Saturday, September 19, 2009

Returning Next Season?

It's time to indicate if you're coming back for another season of Benchwarmer Baseball.  There is now a link on your team's roster page that will let you respond yes/no to keeping the team in 2010.  Or you can just go ahead and click here.

At this point, you have to answer individually for each team - depending on which team you're currently logged in as on the web site.  I will try to put up a page to allow you to answer for multiple leagues on a single page - no promises, but I'll try to have that up by the end of September.

Please answer Yes/No by October 31.  If unanswered by that time, your team will automatically become an Orphan Team.

Experts - Please answer by October 4 (last day of the MLB regular season) so that I have time to search for new experts to take over teams before the off-season activity begins.

Specials and Free Teams in 2010

As we move into 2010, we're going to make a similar effort at encouraging expansion of Benchwarmer Baseball as we did in the last 2 seasons.  2009 was a banner season when we added six new leagues to the fold.  I was going to stop the free team explosion, but on second thought we'll try it at least for one more season...

So, here's the rundown of the normal reward structure:
  • All league champions get their team free in 2010.  They also earn a free team that can be used in a new league or to pick up an orphan team.
  • All winners of the other post-season tournaments - the Gore Cup and the Bottomfeeder Open - win a free extra team that can be used in a new league or to pick up an orphan team.
  • The winner of the Benchwarmer Bash gets 2 free seasons for that team.  The Bash runner up gets one free season (this is added on for future seasons if they were a league champ and already getting the team free in 2010).
As with the last 2 seasons, in a special bonus program - all division winners will get a free extra team that they can use in a new league or give to another person for a new league.  At the start, these will not be available for orphan teams, but at some point next winter/spring, if we have orphans remaining, they may be opened up for these bonus teams.  They must be used in 2010 and will not be carried over into 2011.

The "bonus" teams are just that - and are meant to seed new leagues.  They cannot be used to cover payment for existing teams.


New Owner Specials - For brand new people who have never played Benchwarmer before, we're currently running a special through the end of October.  They can sign up and get their first team in new leagues for free (normal prices apply for teams beyond the first).  This is being advertised currently in USA Today Sports Weekly.  The goal is to pull in more people and get them hooked (and become paying customers!) for future seasons.  It is possible that in November and December we may have some reduced rates for new owners.  Tell your friends - this is a great opportunity for them to try out Benchwarmer for a year at no risk!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Benchwarmer Bash 2009 - New Format

As we add more leagues each season, we get closer to the framework that allows more structure to the Bash.  For those of you who are new, the Benchwarmer Bash is a tournament that comes after the regular playoffs are done.  It takes the league champions, plus some selected wild cards, into a monster tournament.

It allows fantasy baseball to truly become a year-round pursuit.  While all teams will be figuring out who to keep for 2010 and starting that process, a few teams are still in the hunt for something.  Again, like the league playoffs, we use random games from the last half of the season to play.  Teams in the Bash set their rosters once and then they are locked (while their real - current - rosters will start changing for 2010).  A big advancement came in 2008 when we actually posted the games in November.  Previously, it had taken until Feb or March for me to get around to it.

This is another idea from the model game for Benchwarmer - Robot Baseball (where it was called the Robot Super Clash).  The winner of the Benchwarmer Bash gets TWO free seasons for their team.  The runner up gets one free season.

The Bash winner also gets an entry in the Experts League for the following season (and maybe the runner up too, if we have trouble filling out the field of experts).

So - the format change...last season with 11 leagues, we had the 11 champions and 10 wild cards - the remaining teams with the best BWB Power Index - played each other to add 5 more entrants to a 16-team bracket.  Check out the 2008 Bash.

Now, with 17 leagues, we've been able to fill out our Federation lineup adequately.  From this season on, the Benchwarmer Bash will start first with Federation tournaments and the winners there will advance to the final bracket for the Bash.  What's that lineup?  See the listing of all leagues and scroll down...there you'll see how the leagues are divided into federations and associations.  Quick hint: as you move from league to league, you'll see a league ID code in your web addresses (A1, C5, H3, etc.)  The letter code indicates your Federation.

Each Federation Championship is a 5-team tournament.  The league champions automatically advance, plus 2 or 3 wild cards.  Every federation has 2 leagues so far, except the Eckersley Federation (Longball, Golden Throat, and Experts).  In the Eckersley, 2 wild card teams will fight it out for the last spot in a 4-team bracket, while the league champs get an opening bye.  In the remaining leagues, 3 wild cards will make it - with the top wild card getting a bye into the bracket and the other two fighting it out for the last spot.

How do we pick wild cards?  As in the past, we use the BWB Power Index ratings. But where we used to pull from the overall BWB rank, we'll now go by how you rank in the Federation - a ranking I added 2-3 weeks ago to the web page.  You must be in the top 3 (or 2, for Eckersley) rankings for the non-championship teams in your Federation to advance.  There is a pull down option on that page to view the entire Federation, but it's not operational yet - hopefully soon.

As we get closer to the event, we'll have a new page for the 2009 Bash - and will keep a running list of teams who have qualified and those "on the bubble."