Times are tough

It's getting increasingly hard to write things about the new ABL with such limited information. Which is frustrating from both sides of the screen, I'm sure people out there in the real world are after information (apparently some people do visit this site as I reached 1,000 clicks on the old odometer today), so hopefully coming closer to the season I will be able to throw some more things out there.

Anyway, I thought I'd do a little post summing up some thoughts on how the league is doing and the direction it appears to be headed in. Each team website has a FAQ page, so I thought I would start there and give a few thoughts as to how that is all going.

So here we go with Frequently Askes Question numero uno!

What is the Australian Baseball League (ABL), and how will its competition be structured?
According to each site it will be a 40 game season run over 10 weeks (thankfully my source was correct and I didn't come across looking the fool!). Now a 40 game season over 10 weeks will mean that each team will be playing 4 games per weekend EVERY weekend (while the season is on). Now this is obviously great, the more people watching baseball the better, and this obviously gives people the greatest chance to watch games and get into it. The only downside to this structure is that it will be taking away players from local competitions, which are essentially the foundation to the ABL. Now obviously this isn't such a bad thing long term, should the ABL be succesful it will create an influx of junior players to clubs. But it will be interesting to see how it does effect the various local competitiions around the states. As each local league will be faced with a potential loss in revenue whilst home ABL series are played.

What players will compete in the ABL and how are they sourced?
According to the FAQ section each team will have a 22 man roster, now this roster is said to have approximately 70% Australian players. Now what would 70% of 22 be? Using my trusty note pad, I have worked out that 70% of 22 would be 15.4 players. Obviously you can't have 0.4 of a player (unless that player is David Eckstein). So what figure would be close to 70% of 22? Well...

18/22 = 81%
17/22 = 77%
16/22 = 72%
15/22 = 68%

So it could be pretty safe to assume that each team will be made up of either 15 or 16 Australian players and that the reamining players would be imports. The early rumblings were that each team would have 4-5 international players, but from what they have written it appears it could be closer to 6-7 internationals. It will be interesting to see what this figure will be come the start of the season, and wether or not the intention is to slowly decrease the number of imports as the legaue grows.

How are players assigned to teams?
Well the ABL have come out and said that they are strongly encouraging players to play for their home states. Now this would obviously be harder for players in NSW looking to play in the league due to a strong NSW lineup. So what do we take from that? Each player looks to be playing for their home state, unless their are circumstances that make it unfeasible for this to occur.

Have any specific players yet been signed?
Well from this point I can tell you that players HAVE been signed. Players from a certain team were offered contracts early this year (I can't remember the exact date but it may have been DURING the Claxton Shield). However these were home town guys, so we're not talking about anything ridiculous here. Each team will be assigned their international players closer to the start of the season. If you think about it that makes a lot of sense, as most of the international players will be assigned not only on the needs of the Australian team but also on the needs of the American team. Ie. Maybe the Yankees have a Japanese prospect that they want to learn more English etc etc.

What are the possibilities for expansion to other domestic and international markets?
Now the obvious possibility here is the Asian market, maybe even New Zealand. With the other local market potentially being Victoria or New South Whales. However from what we have been reading, the ABL has about 5 years to become profitable, unless an expansion within another market gaurantees increased profits it would be fairly unlikely that the league expands within the initial 5 year period.

Who owns the ABL clubs? What is the governance structure of the league?
Essentially there are three main bodies controlling the running of the league (MLB, ABF and ASC), with each team being a single entity under this structure. In the past, a key reason for the failings of Australian Baseball were the strucutures by which each team was owned. Teams would go out and spend vasts amounts of money on player bidding wars until eventually running themselves into debt. So hopefully this new league strcuture, whereby there is almost a 'big brother' in the MLB looking down on the running of the league helps with the overall cost structures.

So there we have it, nothing too groundbreaking, but a good little insight into what may be happening once the league kicks (or throws) off.

It's Official...

So the team names are official... although due to some pretty handy investigative work they were known to the general public some weeks ago through the Baseball Radio Forum....

Anyway, each team has it's official team site up and can be found at the following links;

http://www.brisbanebandits.com.au/
http://www.adelaidebite.com.au/
http://www.melbourneaces.com.au/
http://www.canberracavalry.com.au/
http://www.sydneybluesox.com.au/

Perth seem to be a little different, with there site still located at

http://www.perthheat.baseball.com.au/

Other than that, there isn't much news. But the fact that these have been released at least is a very positive sign to the development of the new league

Chemistry 101

With Jason Akamanis recently being dumped by the Bulldogs due to a 'lack of chemistry', I thought it would be a good time to look at chemistry on the baseball field. Does it matter? Does having a team united help in the march toward a championship? Now there are obviously a few varying opinions on this subject. There are those of you out there that believe that a team with good chemistry is a good baseball team and that by having a good chemistry the team will perform better.... well I'm here to disagree with that opinion entirely and offer some views on the subject.

Now a lot of people point to the fact that winning teams have good chemistry, which is true. It appears fairly obvious that a team that wins more games than it looses will have good chemistry. However, what causes a team to win games? Is it the fact that Albert Pujols is a nice guy and bought one of his team mates a soda before the game? Or the fact that Derek Jeter laughs at Robinson Cano's jokes? Or is it more likle the fact that those guys are awesome baseball players. and help their team when it really matters? For mine, winning is clearly dependent on the talent of the team, if you have a good team you win, regardless of whether or not guys within the club like each other.

Now some people bring up that 'winning teams have good chemistry'. Now there is no denying this, however why do winning teams have good chemistry? Well it seems pretty obvious, when you win, your team generally has more fun which leads to an increase in perceived 'chemistry'. So it can be said that while chemistry doesn't change a teams ability to win, it can be said that if your team is winning, then it will have greater chemistry. You might notice that last year the Seattle Mariners improved with the addition of Ken Griffey Jr. Now, there were reports that by bringing Griffey into the team, Seattle's team chemistry had improved, thus they had won more games than in the previous season. However, this season, Griffey was struggling at the plate and the so called chemistry that he brings to the team was not resulting in wins, which forced him into retirement.

The reality of baseball is that it is essentially a group of individuals playing within one team. While there are small instances where performances overlap, generally speaking, the performance of one member of the team will not effect the performance of another. A pitcher will throw strikes regardless of the catcher, an infielder will field balls at the same rate regardless of the pitcher, and a hitter will hit for the same percentages regardless of who is in the lineup with him.

With that said, I'll throw it over to Jim Leyland, who seemed to sum up the situation fairly well recently when asked about Pud...

"Take all that clubhouse [stuff] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [nonsense] for years. Chemistry don’t mean [anything]. He’s up here because he’s good. That don’t mean [a hill of beans]. They got good chemistry because their team is improved, they got a real good team, they got guys knocking in runs, they got a catcher hitting .336, they got a phenom pitcher they just brought up. That’s why they’re happy."

Good Signs

The Backyard Baseballer was competing in one of the many athletic events that he excels in last night, when he bumped into a juicy little peice of information yesterday that he thought would make the Australian Baseball Community very pleased. In front of me sits the 'home' schedule for one of the teams playing in the upcoming ABL. Due to privacy and attempting to protect my source, I will not divulge which team this schedule relates to. I can however tell you this...

Assuming that each team has the same schedule in terms of home and away (surely they would), each team will play;

• 4 games per week
• 20 home games in total, which would amount to a 40 game season
• The first home series for this team starts mid November, and finishes around mid January

So in other words, there will be a lot of baseball played between November and Feburary this season. Should more information come out I will attempt to relay it to my loyal fans (all 7 of you).

Upcoming Post

Just want to let all of my dedicated fans (all two and a half of them) that I'm working on a post detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each team. Depending on time, I'll roll one out at a time to save from overkill.

Stay tuned!

All Star Fever

So it's been a couple of weeks since my last post, to say there has been a lot on the old plate of life would be an understatement... but I digress. Now with my site being mentioned over at Deep in the Hole, I guess there might hopefully be some readers out there at least a tiny bit interested in some form of post. With the All Star Game being played right now, I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of look an 'Australian' All Star team would have from last season. Now not everyone will agree with what I choose, which is awesome. Bit of healthy debate never hurt anyone!

So here we go...

Catcher:

There is one clear guy that stands out here, Michael Collins. Last season he managed to hit .417 with an OBP of .543, which is ridiculously good. For good meassure he also managed to go yard 6 times. Not only that, he also only struck out a super impressive 6 times (the same amount of times he went deep). Collins will be moving states next year from SA, if he manages to repeat these numbers with the Canberra team the new guys may be competitive.

1st Base:

After seeing the power numbers displayed at catcher, the first base position is actually very dissapointing. Patrick Maat lead the way at first last season by a clear margin, hitting .390 whilst hitting 9 doubles and clearly the fence on 2 occassions and driving in 19. The only real challenge came from Ryan Murphy of SA (.247 3HR 16RBI) and Hayden Dingle of VIC (.284 1HR 14RBI). But clearly those numbers don't stack up against the New South Welshman's.

2nd Base:

Offense at second is always gold, and that definitely has the be one of the key reasons Victoria was able to go all the way last season. Scott Wearne hit a very handy 3 home runs, while managing to stroke 10 doubles. This lead him to a batting average of .320 and a .500 slugging percentage. Mitch Graham was a very close second, hitting .274 with 4 bombs and 11 driven in. However it's hard to ignore the consistent hitting of Wearne here.

3rd Base:

The backyard baseballer was extremely dissapointed with the power numbers from last season (homeruns are sexy), and expects some teams to recruit some big bats for the corner infield positions for a little excitment. As with second base, it's hard to look past the champs Victoria with Josh Davies. The low homerun totals for mine are a letdown, but it's hard to look past the fact he lead the team in RBI's (19) whilst also managing to hit a few doubles for good meassure. Next season should hopefully see stronger competition amongst third baseman, with Luke Hughes potentially going yard for WA and the improvement of youngster Stef Welch of SA.

Shortstop:

This is where it gets interesting, finally a position with a bit of competition amongst it! There are three very handy players at short who managed to star last season. Michael Lysaught went yard four times to lead all shortstops. While he did strike out 29 times, the power from what is a generally considered a defensive position is great to see. Maybe one of the most underrated season came from Alan Schoenberger up at Queensland. Hitting .284/.363/.481 with 3 jacks. In any other year that might have been the best performance from a shortstop... but then again it's not every year the a shortstop manages to hit .400 while displaying some pretty handy power. Matt Lawman, of Victoria (there is a theme happening here) hit .423/.468/.549 and clearly was the most outstanding performance at short. Having said that, either of the other two are quite handy and there will be a big battle for offensive supremecy amongst the shortstops next season.

Outfield:

As with the MLB all star game, there are no outfield positions, so we could potentially have three corner outfielders manning the team (we are). First up is Mitch Denning from NSW. You might have been living under a rock if you hadn't heard of this kids season last year. He his .391/.466/.594 with 2 jacks. Easily deserving of one of the outfield spots. It will be interesting to see how Denning goes next year, will there be a sophmore slump? Or will his gap power translate into homerun power. At any rate, he's definitely going to be one of the players to watch next season.

Andrew Russel (another VIC!) managed to hit .348 with 2 homeruns and 15 RBI's (second on the team). Now these numbers aren't as impressive as the other two guys manning the All Star outfield, they were however a big reason that Victoria was able to go all the way in the end.

Now with the last pick (but definitely not least) - Tim Kennelly, of WA, showed that he will be an offesnsive force in the coming season. Showing tons of power with 4 homers and 13 doubles, and a little speed to boot with 5 stolen bases. He also managed a league leading 23 RBI's while hitting a handy .354 and showing great plate discipline, only striking out 9 times. If WA manage to get Hughes into their lineup then WA may manage to have one of the best 3/4 combinations in the league.

So there we have it, the ABL 'All Star' team from last season. There has been a rumour that there will be an 'All Star' game played next season. Rumour was that it will be a game between the native Australian players and the imports for each team, to be played at Norwood Oval (SA). However this has not been confirmed, and it's unlikely that we will know much prior to the season.

OPS+

Before I start with my next set of posts (a review of each team’s season), I will probably need to explain one of the main stats that I will be using, adjusted OPS. Some of you may be familiar with OPS, but for those who are not, it is just a players (or teams) on base percentage + their slugging percentage. So what is ‘adjusted OPS’? Pretty much it is a comparison of a players OPS against the league average. For the sake of simplicity I won’t go on too much about it, all you will need to know is that an adjusted OPS (OPS+) of 100 is exactly league average. Anything below 100 is below league average and anything above 100 is above league average.

Now along the same lines of OPS+ there is ERA+. Again, it is merely the players ERA compared to the league ERA, with 100 being exactly league average. For those out there who may be curious about what would be constitute a good OPS+, I’ll give an example. The league’s MVP last season, Michael Collins, had an OPS+ of 172, which is ridiculously good. Now for comparison sake, in the MLB, Albert Pujols has a career OPS+ of 171 (he is good at baseball).

Some of you may be asking, why use it? Well it enables you to compare player’s stats from season to season more easily. Say for instance this year Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Johan Santana all decide to play in the new ABL (unlikely but would be awesome). Obviously the league average OPS would drop as hitters are facing better pitchers. By using OPS+ we can compare season to season stats whilst still factoring in things that effect overall league performance. Along the same lines, we could also compare offensive performances from the old ABL with tin bats to the new one with wood bats. This season the league average OPS was .746 whereas in the old metal bat league days it might have been up around the .900 mark (I’m guessing, but you get the point).

This may have gone over some people’s heads, and I don’t really expect a bunch of people to jump on this bandwagon, but it is a new way to look at the game and compare how players are performing from season to season.

Young Guns

So I'm sitting down looking at the stats for each team from last season and looking at which positions they need to improve on. Then I start thinking, are there any young kids around that could potentially make their mark on the ABL this season, or in future seasons that people out there on the other side of the screen may not know about? So I'm going to go through each state, and throw a couple of names out that are worth keeping an eye on for this season and season to come. I'm not going to include names like Welch, Hendricks and Denning. These guys have already made their mark and the fans out their are well aware of their skills. You will also notice that the majority of these of these guys are all pitchers. I can't explain why, but I think it may have something to do with younger hitters having more oppurtunity to get at bats, whereas the younger pitchers usually have to wait behind experienced staff aces in order to try built innings. So without further adue here it is...

First cab of the rank,

Blake Cunningham - Victoria

In the recent U23 tournament, Cunningham threw 15 innings of shut out ball... he allowed 4 hits, 1 UN-earned run and struck out a pretty handy 17 hitters whilst only walking 5. Not to mention he held his opponents to a .087 batting average against. He did get a few innings in the Claxton last year, and failed to make his mark with an ERA of 10.56 however in the 7 innings he threw he did strike out 10 hitters. Showing that he has the stuff to definitely beat older guys. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens with Cunningham, if he isn't given a chance to start with Victoria you may end up seeing him start for another team (Canberra possibly?).

Matt Timms - Queensland

Ok, for starters, this kid is a horse. Not just any horse, he's like 8 horses within the one horse body. Queensland lists him as 198cm and 125kg, so the dude is big. But he can definitely throw baseballs, again using the U23 stats, this guy (in my opinion) was the pitcher of the tournament yet for some reason was overlooked. He threw 8 innings, which isn't anywhere near Cunningham (who threw 9 in the final). He did however strike out 17 hitters in those 8 innings. Now some of you out there may be skeptical, sure he can do it against people his own age, but can he take the step up? Well this kid played in the Claxton shield last year and posted some very very impressive numbers. Used as a reliever, he posted 14 1/3 innings in 11 appearances. He managed to strike out 15 hitters and post an ERA of 2.51 which was the best on the Queensland team. Now being out of the loop with Queensland baseball, the Backyard Baseballer is not sure if this kid has the ability to start games or not. But as it stands right now, he is definitely showing that he has the ability to post some solid numbers against whoever he throws.

Angus Roeger, South Australia

Signed as a 16 year old, this kid has developed into a monster over the last few years. He currently stands at 185cm and weighing in at 95kg, he definitely has the frame to hit for some solid power. In limited playing time last year (30 AB's), Roeger hit 2 home runs for SA while also posting the second highest OPS in the team. He did strike out 12 times while only walking 3, so his plate dicipline may need a little work. Looking at his home clubs stats (Sturt) he hit for a low average (.255) but managed to an OBP of (.468) and slugging average of (.562) with 5 home runs. So it doesn't look at those he will be a high average kind of guy but if he manages to get some more at bats and improve on last years numbers Roeger should definitely be able to display some power.

Matthew Rae, New South Whales

Considering NSW have Cox and Lundgren this guy didn't get much exposure, however he did have a small gig in the New South Whales team last year and pitched extremely well in relief. Rae pitched in 11 games and when looking overall, was the man out of the pen that was most trustworthy. In total he pitched 16 innings and struck out a handy 17 hitters. He also held opposing hitters to a .253 average which was second best on the entire team (better than Cox and Lundgren). While Cox is clearly the man to watch up top, don't be surprised if Rae can manage to become one of the go to guys out of the pen this year.

Well there is is, definitely not an exaustive list, but just a few names that I noticed last season that had Claxton experience and could make a big leap this season to beccoming some of the household names of the Australian Baseball League.

That's what I'm WALKING about!

Ok, so not too much of a delay on the second post afterall. Due to time constraints it's not going to be a long one, but is definitely a good one (hopefully). There's one stat in baseball that is often overlooked, and that's a players on base percentage. Whilst home runs are sexy, if you can find a player that knows how to work the strike zone, then you're going to get more guys on base, delay that 27th and final out of the game which will result in your team being able to score more runs. Last season there were a couple of guys that jumped out at the Backyard Baseballer for their ability to take a walk... one of them is Michael Collins, now I don't need to do a post on him to be able to explain this guys value to a team. However the other one went relatively un-noticed last year, his name is Allan de San Miguel.

He only hit .262 last year, which might have people wondering why I would bother doing a post on him. Well he managed walk a league leading 20 times, bringing his on base percentage to .447 ,when you compare that with the league average of .353 you start to realise that this guy had a great season last year. Coupled with the fact that this kid is only 22 years old, and plays catcher, the Backyard Baseballer thinks that Alan de San Miguel will be one of the stars of the new ABL.

Numero Uno

Well, I guess first things first, what is this? Right now, it's nothing, mere words on a blank canvas. What will it be then? Well I'm glad you asked, hopefully a decent blog about Australian Baseball. I was inspired by the Defensive Specialist, I would assume that if you have managed to make your way over here then you would have definitely seen some of his work, which is great stuff.

However, surely one man can't control the entire blog-o-sphere of Australian Baseball. With the upcoming Australian League there is going to be a lot of information available, and the great man won't be able to be everywhere (even Gary Ablett Sr. handballed off the occasional goal). With the Australian Baseball League in the offseason, there isn't too much news currently filtering through. So the Backyard Baseballer will be focusing a bit on last years season, giving a few previews to the current season and potentially throwing in a few posts about the seppo league.

I'll have a new post up in the next few weeks analysing how your team went in last years season and hopefully some news about the naming of each states team (which just quietly is dragging out just a little bit!). For now though, I'll just be leaving you with this little intro post which hopefully leaves people wanting more.