State of the Expansion Franchise: Destin

Last in a five-part series reflecting on our 2012 expansion.

There’s no truth to the rumor that at the Destin Beach Bums’ home stadium, turnstiles have been replaced with revolving doors.

Even though that would be appropriate for the expansion franchise that has seen more turnover than any other, both on the field and in the front office.

Debuting in 2012 under GM Rick Lackey as the English Pigdogs, the club has wheeled and dealed and cut with reckless abandon, and now sports just three remaining players out of 40 who were part of the organization prior to it playing its first game less than three years ago.

Now known as the Destin Beach Bums, the club remains in search of an identity as it is reshaped yet again under new manager Mark Gergel, while lurking on the fringe of playoff contention.

Freddie Freeman

Destin Beach Bums Roster Evolution

Players acquired pre-2012: 40
Players dealt away: 17
Players cut: 20
Still Pigdogs/Beach Bums: 3  — OF John Jay, SS J.J. Hardy, P Nathan Eovaldi.

2014 record: 59-61 (.492)
2013 record: 62-98 (.388)
2012 record: 62-98 (.388)

Face of the franchise: Freddie Freeman

Fast Fact: An abysmal record within its division — 10-25 — doesn’t bode well for a playoff bid with 25 games still to play against North clubs. Destin is 49-36 (.576) outside the division.

State of the Expansion Franchise: Michigan

Part IV of a five-part series reflecting on our 2012 expansion.

The Michigan Moneyballers will forever be known as the club that passed on Mike Trout and instead selected catcher Alex Avila with the first overall pick in the 2012 Draft.

Trout is already a legend at age 23, and he’s helping carry the Iowa Cyclones to what looks to be their first playoff berth this year. Avila was cut by Michigan manager Ken Crawford after the club’s 2013 season.

But the Moneyballers aren’t feeling that bad for themselves. They dealt shortstop J.J. Hardy to Chatfield that first winter in exchange for Adam Jones, who has turned out to be a pretty fair center fielder of his own. Jones leads this year’s Moneyballers in homers (15) and RBI (73) through 120 games as Michigan holds down one of the three wild-card spots with 40 games to play.

Adam Jones

Michigan Moneyballers Roster Evolution

Players acquired pre-2012: 34
Players dealt away: 10
Players cut: 18
Still Moneyballers: 6  — OF Peter Bourjos, 1B Brandon Belt, P Homer Bailey, CF Adam Jones, P Ricky Nolasco.

2014 record: 64-56 (.533)
2013 record: 67-93 (.419)
2012 record: 60-100 (.375)

Face of the franchise: Adam Jones

GM Style: Charts R Us — Michigan has more than twice as many sac bunt attempts as the league’s No. 2 team, and also leads the league in hit-and-run attempts.

State of the Expansion Franchise: Satellite Beach

Part III of a five-part series reflecting on our 2012 expansion.

The Satellite Beach Brawlers were the fastest expansion team out of the chute in 2012, with 69 wins, but have hit a big-time speed bump in their third season.

With a lineup that ranks last in the league in offense and first in the league in errors, Satellite Beach is a non-factor in this year’s pennant race, but still sees promise on the horizon.

Justin Upton

Satellite Beach Brawlers Roster Evolution

Players acquired pre-2012: 34
Players dealt away: 6
Players cut: 22
Still Brawlers: 6  — IF Marco Scutaro, 3B Edwin Encarnacion, P Brandon Beachy, IF Brett Lawrie, C Wilson Ramos, OF Justin Upton.

2014 record: 45-75 (.375)
2013 record: 67-93 (.419)
2012 record: 69-91 (.431)

Face of the franchise: Justin Upton

GM Style: Draft and Develop — The Brawlers make deliberate draft selections, prefer to trust their judgment and wait for them to pan out.

A look back at our 2012 expansion

Part I of a five-part series looking back at the 2012 expansion draft.

“And with the 217th pick in the 2012 Draft, the English Pigdogs select…. Nathan Eovaldi.”

History does not record whether anyone proclaimed, “Good pick!” or cursed and muttered, “I was just looking at him.” More likely, most of the league had stopped paying attention since they were done drafting. After Eovaldi, only five picks remained.

Nathan Eovaldi

Yet Eovaldi is notable as one of just 19 players among the four expansion teams who was selected or acquired prior to the 2012 season and remains with his original club as our 2014 season winds down. That’s 19 out of 145 players — just 13%. Eovaldi was the latest player chosen to hold that honor.

That’s right. In less than three full seasons, 87% of the players who were originally drafted or acquired by the four expansion teams prior to Opening Day 2012 already have been cut or traded.

In this five-part series, we look back at the league’s expansion plans at the time and examine the status of each of the four clubs that came into being that year — the Iowa Cyclones, Michigan Moneyballers, Satellite Beach Brawlers and English Pigdogs, now known as the Destin Beach Bums.

If the goal of the structure of the expansion draft was to allow the clubs to build for the future, the player turnover seems to indicate either a flaw in the plan or an impatience on the part of the new franchise GMs. But does that even matter?

Volcanoes come out on top in first RenHart Projections

By Dave Renbarger

Watch out for Margaritaville this year.  Manager John McMillan’s Volcanoes are ready to erupt, featuring an outstanding lineup, tons of pitching and an airtight defense.  According to a less-than-scientific analysis of all 15 rosters conducted by two league managers two days after the draft in Kissimmee, the Volcanoes are the overwhelming favorite to win the I-75 Mail League title in 2013.

Other projected divisional winners are Savannah by a small margin over Hickory in the Southbound and Bushwood by an eyelash over Superior in the Westbound.

The three remaining playoff teams, according to the analysis conducted jointly by Savannah manager Steve Hart and Bushwood skipper Dave Renbarger, will be Hickory, Superior and Bismarck.

Three other teams — Wisconsin, Satellite Beach and SGP — are well within striking distance of the sixth-place Bombers and should be considered solid playoff contenders.

Full disclosure:  These rankings are admittedly somewhat subjective.  They are based more on general roster observations and less on empirical statistical data.

Our methodology:  We ranked all 15 rosters in six categories — lineup vs. righties, lineup vs. lefties, starting pitching, relief pitching, defense and speed — on a 1 to 5 scale.  Then we weighted the six categories in terms of overall importance thusly — lineup vs. righties 3x; lineup vs. lefties 1x; starting pitching 3x; relief pitching 1.5x; defense 1.5x and speed 0.5x.  Then we did the multiplication and additon to come up with the final numbers.

Here is the grid that details the rankings:

NORTH	v RHP (x3)	v LHP (x1)	SP (x3)	RP (x1.5)	DEF (x1.5)	SPD (x.5)	Total
MARG (1)	4.5 (13.5)	4 (4)	4.5 (13.5)	4.5 (6.75)	5 (7.5)	4 (2)	47.25
BSK (6)	4 (12)	4 (4)	2.5 (7.5)	3.5 (5.25)	5 (7.5)	3 (1.5)	37.75
SGP (9)	4 (12)	5 (5)	2 (6)	3 (4.5)	3 (4.5)	3.5 (1.75)	33.75
APPL (10)	3 (9)	2 (2)	3 (9)	3.5 (5.25)	3.5 (5.25)	1.5 (.75)	31.25
ENG (t-12)	2 (6)	3.5 (3.5)	1 (3)	2 (3)	4.5 (6.75)	4 (2)	24.25
SOUTH	v RHP (x3)	v LHP (x1)	SP (x3)	RP (x1.5)	DEF (x1.5)	SPD (x.5)	Total
SAV (2)	4 (12)	5 (5)	4.5 (13.5)	4 (6)	3.5 (5.25)	2.5 (1.25)	43
HICK (3)	5 (15)	1 (1)	4 (12)	3.5 (5.25)	4.5 (6.75)	2 (1)	41
WISC (7)	5 (15)	4 (4)	2.5 (7.5)	1.5 (2.25)	3 (4.5)	4 (2)	35.25
SATB (8)	3 (9)	2.5 (2.5)	3 (9)	4.5 (6.75)	3.5 (5.25)	3 (1.5)	34
SPR (11)	1.5 (4.5)	4 (4)	5 (15)	2 (3)	2(3)	3 (1.5)	31
WEST	v RHP (x3)	v LHP (x1)	SP (x3)	RP (x1.5)	DEF (x1.5)	SPD (x.5)	Total
BUSH (4)	5 (15)	4.5 (4.5)	2.5 (7.5)	4 (6)	3 (4.5)	4.5 (2.25)	39.75
SUP (5)	4 (12)	4.5 (4.5)	4 (12)	3 (4.5)	3 (4.5)	3 (1.5)	39
MICH (t-12)	1.5 (4.5)	2 (2)	2 (6)	2 (3)	4.5 (6.75)	4 (2)	24.25
IOWA (14)	3 (9)	2 (2)	1.5 (4.5)	1 (1.5)	2.5 (3.75)	2 (1)	21.75
CHAT (15)	1 (3)	3.5 (3.5)	1 (3)	1 (1.5)	3 (4.5)	1.5 (.75)	16.25

2012 I-75 League blog in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Applegate upsets Chatfield for first world title since 1996

The last time the Applegate Paperclips won a world championship, Bill Clinton was president, Macarena was the top song of the year, and Phil Roselli had hair.

That was way back in 1996 when we were a nine-team league. The fourth-place Paperclips defeated the South Florida Brown Sox in five games for the franchise’s only World Series crown.

But now, the Clips own a second world championship, having upset the Chatfield Choo Choos in five games for the 2012 title.

In our first season of expansion to 15 teams, Chatfield and Applegate each captured divisional crowns and earned a bye into the semifinals, but Chatfield went into the finals as a heavy favorite, having smacked the Paperclips around in 9 of their 10 regular-season games on its way to a spectacular 121-win season.

But after splitting the first two games in Chatfield, Applegate reeled off three consecutive victories at home to capture the crown.  A staunch bullpen, in which six of their seven relievers posted 0.00  ERAs, and a 13-7 advantage in homers made the difference for Applegate. Sergio Santos, a middle reliever, allowed just 3 hits in 8 1/3 innings of work while striking out 12 to collect series MVP honors.

“Everything just came together,” said Paperclips manager Gary Kicinski. “Chatfield had a better team, but we managed to hit our split rolls when home run chances came up, and we were able to dent their dynamic bullpen. And on the other side, our bullpen was phenomenal. With every game a nail-biter, the bullpen performance proved to be key.”

Applegate advanced to the finals by defeating longtime rival Bismarck in five games, while Chatfield took six games to eliminate Margaritaville.

Bismarck had surprised Springfield in six games in a first-round series, while Margaritaville had turned back Savannah in five games in its first-round series.

3 Silver Sluggers each for Wisconsin, Hickory

Those Wilson men sure know their precious metals.

Wisconsin and Hickory, managed by Dan and Mike Wilson, respectively, lead the way with three representatives on the Silver Slugger team for 2012.

Most of us will probably take the Warhawks’ triumvirate of Prince Fielder, Robinson Cano and Ryan Braun over the Hickory threesome of Aaron Hill, Chase Headley and Jay Bruce, but nonetheless, three each.

Four other clubs boasted a pair of representatives on the team: Bushwood had catcher Buster Posey and outfielder Josh Hamilton; Iowa had outfielders Mike Trout and Josh Willingham; Bismarck had shortstop Derek Jeter and outfielder Andrew McCutchen; and Superior had DH Billy Butler and third baseman Miguel Cabrera.

South Grand Prairie had a lone representative in shortstop Ian Desmond. Meanwhile, Silver Sluggers were distributed to two players eligible for our 2013 draft — first baseman Adam LaRoche and catcher A.J. Pierzynski.

Gold Glove winners spread evenly around league

The Bismarck Bombers will be able to boast a pair of Gold Glovers in their 2013 outfield in Andrew McCutchen and Jason Heyward, but they were just one of several I-75 League teams to land a pair of 2012 Gold Glovers from their end-of-season rosters.

English gets a middle infielder (J.J. Hardy) and a catcher (Yadier Molina), while Margaritaville gets a catcher (Matt Wieters) and an outfielder (Carlos Gonzalez).

Hickory landed a pitcher (Jeremy Hellickson) and a third baseman (Chase Headley, really?), while Wisconsin had a pitcher (Mark Buehrle) and a middle infielder (Robinson Cano).

South Grand Prairie nabbed second baseman Darwin Barney and outfielder Josh Reddick, both first-time winners.

Checking back on preseason prognostications: Nailed it.

Back in March we crunched the numbers to forecast who would be the league powerhouses this year. How did we do?

* We picked Applegate, Chatfield and Springfield to win their respective divisions. Check, check, check.

* We picked Wisconsin as the fourth seed, citing “way too much offense and a just-good-enough pitching staff.  #Fail. The Warhawks came in with a winning record at 81-79, but not good enough to make the playoffs.

* We liked Margaritaville as the fifth seed. Boom, roasted. 

* We saw Bismarck, Savannah and Superior in contention for the sixth seed. Bismarck indeed nabbed the sixth seed; Savannah surged into the fourth spot, and Superior earned the No. 1 overall draft pick by just missing the playoffs with the league’s seventh-best record. We put this one in the prognostication win column too. 

So how did we misfire on Wisconsin? Perhaps it’s just a balancing out of the Wilson Effect — last year we failed to project Hickory as a playoff team, but the Nuts claimed second in their division.

Blitzkrieg complete, Chatfield storms into playoffs

The 33rd season of the I-75 Strat League may come to be known as the year of Roselli’s Revenge.

After suffering through a 50-110 season in 2011, Chatfield fortified itself in the offseason with trades and draft picks that helped produce a phenomenal 71-win improvement in 2012, as the Choo-Choos roared to a 121-39 mark, winning their division by 38 games and clinching a first-round playoff bye.

In our first year of expansion from 12 to 15 teams, we saw wide gaps in team performance, with all four expansion teams taking their lumps as expected. All had win totals in the 60s.

Joining Chatfield in the playoffs are division champions Applegate (103 wins) and Springfield (102 wins), both of whom set franchise records in the win column.

The three at-large playoff bids go to Savannah (99 wins), Margaritaville (86) and Bismarck (85).

Thus, the playoff pairings:

First round
No. 4 Savannah vs. No. 5 Margaritaville
No. 3 Springfield vs. No. 6 Bismarck

Second round
No. 1 Chatfield vs. Savannah-Margaritaville winner
No. 2 Applegate vs. Springfield-Bismarck winner

Meet this year’s members of the ‘oh so close’ club

A player requires 550 at-bats to earn unlimited playing status in the I-75 League; thus, the members of the “just-missed” club are likely to cause their managers untold hours of grief as they try to manage their at-bats next season, but for the lack of just a few more ABs.

Yonder Alonso, Satellite Beach (549) — Alonso is one of the game’s hot young stars and he hit . 273, although displaying less power than expected (only nine homers). He hit a sac fly in the Padres’ final game of the year against the Brewers to score Chase Headley with the Padres’ seventh run in a 7-6 win over Milwaukee, costing him an at-bat, but at least if he had to come up short, he did it for the team. As a left-handed hitting first baseman, the Brawlers can probably platoon him against righties and not miss his lack of unlimitedness that much.

Final fantasy standings offer 2013 preview

The final standings for our Yahoo and CBS fantasy leagues offer a glimpse into who might be looking at a successful 2013 campaign in the I-75 League.

The Wisconsin Warhawks rolled to victory in our Yahoo league, racking up 130 points, while the Hickory Nuts took home the prize in the CBS fantasy league with 9994 points. Interestingly, both of those teams finished eighth (or tied for seventh) in the opposite league.

Why the difference? Well, we’re not sure. One factor is that the CBS league counted stats for all of your players, whereas Yahoo had a limit and you needed to manage your squad as players came up from the minors or off the disabled list. So CBS teams with a lot of depth (active and productive major leaguers) benefited. The CBS league also counted all kinds of esoteric stat categories that Yahoo doesn’t bother with.

No. 1 in 2013 mock draft? That’s a clown question, bro

Other players might have better stats, but no one has a brighter future than Bryce Harper, our projection as the No. 1 pick in the 2013 I-75 League Draft.

Still just 19, Harper is a five-tool player who is still growing and still learning the game. The lefty swinger hits both righties and southpaws for average and for power. The Washington Nationals outfielder has a great batting eye that allows him to draw walks, and once on base, his pure speed and aggressive nature earns extra bases for him on a regular basis. Defensively, what he lacks in smoothness he makes up for with his ability to run down balls that others can’t. And, he has a bazooka for an arm.

Harper’s all-star break numbers: A .282 average, .354 on-base average and .472 slugging percentage. He has 15 doubles, eight homers and 10 stolen bases.

As for the rest of the draft? It has the early appearance of being a thin year in terms of highly rated prospects, after Harper. Here’s who we like to go in the first round in March, with their all-star break stats:

A jackpot awaits this season’s top playoff outsider

If the I-75 League season ended today, the happiest team in the league would be… the Superior Titans.

That’s because they’d be the best team not to make the playoffs, thus earning them the first choice in the 2013 draft, and making them the presumptive owner of baseball’s most exciting prospect, Bryce Harper.

Harper has a grand total of four major league games and 13 at-bats under his belt. I’ve seen every one of them, as well as all of his plays in the outfield. Here’s why Washington and the rest of the baseball world is abuzz about the 19-year-old phenom:

Preseason power rankings peg ‘Clips, ‘Choos and ‘Topes

Rnk	Offense	Power	S	N	W	Rnk	Pitching	Power	S	N	W
1	Chatfield	.999			W1	1	Springfield	526.3	S1
2	Applegate	.974		N1		2	Applegate	616.4		N1
3	Wisconsin	.952	S1			3	Savannah	620.8	S2
4	Margaritaville	.951		N2		4	Chatfield	638.4			W1
5	Superior	.941			W2	5	Bismarck	681.8		N2
6	Springfield	.923	S2			6	Wisconsin	684.3	S3
7	Bushwood	.902			W3	7	Margaritaville	696.9		N3
8	Bismarck	.901		N3		8	Hickory	703.5	S4
9	Michigan	.900			W4	9	Superior	708.1			W2
10	S. Grand Prairie	.895		N4		10	Sat. Beach	774.4	S5
11	Savannah	.893	S3			11	Iowa	775.6			W3
12	Sat. Beach	.859	S4			12	Bushwood	788.2			W4
13	English	.854		N5		13	English	820.7		N4
14	Hickory	.828	S5			14	S. Grand Prairie	843.5		N5
15	Iowa	.784			W5	15	Michigan	875.9			W5

Who will be the towers of power in the new three-division, 15-team I-75 League format in this, our 33rd year?

A careful analysis of Applegate’s exclusive Power Rankings pegs their very own Paperclips as the team to beat in the North, while Springfield’s incredible pitching staff makes it the favorite in the South and Chatfield’s unmatchable offensive attack makes it the team to beat in the West.

The power rankings shown above rank each team overall in the league by both offense and pitching, and then again in those categories within their division.

By way of illustration, Savannah, which has the biggest discrepancy between the two categories, ranks 11th in offense overall and third in the South Division (S3), but sits third overall in pitching and second in the South Division (S2).

The South seems to have a pitching emphasis; the West an offensive emphasis, and the North is pretty evenly distributed.

Remember that six teams make the playoffs: The division champs and the three next-best records. Who do we see making the playoffs in addition to the division champs?

15-man ‘most efficient draft ever’ blows all other drafts away

Commish Dave Renbarger, right, presents Hickory manager Mike Wilson with the I-75 League Cup for winning the 2011 World Series, prior to the 2012 season draft.

Perhaps we should have gone to this 15-team format years ago.

After years of drafts that dragged on for seven, eight, nine hours — when we had just 9 or 12 managers — the I75 League pulled off its most efficient draft ever to kick off its 33rd year, conducting a 14-round, 15-team draft plus four supplemental rounds for the four entering teams in less than six hours!

With the use of a shared Google doc spreadsheet that made it easy for the four remote-drafting managers to enter picks as well as track picks being made at Draft Central, the draft hummed along efficiently, even breaking for 45 minutes for pizza after the eighth round.

The exciting first round held largely to form from an overall standpoint, with 13 of the 15 players being accurately forecast as first-rounders. Only Mike Moustakas (to Hickory) and Jason Kipnis (to Michigan) strayed from the mock draft prediction.

Two during-the-round trades jumbled the draft picture somewhat. After Michigan predictably took Tigers catcher Alex Avila and Springfield not surprisingly took slugger Alex Gordon, English took first baseman Eric Hosmer, but instantly packaged him with SS Starlin Castro along with picks 4 and 95 to Hickory for SS J.J. Hardy, P Felix Hernandez, the No. 9 pick and No. 103 pick. While teams tried to digest that, Hickory nabbed top pitching prospect Michael Pineda.

‘We’re not off Poinciana anymore, Toto!’

Before you blindly point your rental car or personal vehicle to Poinciana Blvd. this weekend, be aware this year’s Strat House is in a completely different location from past years. See Dave’s 2/26 e-mail for directions.  Here’s the relative lay of the land with key landmarks for this year’s festivities. (Not shown: Tigertown…)

From Disney, be sure to get onto Formosa Gardens and not Toll Road 429; Formosa Gardens runs parallel to the highway and takes you to Canary Island, which crosses over the highway to the Windsor Palms community.

Convention forecast: Hot, then not

A look at the 10-day Orlando weather forecast spanning the convention period. Looks like we need to pack for two different climates…

Draft tip: Act like you know the guy you’re drafting

A famous I-75 drafting faux pas occurred at the 1987 draft, when then-Michigan manager Mike Renbarger wrote down then name of Darrell Porter as his draft pick, turned in his index card, and left the room for some, er, personal maintenance.

While he was gone the draft moderator, squinting at the handwriting, announced Michigan had selected Dave Parker.

Not long after that, all picks were announced orally, but you still don’t want to be caught making a bonehead announcement, such as mispronouncing the name of a player you just selected to carry you to a divisional pennant.  It’s Luke HOE-chave-er, not HOCK-e-var.  Draft moderator Larry Pittman once went out of his way to thank a manager for the pronunciation guide on an index card in which he was tipped that the pitcher’s first name was pronounced “Ish-mael” and not as it was spelled, “Ismael.” As in Valdes.

How to avoid the boo-birds and catcalls? Try TheNameEngine.com, where you can search player names by team or just type them into the search engine. Not only will you get the phonetic pronunciation of Alfredo “uh-SAY-vess,” but you can also click to hear it spoken.

UPDATE, Wednesday, 3 p.m. ET: Apparently, the way Mike Stanton wants his first name to be pronounced is: “JEE-ahn-cahr-loh”