NVABL
Newsletter
March 2013
The Standings
|
W
|
L
|
%
|
GB
|
|
|
3
|
1
|
.750
|
1
|
|
|
8
|
4
|
.666
|
--
|
|
|
0
|
0
|
.000
|
--
|
|
|
5
|
7
|
.417
|
3
|
|
|
3
|
5
|
.375
|
3
|
|
|
3
|
5
|
.375
|
3
|
|
W
|
L
|
%
|
GB
|
|
|
7
|
1
|
.875
|
--
|
|
|
0
|
0
|
.000
|
3
|
|
|
0
|
0
|
.000
|
3
|
|
|
0
|
0
|
.000
|
3
|
|
|
11
|
13
|
.458
|
4
|
|
|
4
|
8
|
.333
|
5
|
The Month
Good job by
Bart getting games in for Washington.
This will help in case he gets the opportunity to play some games for
Arlington and Vermont this year.
Stonehenge, Springfield, and Roswell have moved forward in their pushes
towards making the playoffs. Oakton has
stumbled out of the gate. After they
recover they should prove tough to beat.
Four teams have made major commitments to this year via trades to
Seacoast and Occoquan. They are Oakton,
Springfield, Stonehenge, and Washington.
All of them have lost their 1st round picks, and Washington
is the only one with picks left in the 2nd and 3rd
rounds.
Team By Team News
We are just getting started but here is a bit of news from
each team.
Stonehenge Druids – Dwight’s medieval team starts out of the gate in an
opposite manner to last year, going 7-1 and laying claim to the Piedmont
division lead. Stonehenge swept
Washington to begin the year, and followed it up by beating Columbia Pike 3
games to 1. Stonehenge was active in the
trading market. More to follow on that.
Springfield Cardinals – Springfield beat Oakton 3 to 1 to start out the
season. It’s a good team that looks to
become better throughout the season.
Springfield was also active in the trading market.
Roswell Greys – The Greys played 3 series last month, sweeping Washington,
losing to Sterling 1-3, and beating Seacoast 3-1. Roswell has good starting pitching and the
most double one players of any team.
They will be fine in the bullpen, with a 22*H lefty and 19*XYG righty. So far Roswell is standing pat in the trading
market.
Washington Senators – Bart got the most games in this month, with 20, as well as
4 already in March. They began 0-8 with
sweeps by Roswell and Stonehenge. Then
they bounced back by sweeping Sterling, splitting with Oakton, and winning 3 of
4 from Seacoast. The 11-13 record is
11-5 if you erase the struggles in the first 8 games, so this is a good team.
Columbia Pike Cubs – Steve is building for the future and looks to do this year
what he did last year, that is be difficult to beat and have fun. He began the season with 12 games and went
5-7. In the toilet bowl series, the Cubs
split with the Wayfarers. After that the
Cubs lost 3 of 4 to Stonehenge and split with Washington.
Sterling Pirates – Word on the street is that the Pirates are rebuilding this
year, but we shall see. They begin the
year taking 3 of 4 from Roswell, then getting swept by Washington.
Oakton – Larry has gone all in this year and was active in the trade
market. A tough start, going 1-3 at home
vs. the Cardinals, then split with Washington.
Seacoast Wayfarers – Chad starts out this year in sell off mode, and then goes
4-8 to become the front runner for the Hamner trophy. The Wayfarers split with the Cubs and then
lost 3 out of 4 to teams that are expected to be strong in the playoffs,
Roswell and Washington.
Arlington Aces – no games played.
Vermont Nonchalants – no games played.
Delphi Oracles – no games played.
His eminence did have a trip to India though, the first two weeks of
February. No doubt he was scouting
cricket players in search of anyone who can swing a bat.
Occoquan Ospreys – no games played.
Went through a big time sell off, in essence throwing in the towel.
The Game Count
The League put
in 10 series in February. I think this
is the best start we have seen.
The Trade Market
Seacoast
began the season right after the draft by taking profits on Kevin Siegrist and
Ubaldo Jiminez from Oakton. Siegrist was
a 3rd round pick and Jimenez was a 5th rounder. In exchange Chad got Oakton 1, 2, and 4. Larry was hoping to set the market for things
to come, in essence making sure that whoever tried to chase him would have to
give up all of next year in the attempt.
A curious strategy, but it worked.
From this Oakton gets a 29* grade reliever and 14 grade starter with 18
starts. Both players have Ws.
The next
trade was Stonehenge sending his first 4 picks and starter John Lackey for Koji
Uehara and Jordan Zimmermann, or is that Jordan Zimmermann and Koji
Uehara? My ratings of these players
would have been a first round pick for Uehara and a first and 3rd
for Zimmerman. But in the playoffs
Uehara will prove to be more valuable this year. He is the highest rated pitcher with a Z in
the league edging out Louis Coleman for that honor.
This trade
was followed up by a Washington – Occoquan deal that sent starter Rick Porcello
and reliever Jason Grilli, along with WAS #1 for Kenley Jansen, Tyler Thornburg, and Craig Gentry. This gives Bart a grade 19* reliever with
strikeout letters and a Z, along with a 14YH playoff starter, and a position
player that had generated a few inquiries from other owners. Up until now all the post draft trading had
been for pitchers. Gentry is an OF-3
with 15 on base numbers and D-34 steal rating.
He will be missed. I tip my hat
to Jansen, who is a reliever who has never been cut in 4 years in the league. If I had to rate these players it would be:
Porcello – a
prospect that generates some inquiries, let’s say a 4th round pick.
Grilli 10th
round pick
Jansen low 2nd
round pick
Thornburg 4th
rounder
Gentry 5th
rounder
That makes
the trade a 1st, 4th, and 10th for a 2nd,
4th, and 5th.
Pretty even, but I have no idea what Porcello is worth so it could be
more in Bart’s favor.
At this
point Occoquan was in search a its 4th first round draft pick and
was willing to give up just about any players in order to get it done. The willing manager was Chris, who traded
Springfield 1, 2, and 3, along with fillers Mark Ellis, James Russell, and Josh
Satin, in exchange for 6 players: 16xz lefty James Paxton, 2B Aaron Hill, OF
Matt Kemp and Charlie Blackmon, Ramiro Pena, a 3B5 with coverage at 2B and SS,
1B5 Lyle Overbay, and OCC 7. Let’s look
at this trade by rating each player for the draft picks he is worth, and see
who got the better of this blockbuster.
We’ll say any supplemental round player is worth a 10th.
SPR gives up
SPR 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Ellis 8th,
Russell 9th, Satin 10th
OCC gives up
Hill 2nd, Kemp 2nd, Paxton 7th, OCC 7th,
Blackmon 9th, Pena 10th and Overbay 10th.
That’s a 1st,
2nd, 3rd, 8th, 9th and 10th
For
2nd,
2nd, 7th, 7th, 9th, 10th,
and 10th.
At first
glance it looks like Occoquan got the better deal, but the mitigating factors
are that Paxton and Pena were drafted way beneath the level of their cards due
to tiny amounts of availability. They
will be very valuable in the playoffs.
Paxton is at a level that he would currently be Springfield’s #2
starter, and Pena will be a 3B5 who hits righties and has 1-4-6-7-7 power with
13 on base numbers, and his eligibility at 3 positions gives Chris flexibility
to leave position players behind and place 7 relievers on his 25 man roster, if
so desired. This deal was engineered by
Chris with the throw-ins filling holes he felt he had in his roster.
The last
trade of the month was made with the goal of getting OAK #3, if possible. The deal was put together by Larry, I only
wanted to get his 3rd, but he wanted more than one player so he
ended up throwing in Ramirez and Brothers to get what he wanted. Using my arbitrary ratings to compare the
players:
Brothers – 4th
rounder, Ramirez 3rd rounder, Napoli 3rd rounder, Breslow
3rd rounder, Lopez is similar in grade to Smyly who was drafted in
the 2nd round, but with only 30 innings compared to 50. Let’s say 3rd round for
Lopez. That’s a 3rd, 3rd,
and 4th for 3rd, 3rd, and 3rd,
slightly in favor of Larry but a pretty even trade given the wide variety of
players involved.
All of these
trades strengthen the contenders. That
gives us 4 teams that have distanced themselves a little bit from the rest of
us, but with Larry’s trades to improve he set the tone and no-one gained enough
on him to catch him as the #1 rated team this year.
The Zimmermann Question
Dwight
accuses Jordan Zimmermann of looking like my ugly mug, I don’t know why he
would insult his player this way, but let’s take a look and see if there is any
merit to Dwight’s claim. I mean, if you
really want to twist things, anybody looks like anybody. See the two of us with Frankenstein for
example:
