, 3 for a triple etc. A lot of managers, especially those in Strat Fan, it seems, are enamored with On-base average Plus Slugging (OPS) as the best way to measure a Strat-O card. OPS is, of course, another form of linear weights. Although OPS is good, it is actually more accurate to use On-base Times Slugging (OTS). A quick glance at the Bill James runs-created formula (as well as Pete Palmer's The Hidden Game of Baseball) bears this out. As James explains, offense is a function of being able to get on base and moving the runner over. These measures are interrelated geometrically, which you get from OTS, not linearly, like you get with OPS, or any other form of linear weights. In other words, measuring a player's offense (or pitching card) can't be done with 4th grade arithmetic, which most managers do, because a player's offense is not based on a linear function. Instead, if you want to be more accurate, you have to move up to 8th grade algebra because the measurement is a polynomial. Bill James does a pretty good job of ridiculing Linear Weights in the Historical Abstract. Also, the Bill James Abstracts from 84-86 offer great detailed analysis of this stuff. The Bill James runs created formula actually factors DP chances into on-base percentage, which I do as well. And, because walks sometimes can move runners over, he factors a percentage of walks into the slugging portion of the formula, which I also do. Finally, stolen bases and caught stealings factor into the ability to advance runners and he factors those in too. The formula is:

    (H + W + HBP - CS - GIDP) * (TB + .26 (TBB + IBB + HBP) + .52(SH +SF +SB))
    (AB +TBB +HBP +SH +SF)

    But of course, this formula is for real baseball statistics. You need to make adjustments to it for translating into Strat-O cards. For example, not all GbA results on a batter's card will result in a double play. I determined, based on reasearch from Pete Palmer's, The Hidden Game, that a batter has an 18% chance to be up with a runner on 1st and less than two outs (a potential double-play situation). So, you need to multiply the batter's (or pitcher's) GbA numbers by .18 to make the formula accurate.

    So what's the difference between OTS and OPS? A guy with 40 OB chances and 40 SLG chances will have the same OPS as a guy with 30 OB chances and 50 SLG chances (80) but the first guy will have a higher OTS than the second guy. OTS rewards hitters for having good on-base AND good slugging. Being really good in one will not compensate for being deficient in the other as it will using OPS or linear weights.

    To get away from unwieldy numbers when calculating the OTS of my players, I simply divide the OTS by 25. For example, a player with 50 OB and 50 SLG has an OTS of 100 by my system (50 x 50)/25, the same as OPS. A player with 60 OB, but only 40 SLG has an OTS of only 96. Because OTS is geometric, differences between players' cards are far greater than they are under OPS.

    Additionally, you can determine a player's clutch OTS, by adding (or subtracting) the player's clutch chances from both the on-base and slugging chances. To further gain an edge over my opponents, I long ago (back in the days when Lotus 1-2-3 ruled the earth), set up a spreadsheet whereby I type in a ball-park's dimensions, hit the macro key, and get a print-out of all of my batters' OTS's (in the clutch and not in the clutch) against each of my opponent's pitcher's OTS's in that particular park. (Of course, I also get a printout of all of my pitchers OTS's and his hitters OTS's in that park as well.).

    Enough of this pseudo-intellectual mathematical drivel. Get on with it, you whiny, turd-filled geek. Anyway, according to my calculations, for whatever that's worth, here are some lists for the upcoming SOMBILLA season ('97 cards). (All ratings reflect average ballparks):

    BEST HITTERS, BOTH SIDES COMBINED:

    1. Thomas, BC    419
    2. Piazza, FW    407
    3. L. Walker, MW 342
    4. Larkin, ND    334
    5. McGwire, MF   324
    6. Ramirez, NO   307
    6. Justice, ND   307
    8. Bonds, FW     300
    9. M. Vaughn, MW 297
    10. Bagwell, NO  295

    BEST CLUTCH HITTERS, BOTH SIDES COMBINED:

    1. Thomas, BC    462
    2. Gwynn, BQ     391
    3. PIazza, FW    373
    4. Alou, NO      329
    5. McGwire, MF   324
    6. Alfonzo, CN   309
    7. McGwire, MF   287
    8. Bagwell, NO   286
    9. T. Ward, NO   281
    10. Biggio, BQ   277

    BEST HITTERS vs. RIGHTIES:

    1. L. Walker, MW    230
    2. McGwire, MF      212
    3. PIazza, FW       206
    4. Bagwell, NO      184
    5. Thome, FW        176

    BEST HITTERS vs. LEFTIES

    1. Thomas, BC    252
    2. Larkin, ND    215
    3. Piazza, FW    202
    4. Sheffield, FW 190
    5. M. Vaughn, MW 183

    BEST PITCHERS, BOTH SIDES COMBINED:

    1. P. Martinez     8
    2. D. Jones, NO   10
    3. Wetteland, ND  11
    4. Shaw, MF       14
    5. Clemens, ND    17
    5. R. Johnson, ND 17
    7. Maddux, FW     18
    7. Magnante, ND   18
    9. B. Wagner, NO  25
    9. Stanton, MF    25
    9. Hoffman, ND    25


    All-time All-Star Alphabetical League (as published in Strat Fan - Spring 1998)

    THEY 'R' THE BEST

    Editor's Note: What type of draft league is it where, in the league's first year, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays would be on one team, but Jamie Quirk would be the first round draft pick on another? Where Pete Rose and Brooks Robinson would be bench-jockeys on one team, but Del Unser and Jose Uribe would be 1-2 in at-bats on another? Where the pitching was strong enough throughout a 25-team league to hold Ted Williams to a .301 average, and deep enough so that Sandy Koufax, Carl Hubbell and Greg Maddux would be reduced to closers, but where Tom Zachry would be the No. 1 starter and go 9-28, 4.97 (along with fellow 20-game losers Geoff Zahn and Pat Zachry) on another? Don't have it yet? One more big clue: The team that won the most games had Tris Speaker, Al Simmons, Willie Stargell, Mike Schmidt, Ryne Sandberg and Ver Stephens in its lineup. Still stumped? Read on.

    What if you went through the Baseball Encyclopedia, made up an all-time all-star team for every letter in the alphabet, and played them in a league? Which letter would be the best? That's exactly what I wanted to find out in my All-time All-Star Alphabetical League.

    And, after finishing with a 110-52 regular season record, the 'R' team, Round Pond (named after a small village in Mid-Coast Maine), led by MVP Babe Ruth and Cy Young winner Nolan Ryan, went on to defeat arch-rival Slope (a town in the North Dakota badlands) 4 games to 1 in the All-time Alphabetical World Series.

    Round Pond had excellent pitching. Ryan (21-9, 2.21) tossed a 3-hit shutout in game 1 of the Series, and had both a 1-hit shutout and a 5-hitter against Minot (and its Mantle, Mays, Musial outfield) in the semi-finals. Besides Ryan, Round Pond had a staff of Robin Roberts (18-6, 3.09), Jerry Reuss (14-7, 3.49), Red Ruffing (17-10), JR Richard, Jeff Reardon, Ed Reulbach, Eppa Rixey, Rick Rhoden, and Rick Reushel. In addition to Ruth (.336, 63 homers, 158 rbi's), Frank Robinson (.336, 31, 136), Jackie Robinson (who pulled off a delayed steal of home with Pete Reiser in game 4 of the World Series), Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, Pete Rose, Ed Roush, and 19th-century star John Reilly anchored a great lineup.

    Like most teams, Slope also had a great lineup, (Stargell, Schmidt, Sandberg, Speaker, Simmons) but what separated the best teams from average teams in this league were their pitching staffs. Slope's starters of Spahn (22-8, 2.78), Seaver (15-4, 2.89), and Sutton (20-7, 3.16) shut down Waldoboro (H. Wagner, T. Williams, the Waners) in the semi-finals and made them the series favorites in my eyes. But it was Round Pond's Robin Roberts who garnered World Series MVP honors, winning 2 of the 5 games, and sporting a 1.50 ERA.

    Creating the teams

    Using the Career Normalized version of the Strat-O-Matic Career Historical Baseball disks, I let the computer draft each of the teams, followed by my own eyeballing of the actual Hall of Fame list to ensure no injustices. I liked the fact that the Career Disks can be used to play stars from different eras with the additional Normalization (so that hitters from the 20's and pitchers from the 60's are not so distortingly dominant). Still, the drafter had a few unexpected glitches. It never drafted a pitcher 1st or 2nd and usually not until 5th or 7th player chosen. For example, for Jerimoth Hill (named after the highest point in Rhode Island), the obvious first choice would be Walter Johnson, but the computer drafter chose Reggie Jackson first. OK, so Jackson's not a bad first choice. Agreed. But the computer then chose Hughie Jennings, Joe Judge, and the immortal Charlie Jones before deciding on Walter J.

    The single biggest computer drafting glitch occurred for Minot. I figured that the computer would decide on either Mantle or Mays first, and sure enough it went with Mantle. But, not only didn't the computer choose Mays 2nd, it didn't choose Mays for the 25-man roster at all! I understand the computer goes by positions, and so it felt it more important to stock up on other positions like shortstops and catchers, instead of another centerfielder, but not even Mays for a bench player? I mean Dale Murphy was a fine player, but Dale instead of Mays? Marty McManus? Minnie Minoso? (All of whom the computer grabbed instead of Mays.) After I rescued Mays from the forgotten masses, he didn't disappoint, batting .32