** Commissioner's Corner - Part XII- the Off-Season in Strat Leagues **
(by Marc Wasserman, Commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association {CBA} )

Nope, not in the least. Its the busiest time of the season as all the preparations for the next season and our clerical work begins. Thank the lord for some great staffers that we have who contribute invaluably to the league I preside over, the CBA. With our World Series now over and completed, there are new priorities that get set along with updating all of our league stats and new analysts which take over. To illustrate the tasks that need to be done at this time of year I will use my own league as an example which of course I am very familiar with with,

Now, I'm sure each league has their own talented support staff. In the CBA, Doug Brunet provides for us an amazing spreadsheet par excellence for our roster management which is an invaluable tool for every manager. This spreadsheet not only show the current team's roster but all the players who are available for our next draft with each players stats for the last playing year. In addition, Doug does a great job of tracking the usage of the players in the CBA and he even gets down into great detail on this. For example, last season Doug even tracked each time a player was demoted and recalled for each team. We have additional invaluable support that comes from a number of other league volunteers as well. I  can't tell you how much I appreciate the efforts of this team as I don't believe any league can have all of these tasks to support and be run well by just one person.

Now, let's take a look behind the scenes. Well, last month, upon the completion of our league playoffs, I managed to update the website by sharing for each playoff series its box scores and the press releases from teams involved along with the ones from our league offices. After setting up these webpages, I absolutely HAD to merge the last season's data from the regular season along with our playoffs into our leagues voluminous 'Encyclopedia". Our league encyclopedia has the full data all from all of our seasons all the way back to 1997. We have just about all the data too from all the playoff series as well. Look take a look at some of these stats. I know that you will just love 'em!
 

The next task at hand is to post the League Stats and Encyclopedia information to our website along with a few graphic charts as well. Please see below a sample of a few of these charts from our 2013 season:

Our next order of business is sorting through the penalties committed by each team during the last year and making an assessment of the infractions. I am strictly guided on this by our constitution and often I have to mete out the loss of picks to teams who have committed too many infractions or even sometimes, unfortunately must terminate a GM for dereliction of his duties during the season. No doubt this is the worst part of the experience for a GM considering how much time and effort these gamers/friends put into their long season. I am even sure these GM may be grumbling behind my back, but a strong league has to enforce these penalties to the letter, in my opinion, to keep your league running smoothly.

I even had to assess myself a lost draft pick last season after I inadvertently allowed two players to exceed their player's usage, and didn't meet the minimum Plate appearance to appear as a starter in a week (block) of games. This action by our league office is never popular but it is necessary. The harmony and balance of our league requires that usage stays at an even 100%. It's my fundamental belief that usage promotes what strategies each team must take and that even 1 at bat can influence a pennant race as well as change the fortunes of your friends.. We owe it to each other to be diligent. Sportsmanship as we accord to each other as is expounded by our founding charter.

With the penalty assessment out of the way, then working and updating the CBA website takes a major portion of my time as this past season has to be archived and linked in as new pages are setup and updated for each new season. These updates include season won-lost record along with playoff links and data and new pictures or team logos. I also add the final yearbook created from the game that includes pictures of our GMS along with some personal photos.

The team historic pages will also receive new entries and highlights. Each team's pages gets linked to their custom team logo on our website's main page. (A note to myself, buy a better html editor.) The web, twitter, facebook all get updates made and then the announcement of our new champion. This year, Glen Kenan's Ohio Outlawz destroyed the competition enroute to the 17th CBA Championship. I promptly ordered an engraved trophy from a reputable local trophy specialist, and sent it on to Glenn. This award couldn't have gone to a better or nicer person as one of our GMs. Glenn has paid his dues for 10 seasons before taking this baby home. His picture is posted with the championship trophy on our website (check it out or any of the other comments shared in this article by visiting our site at: http://www.cba-bb.net). This is the best part of the Commish's role acknowledging our current champion. He said he was absolutely thrilled and so were we!

As Doug, our "Roster Guy" puts together the latest version of another excellent league spreadsheet which includes the latest trades and the draft grid for 2015, I have to focus upon some personnel decisions to help our league move forward, which is my duties as the "Commish". Unfortunately, after going from the highs of sending our new champion his trophy, I now come to the lows of dismissing a few GM's who had to or needed to move on. Again, we have to follow the laws of our constitution and dismissal, at times is a reality in such a competitive league. When GM's do not follow procedures, and run into excessive infractions as spelled out by our constitution, for the good of our league they will be dismissed. There are mitigations for derelictions of GM duties such as an obvious health challenge, death in the family or some type of personal tragedy which are certainly accounted for of course ... but normal E mail contact should occur regularly,  Yes?

During this past season, we had a GM incur 7 over-usage infractions at season's end which affected a pennant race. Retirement was in order and fortunately was mutually respected. It is not an easy decision to let someone go as good friendships are always affected. However, for Commissioners who are wise, they must respect these type of situations and know at times problems come -- "Think first several times" :)  Then finding good replacements is a process on its own for some leagues with its own challenges. The CBA is fortunate enough to have a very low turnover as I believe our GMs feel very close to each other like family. When we do need a replacement GM, they are found from within our organization. Often respected GM's will nominate a person whom we can reference, or has built a reputation to invite as a replacement. On occasion, we will even welcome a less experienced GM because we know he (or she) will be a good fit and is very reliable. I generally make the final decision who to invite and welcome to the CBA. There are various candidates who I am personally acquainted with that I think can fill the bill who I will talk to as well. I also strongly recommend to take advantage of the Strat-o-matic's website too and to place a league opening on the appropriate section. The guys at SOM are great about allowing such notices and they put it up quite quickly. 

Getting new GM's acquainted with the rules of your league and how interactions between members happen is quite important. As you just know, that existing teams will inundate the new member and go like wolves after rabbit dinner especially to make trades or get players they covet. Salivating like Pablo's dogs, ruminating at a chance to get at a Mike Trout, Jacob DeGrom, and Jorge Soler as an example. "Perhaps, I can send you Silvio Martinez an establish winning (mind you) Righty starter, Paul Popovich and upcoming middle infielder, Mark Bomback a lefty, Lee Stanton a power hitter, and Luis Gomez a real.....upcoming young prospect for ...." Well ok I I need to build" is the usual reply back and after this, the new GM's team fades and he loses interest in his stocked team becomes a dead franchise. I'm all for the trade committee aka 'Tradecom' (as we call it) to protect these new franchises. They may watch over a new GM who we put in a probationary mode for their 1st season as well as be watching for logistics like usage allowances and over usage along with having eligible players and proper draft pick exchanges for lastly, good trade balance. Stop back up here, "Trade balance"? Yes that's correct, we have to look out for lopsided trades. This can bring up a huge debate within "Tradecom" but there is an easy answer to this.

Yes, if "Tradecom" sees an imbalanced trade, they will ask the trade partners to re-work this trade. Here are the conditions we look when trades are announced by our league members:

With the holiday season coming up soon, the CBA asks each team in early Deccember for their player cuts (or releases) to a 24 man roster before SOM begins through Twitter to share their early fielding range releases and then eventually release the full range of ratings via a file you can download from their site. This provides for some Mystery to remain so a GM must study the stats of their players and be diligent, without full knowledge. The CBA maintains this aura of mystery for our team cuts which will benefit our next draft at times. The cuts are processed and the extra players then are removed from their rosters. Meanwhile a clerical trade freeze is put into place while the Team Rosters, our Website and the 2015 CBA spreadsheet are all updated.  I also take the time to make a league file (from the current player set available, in this case the 2014 set) from which I can use as a model of our rosters to use while we wait for the new computer game to be released. Trades will usually freeze until after the new year, so our "Roster Guy" and I can take our break and vacations from the experience of managing a great league.

Right now, I am studying the effect of increasing our 38 man roster and the 24 players we protect to 42 men with 30 players protected to accommodate using injuries (Note, our league at present follows usage and doesn't use any injuries). .... I feel the use of injuries is a terrific way to incorporate many role players and establish a wider and more prolific trade market. It forces some new strategies and certainly could impact a player's trade value from the current non-injury trade market we have. Teams will need to stock their minors more anticipating recalls with some players who have decent or better cards then we have need of now. This will provide the need to cultivate a good farm or developmental system during this current day and age of information that has an easy access to Minor League Baseball (MILB) stats. Our minor league selection process is a success, and perhaps injuries is a new way to bring even more focus on having a deeper bench and this expanded development plan process. Thus part of my off season is busy studying the effects of various changes such as mentioned here will have upon our league community. This could result in a 2 year or perhaps 3 year plan of change in the future.

Here are some of my "SOM Card & Game Thoughts ..."

So SOM says Lagares is a 1 CF with a "-4" arm. What does it take then to get a -5 arm in CF? I can recall a couple of players in the past who had such an arm. Griffey, Geronimo, Ichiro (if you slide him to CF), and Mays. Who will be next? What about the next -5 arm at catcher? Anyone remember any of Ivan Rodriguez's cards? Or what about Eric Wedges at a +5 arm? ....

Great utility cards .... Zobrist, Campaneris, Kevin Mitchell?? Remember Mitchell's 1986 Mets card? Just saw that the other day. He had some big cards ...

Some favorite cards .... Gorman Thomas 1979 card. I liked that he had a 2-8 to 2-12 HR card with also 3-11 to 3-12 as well.

JR Richard's 1980 card. Power Pitcher personified. Big K's , big endurance.

Roberto Clemente's 1965 card with a -6 arm, oh yeah!.

Dick Allen's 1971 card getting a +5 arm in the OF ...

Did anyone think Mesoraco on the Reds would have the year he did?  Could he do it again? ....

And what about Syndergaard? Can your league draft a player like him and stash him away? ....

SOM gave Boston's Jackie Bradley 1's in all OF positions. Now I actually have to take him off my cut list...

David Wright is a 3 at 3B, with 107 million remaining on his contract through 2020. Will his defense return? ...

I don't know about your league but do other leagues allow hitters to bunt for basehits? ....

Do teams still program HAL for aggressive hit and run? ..... And how many guy/gals are aggressive issuing intentional walks? ...

At what point do you like to send runners to third on a base hit with 2 outs? 1-13? 1-15? 1-2? Never? ... With the idea of the second runner perhaps advancing as well? There are situations which may call for advancing the backup runner indeed. It also depends who is on deck, who is in the opposing bullpen along with other issues not withstanding such as perhaps there are some stratballers who will defy convention and try to take the backup base despite the risk of ending the inning just to get two runs in a tough ballpark. Is this maximizing or hurting their potential to win? ....

Would you steal on your friend if you are leading 7 to 0? .... Would you mind if they did it to you?... hmmm.

I think the best new features in the baseball game which Strat-o-matic came out with in the past few seasons: Pinch hitter and runner pecking orders. I have been waiting for years on these ones. Just love it! ...

Also, I'm curious to hear feedback from other leagues of their experience using and including subsets in the league reports and procedures .... (please contact me)

Does your team consider potential weather factors when setting your lineups against tough opponents? ....

Which league setting 'events' do you toggle off, uhh ....

For the sake of league sanity, perhaps my league should mandate dice and PBP scroll speed be set to 0 .... Who still plays speeds above 50?