From the Desk of the Commish

Way back in 2003, I selected a slap-hitting second baseman during our mid-year farm pick-up. This kid, just 20 years old at the time, was en route to a season where he would finish with a .327/.377/.428 batting line at the Low-A level. He didn't really do anything exciting, as he only hit 2 homers, and only stole a handful of bases (20), but there was just something about him I liked. So I stuck with him as he posted a rather mediocre 714 OPS in 2004, and followed that with a 768 OPS in 2005.

Finally, in the winter of 2006, I'd grown tired of waiting for this kid to show any sort of punch at the plate. I needed a platoon-hitting shortstop, and Matt Clemm had just what I needed in Rich Aurilia. So I traded this banjo-hitting kid to the Jamboree (along with Vinny Castilla) in exchange for Aurilia and some worthless prospect.

That kid played three seasons for the Jamboree, and posted some respectable numbers (.286/.344/.432, with 188+ runs created) before he was shipped off in his walk year to the Ravenswood Infidels in exchange for Kosuke Fukudome.

And that, my friends, is how Ravesnwood ended up with the OL Hitter of the Chapter for Chapter Three, Alberto Callaspo. Little Alberto led the OL in runs created last chapter, while batting .441/.481/.538. He is now hitting .347/.409/.496 on the season, and has earned a spot as a reserve on this year's all-star roster.

In 2003, when Little Alberto was tearing up the Midwest League as a 20-year-old, the EL Hitter of the Chapter was slogging through the High-A Carolina League as a 22-year-old, and posting a rather mediocre .242/.359/.424 batting line. The Cleveland Rocks were intrigued enough by that line to draft this kid in the 5th round of the 2003 farm draft. But by Chapter Four, he was released outright, to make room on the roster for the great Kiko Calero.

After posting a horrendous 512 OPS in MLB in 2004, the Blazers selected this mystery player in the 29th round of the 2005 draft. Then, at the final trading deadline of 2006, he was sent packing to Ravenswood in exchange for Rick Helling. In 2007, Mystery Player X managed to post an 850 OPS in just 206 at-bats, which earned him a three-year contract from the Infidels. But the following year, he hit just .205/.271/.343, and was traded to the Marlboro Hammerheads. He then played part-time for the next two seasons, and ended his Marlboro career by hitting .215/.297/.415 in 246 at-bats in 2010.

But then suddenly, at the age of 30, Popeye ate his spinach, and "Joey Bats" was born. Kansas superstar Jose Bautista slugged his way to a third-place MVP finish in 2011 after leading the league in homers (58) and RBI's (162). And he's now added to his trophy case by earning the EL Hitter of the Chapter award, following his torrid performance (.383/.495/.938, 13 HR, 28 RBI's) in Chapter Three.

If you sensed a great disturbance in the Force on May 18th, it's only because the best team in the BDBL just acquired the best pitcher in the Ozzie League in the third chapter. Michael Pineda led the OL in ERA (1.33), opponents BA (.137), opponents OBP (.196) and opponents slugging (.274). Yes, that's a 470 OPS allowed. Coming to a ballpark near you, Eck Leaguers.

I'm tired of mentioning how Justin Verlander became an Akron Ryche, so I'll just mention that he has won the EL Pitcher of the Chapter award for the second chapter in the row. He led the EL in strikeouts (51) and wins (5), posted a 1.97 ERA, and held opposing hitters to a .169/.218/.294 average. Has anyone heard from Kris Honel lately? If anyone can tell me which gas station he is working at these days, I'd like to have a word with him.

In total, 24 trades were made by 21 teams, involving 121 (yes, 121!) players (and who knows how many draft picks traded by Bobby.) As the dust settles, several teams now look completely different than they did six weeks ago. How this will all play out in the second half if anyone's guess. The question is whether there can possibly be any more trades left to be made before the final deadline. (And if you know your BDBL history well enough, the answer is yes!)

In keeping with the first element above, is there any doubt whatsoever that the 2012 season is, for all intents and purposes, over? We've seen this movie four times before, and it never ends well. After winning four trophies, and appearing in five World Series, in a span of just ten years, you would think that Tom DiStefano would have nothing left to prove. In fact, before the season started, he volunteered to trade his entire team for an expansion team, just to give himself a challenge. Merely winning another trophy every other season has become boring for poor Tom.

If Allentown had never won a championship before, I suspect the urgency to win that first championship would have driven Tom to make a bold trade by dealing one of his four all-star outfielders for an ace pitcher before the season began. And if that weren't enough, I suspect most of us would have made a big play for Roy Halladay if it meant the trophy were all-but-guaranteed.

But Tom has never been about bold moves, and the lack of urgency to win another trophy allows him the luxury of making smaller, less costly, moves that often end with the same result. Instead of trading one of his five stud outfielders in the pre-season to acquire an ace, he traded several spare parts that he didn't need either this year or next, and received an ace-like pitcher, Josh Beckett (9-6, 3.38 ERA for Allentown), in return.

This past chapter, Tom could have easily outbid the offer that eventually landed Halladay (by far, the biggest fish in the trading pond this year.) Instead, he traded away a bunch of spare parts with little-to-no value to him (or, some would argue, anyone else) this year or next, and landed one of the best pitchers in the Ozzie League in Michael Pineda.

The Ridgebacks have now added Pineda, Beckett, Chipper Jones, Tim Hudson and Elvis Andrus, all without having to trade any of his four all-star outfielders, nor either of his top two prospects (Mike Trout and Manny Machado.) Is there another GM in this league who could ever pull off such a feat?

It's time to rename the trophy. The rest of us aren't even worthy enough to look at it.

Heading into the season, I wrote admiringly of the Niagara Locks pitching staff, which was led by Roy Halladay, David Price and Matt Harrison: three studs that would make any team an instant contender. But I also expressed some not-so-tactful disdain toward the Niagara lineup, which I likened to strolling through a friend's trash-strewn livingroom.

Two chapters into the season, the Locks were holding steady in the Person Division race, with a 27-29 record -- 5 games out of first place. As expected, their pitching staff was performing admirably, but their offense was also doing some damage. In fact, at that point in the season, the Locks had scored more runs than the first-place SoCal Slyme.

But the wheels came off the bandwagon in a BIG way in Chapter Three. Unable to manage his games himself, Mike Ranney handed the reins over to the MP, and the results were disastrous. Niagara was swept by the New Milford Blazers, Salem Cowtippers, Allentown Ridgebacks and Great Lakes Sphinx, and even managed to lose two games to the lowly Granite State Lightning. The end result: a 5-19 record in the chapter, leaving them 17 games out of first place.

As a side effect to that disastrous chapter, Ranney predictably placed his free-agent-to-be, ace Roy Halladay, on the trading block. Unpredictably, however, he placed him there without letting anyone know about it, except Sylmar Padawans GM John Duel. Duel took full advantage of that monopolistic negotiation, and acquired the Cy Young candidate in exchange for man-without-a-country Peter Bourjos, mediocre fireballer Juan Nicasio and 34-year-old veteran Rafael Furcal.

On the plus side, Ranney managed to dump Ryan Howard's albatrossian $9.1MM salary (and $19.1MM total contract) in the process, as well as Jake Westbrook's $6.5MM salary. That's a whopping $15.6 million in useless salary for the 2013 season.

Since the rule was passed four years ago, John Duel has been bitching about Rule 7.18, which requires our penalty and bonus money to be carried over from year to year, for a rolling period of three years. At various times throughout those four years, Duel has claimed that this rule: a) has sapped all of the fun out of the league for him, b) will cause permanent classes of "have's" and "have-not's", c) forced him to trade away good prospects to remain competitive, and d) forced him to completely alter his long-term strategy.

On this last point, Duel has stated many times that his long-term strategy is to ensure that he has an extremely low level of committed salary at any time, thus causing him to find short-term stop-gap solutions on a year-to-year basis.

Of course, Duel broke this self-imposed rule when he signed Alex Rodriguez to a horrific $14 million salary that was guaranteed to pay $42 million over three years at minimum. Luckily for him, though, he received his very own "bailout" when Matt Clemm not only took that contract off his hands, but gave him Madison Bumgarner for the trouble.

Duel then broke his rule again by bidding $12.5 million on Mike Napoli in this winter's free agent auction. He also bid $7 million on Brandon McCarthy, $12 million on C.C. Sabathia, $7.5 million on Brian McCann, and actually won the bidding on Lance Berkman at $8.5MM and David Robertson at $6MM.

So right there, that's $14.5 million committed to two players who will be injured for most of the 2012 MLB season. Since then, Duel has traded for Ryan Howard (also injured most of this season), who carries a salary of $9.1 million next season, Mark Reynolds ($6.1MM), Rickie Weeks ($9.1MM) and Jake Westbrook ($6.5MM).

That's $45.3 MILLION committed to six players who will make a negative impact in the 2013 BDBL season.

Hmm...piling on massive amounts of debt in order to "stimulate" his immediate situation...having no defined strategy...breaking his promise to be fiscally responsible...blaming his poor performance on things that have nothing to do with his poor performance...

While the Padawans have been busy piling up massive amounts of debt in exchange for instant gratification, few have seemed to notice that they went just 9-15 in Chapter Three. Meanwhile, the San Antonio Broncs, who threw in the towel last chapter after a poor two-chapter performance, went 13-11 in Chapter Three.

I often wonder what would happen if we played a season in reverse order. Imagine if we played Chapter Three first, followed by Chapters Two and One. San Antonio would be two games ahead in their division after one chapter of play, and the Padawans would be trailing them by four games. Instead of trading Michael Pineda, Josh Willingham, Miguel Montero and Heath Bell, the Broncs would likely be buyers. Maybe Greg Newgard would have traded for Roy Halladay instead of Duel. (A package of Paul Goldschmidt and Brian Matusz would have trumped what Duel traded for Halladay.)

And there is little doubt that Duel would be complaining loudly about how the penalty rule was ruining his season once again. Instead of adding a Halladay, he would be trading a Holliday. Hunter Pence would be history, and Duel would be crowing about how much money he has to spend in the 2013 auction.

Well, I've mentioned it often enough in this article, I may as well give this trade its own story. Every year, a trade is made that completely changes the face of the playoff picture. Roy Halladay is the type of player to do just that, but just think about how much damage it could have caused had Halladay been traded to the Ridgebacks, the Blazers, or even (try to contain your excitement, please) the Cowtippers. Having Halladay go to the Padawans doesn't change the Griffin Division race one iota, but it may make a big difference in the Ozzie League playoffs. Halladay has the ability to pitch three times in a seven game series, and that has often made a huge difference throughout BDBL playoffs history.

Of course, the first question that arose after this trade was announced was whether or not the Niagara Locks had received "fair value" for Halladay. It is impossible to measure "fair value", because it's so subjective. Obviously, Locks GM Mike Ranney felt he received fair value, or he wouldn't have agreed to the deal. But if we look at similar trades throughout BDBL history, does the package of players received by the Locks in this trade measure up with the trades of similar ace starters throughout history?

I could list similar types of trades every year throughout league history, but you get the point. In most cases, these types of trades have worked out very well for the team trading the ace. In the case of this year's Halladay trade, the main benefit to the Locks isn't necessarily Peter Bourjos or Juan Nicasio. Although they are perfectly fine players with limited upsides and decent value, the main benefit for Niagara was shedding $15.6 million in salary in 2013, and another $10 million in 2014.

The Class of 2013 promises to be among the best in league history, and the Locks now have an extra $15.6 million to spend. Granted, it is better to have a Carlos Santana, Jay Bruce or Eric Hosmer, whose market value far exceeds his salary, than to have $15.6 million to spend on players worth $15.6 million. But this is as positive a spin as I can put on this trade.

As the newest owner in the league, the youngest owner in the league, and the son of a bonafide BDBL legend, Ryan Glander had three strikes against him before he even began the daunting effort of constructing a winning ballclub. The strategy he ultimately chose was to use his vast resources (uniquely available to him through the ability to release players without penalty and to enter the 2012 season without any prior penalties against him) to "buy" bad contracts from other teams in exchange for young players with upside. With the worst draft class in league history looming on the horizon, it seemed like a prudent strategy to me, though (as you can see from the quote above), that strategy had its detractors.

Now that we are nearly halfway through the MLB season, let's take a look at how Ryan's strategy is paying off. First, we'll look at his pitching staff:

	ERA	IP	H	HR	BB	K
James McDonald	2.39	75	53	4	22	73
Vance Worley	3.00	54	53	7	19	54
Eric Bedard	3.59	63	58	5	28	61
Aaron Harang	3.59	78	77	6	29	64
A.J. Burnett	3.61	62	58	4	20	56
Edinson Volquez	3.91	76	64	7	43	64
Felix Doubront	4.17	73	70	10	28	81

That's SIX starting pitchers with an ERA below 4.00, including a guy with the 9th lowest ERA in the major leagues. McDonald was acquired from Allentown as part of the Josh Beckett deal. Worley and Burnett are carryovers from the Badger regime. Bedard was Granite State's first pick (in Round 3) of the draft, and Burnett was an 11th round pick. Harang was recently picked up in trade. And Doubront was the first player selected at the Chapter Three free agent deadline.

	Pos	PA	BA	OBP	SLG
Josh Willingham	LF	247	.290	.405	.575
Todd Frazier	SS	127	.267	.323	.578
Matt Carpenter	3B	118	.288	.356	.519
Mitch Moreland	1B	160	.283	.340	.517
Jose Altuve	2B	264	.321	.361	.472
Alejandro de Aza	RF	272	.308	.384	.429
Lucas Duda	LF	239	.264	.351	.447
Matt Adams	1B	68	.254	.309	.429

If the season ended today (and there is a lot of baseball left to be played), the Lightning would only need to draft a catcher to have a complete team. And they will have roughly $25 million to spend!

Although it would be embarrassing to see my son accomplish something in his second year that I have been trying to accomplish for 12 years, it would be nice to finally see a BDBL trophy in the Glander house. At least I could finally see what it looks like in person.

Let's not mince words: this has been a disastrous season for the Chicago Black Sox. Miguel Cabrera should be contending for an MVP award, but instead he's hitting .287/.355/.453, and didn't even make it onto the all-star ballot (well, at least not on purpose.) Justin Upton has just 9 home runs at the all-star break. Adam Jones is hitting a paltry .273/.304/.454. And Anibal Sanchez is sporting a 5.90 ERA in five starts as a Black Sock.

And yet, despite all of that, Chicago is sporting a .587 winning percentage. Normally, such a rate of success would warrant a spot in the playoffs, but the Black sox currently trail in the EL wild card race by two games. Incredibly, two of these teams will not make it to the playoffs this year: Kansas, Chicago, St. Louis and Southern Cal. All four teams currently sport a winning percentage of at least .575.

Of course, Chicago just made a HUGE move toward securing that playoffs spot by acquiring Salem slugger Matt Kemp. Kemp was hitting a robust .328/.387/.607 for the Cowtippers, with 23 homers and 64 ribbies and 20 stolen bases at the halfway point of the season. By placing Kemp in a lineup that already includes Cabrera, Upton and Jones, Gill is hoping for a repeat of the magic that carried his team to the 2000 and 2004 World Series. Incredibly, both of those Series resulted in an historic upset. So obviously, Gill is hoping for a better outcome this time around.

In 2003, the Marlboro Hammerheads, led by Ken Kaminski, embarked on a strategy he termed "rebuilding while contending." Despite a significant lead in his division, Kaminski traded two of his best hitters -- Sammy Sosa and Steve Finley -- and one of his best starting pitchers (Matt Clement) in exchange for a couple of lesser replacement players (Bobby Abreu and Carlos Beltran) and a couple of players with upside for the following year (Andy Ashby and Ryan Madson.) Shortly thereafter, he made a similar trade, dealing Roy Halladay and two others for Matt Morris and Javier Vazquez, who (at the time) had more value in the future.

The strategy worked, as the Hammerheads still managed to clinch the division title (by only three games) despite the downgrades. And in 2004, Marlboro managed to win 86 games, which wouldn't have been possible had they stuck with their original roster.

In 2007, Bob Sylvester also attempted the "rebuild while competing" strategy. Despite the fact that his team was leading the wild card race at the time, Sylvester unloaded several star players in exchange for future value. SoCal ended up winning the wild card on the final day of the season, and won a BDBL-record 116 games the following season.

More recently, Nic Weiss has become famous for his "rebuild while competing strategy", which has resulted in a division title in 2011.

This season, there are two teams that are evidently pursuing this strategy: the Salem Cowtippers and the St. Louis Apostles. The Cowtippers boldly proclaimed this strategy when they traded their MVP, Matt Kemp, last chapter. In exchange, Salem received a "replacement" for Kemp's bat in Melky Cabrera (who also provides tons of upside in 2013) and a great deal of salary cap relief for 2013. Since that trade, the Cowtippers have added Carlos Pena (arguably the EL MVP at this point) and Dustin Pedroia, which may make Salem's offense even more productive in the second half than they were in the first. And the addition of Sean Marshall to the bullpen makes the Cowtippers especially dangerous in the late innings.

Over in the EL, the St. Louis Apostles were -- by far -- the most active team in the league last chapter. GM Bobby Sylvester completed 10 trades involving 46 players. And as the dust settles, here is what we are left with:

When you look at the big picture, the Apostles probably suffered a downgrade from Lee to Collmenter, especially given the difference in innings. Otherwise, it seems about even. And yet, in the end, the St. Louis farm system greatly benefits with the additions of Jedd Gyorko, Mike Olt, Matt Davidson, Byron Buxton, Josh Sale, Jackie Bradley, Francisco Lindor and Anthony Rendon.

There are only two events that I can think of that would cause me to resign from the BDBL: my death, and Anthony Peburn winning a trophy before I do.

Sadly, we are dangerously close to one of those events (and I'm feeling quite healthy at the moment.)

New Milford's acquisition of Cliff Lee this chapter certainly casts an ominous shadow over the league. The Blazers are already winning nearly 70% of their games without Lee. But if you wanted to search for a silver lining to this cloud, you could point to the fact that three of New Milford's starting pitchers are now left-handed. That would make it pretty easy for some enterprising team with big aspirations to exploit.

You know, just saying, if that's the type of thing you wanted to exploit...with one chapter left to trade...that's probably something that would help you.

Chapter Three Recap