Newsletter - March 5, 2014

NVABL Newsletter

March 2013

The Standings

Coastal Division

	W	L	%	GB
Springfield	3	1	.750	1
Roswell	8	4	.666	--
Delphi	0	0	.000	--
Columbia Pike	5	7	.417	3
Sterling	3	5	.375	3
Oakton	3	5	.375	3

Piedmont Division

	W	L	%	GB
Stonehenge	7	1	.875	--
Arlington	0	0	.000	3
Vermont	0	0	.000	3
Occoquan	0	0	.000	3
Washington	11	13	.458	4
Seacoast	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 1^st round picks, and Washington is the only one with picks left in the 2^nd and 3^rd 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 3^rd round pick and Jimenez was a 5^th 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 3^rd 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 4^th round pick.

Grilli 10^th round pick

Jansen low 2^nd round pick

Thornburg 4^th rounder

Gentry 5^th rounder

That makes the trade a 1^st, 4^th, and 10^th for a 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th.  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 4^th 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 10^th.

SPR gives up SPR 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, Ellis 8^th, Russell 9^th, Satin 10th

OCC gives up Hill 2^nd, Kemp 2^nd, Paxton 7^th, OCC 7^th, Blackmon 9^th, Pena 10^th and Overbay 10^th.

That’s a 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 8^th, 9^th and 10^th

For

2^nd, 2^nd, 7^th, 7^th, 9^th, 10^th, and 10^th.

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 3^rd, 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 – 4^th rounder, Ramirez 3^rd rounder, Napoli 3^rd rounder, Breslow 3^rd rounder, Lopez is similar in grade to Smyly who was drafted in the 2^nd round, but with only 30 innings compared to 50.  Let’s say 3^rd round for Lopez.  That’s a 3^rd, 3^rd, and 4^th for 3^rd, 3^rd, and 3^rd, 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: