How Much is That Player Worth?

As GMs we are faced with a number of questions about how to run our franchises. One of, if not the most important question we face is "how much is that player worth." this article will attempt to answer that question.

ROBERTO CLEMENTE LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP

Preview

                   VS            

Two surprising teams will compete for the first RCL trophy.  Wild Card entry Montreal stunned the Seattle squad in 6 matches while in a battle of division winners the Dallas Texans beat Minnesota, the #1 ABL team in the power rankings, in 7 matches.  Is there a key to how this test match will be resolved? 

Montreal Takes the Lead!

Montreal Leads Series 2 Games to 1

Right now, the Bandits have the Sasquatch where they want. After stealing one game in Seattle, Montreal won the first at home. Seattle needs to rise and steal one in Montreal's hostile field. But if a team is able to do that, it's the Sasquatch and their powerful offense. Let's recap the series so far.

The Roberto Clemente Minnesota-Dallas Series

The Roberto Clemente Division Series
2012

Dallas Advances to LCS

Los Angeles-Las Vegas: Joker Patience Beats Empire

Ray Stevens

October 2: Los Angeles 3, Las Vegas 8. The hype coming into the game was the pitching duel: Evan Warner vs. Maurice Gould. The story coming out of the game, however, was the Joker lineup, which ground out at-bat after at-bat, wearing down the vaunted pitchers of Los Angeles, and leading the Jokers to a game one victory in their best-of-seven series.

Las Vegas took the lead early. Ray Stevens led off the second with a home run, but that was the only Joker run that came via the long ball.

Maple-Boston: Williams Walk-Off Wins it for Boston

Jasper Williams

October 2: Maple 8, Boston 9. Jasper Williams entered the game an unknown but left the game a Boston hero. With the game tied in the bottom of the 11th, with two outs and two strikes, Williams crushed a hanging forkball into the left field stands. Boston wins game one in walk-off fashion, and Jasper Williams enters Boston baseball lore!

A virtual unknown, Jasper Williams spent most of the season in Triple-A. Heck, he was unremarkable in Triple-A for much of the year. He entered July as the Springfield Reformers backup first baseman, batting .234 with two home runs. His bat heated up in limited playing time in July and August, and when José Gonzáles went down with recurring back spasms in September, Williams got the call. In 14 September at-bats, he had six hits, including a pair of dingers against Cabo San Lucas.

The Ale-X-Files: Going to WAR in the First 10 Rounds of the Inaugural Draft

Last week's preview of this article asked two questions:

1. Which teams got the most value [this season] from their first 10 picks in the draft?
2. How important were those top 10 picks? (IE could we have predicted the success of a team based on the results of it's first 10 rounds?)

Playoff Preview: Los Angeles vs. Las Vegas

The Munson League's best hitting team faces its best pitching team. Francois Neveu's Las Vegas Jokers  feature one of the most explosive lineups and the most devastating pitcher in baseball. Travis Hays built his Evil Empire upon pitching, pitching, defense, and more pitching. Let's take a look at how the teams match up!

Playoff Preview: Maple vs. Boston

It's the Commissioner Series! Baseball Stars commissioner Gray Ulery leads his Cardinals against Adult Baseball commissioner Jason Goldberg's Marauders. Boston led all of baseball with 103 wins, while Maple snuck into the playoffs in the final weeks, capitalizing on San Francisco's September collapse. But none of that matters now. Let's take a look at how these two teams match up.

LDS - Dallas at Minnesota

The Roberto Clemente

Division Series 

2012

Six Reasons why the Dallas Texans can win the series

Around the ABL: September 21-30

The regular season has ended! Several playoff races were decided in the final days. Let's get to it!

September 21: Nottinghamshire 5, New York 6. Down by one with two outs in the ninth, Marvin Bowman ties the game with a solo home run. In the 10th, Herman Campbell singles in Pat Haynes for the walk-off win. The Mafia go on to sweep the Outlaws, putting them three games back of Dallas with six games to go.

Anthony Shelton

September 21: San Francisco 7, Maple 10. The Quakes take an early lead, scoring four in the second, but the Marauders roar back, powered by home runs from Frank Powers, Michael Anderson, and two from Anthony Shelton. Maple moves into a tie with San Francisco.

Playoff Preview: Montreal vs Seattle

Next Friday, one of the most anticipated series will oppose teams with two of the best attacks: the Montreal Bandits and the Seattle Sasquatch. At first, we will analyze the two teams and make a prediction. After that, we will see if the two GM have guts.

Pitching: The two teams rank very close in starter ERA: 5 for Montreal, 6 for Seattle. Montreal has a true ace with Perez. Rudyard is less dominant in my opinion. After that, I prefer the depth of Seattle but not by much. Very slight advantage Montreal

Relief : Again really close in relief, Montreal is 7th and Seattle 8.  But this time, I give a little notch to Seattle closer, Robbins. For the rest, a little more depth for Montreal. Very slight advantage Seattle

Around the ABL: September 18-20

All eyes are on the playoff races! For this edition, I am going to break things down by the four key playoff races: the competition to win the Tommy Lasorda and Billy Martin divisions, and the race for each league's wild-card slot.

Tommy Lasorda Division

Lorenzo Rodríguez

September 18: Ann Arbor 9, So Cal 2. Ann Arbor comes into today trailing Dallas by two games in the Lasorda Division. The Barn Owls easily defeat the last-place Republic. Z-Rod hits his 52nd home run. Minnesota 11, New York 1. New York trails Dallas by four games and fails to gain ground today. Peter Blanchard caps an eight-run fourth inning with a three-run home run. Dallas 4, Seattle 5. The Texans face the division-leading Sasquatch. They lose narrowly, leaving the tying run on second in both the eighth and ninth innings. Dallas now leads Ann Arbor by a single game.

Ale-X-Files Next Week Preview

There's no new article this week, but that's because I'm preparing one that will be a bit more intensive next week. Way back at the beginning of the season, Martín thought it would be interesting to evaluate the value of some portion of the draft, and I looked at how I might gather and present that information this week. It's something I'll likely continue at the end of each season

So, what you'll see next week is an evaluation of the first 10 rounds of the draft based on player WAR. The big questions that I'll examine next week (and each year) with those first 200 picks are below. Feel free to discuss what your predictions might be or how you feel your first 10 picks have been doing so far in this category:

1.  Which teams got the most value from their first 10 picks?

2.  How important were those top 10 picks?  (IE could we have predicted the success of a team based on the results of it's first 10 rounds?)

The stat I'll be using to determine "value", both because it boils things down to a single number and is representative of exactly what we're looking at, is WAR (Wins Above Replacement). The basic idea behind WAR is that it evaluates how many wins a player generates for your team that would be above the value of a player that you can get for the league minimum as a free agent.

For information on WAR and its accuracy, take a look at these two articles:

Everything you wanted to know about WAR

WAR: It Works

Around the ABL: September 14-17

This edition may only cover four days, but they were four days with a lot exciting baseball! The Boston Cardinals became the first team to clinch their division. Playoff-contending teams in the Munson League competed in several key series. Another team pulled off an incredible ninth-inning comeback. There were shutouts galore and so much more!

September 14: Cabo San Lucas 3, San Francisco 2. The Toreros came into this series with the Quakes reeling. Losers of nine of their last ten games, Cabo had lost their lead in the wild card to Los Angeles. They needed a win badly, but they go into the ninth down a run. Domingo Blanchard doubles and takes second on a sac fly, but Attis Veloukhiotis pops out. With two outs, Clarence Sutton grounds a ball through the left side of the infield, and Blanchard scores to tie the game. In the 11th, Brad White triples and scores on a Veloukhiotis sac fly. Cabo goes on to sweep San Francisco—quite possibly saving their season.

TML Homestretch

by Josh Swain

The Munson League, much like the Clemente League, has two divisions wrapped up or essentially wrapped up, one tight division and a great wild card chase down the stretch.

RCL Homestretch

by Josh Swain

With two weeks left in our first season, only one team has clinched a playoff spot while several others are extremely close to doing so. Here I will outline what's at stake in the last two weeks.

Boston Clinches

Alex Austin

With about two and a half weeks remaining in the season and two big series at Cabo San Lucas and at home vs Los Angeles looming, the Boston Cardinals found themselves with a Magic Number of 3 to secure the Earl Weaver Division's first title. On the 14th, Jimmy Drake pitched 8 shutout innings, but after Maple's CF Anthony Lewis tied the game with a 2-out HR in the top of the ninth, the game wasn't decided until the bottom of the 11th when LF Alex Austin hit a line drive 2-run walk off dinger. Cabo and Los Angeles both won their games that night - Magic Number: 2

ABL's Most Competitive Division

As we finish the first ABL season, there is one division which is still battling it out for a division title, which in all probably will not produce a Wild Card for the loser. With only three weeks to go the outcome of the Tommy Lasorda Division remains in doubt.

The standings thru 13 September.

Dallas           80-67
Ann Arbor        78-68
New York         77-69
Nottinghamshire  47-99

Around the ABL: September 7-13

Pitching duels, two sluggers hitting their 50th home run, and Greenville defying the odds with an incredible comeback. Let's get to it!

September 7: Boston 2, Los Angeles 1. Empire's Kent Rose (7-7) allows one run over nine innings, but Cardinals pitchers match him. The game goes into the 11th inning when George White singles with the bases loaded to drive in the winning run. Red-hot Boston becomes the first team to win 90 games.

Around the ABL: Mile High's High Drama

This week, Mile High faced hated rival Kansas City and mildly disliked rival Eureka. Every single game was decided by a single run.

September 7: Kansas City 5, Mile High 6. The Mustangs blow a 4-1 lead by surrendering four runs in the eighth: Bob Watkins doubles in Lawrence Fox, and Ricardo Marquis hits a three-run homer. The Mustangs tie the game in the bottom half of the inning, and the game goes to extra innings. In the 14th, with two outs and runners in scoring position, Manuel Sánchez singles in Jeff Wade.

Around the ABL: September 1-6

What happened in the ABL this week? Pitching duels and slugfests. A walk-off grand slam and back-to-back-to-back home runs. One pitcher wins his 20th game; another loses his 20th. Let's get to it!

Rich Bussell

September 1: Dallas 1, Minnesota 0. Chris Wine (7-6) almost kept up with the best  pitcher in the Clemente League, allowing just one run on two hits and two walks. The run scores when, in the fifth, Matt Welch walks, advances to second on a wild pitch, advances to third on a ground out, and scores on a William Mayfield single. Rich Bussell (17-3) and Alex Martin shut out Minnesota. Bussell pitches 8 1/3 innings, allows three hits and one walk, and strikes out 10.

Around the ABL: August 13-August 31

It's the dog days of summer, but there continue to be exciting performances all around the ABL.

Maurice Gould

August 13: Las Vegas 11, Dallas 0. Maurice Gould shuts down the Texans, striking out 13 over 8 1/3 innings. How dominant is Doughboy? Only three ABL pitchers have struck out 13 batters in a game. Dave Krause and Raúl Pérez each did it once: Krause struck out 13 Jesters on May 29, and Raúl Peréz struck out 15 in Greenville on May 8. This was Gould's eighth time accomplishing the feat.

Single-A Report: Did You Know?

Did you know....

Tony Davidson

... on July 5, Tony Davidson of New Orleans pitched a PERFECT game! A model of efficiency, he threw just 102 pitches!

Justin Robinson

Ted Mills

... on June 10 not one but TWO no hitters were recorded, by Ted Mills of Bethesda and
and Justin Robinson of Coney Island.

... that the Bethesda Hornets are 9-0 vs the Stingrays and Sabercats.

This Tiger Roars on the Mound in the NBL!

We can't make the
playoffs, but I am still
trying my hardest
out there!

Hiroaki Ine of the Hanshin Tigers has had a statistically solid year but the W/L record just doesn't do him any justice so far in the Nippon Baseball League. On August 22nd, Hiroake took matters in his own right arm as he pitched Hanshin to a 2-0 victory over Yokohama Bay Stars. He went 8.2 IP, allowed only 1 hit, struck out 13 and only walked two batters. His YTD stats are as follows:

G	GS	Rec	SV	ERA	IP	HA	HR	BB	K	WHIP
17	17	5-7	0	4.24	116.2	109	5	34	140	1.23

ABL Media Unclear what A.R. Stands For But ...

Speak with Glenn
if you want to know!

A.R. Giles from London, OH on August 19th had his career best start versus Coney Island while pitching in Single-A for the Barrow Frosties. On that day, A.R. went 8 scoreless innings yielding only 3 hits, no walks and striking out 13 in a 2-0 victory! A.R. mixed in his 4 pitches very well and the difference on this night was his forkball. Even more incredible about this outing, the radar gun did not hit 90 once all game. He currently holds a 3 game winning streak for Barrow who hold 2nd place behind the juggernaut in New Orleans. A.R. is doing his part even defeating the incredible New Orleans team on August 2nd by a score of 11-2. In that outing he went 7.2 IP, 10 Ks, 2 walks and gave up only 2 earned runs. A.R will not explain to media what these initials mean, however. Glenn Polyn indicated the following, "Stay tuned!" His YTD stats are impressive:

G	GS	Rec	SV	ERA	IP	HA	HR	BB	K	WHIP
28	25	13-5	0	2.02	155.2	112	9	44	179	1.00

KC Minor Leaguer Not Happy But Letting His Bat Do the Talking

I want a contract!

Arturo Galván on August 19th showed the Kansas City organization that he deserves more than a minor league contract. Typically batting clean-up, this OF has had a decent year for Wichita in Double-A ball. The 4 for 5 night, with 8 rbi, one homer, two runs scored and a base on balls against Madison in an 18 to 4 thrashing sent a significant message to the KC organization. Arturo is just a laid back baseball junkie that on paper really should have no morale issues, but his dream has always been to play in the ABL. The organization would love to see him get more aggressive on the basepaths especially in the steal category. Currently he has 10 swipes. His YTD stats are:

G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	AVG	OBP	SLG	SB
82	300	86	7	0	12	49	42	63	.287	.378	.430	10

Giving Something for Carolina to Cheer About!

My goal is to make it
to the ABL this year!

On August 22nd, this past sim;  an unknown minor leaguer in the Triple-A system had a magical night for the Carolina organization that has been eagerly awaiting something exciting to cheer about! Carlos Patino, OF for the Durham Bulls, had a 4 for 5 night, with 9 RBI, 3 runs scored and 2 home runs! This game might have turned Patino's season around as he is currently on a modest 6 game hitting streak that features 3 multi-hit games. Born in Everett, WA, this high school stand-out has added some inspiration to the team. Growing up, Carlos has always led by example. His YTD stats are as follows:

G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	AVG	OBP	SLG	SB
126	451	107	17	4	14	65	53	112	.237	.317	.386	3

Unusual Performance Ranks #2 So Far

I didn't expect to have
the #2 Hitting Performance
so far in the ABL!

Greenville has been struggling this year, but their team has had some decent individual player performances so far in the ABL. One example of such a performance came from Joe Leftwich this past sim. Joe had the second best hitting performance rating in an August 22nd game vs. Carolina. Baseball America ranked the performance with a 90 which is only 2nd to the 92 ranking that Salvador Salgado achieved with Seattle vs. So Cal on June 15th this year. What made this accomplishment very unusual? Good question: he did it with only 2 official ABs! Mr. Leftwich went 2 for 2 with 4 runs scored, 6 rbi and had 4 walks! His only 2 hits were home runs! Joe playing in the OF is having a great season in the ABL. His YTD stats are below:

G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	AVG	OBP	SLG	SB
127	506	150	10	2	17	59	66	118	.296	.381	.425	25