The TBL Baseball Annual A publication of the Transcontinental Baseball League The Youth Movement The Rookie, Norman Rockwell, 1957 2014 Edition Walter H. Hunt All 24 Teams Analyzed Mark H. Bloom Using the T.Q. System The TBL Baseball Annual A publication of the Transcontinental Baseball League by Walter H. Hunt Mark H. Bloom with contributions from TBL’s managers and extra help from: Robert Jordan Clay Beard Mark Freedman Paul Harrington Paul Montague Ray Murphy Jim Dietz Aline Hunt Copyright © 2014 Walter H. Hunt, except Kiner’s Corner, which is copyright © 2014, Jim Dietz. This book was produced using a Macintosh with Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop CS4. I can be reached by mail at 3306 Maplebrook Road, Bellingham, MA 02019 or by e-mail at [email protected]. The 2014 TBL Annual 3 the TBL baseball annual Welcome to the 2014 TBL Baseball Annual. This is the nineteenth year of the Annual in the book format. Last year’s book was an abbreviated work, what could be managed under the circumstances. This year’s book returns to the standards we have previously set, with some graphic advice from a talented young professional-in-training. Regrettably we don’t have the Vegas Line this year; hopefully it’ll be back next year for us. Youth and talent is a combination every team in TBL wants to build and maintain on its roster. This year we discuss the component of team-building that the T.Q. System does not cover: the people on the roster that will be part of the team two or five or more years from now. We bring you articles and metrics to illuminate what little we know about it. We hope you enjoy our work, and TBL’s new season. Walter, Mark May, 2014 The T.Q. System Shamelessly stolen from the Mazeroski annual, the T.Q. System assigns points to each area of the team’s expected performance and totals the result. The maximum score under the T.Q. System is 50, divided as follows: Pitching: 20 points Offense: 17 points Defense: 8 points Bench: 5 points The T.Q. System does not take age or prospect value into account, only present capability. It does, however, consider usage (available games, at bats and innings). 4 The 2014 TBL Annual table of contents FRONT MATTER The Youth Movement Bob Jordan 5 Manager Roll Call 9 Future Drafts 10 TQ Summary 11 Metrics Walter Hunt 12 2014 Computer Pre-Play Clay Beard 13 Hall of Fame: Enshrinees 2014 14 Hall of Fame: For Your Consideration 15 The Zen of Youthness Paul Montague 16 Commissioner’s Report Paul Harrington 19 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Clemente Division Sleepwalking 20 Whitman 22 Columbus 26 Blue Hill 30 Fair Oaks 34 Mays Division Keeping It Real 38 Greater Ohio 40 Rye 48 Gotham City 44 Grand Cayman 52 Ruth Division The Great Divide 56 Brobdingnag 58 Dallas 66 Detroit 62 New Westminster 70 2013 World Series Report 74 NATIONAL CONFERENCE Aaron Division The Sisyphus Race 76 Portland 78 Kansas 86 Maracaibo 82 Northboro 90 Mantle Division Defend Against All Comers 94 Zion 96 Hudson 102 Munich 100 Melrose 110 Williams Division The Song Remains the Same 114 Knoxville 116 Taylorville 124 Midwest 120 Las Vegas 128 FINAL WORDS Breakthrough 130 Future 131 Editorial 132 In Memoriam 133 The 2014 TBL Annual 5 the youth movement by Bob Jordan Welcome to the 2014 TBL Baseball Annual! to our rules committee, who keep the flame alive when the This year the usual suspects sneered at life- winds of controversy blow, as threatening illness, braved killer weather and they do from time to time. ignored our wives and children to bring you Thanks go once again to our amazing editor this – the greatest fantasy baseball annual on Walter Hunt, whose work and commitment to this or any planet. In this amazing edition, we this publication is a blessing to all of us who will bring you every twist and turn, stone cold enjoy it every year. We are also obliged to thank truth and subtle nuance of TBL 2014 – our 33rd Walter’s talented daughter Aline Hunt for her year of competition. help on our graphics this year, which is a stark indicator that none of us are getting any younger. But before we render the regular season irrel- evant with our fearless prognostications, we Youth Movement or, should acknowledge a few of our brethren that The Rules in My Neighborhood made 2013 memorable, starting with our …um … usual TBL Champion – Richard Meyer and Northboro is in the midst of a hard rebuild – the his Elders of Zion. This is Rich’s 57th TBL title, kind of cliff dive that everyone tries to avoid. for those – like me - who are too lazy to check We’ve been defoliating for a couple of years the stats archive and count them up. Rich found now, and we made the painful decision to trade the better mousetrap against Brian Hanley’s away David Ortiz a year ago – a move that Whitman River Rats, who had a spectacular sea- put us in a position to draft two guys who are son, winning 105 games with a 2.94 team ERA. younger than my kids in the first round of the No matter – Rich took them out in five games, 2014 draft – Jurickson Profar and Mike Zunino. beating Clayton Kershaw twice in the process. When you make the decision to go young at the expense of all else, you discover that there’s a While Rich was reinforcing his TBL Hall of Fame different set of values at work. The end goal is credentials, TBL was changing the guard in the the same – we’re all looking for a TBL title. But front office. Paul Harrington – longtime owner the path sometimes leads through dark valleys and our Commissioner of Vice for the last several and furious storms, and you make decisions seasons, now owns The Big Hat as commissioner based alternative criteria that are unique to a of TBL. Paul succeeds Darrell Skogen, who small class of truly bereft clubs. served with humor, patience and compassion for the past four years. TBL thanks him for his Current value is meaningless. When you live in the time and his leadership, and we hand the keys real world you look at the cards in depth before to the company car and the big paycheck to Mr. you draft anyone. In my neighborhood, the cards Harrington in this, his first year. are still in shrink wrap on draft day. Current value has no meaning at all in Northboro – all TBL owes a word of thanks to some other folks your prospective draftees are evaluated entirely whose dedication and passion make this well- on their minor league numbers and the number oiled machine run smoothly. Tip of the fedora of games, innings and starts. goes to our genius in residence Steve Stein, who maintains our stats archive, and builds and Usage is King. Starters with a full season of starts manages our online draft room. Thanks also go are incredibly valuable. In fact, hard rebuild- 6 The 2014 TBL Annual ers draft starters over relievers, just because you Relievers are a first-world problem. The other have to have 162 starts, and someone will always reason that basket cases draft starters is that take starts off your hands in a trade. In 2012, Steve you can use a starter as a reliever in TBL. That and I traded a couple of nice relievers – Ernesto means that if you have your starts covered, Frieri and Huston Street – to Portland for Ian and some extra starter you have stunk the joint Kennedy. Trading Frieri and Street was a no- out for an extra 110 innings (take a bow, Dylan brainer for a team in our position. What use are Axelrod), that becomes a valuable card. One hun- Grade 20*+ relievers to a team that will fail to dred and ten innings means you need one slot reach 60 wins? Kennedy looked like a guy we to cover those relief innings instead of two. The could plug into the rotation for the next several extra slot becomes a lottery ticket on draft day. years, and he could be a solid piece of a good staff. But last year he pitched terribly, and in the Drafting starters, The Melrose Method, and land of the living we would have been kicking Midwest 2009. The prevailing wisdom is that ourselves for getting scorched in a trade with a drafting starters when you suck like a black division rival. But the bad Grade (6), the scary hole is not a sound idea. The thinking is that peripherals (C-26 HR-23) and the big number of hitting needs to be in front of the pitching on starts (29) was perfect for us this year – an exam- the journey from 50 to 100 wins. The last pieces ple of through-the-looking glass value. to fall into place are the bullpen and the top end of the starting rotation. This is the Melrose One of the tricks is to collect high-usage scrubs to Method, perfected by Mark Freedman. (Let me fulfill position requirements. This offseason, we be among the first to suggest that Mr. Freedman added Macier Izturis and Kevin Frandsen for short needs to be on the short list for the next TBL money this offseason – two guys who have no Hall of Fame manager.) value at all unless you’re belly-down in the mud. Guys that have 100+ games and cover a num- Part of the reason that this makes sense is that ber of positions are very valuable to those teams all pitchers are point-in-time commodities.