Benchwarmer Baseball

Benchwarmer Baseball - A Year Round Proposition

2010-11-20T14:12:00.000-06:00

This is a re-posting of an entry from November 2009...with new dates added.

Sure, you're probably still working on your fantasy football teams - and maybe you've got basketball and hockey going on too...but Benchwarmer Baseball keeps you active throughout the winter.

Quick note - some dates below might be in flux...the ones below represent a push back in some dates. They will not be moved any earlier.

What should you be doing from now until Opening Day?

Trade with other teams - We run 2 fall trading sessions...the deadlines are Dec. 3 and Dec.17. Did you keep a player under contract that you now regret? Do you have too many high-priced players? Do you need a lot of help for your team? Do you want to address a position of weakness NOW? This is the only chance to trade until after the Redistribution Draft in February. Because nobody's paid salaries for 2011 yet, there's no cash assumption/rebate on salaries right now. The team picking up the player will be 100% responsible for the salaries later in December. Also - since there are no cuts right now, you temporarily do not have to worry about roster sizes and limits.

Choose players to keep - You can keep up to 28 players for your 2011 roster. You don't have to keep that many (or any at all!). But, if you have any players on your rosters with contracts for 2011 or beyond, you are obligated to keep them. Once the cuts are processed, you will get charged for the 2011 salaries - so you need to pick your carry overs with these things in mind:

Your roster must be legal. You obviously won't be over 40 total players, but you must fit in the limits for hitters/pitchers making more than 250.
The cash you have now is all you'll get. Whatever you leave yourself is all you'll have for the Redistribution Draft and free agency until Opening Day.
In January-March, if you end up deciding to cut a player you originally carried over into 2011, you do get a salary rebate - but only at 50%.
Carryover choices are due Friday, Dec.31
Use the table of information below your team roster to give you some guidance on whether or not your roster will be legal and how much cash you'll have left with your current set of cuts.

Pick Players in the Redistribution Draft - Once the players cut from rosters go back into the free agent pool, our first operation is to run the Redistribution Draft. This is an optional exercise, but is your chance to pick up free agents (and new prospects added to the player list in December). Teams pick in reverse order of 2010 finish...and get three players at a time. We run the draft for 5 rounds, so that's 15 selections you can make. Obviously, this is a chance for the lower-finishing teams to pick up good players or prospects. Don't miss the chance. Your picks for the Redistribution Draft will be due Sunday, January 16.

Free Agency and Trading - After we process the Redistribution Draft (sometime in late January), we go into weekly free agent pickups and trades again through the end of March. This is where you put the finishing touches on your roster for your championship run in 2011. Current plans should give you 9-10 weeks of transactions between the draft and the start of the season.

Set your Opening Day Lineup - Date TBD

Long Term Proposition

2010-06-09T07:57:00.000-05:00

OK, so you're 1/3 through the 2010 season and your team sucks. Maybe you're in the group of us that after 50 games our team hasn't reached double-digit wins or just made it (I do mean "us"...my team in Beer League was a division winner in 2009 and has a whopping 12-39 record this season...17 GB).

While in a typical league, you might just cash out your time and wait for next season. But - assuming that you plan to come back and give it another shot in 2011 (go "worst to first"!), why put effort into the rest of 2010?

The future.

First - you earn $30,000 per win for your team. You can use that for contract extensions this season - or grabbing extra prospects if your cash is low - or saving for 2011 player salaries.

Second - First Round draft picks. Take advantage of your bad record and high weekly transaction position to grab the top draft pick (or whatever one you want) in the recent MLB draft. We'll probably add those players into the system for the Week 12 transactions. If you were a bad team in 2009 paying attention, you might have just added Stephen Strasburg to your rotation if you grabbed him last summer.

Third - other callups throughout the season. Perhaps your team wasn't celebrating Strasmas, but another highly-touted rookie made his debut on June 8. Since he doesn't exist in the BWB system yet, we'll be adding him for the Week 11 transactions. Pay attention throughout the season and you may grab some gems. And even if you don't have the top weekly pick in your league, it can still be worth a try - maybe the worst teams in your league actually have checked out.

Grabbing these new players may end up paying off right away - or not for another year or two - or never at all. But staying active when you have the advantage of pick position can set you up nicely down the road.

Rounds in weekly transactions

2010-03-31T07:33:00.000-05:00

I guess I never saw this as a confusing issue, but I've received several questions this spring about trying to sign free agents and then being asked to assign them to a "round."

So...think of it this way. Every week when we do transactions, it's like a four-round mini-draft. With the round number, you are ranking your choices. When we process the transactions we run through the picks round by round in that week's transaction order (during the season, the order is set from worst to first in overall record). If you play in a league that processes free agent pickups via a waiver order, it's the same thing - though you may not see it presented the same way. For example, I know that in the CBS leagues in which I play - the commissioner approves picks team by team - in the defined waiver order. But I just have to list them in the order I want - not put "round numbers."

Doing it round by round allows to add some extra things - like an alternate pick if your primary choice is already gone - or a contingent release that only gets processed if you pick up that player.

Still confused? Check out a few weeks of the transaction report for your league(s) and you'll see how the 4 rounds play out. Just click "Transactions" in the navigation bar at the top of any page.

Multiyear Contracts

2010-03-13T13:20:00.000-06:00

If you're new to BWB this season - or want some reminders, you should review the rules and notes about contract extensions before you attempt to use them.

See past postings on contract extensions

This is often a confusing aspect for new players. Take some time to see how it works if you're not sure.

Above all - you must have the full cash balance on hand to pay the entire contract. And you never get that money back if you cut/trade away the player.

Orphan School - Lesson 3: Cash

2010-02-05T06:23:00.001-06:00

A continuing series to allow new owners of Orphan teams to catch up:

Some of you might be launching into transactions right away this week. That's great, but just a few notes about cash and player salaries before you find yourself in a hole. See Rules: Finances for full details. You may think you have a roster full of dead weight, but there are financial implications of transactions you should be aware of before you start cutting guys. Sometimes, you may have to work around roster problems you inherited in creative ways.

Make sure you read the rebate exceptions at the bottom of this post.

How teams get cash:

All teams got 40-plus million distributed to them in December.
All teams get 2 million at Opening Day.
There's an extra million handed out at the end of May, June, and July.
In small amounts, you get cash for every win plus there is cash distribution each week dependent upon your place in the division.
Teams get cash for final division placement and post-season results.

That's pretty much it.

On the other hand, your team has already paid the salaries of every team on your roster. Every time you sign a player from here on out, you will also need to pay that salary right away. But here's a "bonus" of sorts: if you cut a player, you get some sort of salary rebate. (Same thing goes on salaries when you pick up a player in a trade or trade away a player).

Salary assumption and rebates are based on a sliding scale depending on how much is left in the season - take a look at the Weekly Transaction Deadlines for the season. The 3 columns on the right of the deadlines table show you the salary percentage you have to pick up or get back in transactions.

So, in February, as you sign players, you need to pay 100% of their listed salary. BUT, you'll only get 50% of a salary back if you cut a player. Take a look at Week Zero - April 5....at that point the salary rebate goes to 80% (why the difference? When we started the game, salary rebate in the off season was zero...a rule change put it up to 50%). So, you never get 100% of a salary back when you cut a guy - 80% is the maximum. There are 25 weeks in the regular season, so essentially we cut off 4% from the value each week. When we get to Week 15, the 40% mark, there are 2 important changes: a) all signings the rest of the season are at 40% of salary and b) no more salary rebates.

Trades are a slightly different story - right now if you trade a player away you get 100% of the player's salary in rebate. And later in the season, when we hit Week 15, the salary rebate/assumption for trades continues to decrease each week by 4%.

So, at the moment, there is more financial benefit to you to trade a player away than cut one. This is also a way that you can fill out your roster if you're short on cash - trade away one expensive player for a couple of cheaper ones (etc.). More on that another time.

Two important exceptions on salary rebates:

For players with salary 200 or below, you NEVER get a rebate when you cut them.
Contracts...do you have a "2010" or "2011" in the Contract column for a player in your roster? This is important....this player was signed to a "long-term contract" in 2009 or earlier. At that time, a cash amount was paid for the entire length of the contract. Until that time runs out (so 2010 = the 2010 season), no more cash needs to be paid for him. BUT - you never get a salary rebate for cutting or trading away a player on a multi-year contract. Be aware of that before you start getting rid of these guys thinking you'll get extra cash. Contracts are a much deeper subject - you should read the rules about them.

Again, if you're short on cash, you can use contracts to your benefit in trades. Pick up a player from another team who has a contract for 2010 and trade away a guy who doesn't have a contract. You get a salary rebate for trading away your guy and not have to pay anything for the guy you're getting.

One final note - if you're on the other end of the cash balance scale, there is a "use it or lose it" aspect of cash to retain a competitive balance. You can only carry a balance of 5 million (listed as 5000 on your roster page) into the season. Anything above that will be cut off in early April.

Orphan School - Lesson 2: The Roster

2010-02-03T07:05:00.000-06:00

In a continuing series to help Orphan Team owners get up to speed...

See the BWB Rules about Rosters to cover this topic. (a new tab/window will open)

There are 26 mandatory positions on your roster:

9 starting batters - covering all 8 fielder positions plus DH (any OF will do)
5 backup batters - fill in at a given position in a game if needed. We'll talk bench on another day, but you want to cover all positions here, so multi-position guys are valuable.
5 starting pitchers - your starting rotation ordered 1-5
5 bullpen pitchers - the scoring formula outlines how many of these are needed in any game if your starting pitcher doesn't go 9 innings.
2 spot pitchers - If your scheduled starter doesn't have stats for a game, a spot starter will fill in from here. You can also put a relief pitcher in here too who will fill in if any of your 5 bullpen guys don't have stats.

Those 26 slots can be filled by any player in the system, no matter their salary.
You also have 2 roster slots for the "Taxi Squad" and any player with any salary can go in these slots. This is, in effect, our "disabled list" but you can put any player there - he doesn't have to be hurt. However, his stats will never be used for a game (except for the last 3 weeks of the season, that's an exception for another time).

So you have 28 roster spots that can be filled by a player of any salary - 100-10000 (or whatever the top salary might be).

Side note: Injured Reserve is not your normal disabled list. If you put a player on IR, you cannot remove him from there all year except if you cut or trade him. You'd use that for some guy who wrecked his knee in April but you want him next year. The IR spot does NOT count against your roster spots (so it basically gives you a 41st player if you use it).

Your final 12 roster spots are "minor league" slots. And in BWB, our definition of minor league eligible is a player who has a salary of 250 or below. So Matt Stairs just signed a minor league contract in real life and if he starts off there instead of the majors (and for some reason you have him), you still can't put him in your minor league slots - his salary is 408. Think of these guys as "out of options" - you have to DFA them, you can't send them down...and in BWB that means if you want to get them out of an active spot you need to put them on IR (never to be used again this season), put them on Taxi Squad, or cut/trade them.

To help you out, there are some guides on your roster page. Right above your player list, you'll see any warnings about your lineup and roster:

And below your roster list, there is a table that lets you know how you're set up on roster minimums and maximums - let's check it for a different team:

The left side of this table shows the minimums. This team has the minimum number of hitters - 14 - so if he cuts one, he'd need to pick up another to remain legal. On the right side, we see roster maximums in relation to the number of hitters with salary over 250 you can have. Your maximums are 16 hitters with salary 250 or higher and 14 pitchers at 250 or higher. But then why doesn't the total add up to 30? That's because in order to reach the maximum, you need to use the taxi squad slots, which are pitcher or hitter. Your mandatory spots in the roster are 14 hitters, 12 pitchers (26 total). Using the 2 taxi squad spots gets you 2 extra positions for players (now the total is 28) and all other roster spots - 12 total - are "minor league" slots.

The team above can now only sign players who make salary 250 or below.

And - think about it - this roster is full on the major league side. If this team signs a player with salary 100 now, but wants to use him in the starting lineup, there is no room - the 28 possible slots for players with salary 251 or higher are full - so in order to play the rookie, one of the higher-priced guys need to be dropped.

Orphan School - Lesson 1A: The BWB Primer

2010-01-31T23:26:00.000-06:00

Last spring, I posted a series of articles called the BWB Primer

You can check that out for expanded commentary beyond the rules. Taking over an orphan team, some of the topics may not yet make sense, but take a look and it might be of some help.

Orphan School - Lesson One: The Game Itself

2010-01-31T23:01:00.002-06:00

There are several brand new Benchwarmer owners taking over Orphan teams this season and you're putting yourself into a game where probably 13-15 of the 16 teams in your league are back for their 2nd BWB season...or maybe their 10th. So as we proceed to Opening Day, you've got to make some decisions and moves (or refrain from moves) against experienced foes.

So let's quickly start off with what you're trying to do - win games.
And let's look at a sample of that....go to http://www.benchwarmerbaseball.net/season/schedule.asp?lg=A1

This is the final week schedule of the 2009 season in the Hall of Fame League - our charter league in BWB (started back in 2000). Each week in BWB, you play 6 games. Each game is scored individually.

In the upper left corner of the schedule - right under the heading Game 145, you'll see that Michigan beat New Fairfield 3-2. Click the "Box" link just to the right of that and you'll find the game box score.

Let's not deal with the specifics of the scoring formula here, but just deal with what you see in the box score. Each week, you'll set a starting lineup of 9 hitters - and you put them in order 1-9 - and they must fill all the 8 standard fielding spots plus DH (we don't care about specific OF positions).

If you look at the very bottom of the box score page, you'll see that the performances for Major League game #150 were used for this game (yeah, it's Game 145 in BWB....that's another story...but the important thing here is that it's a single MLB game mapped to a single BWB game). Whatever your players did in that game goes into our scoring formula.

Notice in Michigan's lineup that after Carlos Ruiz there's a "(B5)" listed? In that game, Michigan's starting catcher did not appear in the corresponding MLB game. So, we grabbed a catcher from the bench. Each team has a 5-person bench, so you want to try to cover all the positions. What about the 3rd slot in Michigan's order - it says "Benchwarmer First Baseman"? Well, Michigan's starting 1B did not play that day and he didn't have an eligible guy on the bench for 1B who played either. So the Benchwarmer filled in - went 0-5, and even worse, had 2 errors.

As you look at the very bottom of the box score, you'll see the "Raw Scores for the game and this shows how the game score came about. Games in Benchwarmer are a combination of your hitting score and your opponent's pitching score. The team with the highest Total Raw Score wins the game - we just round them to integers to make them appear as runs.

At the moment, don't get too wound up in the scoring formula itself. What you're doing in Benchwarmer Baseball is essentially - build the best "baseball" team you can with the amount of money you have to spend and put them into a solid batting order and pitching rotation. And make sure you have bench players who can fill holes when they're needed (so if you can fill your bench with real-life starters, that's best).

As we continue this week and beyond, I'll make some suggestions on how to proceed with your roster as we enter free agency - whether you've got a lot of cash to spend or not. I would say generally don't make a lot of rash decisions this first week. 15 other guys in your league may be waiting to take advantage of you.

Early Payment Discount - Deadline is tonight!

2009-11-30T11:12:00.002-06:00

November 30th - midnight Pacific (12/1 at 3 AM EST) is the deadline for the early payment discount of $5.

For full-priced teams, this is almost 10% off (OK, it's 9%).

Payment isn't due until Opening Day...this is just a chance to take care of it now and get it out of the way. See your current status at http://www.benchwarmerbaseball.net/useradmin/payment_summary.asp

No discount for packages or Orphan teams.

Some Off-season Dates Pushed Back

2009-11-30T11:06:00.000-06:00

BWB is year-round, but could use a little bit more space (for both you and me) in between some of the dates originally set. I have some website retooling to work on over the winter, and I want a little bit of extra time to find new experts to take over some orphans in the Experts League.

New Dates (all deadlines at midnight Pacific time):

Roster Carryover Choices - Saturday, Dec. 26th (was Dec. 11). This is probably the only non-Friday date for returning leagues until April.
Redistribution Draft Picks - Friday, Jan. 15 (was Dec. 31). Current plan is to post results by Jan 23-24.
Free Agency Opens - Friday, Jan. 29.

Returning Next Season?

2009-09-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

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

2009-09-19T14:09:00.001-05:00

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!

Benchwarmer Bash 2009 - New Format

2009-09-05T09:36:00.001-05:00

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."

2010 Twins Tickets - Season ticket availability in Target Field

2009-08-30T06:40:00.000-05:00

If you're in the Minnesota area and plan to see 5 or more games in 2010, why not join my season ticket group and take advantage of the opportunities that provides. We're expanding from 4 seats per game to 12, so I've got a lot of holes to fill (and I'm hoping I didn't overextend!) Seat information is below - full payment this year is due by December. Ideally, to cut down on the number of people I need to correspond with, I'm hoping to find people to commit to 20 or more tickets. But every bit helps, so 10 or more is doable too!

You can pick either 2 or 4 tickets to any game and you can mix up your requests between the different seating options.

See a separate blog for ongoing information - below is the original post:

Three different seat locations in 2010 - See the links below for seating charts and 3-D representations of what the view will be like from the seats.

Prices listed are season-ticket package prices, which in the Dome were $5-10 below face value.

Master seating chart

Legends Club
All tickets include access to the club amenities for that game.
Price: $55 each
Section G, Row 5, Seats 14-17
On the aisle closest to home plate
3-D View

Limited or no availability for new members to the group (joining in August 2009 and later). While we pick games on a random basis, the priority for number of seats available goes by seniority in the group. But get in now and there is future opportunity.

Diamond Box Seats
$38 each
Section 121, Row 3, Seats 1-4
On the aisle closest to home plate - on the 3rd base line.
Direct view of the downtown skyline - in the sun for all afternoon games.
3-D View
Just across the aisle, tickets in "Home Plate Box" cost $50
The section in front of us is Section 15 - "Dugout Box" seats that cost $69 each
Section 15 has 15 rows...then there's a dividing wall, then we're in Row 3 of the next section. So consider this maybe about 20 rows from the field.

Field Box Seats
$29 each
Section 103, Row 7, Seats 21-24
On the aisle closest to home plate
Right field line - faces the video scoreboard. In the sun for early afternoon during mid-summer.
3-D View

Just across the aisle, tickets in "Diamond Box" cost $38
Here we're 7 rows from the field down the right field line. The seats are turned toward the infield.

Football Pool opportunities

2009-08-29T14:21:00.003-05:00

I run 2 football pools that are open to everyone (there are several BWB players in or have been in the past).

NFL Pool - $40 entry. Pick winners each week (no spread) and rank games 1-16. You get the number of points you put on the game if you're right. Highest total wins the week. Last year we paid 5 weekly places and the top 6 for the season. The top winner last year won $216.

NCAA Pool - $26 entry. Same idea, though you don't have to rank all the games. This year to reduce ties, we're making one game worth 3 points and three games worth 2 points (you choose which ones to put more weight on). CBS picks 15 games each week...season runs for 13 weeks.

To get in:
NFL Pool - Link and password:
http://bwfbp.football.cbssports.com/e
Our Pool password is: bwb2009

NCAA Pool - Link and password:
http://bwcfb.football.cbssports.com/e
Our Pool password is: bwcfb2009

Hurry! First games for the NCAA pool are ~~Thursday Sept. 3rd~~
Correction: CBS moved back the start one week: NCAA picks start Thursday, Sept. 10

Contract Extensions - Last Minute Thoughts

2009-07-27T21:12:00.003-05:00

I'd hoped to post a discussion of good and bad contracts that might have been signed last season to give some guidance but I both ran out of time and took a look at the list of salary increases/decreases and just froze on coming up with a ton of examples.

But - these players were the best to sign for a 2009 contract in 2008.

Tim Lincecum: 2008 Salary (and 2009 contract price): 1315; 2009: 6491; Savings: 5176
Cliff Lee: 2008: 1568; 2009: 5670; Savings: 4102
Josh Hamilton: 2008: 691; 2009: 4696; Savings: 4005
Rich Harden: 2008: 493; 2009: 4293; Savings: 3800

Now - it's doubtful that up until now Harden is living up to that high salary in the 2009 season, but it's a lot more tolerable if you bought his contract in 2008 for just 493.

Lincecum, by the way, is a great example of the possibilities of a 2-year contract.
2007 Salary: 100
2008 Salary: 1315
2009 Salary: 6491

In 2007, you would have paid 1500 for a contract covering 2008-09 (using the yearly minimums of 250 in year 1 and 1250 in year 2). If you had simply kept him on your roster without the extensions, you would have paid a total salary of 7806 for those 2 seasons. Using the 2-year contract, you just freed up 6306 over 2 seasons to spend on other players.

Beware, though...because there are always guys like Francisco Liriano. I spent 1500 in his rookie season for 2 years BEFORE he got injured (injury occurred at end of July 2006). 2006 Salary - 148 2007 Salary - 1883 2008 Salary - 694.

OK, so I paid 250 for the 2007 season and it looks like I saved a lot of money. But he sat out the whole season recovering from Tommy John surgery. And the 1250 I spent on the second year of the contract went toward the actual salary of 694.

Couple other points: Again - don't sign Stephen Strasburg or Dustin Ackley yet - or anyone else until they hit their first season of major playing time. And I'd also suggest that don't simply look for cost savings in a salary that will increase. Make sure that you think you really want that player on your roster next year, because you've got to keep him in the carry over period.

Good luck

Trades - Why are you giving the other team cash?

2009-07-08T12:11:00.002-05:00

There's one thing that has always puzzled me when reviewing/approving trades over the last few years. Well, maybe more than one thing - but in this case I'm talking about teams giving up cash when it appears that they are giving up the established star in return for future help.

First, let me say, that I just don't tend to be a trader very often. Partly this is due to spending more time trying to run BWB than playing it and it seems like I have limited time to suggest trades or analyze requests sent to me. But, if I'm in a trade where I'm giving up a player who has a much higher salary than the player(s) I'm getting in return, I'm most often seeing part of that benefit being the salary rebate I'm getting for my original player - particularly if I'm getting prospects or backups in return. I'm less inclined to want to send back some cash to that other team.

Cash may be an essential part of the negotiation - and "buying" a player certainly is an option. But I'm referring more to a team that seems to be giving up the more established - key contributer type players - and then sends cash along with it.

An example. Let's say that I'm running the team "Minneapolis" and I'm in 4th place - 20 games out - and looking now to build for 2010 and beyond. Brad runs the team "Portland" and is just 1 game out in his division and fighting hard to win the title, but he has a big hole at 1B.

Current Cash Balances:
Minneapolis - 4500
Portland - 3000

My strategy for building for the future is to get prospects on my roster and cash ready to spend in the off season or to spend multiyear contracts by the end of July.

Brad sees Adrian Gonzalez on my roster (salary 5310) and covets his power for his cleanup slot and offers me Gordon Beckham, Travis Snider, and Dustin Ackley - 3 first-rounders from the past few years - each with salary of 100. Beckham's playing now. Snider could be back up later and maybe starting again in 2010. Ackley's a potential future stud.

Assume we're doing this in Week 14 and the cost/rebate is 44% which becomes 2336 for Gonzalez and 44 for the three prospects.

(I'm not saying this is a perfect trade...I'm just trying to find an example - maybe I'd actually want to be getting someone a little more established so I'd be getting more immediate help in 2010...but let's just go with it.)

So, we do the deal. No cash involved - and when it's all done, the cash balances are now:
Minneapolis - 6704
Portland - 796

This is good for me. I've taken a risk on future guys - given up an established power hitter - and I have extra cash for rebuilding to boot. But what I often end up seeing in these deals is a cash aspect too that Brad has attached to the trade details - let's say in this case 1500 from Minneapolis to Portland.

In this case, the cash balances after the trade are:
Minneapolis - 5204
Portland - 2296

In fact - often the cash transfer is worked out so that both teams have the same cash balance after the trade as they did before starting.

Why is that in my benefit? If I've got David Price on my pitching staff and I want to sign him to a contract for 2010 and 2011, 1500 is what that will cost. Or that 1500 will come in handy in December when I'm picking up players in the Redistribution Draft.

I also look at this as a continual competition. By sending Gonzalez to Portland this season, I may be giving him the missing link to a league title this season. By sending him 1500 in cash, I'm potentially setting him up to better defend that title and might be in direct competition with Brad for the same free agents over the winter.

I'm giving up Gonzalez and maybe won't see the full benefit of the three players for 2-3 years - if at all. I'm not necessarily concerned that Portland still has as much cash after the deal as he does before - that's his part of the risk.

There are many other side situations that come into play - and I am not looking at the back and forth that's going into trades before they are consummated, so I don't know where the negotiations are progressing. But I personally think many teams in the situation of Minneapolis are giving back too much. Maybe the Portlands of the world are just better negotiators, but I think that's because the precedent is set up around the leagues to do it.

It's a bit different when a multiyear contract is in play - there may be some cash to reimburse a team who has spent cash on the contract (though I usually see that contract as a bargaining chip). What if Portland's original cash was 2000, not 3000? Then he wouldn't have enough cash to cover this deal. OK, maybe now as Minneapolis I help him out with some cash back to help him pay for Gonzalez for the rest of 2009. OR - maybe it's just up to Portland to cut some dead weight on his roster or make a tough roster choice and cut/trade another productive player to get some cash back - that's usually the way I look at it.

And - I've been in the situation here of being the Minneapolis side of the deal and ME offering the deal and the cash - almost to make the deal too hard to turn down. Like I said, there are many situations in play...but put me on the side generally of wanting to reap the full benefits of the salary rebate if I'm giving up the more established players or I'm the team in rebuilding mode.

Multiyear Contracts - A rundown of help options.

2009-07-07T23:07:00.005-05:00

I hope in the next few days to put up some examples of good/bad contract signings and some general thoughts. But as a quick service, there are some scattered pages on the site and on this blog that discuss multiyear contracts, particularly updated this year to try to correct some misconceptions.

It never fails, despite the comments and warnings, I will still have someone try to sign 20+ players on his roster to multiyear contracts, or try to extend Albert Pujols for 5 years. But hopefully, if you're not sure what's really going on with contracts and you take a look at some of these pages, you can get a feel for what to do and what not to do.

The BWB Rules page regarding multiyear contracts
BWB Primer - Chapter 8 - on Multiyear Contracts
A blog entry from February 2009 discussing contracts
There are several points to consider on the Contract Extensions page as reached from the Transactions page on the web site.

There are also some basic notes on the contract extension form as found on the web site.

If you're still not completely sure how everything works, after you submit your extensions:

Go back to the contract extension form and look in the last column (Contract Total). That will display how much cash you're going to have to spend on that player's contract if you keep it as is.
On your team's Transaction Index, below your Adds/Drops for the week, if you've submitted extensions, it will indicate the total cash needed for those extensions.
If after looking at these two pages, you realize that you don't have enough cash to cover the contracts (you pay the total IMMEDIATELY) or your badly calculated what it would cost you, you can go back to the form and modify or delete the contract.

BWB Primer #8 - Multiyear Contracts

2009-06-29T11:44:00.005-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

Now that the time has come to think seriously about contract extensions, a little further explanation on how this works.

The idea is quite simple - lock in a player for another year (or more) based on his salary this season.

There are three primary advantages to this:

You can sign successful rookies or other young players for significantly less money than they might make next season. Often, you can lock them in for several years at a reduced rate.
Established players coming off a bad season or two (and thus a reduced salary) may also see a significant rise in salary if they play at their normal level again this season. Now's your chance to grab him again for a low price.
You use this year's money to pay future salaries, theoretically giving you more money to work with next year. In reality, you're not going to have any money taken away from you in the off-season (unless you're over the limit in April)...and all teams get the same amount of cash in November. So if you don't spend a million bucks now, you'll still have it in December when you want to re-sign the same player for next year (however, you'll be spending that cash on the new 2010 salary, not the 2009 level). But by spending a lot less cash on a rising player now, you'll be able to better afford higher-priced players over the winter.

The basic formula is that you can re-sign any player for next year for the exact same salary he makes this year. The only caveat to that is the minimum contract is for 250, so those rookies you've got making 100 this year will cost you 250 to sign for next year.

For additional seasons, figure a 33% rise in salary each year after the first. The minimums go up significantly in successive years. For example, the minimum salary for the second year of a contract is 1250.

You must complete the contracts by the last transaction date in July. You must have the available cash at that time to sign the player.

If you trade a player, the contract goes with him. You don't get any rebate for any future years. However, you can use this as a bargaining chip in your trade negotiations (a cheap player signed for multiple years suddenly has more value).

----

And now the risks -

Contracts are fully guaranteed. If you cut a player next season, you don't get any of that money back. If you cut him later this year, you don't get any future money back, but will get a rebate for this season's salary, if applicable (assuming that you paid his salary for the current season). Once a player is back in the free agent pool, the contract is gone.
Another aspect of "fully guaranteed" is that during the off season period, you cannot expose your player in the Redistribution Draft - he must be one of the 28 players that you retain in December. Once the draft is complete, you can cut him if you want.
You must pay the full amount of the contract immediately. Unlike real life, the money is not paid out over time. You must have the cash on hand for the full contract and it is subtracted from your balance right away. The risk here is that you could leave yourself short for late-season transactions or - if you have chosen contracts unwisely - you may limit your possible moves over the winter.
Be careful of signing too early. If you sign a player in early June and he goes out for the rest of the season a few days after that, you may have ended up paying too much for him for the next season (a lot of a player's salary is based on at bats or innings pitched). You have until the end of July to extend contracts - it may be wise to wait until then.
Your risk increases with the length of the contract. On multiyear deals, there's always the chance that you make out in the first year, but if that season is bad (or if he is out of baseball), you may have ended up overpaying for the later years.
Extending minor league prospects gets you nothing. If they don't play in the majors this year, or only in September callups, or only with limited success, you're going to spend 250 on a player that will be making only 100 or slightly more next year - plus you are obligated to keep them during the Redistribution Draft.

Let me say this again - clearly - once you pay the money for future seasons in a contract you will never - ever - get that money back.

However, the multiyear contract can be an effective tool for building your team in the future. You can use them to turn around a dismal franchise or turn your team into a perennial title contender.

BWB Primer #7 - Off-season Money

2009-06-29T11:25:00.003-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

Hopefully, none of you has lost enough hope that you're simply planning out for next year, but as we near the halfway mark of the season I just want to quickly explain how cash works from one season to the next.

2010 Salaries and Salary Cap
Salaries are determined by player performance. 2/3 of the 2010 salary will be based on performances in 2009 and 1/3 of the salary is the player's 2009 salary. In addition, players ranking in the top of certain hitting/pitching categories and for post-season awards will have a bonus attached to the 2010 salary - making premium players worth a premium price.

The salary calculations are shown in the rule book.

Once the salaries are complete (usually mid-November), the salry cap is calculated. Again, see the rules for the actual formulas, but the idea is to allocate so much money for the top salaries, an additional amount for mid-tier players, and an additional amount for minor leaguers. As overall salary levels themselves rise and fall, the salary cap will also change.

Cash Distribution
There's not really a hard cap on team salary - instead the "cap" is used to determine how much cash each team gets in the off season. The cash distribution for every team in a league will be the amount needed to get the team with the lowest balance up to the cap level.

For example, if Team X has the lowest cash balance in the league at 100,000 at the end of the season and the salary cap is 48 million, each team in that league will get 47.9 million. Any bonuses for playoff performance or player of the year awards will come after that.

Off-season signings
You get to keep up to 28 players from your roster. You must pay for those players immediately when you select them in December. You'll get only a 50% rebate if you cut them later in the off-season. Your remaining cash is all you'll have to sign players in the Redistribution Draft or in free agency until the season begins. Note - you do NOT have to sign a player to a contract during the season in order to keep him next season (more on that in Primer #8 regarding multiyear contracts)

Maximum cash
Just before the 2010 season will begin, any team with more than 5 million in the bank will have their cash balances reduced to 5 million. So you need to spend wisely in the off-season, but you can't hoard your cash either.

Multiyear Contracts
One way to save cash for the next year is to sign players for 2010 at their 2009 salary. This is the subject of the next chapter to come soon.

BWB Primer #6 - The Bullpen

2009-06-04T23:47:00.002-05:00

Oops - should have posted this one in April right after the starting pitching queue...sorry.

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

This is perhaps the most confusing thing of the entire game-scoring formula. This goes back to the idea that bullpen appearances are so unpredictable. So the basic idea is that rather than try to match up bullpen stats on a game-by-game basis, we let the relievers accumulate stats over a 6-game span. In trying to put the bullpen stats into the BWB game, then, we use averages to fill in the score.

The bullpen score, then, is a 3-step process.

1. How many innings will the bullpen be needed?
If your starter goes 9 innings, you don't need the bullpen. If your starter goes 3 innings, you need 6 bullpen innings. If your starter goes 7 2/3 innings, you need 1 1/3 innings from the bullpen. You get the idea.

2. How many relievers' stats will be used?
This is based on how many bullpen innings are needed:
0.3 to 1.0 - 1 guy
1.3 to 2.0 - 2 guys
2.3 to 3.0 - 3
3.3 to 4.0 - 4
4.3+ - all 5 relievers

We always start with the top of your bullpen and then take the next guy in order, as needed. If, by chance, one of the pitchers has no appearances in that 6-game span, then the ones below him move up a spot. But, in doing that, it's possible that you could run out of pitchers. For example, reliever #2 is on the DL, so 3,4 & 5 automatically move up. Now, let's say you have a game where you need 5 relievers. In the past, we'd just ignore it. But starting in 2004, you now get a special Pinesitter Pitcher who will give you the stats of 5 IP, 10 H, 10 BB, 0 K, 10 ER. This adds a little higher penalty for keeping injured/minor-league pitchers on your team by storing them in your bullpen. (Later on, after a couple of seasons with incredibly high bullpen ERAs, the Pinesitter stats were adjusted...the first one isn't good, but each one gets worse...see the rules for details).

*** A 2005 Rule change allows the spot pitchers to fill in the bullpen, if your normal 5 guys don't all have stats, as long as the spot pitcher has relief stats.

3. Add up all the stats for the number of relievers you need. Come up with a per-inning average for hits, strikeouts, and earned runs, then multiply by the number of innings your bullpen needs to pitch (see step #1). Plug those numbers, along with saves, into the pitching half of the scoring formula.

An added twist here is to make sure that not only do you have active pitchers in your bullpen, but that they reach a certain level of participation - based on achieving a minimum number of innings pitched in that 6-game span. If you don't have enough innings, your per-inning average for hits and earned runs will go up. See the rules for more details on how many innings you need to reach and what the penalty is for each inning you fall short.

**** Although the minimum innings penalties appear to be large, they are actually increases in RAW NUMBERS, and are subsequently turned into the per-inning values. It won't always make a difference in the outcome, but it could decide the game if it is close enough.

The key with this is to have 5 healthy, active pitchers in your bullpen and don't fill your bullpen with closers - you need some guys who eat up a lot of innings.

I'm just sayin'

2009-05-28T23:34:00.003-05:00

Not bragging or anything, but...

My Las Vegas Lounge Lizards...the only franchise to never win a division title in the Hall of Fame League in 9 seasons of BWB play....

...just tied the BWB Record of 19 consecutive wins.

And that still only gets me a tie for first.

OK...maybe bragging a bit. But it's a long season and Boar's Nest has a lot wins ahead of them.

Roster Woes

2009-05-28T15:18:00.003-05:00

I almost hate to look at the transactions every day...which guy is now going on the DL? What recent callup who I just signed to fill a hole was today just sent back down?

BWB is - among other things - a game of scarcity. And the decisions you make to deal with scarce resources will often decide the fate of your season.

Scarce Resource #1: Available players
You're in a league with 15 other teams. If you need to reach into the free agent pool to fix your roster, you might find the pickings slim in various positions (try to pick up a new backup catcher or a 2nd closer...I dare you).

Scarce Resource #2: Cash
It's not a matter of just going out and finding whatever player you want...you need to have the cash to pay for it. You can help yourself out by continuing to win games (you earn money for each win) - but you may need to make decisions to cut/trade a high-priced player in return for multiple players to fill your roster spots.

Scarce Resource #3: Roster space
You have only 5 bench spots and 2 spot pitcher slots that lets you have subs when your regulars are hurt or not playing for some other reason...not much needs to be said there. On top of that, you need to be aware that you have limits on the number of players you can sign who make over 250. You have a 40-man roster...but only players who make 250 or less can take one of your minor league spots. This gets even tougher if you're using a cheap player in a key role. You may find that you have to put him back in the minors because no one else can be sent down.

And the 40-man roster is definitely a limit too. You may have your top prospects all lined up for future seasons, but if you need to sign a player to cover an injured starter, it may mean cutting a rising star.

I'm always hesitant to fill a roster spot with a DH-only player. That's one fewer fielding substitute you've got and can mean problems in some games. Ideally, I like to find a good hitter who can play multiple positions as my DH. Multi-position eligibilty on the bench is valuable too.

Scarce Resource #4: Room for injured players
You've got one IR spot that lets you stash a player for next season (you can't make him active again) and only 2 taxi squad spots to store players you don't want on your active roster (either they're injured or make too much money to go to the minors). So, it starts getting a bit dangerous if you're storing injured players on your bench or in the spot starter slots. You may be fine...until someone else gets hurt.

Once in awhile, I'm asked about increasing the number of taxi squad spots - or removing the 250-salary limit for minor leaguers. But, dealing with these scarcities is part of the game. It forces you to make roster decisions - maybe finally cutting a player who won't be back until August (or next season) - and helps keep the game competitive.

Distant Early Warning

2009-04-28T10:32:00.004-05:00

OK, after writing that headline, I've had my 80s Flashback (back when the "M" in MTV meant something) for the morning ...but I'm actually referring to some early roster warnings.

Danger Ahead!!! You may be on the way to a 50-100 finish in BWB. But it's not too late!

Here's a repeat of an email I sent out this morning to everyone --

I'm usually very hands off on team management, but after 2 weeks of play it's probably not a bad idea to check in and maybe raise a flag of warning. I assume that you're all looking at your game results and stats and rosters and attempting to shore up holes, but maybe you're not aware of any problems (or not paying attention).

The history of the game shows that you can overcome a bad start, but if you're inactive now and have roster problems, the history also indicates that you're going to check out for the rest of the season. It's your money, so that's fine (or your "expert reputation" if you're in the Expert League), but I also like to keep the leagues competitive and a team that goes 40-110 due to owner neglect doesn't help that.

So, just as a reminder - in case you're not paying attention (and count me as one of the guilty), here are some teams with some holes in the first two weeks. You may have already taken steps to fix, but in case you haven't looked at your roster in a while, you might want to check in before Friday's transaction deadline. Remember it takes a week between the time you sign a player before you can play him.

Or - maybe you play in a league with one of these teams and it's a friend of yours...maybe a gentle nudge from you can get him back in the game.

Not surprsingly, some teams appear on the lists below more than once. And, it's not the ONLY reason, but the fact that all the other teams in the Giamatti Division of the Commissioners League all appear twice may have helped South Park start off 11-1.

** Also - another strategy is to sign major league players making less than 250. You can store them in your minor league roster and they are immediately available to fill injury or other holes.

Links of note:

========== Hitting

Benchwarmer Batters - This is almost unavoidable over the course of the season (your starter and reserve will sit out the same game eventually). But if after 12 games you have more than, say, a half dozen BW Batters in your stats already, you might have some problems.

32 of the 272 teams fit that category - here are 14 teams with 10 or more BW Batters:

Reality Bites: Minneapolis (19)...that's me! I'm number one. Wow, I knew I had trouble at catcher, but now I see I've got issues at shortstop too.

Blue and Gray: Southern California (12)
Chevy Chase: Faber College (11) Gashouse (15)
Commissioners: Bellerose (14) Turley (11)
Deuces Wild: Bellerose (10)
Experts: NY/NJ Fantasy Phenoms (18) Lancaster (13)
Golden Throat: Boomer (11)
Longball: Sri Lanka (11)
Shadowball: BALCO LABS (12)
Three of a Kind: Johan Santana (15)
Triple Crown: Pittsburgh (12)

========= Starting Pitching

Pinesitter Pitchers - If you have ANY Pinesitter starting pitchers that means that you've got guys in rotation who aren't pitching AND spot starters who aren't pitching.

24 Teams have at least 1 PS Starter. Here are the 14 teams with 2 or more already.

Beer: Jamaican (2)
Commissioners: Turley (4) Bellerose (2) Shadow Ridge (2)
Deuces Wild: Grand Canyon (2)
Experts: Lancaster (2)
Golden Throat: Fulton Co. (4) Boston (2)
Longball: Southern California (2)
Redbirds: Baltimore (2)
Three of a Kind: Johan Santana (6!!!) Maryland (3)
Triple Crown: Uranus (4) New Brighton (2)

========= Relief Pitching

Pinesitter Pitchers - I know from my own experience that there has been a lot of injured relievers and guys going back and forth to the minors, so this have been tough to avoid. 86 of the 272 teams already have 1 or more PS relievers.

Here are 19 teams with already 6 or more...this means you might have major problems in your bullpen.

Beatleball: Roseville (10) Carlisle (9)
Bleed Dodger Blue: Team Japan (7)
Blue and Gray: Atlantis (7)
Chevy Chase: Gashouse (10)
Commissioners: Turley (23!!!) Shadow Ridge (14) Cleveland (10)
Experts: NY/NJ Fantasy Phenoms (11) Fantasy Bullpen (9)
Golden Throat: Fulton Co. (15) Austin (7)
Hall of Fame: Chincoteague Island (6)
Redbirds: UK (16)
Shadowball: Atlanta (9)
Three of a Kind: Johan Santana (19) Everett (6)
Triple Crown: Baldwin (18) Mars (11)

========= Relief Pitching

High "Innings Short" Average - Part of the bullpen scoring is based on total innings your bullpen puts in. These 9 teams have "average short" values higher than 3 innings per game. You may need to look at rearranging your order or find an innings-eater (or guys that pitch more often).

Beatleball - Brooklyn
Beer - Labatt's
Bleed Dodger Blue - Minneapolis
Chevy Chase - Quahog Faber College
Deuces Wild - St. Paul
Longball - Southern California
Three of a Kind - Vegas Strip
Triple Crown - New Brighton

BWB Primer #5 - The Starting Pitching Queue

2009-04-11T10:27:00.006-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

Your starting pitching rotation consists of your "normal rotation" - P1 through P5, and your "spot starters" (S1 & S2). In recent years, we've also allowed backup relief appearances to come from the spot starter postion, but for our discussion here, we'll consider them as starters.

One of the main ways in how your normal pitching rotation differs from your two spot starters is the size of the start queue.

The 3-start Queue

Your rotation has the ability to queue up 3 starts, beginning as soon as you put them into the rotation. It's a "first-in, first-out" queue, so when the pitcher's next start occurs in Benchwarmer Baseball, we pull out the earliest start remaining in his queue to use in the game. This allows us to have starts available whenever it's his turn to pitch in BWB.

For example, let's say your 4th pitcher is in real-life an Opening Day starter - and that MLB team will be starting off with a 4-man rotation for a couple weeks...

So he'll pitch in MLB games #1, #5, and #9. His first start in BWB will occur in BWB Game #4 - which for hitters and the cut-off for pitching stats is MLB Game #9 (See mapping MLB games to BWB games). Thus, at the time he makes his first start he now has 3 starts in his queue - and for our purposes, we use his performance from MLB Game #1.
Now, the other advantage of the 3-start queue is that it may allow you some regularity in your rotation even if your guy misses a real start or two. Continuing our example, let's say your guy strains his shoulder in MLB Game #9, so he's going to miss a start (say in MLB Game 13 or 14). But as his turn comes around again in BWB (BWB Game #9), we still have 2 starts sitting in his queue, so he doesn't miss a start in your rotation.

In practice, this extra padding usually only exists for starters that you have in the rotation at the beginning of the season - or only after a significant time passes for guys you stick in there mid-season.

Spot Starters

Spot starters fill in only if the scheduled pitcher in the rotation cannot pitch (either due to no available queued starts or has not had 4 games of rest). We see if the 1st spot starter can fill in and if not, check the 2nd. If neither spot starter can go, we see if one of your other pitchers can move up. 4/14: This paragraph is a correction of the way I originally wrote it.

A spot starter only has a 1-start queue. As soon as he has another real-life start, it replaces the unused start sitting in the queue. But that start will remain until used or replaced. Teams in the past have had a spot starter at the beginning of the year stow away a starting performance and then doesn't start again (maybe he's hurt, or moved to the bullpen, or demoted). But that start stays there and at some point - maybe even in September - if that pitcher is needed, his major league start in April counts for your game in September.

Removing pitchers from the rotation or moving them - how does it affect the queue?

If you move someone to a different spot in the rotation, there's no effect on his queued-up starts - they move with him. But, if you take someone out of the rotation, his queue is cleared and he'd have to start over if you put him back in the rotation. Thus, there can be some risk for plugging guys in and out of the rotation. You might get away with dumping a horrendous outing, but it's just as likely you'll miss a good performance when trying to put him back in, plus you lose the possible cushion of 1-2 extra starts.

If you move pitchers between the spot roles and the main rotation or vice versa, you don't lose any queued starts, with the exception that a pitcher moving from the main rotation to a spot position can now only have one saved start instead of three, so only the most recent one is retained.

Too many starts for the queue - losing a start

Finally, there may be occasions where you lose a start from someone in your rotation because he has too many queued starts. Let's say your #1 pitcher already has 3 queued starts, and is next set to pitch in BWB Game #96. But now he gets another start in MLB Game #100, which corresponds to BWB Game #95. At this point, the earliest start in the queue is discarded. This situation occurs mainly around the All-Star Break, as some teams retool their rotation after the break or skip a couple pitchers. It also may show up if a team switches to a 4-man rotation (your guy gathers statistics every 4 MLB games but uses them only every 5 BWB games).

BWB Primer #4 - Pitching Tips

2009-04-09T22:08:00.003-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

There's a page on the web site that's probably not worth reproducing in whole here that gives some basic tips on setting up your pitching. Check it out here. The page was written many years ago, but for the most part still holds up. But, here are some things of note taken from the page:

Just like for the hitters, for individual games it's the totals, not the averages that matter. The number of IP and ER a starting pitcher has is important.
The more IP your starter gets, the fewer innings your bullpen is needed (and the fewer number of relievers needed).
Pitchers need 4 games of rest between starts. Be careful between weeks if you change your rotation. Most of the time you can safely move a pitcher DOWN in the rotation and not miss a start. But don't forget that one of your pitchers in every 6-game week will pitch twice, so sometimes even moving him down will make him miss a start.
Saves count in the bullpen formula only count for the first two relievers used in the game. If your bullpen has 3 closers, it's possible that the saves are going to waste (though the pitchers other stats may be helpful).
The more relievers you need, the more total innings you need before your bullpen score starts getting deductions. You want your lower 3 relievers to be innings eaters.

BWB Primer #3 - Batting Order Tips

2009-04-09T09:32:00.005-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

There's a page on the web site that's probably not worth reproducing in whole here that gives some basic tips on setting your lineup. Check it out here. The page was written many years ago, but for the most part still holds up.

But, here are some things of note taken from the page:

Hard numbers generally mean more than averages. For example, one part of our scoring formula is based on the number of hits and total bases in the game, not a players BA or Slg Pct.
In order to be used in a BWB game, your bench players also need to play in real life. If you can get an MLB starter as a BWB bench player, that's valuable.
"Minor Leaguers" in BWB can be any player making 250 or less. You can put cheap MLB players there who can fill in roster holes for you later on without needing to resort to free agency/trades.
Multi-position eligibility is valuable for Bench Players.
Since the DH is your first fielding substitute, multi-position eligibility is also good. For example - if you have 2 guys to put into OF and DH, if one of those guys also plays 1B, he is the probably the better DH candidate.

Build your batting order like you would in real life - top guys for runs and getting on base at the top of your order, weak guys at the bottom, probably your best overall hitter at #3.

Don't forget our new sample score page that will let you experiment with different lineups and see how that affects your hitting score.

BWB Primer #2 - Weekly Deadlines

2009-04-09T08:50:00.004-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

Weekly Deadlines and the effect on game scoring

This goes back to Primer #1 and what MLB games are used for scoring BWB games.

As a quick review, ML Game #6 stats are used for the hitters in BWB Game #1.

Thus, in order to score the game, all major league teams must have played 6 games. In 2009, that's going to occur for most teams somewhere on or near April 11-12. That's the reason why we don't need lineups on the Opening Day of the major league season. (We used to do it that way, but for much of the season teams needed to submit their weekly lineups far in advance of when the games would actually be considered - making it tough to be responsive to slumps, trades, and injuries).

Rainouts and such also play havoc in getting all the teams at the same point, so quite often it will appear early in the season that it takes forever to get game results. I'll try to get them done as soon as I can. Be happy this is the Internet age and that you don't have to wait for U.S. Mail to deliver you the results as was done by the predecessors to Benchwarmer Baseball.

Eventually, most teams get into a groove where they end up playing 6-7 games per calendar week, so in order to make sure that by the end of the season you are still submitting lineups before the major league games are really played, we instituted a sliding deadline schedule in 2003. Every 5 weeks, the weekly transaction day advances one day earlier. So at the beginning of the season, transactions and lineups are due on Fridays and by the end of the year it's Monday. This has worked out pretty well.

For many of you who just joined, the never-ending (and irregular) deadlines to get your draft done may have been confusing and overwhelming. From this point, everything is regular. Once a week - the same day every week - the same time (midnight Pacific). Then, once every five weeks we shift the day forward to better match the MLB schedule. Occasionally, we'll shift a day or two - but almost always that's to give more time rather than less time (like this current Week #1 to push back to Saturday due to a drafting league).

BWB Primer #1 - MLB Game to BWB Game

2009-04-07T11:58:00.007-05:00

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

What games count in BWB?

First, the very basic idea (that I'll contradict in a few moments) is that a single game in major league baseball corresponds to a single game in BWB. And by this, we don't mean a given date - when some teams might be playing and others do not. To synchronize everything, we determine the game number that a major league team is playing.

Thus, when a major league team plays their first game - well, all the stats for those players now count in BWB Game #1. Whenever it might be that MLB teams play their game #45, then those stats count for BWB Game #45.

Here's the contradiction, however - how do we deal with pitchers?

It would be nearly impossible to line up pitching performances so that your starting pitcher performs in real life exactly when you needed him in your rotation. So, we allow a pitcher to queue up starting performances so that they can be used in BWB whenever they are needed. A member of your five-man rotation can queue up three starting performances (when teams use a 4-man rotation or at times like the All-Star game, it's possible for your top pitchers to pitch more frequently than once every five games).

So what happens on the first game of the season, when only one pitcher for each major league team gets a chance to start? Do you need to have an Opening Day starter on your roster and then must you pitch him in your first game?

No - instead, what we do is start the pitching queue in MLB Game 1 and allow the queue to build for 5 more games before we use any hitting stats. MLB Games 1-5 are for pitching only. Then, with MLB Game 6, we start off the BWB Season. That game is the final game that your #1 pitcher has to appear in order to have a qualifying start. With MLB Game #6, we check the pitching performances from games 1-6, and the first one in which your first starter pitches provides the stats for your opening game. For BWB Game #2, we check the the queued starts from MLB Games 1-7, and the first one in which your second starter pitched is used for that game. And so on...

That takes care of starting pitchers...what about the bullpen?

Relievers have a similar "problem" - they don't usually appear on an everyday basis, so it's tough to make a performance in a Major League game correspond to a BWB game. So instead of queuing up their appearances, we accumulate their stats over a sliding 6-game period. This accumulation is then used to build averages for your entire bullpen, which is later used in the scoring formula (and too complicated to divert to in this chapter).

So bullpen stats for MLB Games 1-6 are used for BWB Game 1. MLB Games 2-7 used for BWB Game 2. MLB Games 56-61 used for BWB Game 56. And so on.

What about hitters?

Now, we could make hitters games just correspond exactly from MLB performance to BWB performance (MLB Game 1 = BWB Game 1, etc.). However, since the pitching stats for BWB Game #1 are cutting off at ML Game #6, it then becomes more consistent (and believe me, easier to administrate) to use that same "cut off" game for the hitters. Thus, we end up with BWB Game #1 using stats from MLB Game #6. BWB Game #78 uses MLB Game #83.

We lose some stats from the first week of the season (let's hope your slugger waits until Game 6 to have that 4-homer game), but we're also losing some at the end since we only have a 150-game season, so don't lose any sleep over it.

Because we play a full 150 games in the regular season, the playoffs need to get handled with a random selection of games from the last half of the season. More on that to come at another time (and the 5-game gap isn't handled the same way in the playoffs).

If you lose track, check out the Transaction Schedule/Deadlines links found on the main transaction page and on your league's home page. There's a chart that indicates which MLB games are used for hitters in any given BWB week.

The BWB Primer

2009-04-07T11:45:00.013-05:00

A few years ago I drafted a series of standard emails designed for new players. I don't think I've mailed them out in the last couple seasons - and who has the chance to read a long email anyway?

So, the Blog seems like a good place to stick these. And that gives experienced players a chance to review some things.

They are wordy. But they are meant to be interpretation and added details to the rules.

It looks like 2006 was the last time I mailed them out. I'll try to make sure I update where things have changed since then. If you see a problem or inconsistency, please let me know. As I add new updates, the table of contents below will be changed.

BWB Primer Index

#1 - Mapping MLB Games to BWB Games
#2 - Weekly Deadlines
#3 - Batting Order Tips
#4 - Pitching Tips
#5 - The Starting Pitching Queue
#6 - The Bullpen
#7 - Off-season Money
#8 - Multiyear Contracts
More coming in September to cover off-season details...

As always, places to find information:

BWB Rules
BWB Help Page (a collection of sources)
This blog, Dinks and Dunks, Save the Dome
FAQs
The BWB Home Page - there is a lot of communication and many updates made there.

Season opening things to remember...

2009-04-02T13:01:00.005-05:00

This is generally a repeat of the email sent out earlier today....

The MLB season opens up Sunday night, but we don't kick off for another week. As a reminder, we don't count the first 5 games for hitters. Your Opening Day lineups must be set by Friday, April 10.

Here are some reminders about this week's transaction deadline (Week Zero - Monday night 4/6, midnight EDT). These are scattered throughout the rules - this is an attempt to give you one recap.

Deuces Wild - since you're still drafting, these do not apply to you just yet.

You must have a legal roster after signings/cuts/trades on Monday. (26 players minimum, all mandatory slots filled). If you're short in any way, the league office will sign players for you.
So - starting this week, you can't have any cuts or trades that would leave you below a minimum roster.
Starting this week, the salary rebate for cut players goes up to 80% from 50% (except some of the new leagues who are still getting 100% - see your sign/cut page for details).
All teams get an extra 2 million in cash. Technically, this is awarded after the transactions are done - but in reality you can figure in that extra cash in for your Week Zero transactions.
Returning leagues only - You can only take $5 million into the season. Now would be the time to get your balance below that mark by signing players or creating multiyear contracts. The way it works - we run the transactions - check cash balances - anything above $5 million is cut down to that level - then all teams get $2 million (so you'll have 7 million when all is said and done). Again - if you drafted in a new league this season - the 5 million limit does not apply to you.
Moving someone to Injured Reserve (IR) is permanent for the season. Use the "Taxi Squad" as our version of the shorter-term disabled list (or minor leagues if a player is eligible). You may find you need to cut players.
Despite "real life" status, in BWB a player can only be put in the minors if he makes 250 or less in salary. You may need to make cuts.
So far, I haven't made corrections to anyone's lineups. During the Week Zero transactions, if you have 15 minor leaguers or 8 guys in your rotation, etc. I'll be removing excess. I won't fill in missing holes until Week 1.
Though lineups aren't due until Week 1, it helps the process if you start setting them ASAP as that helps me find teams missing a position. If you don't set a lineup by Week 1, the league will do it for you.

To see how BWB will automatically sign missing players or set your Opening Day lineups for you, see section 13 of the rules ("Inactive Owners"). Moral of the story - do it yourself.

Questions? Consult the rules, the FAQs, or email your League Admin ("Email BWB" link at the bottom of any web page).

New Players and Transaction Order - Start of Season

2009-03-30T18:29:00.003-05:00

Checking in on a couple of questions that have come up already...and I'm sure others are wondering or about to ask:

1. Transaction order for the start of the season....

In the off-season, we use a somewhat modified approach to weekly transaction order - partly to let people not have to be involved every week. Once a team picks a player, that team goes to the end of the waiver order - and the order is maintained from week to week.

This changes when we hit Week 1 (deadline April 10).
For returning leagues - the order reverts back to the Redistribution Draft order (reverse order of the 2008 record).
For new leagues - After Week Zero we order the teams by total salary (lowest total salary goes to the top).

In either situation, we do not change the order at all between Weeks 1 & 2. Starting with Week 3, we reorder every week based on reverse W-L records.

So - you can pick players in Week Zero and it doesn't affect the transaction order in Week One (other than team salary changes for new leagues).

2. New Players - when do they arrive on the list?

In BWB, after the December winter meetings, players do not get put on the BWB player list until they play a major league game (then later we add the 1st-round draft picks).

So - for those of you wanting to pick up Tommy Hanson (for example) - since he went back to the minors, you'll need to wait.

What about Elvis Andrus and players like that who will make the majors? As soon as we find they play in a game, we'll add them to our list - BUT, we only post the list of new players once per week, when we run transactions. BWB is a game for baseball addicts, but you don't have to be tied to your computer to hit that 24-hour window when a player is first available.

Although there may be some stats available by the time we run the Week Zero transactions, we will NOT add any players in that first week. Assuming the new guys play at least once before April 10, the deadline for Week 1, they will first show up in the BWB player lists as eligible for the Week 2 transactions (Deadline April 17. That's the one you don't want to miss then).

Phase 2 Draft Strategies?

2009-03-15T09:27:00.003-05:00

For the most part, I'm going to leave strategy talk to the other bloggers. But now and then I may discuss a few things.

Several leagues are currently going through the Phase Two startup draft. The primary goal here is to get all 16 teams with a legal roster. That is, all the fielding positions and bench slots must be covered - plus the starting rotation and bullpen. For the hitters, only primary positions are considered for filling the mandatory positions (though once the season starts, the distinction between primary and secondary positions disappear).

I say some of these selfishly as the league administrator who wants to see rosters fill up as quickly as possible so we can get out of the draft process (and you end up with a decent team). But overall, I hope that they're helpful observations. These aren't so much strategies as points to consider:

First - don't skip the draft. After Phase One, there are a ton of good players and everyone just got an extra 10 million in cash to spend. Suddenly those players who were too expensive to put on the initial list come into play.
Unless you're really fine-tuning your roster in the later stages of Phase Two, or you got a lot of players out of Phase One, or you're close to the cap level, don't shortchange yourself. Try to pick all the available rounds.
Keep in mind the number of players who will be going off the board. For example, after 4 rounds of picking, 64 players are gone. You may want to handle the later rounds differently.
Later rounds tip #1 - Use alternates. Yep, Jimmy Rollins may have made it out of Phase One without being picked. But by Round 7 in the Phase 2 draft, it's unlikely he'll still be there. That's not saying don't go for him - but you may want to throw in an alternate pick just in case.
Later rounds tip #2 - Use these rounds to fill out your bench, bullpen, and spot starter positions. A long season may mean that your bench is crucial. Grabbing cheaper, productive guys now who can fill in for you in scattered games or for long stretches of the season may give you an advantage later on.
Later rounds tip #3 - Use these rounds to grab prospects. You may not want to do this in the first submission of Phase Two, but hopefully in Part 2 and Part 3 your roster is starting to shape up. Getting the top players on the free agent board is going to start getting tougher - you may want to turn your attention to pick up some minor leaguers and lay the foundation for later seasons. These players will also fulfill your minimum position needs too in the draft - and you can use free agency later to fill out your bench or your bullpen with major leaguers. Our player list filters give you an easy way to view first round draft picks from the last several seasons.
Besides just the later rounds, think about using alternates. It takes a few extra minutes, but if you can target another player that you'd take if your first choice is gone, you'll build your roster faster (and not have to fill so many slots from the dregs later on). In some cases, you may not want an alternate and just let the next round's pick move up.
Keep the salary cap in mind. You still need to fill 26 roster slots, so if you blow all your remaining cash on your first 4-5 Phase Two picks, you'll be filling your roster with journeymen and minor leaguers. Don't forget to watch your alternates...your primary pick in a round may have a salary of 1250, but if your listed alternate's salary is 5500, that makes the rest of your draft different.
I don't get this much in depth, but going cheap early may have some benefits too. Since we reorder the teams each round by total salary, you'll stay up at the top or move up in the draft order if you pick an inexpensive player. On the flip side, picking Ryan Howard or C.C. Sabathia in the first round will likely push you futher down in the order. That's not bad...just something to realize.
One more thing on alternates...If in every round your alternate pick is merely the primary pick in the next round, you're shortchanging yourself at worst and, if nothing else, doing work for nothing. Don't forget, if your primary and alternate picks are gone, all your other picks move up a round (so we don't skip your turn). If you list 8 rounds of picks - each with the alternate selection being the next round's primary pick (plus an extra one in Round 8) - you'd get the same effect by just having 8 rounds of primary picks and one alternate in the final round. And - as soon as you need one alternate (and you will, eventually) - you've just set in motion a process that will mean in every round after that your primary pick is already gone.

There's no single way to do things - but these are some of the things I've noticed watching 4 Phase Two drafts this season.

Good Luck

2009 Rule Change: 100% Salary Rebate for New Leagues for Cuts

2009-03-15T07:53:00.006-05:00

See the rule change

I had a request this weekend to allow a cut of a player from a team that was in the midst of a Phase Two draft. This player had become injured, and the owner wanted to be able to drop the player and get that salary room back to finish the draft.

Well, that part's not changing. During the Phase Two drafts, there are no cuts and that will continue. Teams will have a chance to make some modifications post-draft to fix their rosters. (From a long term perspective, this particular player is most likely headed to the DL at the start of the season...and there's been no official word on the amount of time he'll miss, so cutting him may potentially be short-sighted anyway, except for the cap issue).

So, I got to thinking about this and this spring we've run more Startup Drafts than we ever have in one year. And - while the drafts in the last few seasons were probably mostly done by Benchwarmer Veterans - we've had a lot of new owners this spring too. There are some definite quirks to the draft - and the salary cap can end up being a big problem...and new owners are still trying to get a hang of all that and how to fill up a roster.

To help them out, when a league finishes a draft, rather than be held to only a 50% salary rebate for cuts (80% starting in Week Zero), their first two transaction cycles will allow them to cut players and get a 100% salary rebate. This does not change the limitation on players making salary 200 or below - there is still no rebate for them.

Multiyear Contracts open up

2009-02-21T22:21:00.005-06:00

I'm just about to flip the switch to allow you to start signing multiyear contracts. But I just wanted to put out a few caution flags first...mainly for brand new owners who have taken over Orphan Teams.

First, familiarize yourself with the rules for contracts at: http://www.benchwarmerbaseball.net/rules/rulespages/Rules_16_0_Contracts.asp

And keep these things in mind:

To correct a misconception several people have had...you don't need to sign someone to a contract to keep him for 2010. You will get to keep up to 28 players from your roster in November - contract or not.
You must have ALL the cash to pay the ENTIRE contract up front. And once you spend the money, you will NEVER get it back.
Above all, the contract is a salary/cap play, not so much a roster move. You're betting that the player's salary will go up so much that it's better to lock him up for the same salary now rather than pay his inflated salary next season.
Since salaries are based on performance, if you sign someone in March and he is injured in April and out the rest of the season, you would almost certainly have been better off paying his salary next season...and there's no reason to sign a player who won't even see the major leagues this season or not until August or September.
You have until the end of July to make contracts.

So, why even do it now? Well, teams in returning leagues can only take 5 million in cash into the new season. You will lose any cash above 5 million that you have left after the Week Zero transactions. If you don't use it for signing new free agents in the next few weeks, well, it might be worth a gamble then to do a contract or two.

For BRAND NEW leagues, you're not subject to this 5 million cash limit. You should hang on to your cash and wait to sign contracts later in the summer.

Commissioners League - Any comment on the live draft?

2009-02-19T12:47:00.004-06:00

The Commissioners League draft on 1/31 was the first attempt at doing a live draft for BWB.

Any comments on how it went?

I'd rather not focus too much on the technical aspects. I know that some of the setup was not complete until Saturday afternoon, so there wasn't a lot of time for you to check it out. I don't anticipate a full rush on my part to try to program an interface like you see on ESPN or CBS or whatever...but I'm more interested in your thoughts on doing it live rather than doing it via a list.

Here are some initial comments from me:

The only remark on the tech interface is that for the chat room, I did ask people to try it out prior to the draft to make sure that it worked for them. We got off to a slow start as people tried to get it running (it does require your browser to have a working Java plugin, and I'll make sure to make that point ahead of time in the future).
OK - two comments on the interface: I'm constantly working with multiple browser windows and tabs and am very comfortable with that and tend to take it all for granted. I'll try to make that clear as well prior to anyone joining another one that you need to easily switch between the chat interface, the player list, and your roster to adequately participate.
I fully admit that the "what do we do if you're not there?" rules were last-minute. However, I assumed everyone was going to be there. The fact that at least 7-8 people (more?) weren't there made it tougher (see some notes below on dealing with missing people).
This was a bit tougher for me, as I was running everything else and auto-drafting for others, but staying under budget was a big issue. I spent the most on draft night and have had to go really cheap in Phase 2. I know that typically in online roto drafts the top players go first, but people probably need to be thinking seriously about the salary cap.
I was happy that we got it done in about the estimated 3 hours (a little longer, but we started late). I think if everyone had been there, it would have gone faster.

OK - some thoughts on the missing-drafters:

I need to be more insistent on doing a pre-draft list - and RANKING the picks (for the team that had 400 un-ranked players on his list, that wasn't much help).
I see that I need to make it possible to edit the list mid-draft so that if you have to leave you can set up how to do the end of the draft.
I'll modify and tighten up the auto-draft procedure. I had thought teams would be going after more prospects, like in the list drafts, so that was the reason to take a prospect in Round 3. Also, it was easy to say - this team has a 1B, so don't take one...but tougher when trying to determine how many SPs or OFs constitutued "full." I'll also put something in there to look for some budget players in there earlier. Again, this was harder to do in practice because there were so many teams I had to be looking at.

Your thoughts? What did you like/dislike about doing it live? What were you surprised at? What would you do differently the next time?

Player List Status in Spring Training

2009-02-16T11:08:00.003-06:00

Some quick notes on the "status" column you see on Player Lists (and I've noticed that it doesn't appear on the draft list selection - I'll add that soon)...

"Major" or "minor" league status? At the moment, everyone who was on the 40-man roster in December or gets signed to a major league contract gets noted as major league status. As players get officially optioned down in Spring Training, they'll be changed on the site (we don't catch them all, so there's one big update on Opening Day). If someone signs a "minor league contract" he's noted as minor league status. Same thing goes for minor league players invited to Spring Training.

For "DL" status, there are not necessarily official transactions right now for the disabled list, but as I learn of players who are expected to miss part or all of the 2009 regular season (Troy Glaus, Ben Sheets, etc.) I change their status. If you see someone out there you know will miss time and isn't listed that way, let me know. At this stage, I'm not changing status for injuries during the spring (so, for example, Bill Hall was recently listed as 4-6 weeks, but that's not necessarily going to cut into the regular season).

This is one part of the game (player status, trades and other transactions) where I'm not subscribing to a service, so that's why I always claim "semi-accuracy."

In a related note, does anyone know a link or source for all the current players on the DL - ideally something official? I use a combination of the transactions listings on mlb.com and usatoday.com for updating player status and I'm regularly disappointed with how many things mlb.com leaves off their transactions page (particularly guys coming off the DL). An occasional visit to a page listing all DL players would allow me to cross-check my info. I'm really looking for a list - NOT analysis - as I want to just be able to quickly scan it (so, for example, the injury page on ESPN fantasy is too much information and too cumbersome for this particular purpose).

Problems with Roster Limit Checking

2009-02-12T16:13:00.004-06:00

Doing the Week -8 transactions, I found a problem with checking roster limits. In checking the database, I look to see if you're adding players (and adding hitters over 250, pitchers over 250, etc.) plus if you're cutting players in any of those same categories.

Last spring, I had to make some changes to make sure I handled players on IR correctly and that was all fine, but I found out that in the off season - when a lot of you haven't yet put players into lineup slots, I was missing some cuts.

So, in the previous few weeks, it may have been possible that I disallowed a signing when in fact it should have been legal. I apologize for this - it's fixed now and I'll have to reevaluate when players on IR are involved later in the season - but at this stage there's no way I can go back and modify that.

Redistribution Draft - Early Mistakes

2009-01-04T22:49:00.003-06:00

I've processed 3 drafts so far, and I've had teams in two of them. And I'm already kicking myself.

You can have 2 different strategies in the draft:
1) Get guys who can immediately fill holes in your lineup
2) Get new guys to the player list who are long-term prospects before anyone else grabs them.

Well - and 3) you can try a combo platter of both.
If you're REALLY lucky, if you go for approach #2, they actually fulfill your needs if you went for approach #1 - and for much cheaper (100 is cheaper than 4300).

My problem is that I was going combo platter, but thought that the new guys on the player list would be most in demand. So I've loaded up the top of my list with the hot new foreign guys and some guys that Baseball America lists as the team's #1 prospect, and a few leftover 1st rounders from 2008. So far, it looks like I should have gone for established guys earlier.

Example - In the Beer League I really needed a shortstop and thought J.J. Hardy would fill that hole pretty well and wasn't too thrilled with the other names. But I put him in the 2nd round - and by the time that happened, he was gone (and I still would have been able to get 2 or 3 of the guys I did list in round 1).

The problem with the new players is that
- For every Dice K, there's a Kei Igawa.
- For every Geovany Soto, there's a J.R. Towles
(now, those 2 could actually end up doing something, but they didn't end up being the quick cheap fixes that people drafting them thought they might be).

Maybe my other leauges will turn out better, but so far in my sneak peaks at all the leagues I think I'm in the same situation in most cases.

UPDATE - POST DRAFT - OK, they weren't all so bad. I was smart enough in a couple leagues to put my priority in the first round (a nice snag of Mariano Rivera, for example, in Reality Bites). But mostly I've got teams that need significant bumps to get into playoff contention and a lot of cash (but no one to spend it on). I'm generally not a trader - so don't be offended if I keep turning down your offers, but if you're looking for cash in some leagues, see if you have something that can help me.

Redistribution Draft - Slow progress

2009-01-04T22:38:00.004-06:00

The Redistribution Draft is underway for all returning leagues - and I'm quickly realizing I need to automate the process. So, the good news is I'm starting to sketch out a program that will conduct all the phases of the draft for me...the bad news is that it won't be done this season (or I have fingers crossed for maybe the last couple of leagues).

For anyone who's a programmer, my sticking point right now is when/how to add certain things that I'm doing intuitively (like moving up players from later rounds when you run out of picks in the current round, making sure you don't spend more cash than you have, etc.).

So... for 2009, I guess expect to see 1-2 leagues per day. In 2010, if all goes well, we should be able to see the results for all leagues within a day or two of you submitting your lists. I hope to be done by the next weekend. The first deadline for winter free agent signings/trades will be Friday, Jan 16 (unless there's some delay on the draft results).

UPDATE - I did take a break in the hand calculation of the draft to finish up an automated program to do this. Not much effect this year (except finishing the final 4-5 leagues quickly), but starting next year I should be able to post all league results within a few days of the list submissions.

Do you want to be an official BWB Blogger?

2008-12-23T18:53:00.004-06:00

For a limited time, I'm looking for a few Benchwarmer addicts to step up and make themselves heard. Be a BWB Blogger!

First - what's in it for you? I'll give you your first team free each season. It's also a platform for you to display your expertise in Benchwarmer Baseball and all things Fantasy Baseball-related.

What am I looking for? A wide variety of opinions and viewpoints. A source for strategy and tips for other players. A place for you to share your secrets (if you're willing to part with a few). It's the type of commentary and expertise that I'd love to share myself, but really don't have time. Maybe you want to discuss a lot of BWB Strategy. Maybe you're a stat guru and have some interesting things you want to share. Maybe you want to be a source for rumors and inside information (maybe for a specific team).

Requirements:

You can use whatever blog engine or site that you want. If it's a web site and not a "blog" per se, that's fine too.
It does not have to focus 100% on BWB, but that should be a primary tie.
You must post a display ad for BWB. I will give you a referral credit for anyone who joins Benchwarmer if their initial visit is via your blog. (Graphics will be available in January)
You must post a display ad or block of text ads that tie to BWB's Ad Accounts.
You must have played BWB for at least one season, unless you want to write a blog that documents how you go through your first season.

Requirements subject to change as we move forward. Compensation may improve in the future.

Other things for you:

You'll get a featured spot on the newly-redesigned BWB Links/Blogs page.
I'll make mention of your blogs as much as possible to the BWB Community.
You can promote your blog outside of the BWB Universe - helpful particularly if you want to comment on baseball or fantasy baseball (or other fantasy sports) in general.
Beyond the 2 advertising requirements above, you're free to attach any other ads you choose.

Send me an email if you're interested to: jon.swanson@benchwarmerbaseball.net

Benchwarmer Baseball now has a Blog

2008-12-23T18:22:00.003-06:00

BWB enters the blog world. Check this location frequently for news about Benchwarmer Baseball.

Why use a blog? Here are some reasons -

To have a blog, I guess. I'm looking to learn more about how all this works.
Currently, to update news on the web site, it requires that I have my laptop or home computer and modify the web source code and publish it (plus have an Internet connection that works with the laptop if I'm traveling). I hope that by using a blog I can make some quick updates when needed, no matter what computer I'm at.
Make quick comments and rule interpretations.
Allow for comments and discussions.
Add another point of visibility on the web for Benchwarmer Baseball.

We'll see how it works - I welcome your suggestions.