Pioneer League 2

Why are there no new posts?

2009-02-25T09:59:00.000-08:00

Well that is a good question. My wife has recently had the birth of our twin boys. Between the twins, my wife, work and everything else, the internet has been a struggle to get on. Hence the reason for no new posts. I promise once everything slows down and returns to semi-normal I will get back on the postings.

In the meantime, I will post the Hall of Fame canidates for Season 3 by Friday. This is so that the blog has something new and I have a reason to start working the internet back into my schedule. This will work the internet in to my schedule with no arguements as to why I should be doing something else instead of doing the blog. By Friday the Hall of Fame canidates for Season 3 will be posted. This is important that you check and vote. Everyone in the league has a vote for the Hall of Fame.

Please check back around Friday for new Hall of Fame voting. Thank you for your understanding and I promise that the blog will return to normal by mid-March or so. Thank you again for your understanding.

Also: If you are interested in helping with the blog, even on a temporary basis; please trade chat me so I can get you the access you need to post on our blog. Thank you again.

Miguel Tejera

2009-01-26T04:06:00.000-08:00

I was waiting to do this article until I got comment from Squeeky, however he has gone without comment for over a week now. Also if I wait any longer this article might not be relevant any more. So, here we go.

Miguel Tejera has gone for a whoping 22.5 million dollars per year this year. By far that is our most expensive free agent of the year. From what I can tell there were two serious bidders for him. Seattle Mariners and Syracuse Barge Canals were the two that were pursing him at all cost, well sort of at all costs. The Seattle Marineers drew the line at $21 million per year. Which was $20 million per year for five years and a $5 million dollar bonus.

Miguel Tejera has never received more than $7.5 million per year. After speaking with his former owner, Starbuckdc, in Owatta, he is sick over not renewing Miguel Tejera's contract. Apparently the Ottawa Oemba's had the opportunity to get a hometown discount at the price of $7.5 million per year. That is some hometown discount, $15 million per year. At 19 wins over the last two years, and a sub 3.00 ERA each year that is a great price in this reporters opinion. Ottawa definiately screwed the pooch on Miguel Tejera by letting him hit the free agent market. Ottawa's sports radio hosts must be up in arms. I can only imagine they are calling for Starbuckdc's head. What makes this worse is Miguel Tejera's OAV over the last two years were .229 and .220 respectively. Also he had a mere .275 for OBP last year. Again, locking him up at $7.5 million per year should have been one of the easiest decisions that the Ottawa Oemba's had this year. However they chose to part with him, and the Ottawa sports radio show hosts now have something new to yell about over the radio. I think that Ottawa's GM was being kind and throwing them a bone, as they don't really have much to complain about.

After hitting the free agent market, Miguel Tejera, went for a staggering $22.5 million per year for 5 years. After reaching em_knaps for comment, he claims that he drew the line at $21 million per year, and had serious reservations about offering him that. Seattle's GM states that no player is worth more than $20 million per year and that no player can ever live up to those expectations. He further points to Miguel Tejera's age. He is 28 at the writting of this article. Em_knaps claims that his best two years will be the last two, with this year possibly matching them and maybe next year. However he claims that from then on he will be on the decline. The Seattle GM states that he was basically paying for 2, possibly 3 years with the other two being neccesary to sign him. Em_knaps said he had an escape clause in the contract for the 5th year, so when he inevitably declined, he could cut his losses at that point. Here's hoping Squeekyethan did the same thing.

Squeekyethan, Syracuse Canal's GM paid $22.5 million per year for 5 years for Miguel Tejera. That is $20 million per year for 5 years and a $10 million bonus. The most that the GM's can offer a player per year is $20 million. So that leaves a $2.5 million descrepancy. Multiply that over 5 years and that gives us $10 million. Which would be the bonus offered to Miguel Tejera for year one. Basically Squeekyethan believes that Miguel Tejera is worth $30 million for the first year. If Miguel Tejera could up his win total by one, that would be 20 wins. At 20 wins per season, Syracuse's GM would have paid $1.125 million per win. At 19 wins the pay rate would be roughly $1.18 million per win. If Miguel Tejera does decline in year 4 and 5, Syracuse's GM would not be able to rid himself of the contract until possibly year 5 and that is only if he put in a buyout clause. Lets see down the road a little bit. In year 4 of this monstrous contract, Miguel Tejera would be 31 and possibly on the decline. Lets say he manages still to get 15 wins at $22.5 million per year. That is $1.5 million per win. Say he totally falls off and only wins 10 games, that is $2.25 million per win.

Here is to hoping that Miguel Tejera Syracuse's GM thought this contract out, and hopefully has a buyout clause for year 5 in case his player starts to regress back to his year 8 totals of 4.07 ERA with a 1.30 WHIP.

This reporter along with the rest of the league is still awaiting comment from Syracuse's GM. Maybe he is waiting for the season to speak for itself, however for this to work out the 4 years, possibly 5 years would have to speak for itself.

Pioneer League Hall of Fame

2009-01-26T04:03:00.000-08:00

Pioneer League Hall of Fame

Year One

Unfortunately there were no inductees for year one. Please stay tuned until the next season for Year 2 through 10 voting.

Year Two

Unfortunately there were no inductees for year two.

We will do Year Three starting at the end of the week sometime. Stay tuned.

Hall of Fame voting

2009-01-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

We were voting in our hall of famers last year however we were only able to debate and vote about year one due to time constraints when the voting started.

This year I intend to do years 2 through 10. Right now we need to focus on year 2.

If you are new or need a refresher about the Pioneer League Hall of Fame rules they are as follows:

Who should vote on who belongs in the Hall of Fame?

Everyone/team will have an equal vote

Who is eligible for the Hall of Fame?

Any player who retires becomes immediately eligible for the Hall of Fame if he has at least 10 years expirence with at least 5 years of ML expirence.
The Hall of Fame committee will vote, any player receiving at least 70% of the voting will be inducted into the HOF.
There shall be no minimum number of players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, along with no maximum number of players. If no player garners enough votes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, then there shall be no inductions that year.
A player shall remain on the ballot for a total of 3 years, provided that they garner at least one vote.
For years one through four, we will have to project the ML stats out for at least 5 years by ourselves. WIS only shows their stats for the first year of the world, regardless if the player has played for 15 years and has 10 years ML expirence. With that said, I believe that it is each voters own opinion on how they project it out. That will make it very interesting on who gets in and why. It should make for some very good chats.

Are there any "special" rules?

Yes, they are: No player can be taken out of the HOF, except in extreme cases. I don't know what that extreme case would be, but if someone feels so strongly that a player should be taken out then a review of what the reason is will be taken at that time. Extreme cases are NOT: The player should be taken out because this is not the really good hall of fame, the player shoulld be taken out because I don't want him there. The player garnered enough votes to be inducted, so he will stay based off of that. An extreme case would be something like, for some reason that the stats we saw were changed.

You are responsible for checking to make sure I have all of your players that are eligible that year. I haven't made any mistakes yet in my life, but I am almost positive that I will eventually. I would hate that I missed your player for the year, and he wasn't eligible anymore because of it. With that said, I do re-check the lists, but I am only human and might make a mistake; Especially with 32 teams to look through and 10 seasons. If you take the time to look at one team and check the work I do, then mistakes can be avoided.

OK... So here are the players that are eligible for the Hall of Fame for year two:

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239491

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239945

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239891

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239763

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239944

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239645

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239658

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239292

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239710

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239713

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239538

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239586

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=240009

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239941

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239988

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=240060

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239349

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239347

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239798

http://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=239814

There were no votes for any players from year one, so none of them qualify for this years voting.

Also, you are going to have to project in any manner you deem appropriate a players statistics for any years that are not shown. WIS does not show a players statistics from 10 years back if it was only season 2 in the league. I do not want anyone telling me in their votes that we can not make numbers up that aren't there. I think we can project them for what they should be, if you do not think that, then so be it.

Please post your votes in one of these ways:

In the world chat; I will check it daily

Through trade chat to me (em_knaps)

Through Sitemail to me (em_knaps)

You must tell me if you have a ballot with no votes! If you do not tell me you have a no vote ballot then I will count you as a ballot that did not vote and will remove you from the tally. So if one player does not tell me they have a no vote ballot, and 30 other players either vote or tell me they have a no vote ballot then I will figure the numbers based off of 30 votes. This is why it is important you vote!

I will allow for a week of debate for year two which puts the deadline to vote at midnight on January 24th. Any votes received after midnight on January 24th will not be counted. If you trade chat me or sitemail me your vote, I will make it public as I do not want anybody to think there is any funny buisness going on. Also I will announce my votes along with the posting of eligible players, so everyone sees my vote and can not scream foul.

My (Em_Knaps) votes for year two hall of fame are as follows: Russ Brooks and Jeremy Hardy.

Coach hiring and rehiring

2009-01-15T19:15:00.001-08:00

Hiring and rehiring coaches is possibly one of the biggest nightmares in building your team, it is also the easiest. OK, the hiring process is probably the toughest process we will do in building our teams. I am often mad because some coaches want to leave that I absolutely want that I thought might stay because they had a high loyalty rating. Also I am often a wee bit ticked off because some coaches want new positions that they are not close to being qualified for that I want to stay but I won't give them something they are not qualified for. And the last reason I'd like curse out the person responsible for the hiring process is that there are some coaches that want to advance into positions that I do not want to advance them into because a returning coach is much better, but these are coaches I want to keep. It would be nice to take the coaches that want to return and we want to keep and offer them the same position or a better position and let them decided from there. Of course having the ability to hire and fire coaches during the season would be great, but I don't think it would be nessecery because I get the feeling that we would not be able to get a better coach for the position. Generally in real life the interm coach is not much of an improvement so I would not expect much of an improvement for an interm coach for this game. These are all wishes that I do not expect to see anytime soon. The object to coaching is to have a graduated effect over time. The ideal situation would be to hire a coach as a coach in the rookie league and ease him into the major leagues, like you are advancing a player. This isn't going to happen. Coaches want promotions, coaches leave, there will be better coaches available. But that is the idea. Some GMs do it different, as they pidgen hole coaches at certain levels. That allows them to only go after good coaches for that level and not worry too much about the other levels. Is that a good idea? That is up to you decided. I do not like that approach because you are shorting yourself coaching ability at the other levels. Coaches are fairly straight forward. They have stats in each category just like players. However some are actually better than others even with basically the same stats. How can that be you may ask? Pitching coaches should have high pitching, the higher the better. However if both pitching coaches have the same pitching stat and one has a better teaching stat, then that coach is the better coach.
Another category I look at is loyalty. That gives you a chance that the coach will return for the next seasons and they might want advancement. I will never take a coach with a low loyalty rating, ever. If you take a coach with a low loyalty rating you are basically renting the coach for the year because the coach is very likely to leave the next year. I sometimes look to discipline, but not always. Of course if the stats are higher, the better. The bench coach is by far the most important position. He is suppose to be the one that carries out what you want to be done. An example would be if you put together a slugging team you would want his hitting IQ to be higher, or if you put together a very good pitching squad you'd want his pitching to be better. I like to look for a well balanced coach. I want the coach to be balanced in all areas. If I can not find one of those, I look for a coach with a high pitching rating. One thing I've noticed is that the other coaches will learn from the bench coach. So keep that in mind. One thing to keep in mind is if you are rebuilding, you do not want to spend a fortune for major league coaches but if you have a ton of young players you absolutely do not want the worst coach either. If you have to worst coach you will hurt your team in more ways than you can imagine. A bad coach will kill your players improvement. If I am rebuilding I will make sure I have great minor league coaches with ok major league coaches. If I know I can not compete for a playoff spot then I am not going to spend the money on those coaches, but I will spend the money on the coaches that will improve my team for future seasons at that time. I've found a good minor league coach will jump at the chance to coach at the major league level, a good AA coach will jump at the chance to coach at the AAA level, a good HiA coach will jump at the chance to coach at the AA level, a good LoA coach will jump at the chance to coach at the HiA level, and a good rookie league coach will jump at the chance to coach at the LoA level. I haven't found a level below rookie that will jump at the chance to coach rookie league yet. If you do, please tell me =). I hope this helps you out a little bit. I know this part of the process can be one of the most frustrating for all of us. Hope you have a decent coaching rehiring/hiring expirence.

Setting your budget

2009-01-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

Setting your budget is not the only place where you can fail during a season, but can be the beginning especially to someone new. There is no wrong way to set your budget but I will try to tell you what to look for. This is how I set mine. If someone has something to add or correct a mistake I made, please tell me and I'll be happy to fix it =)

1. Go to your Franchise Payroll Analysis (FPA) . At the bottom it will give you the Player Payroll Budget and Player Payroll Used. Write these numbers down on a scrap piece of paper as you will need them for later. Or you can try to remember them, but I write them down.

2. Now you will need to know how much you need for each arb player you plan to keep, you can use the negotiate button to find out how much a player wants for each season. Remember you will only need the first season in this years for budgeting planing right now. Add these numbers up.

3. You will need to find out how much each of your FAs want that you want to keep. The only ones we are worried about is the ones above league minimum salary which is $327,000. Add all of the salaries up and write that number down.

4. Add all of those numbers up from #1 through #4 then add approximately 7 million dollars.

5. Coaches I usually make it $8 million or less, $10 million or $14 million dollars depending on how I think I am going to perform that year. If I think it is a rebuild year I use $8 million or less. If I think I have a chance at the wildcard I will use $10 million dollars. If I think I will make a serious run at the World Series, I will use $14 million dollars for coaches. However, the proper way to find out which coachs are wanting to return and which ones are looking for new jobs. We can find out which coaches are jumping ship and turning their backs on us by looking at the rehire center. Honestly, rehiring coaches is the least favorite part of this game for me. We can select the coaches that we want to return at it will give us a total salary for all of them at the bottom of the screen. The ML coaches are the ones we should concern ourselves with the most. They cost the most and the ones that will be fought over the most. They also are the ones that cost the most to replace, even if you use the minimum salary to replace them. If I am making a serious run and know I need good coaches, I won't even pay attention to the minimum salary as a good coach will not even consider it. The 3 most expensive coaches are the hitting coach, the pitching coach and the bench coach. The bench coach is by far the most expensive and in my opinion the most important. If you happen to get ejected during the game, they are the ones who is running it in your place. They can run over $4 million or even over $5 million dollars in the hiring phase where everyone has a shot at them. If you have a coach that you absolutely want, another that is only so-so and can only keep one; keep the coach you absolutely want. Do not let him get to the free agent market for coaches. If you plan accordingly this can be an easy phase or a nightmare if you don't. Also, the better the coach, the better and faster your players advance. Also the better the coach the more of a chance your team will win. We pay for what we get with coaches. But do not go overboard if you are rebuilding. That money can be spent better else where, specifically in payroll or IFAs (if that is your thing).

6. Prospect Payroll, and the all of the scouting departments work the same. High school and college deal work with the amature draft. If you have a high draft pick (picks 1 through about 15 or so) expect to pay around $2 million to $10 million (or possibly more depending) from the prospect payroll to get him signed. The riskier you draft, the higher amount you can expect to pay. I draft conservativly the first 5 rounds because I think it is paramount to get those players signed. It is not worth the risk not to sign your first 5 picks. They are by far your most important picks. Imagine not being able to draft your first round pick and you have a top 10 pick. Yes you get a compensation pick the next year, but it is sandwiched between the 1st and 2nd round. So you went from a top 5 pick and possibly a franchise player for years to come to a ok player at best for not signing the player the year before. The scouting department tells you the scouting reports on each player, so... If you skimp on this expect to be disappointment when the actual players numbers are shown. The more you spend in scouting the better. Although I never have spent over $10 million and have never been disappointed with the results. I may miss a player or two, but any amount of money spent we will scout ALL of the players. Also the less you spend in the scouting department, the more players will not be scouted at all and the higher calibur the player will be.

7. International Scouting finds out-of-country players from all over the world throughout the season. If you spend the minimum the first year ($6 million dollars), your scouts will find some players, and very few of them will be any good, only one or two will be worth getting into a bidding war over. I usually skip this all together as I do not see the benefit of spending $10 million dollars+ on IFAs then getting into a bidding war over them. A good IFA will run $10 million dollars+, and the IFA of the year will run over $20 million dollars. ALSO the player being paid, his bonus money comes out of your prospect payroll. So you are possibly robbing yourself of money that you will need in the draft. I think we can get more for our money in the draft than with in the IFA section, especially if you have a top 15 pick. Think about it; to get a top IFA you will need to spend roughly $12 million dollars in international scouting and then on top of that you will need to spend another $15 to $20 million+ dollars to sign him. So if we go this route we have invested roughly $27 - $32 million dollars on one player without even drafting a single player yet. Not worth it in my humble opinion. This year I got my IFA spending down from $6 million to $2million dollars so I don't think I will see any prime players. Next year I hope to get it down to zero. International Scouting is a trap that should be avoided unless you are dead set on spending $20 million dollars plus for a player and can afford to do that.

8. Advance Scouting allows you to see any active player and his values. The lower you go with this the more his values are skewed downward or sometimes upwards. I've tried this at $14 million dollars on up and have found that keeping it around $15 million dollars is enough to show you accurate values for a player. Setting it above $15 million dollars is no nessecerally a waste but spending above $15 million dollars will not improve its accurancy except for a point here or a point there.

9. Training; I've used $10 million dollars before. Last year I tried $7 million dollars because my players had a very high injury rating. I had one very serious injury all year long, however I think I would have got that serious injury anyhow because that players injury rating was so low. If your roster has players full of high injury ratings I would advise maybe thinking about using $7 million - $9 million dollars. If your roster is full of players with low injury ratings OR has a player in a key position that has a low injury rating I wouldn't spend below $10 million dollars.

10 Medical; this helps a player rehab. I've used $10 million dollars here before for the most part also. However last year I tried $7 million dollars. This is because of my players all had high values for injuries. I didn't notice much of a difference in rehab times. I am going to start keeping this as the same as the training amount. However, if you have a lot of players with low injury ratings I wouldn't skimp in this department. I am lucky where I don't have that problem though.

There is one thing to keep in mind. On the top half of the budgetting, it gives totals to "help" you along. For some reason, mine are not accurate or close to accurate so I do not use them. The only one that is semi-accurate is the player payroll. That is just something to keep in mind.

If anyone has anything they see as a glaring mistake please tell me so I can fix it. Thank you =)

Welome to Season 11 of the Pioneer League

2009-01-15T07:50:00.000-08:00

First lets welcome all of our newcomers to our league. Lets make them welcome and help them out where we can. Also weclome back all of our veterans that are returning for another season. We all have a lot to look forward to either improving our teams so we can compete better next year or making a run for that all elusive World Series title. The regining AL Champs, Kansas City Tornados look to repeat and take it a step further and become World Series champs while the regining World Series champs from the NL, Dover Soles look to repeat. Both have that proverbial target on their backs as they proved last season they are not ones to be over looked.

Again everyone that is new welcome to our league, I wish you the best through out your stay in this wonderful league. And welcome back everyone that is returning, I also wish you the best as we continue our journey to our goals.

HAVE A GREAT SEASON 11. now.... LETS GET IT ON!

World Series Winner(s)

2009-01-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over and so are our playoffs. Some of them were dramatic and some... some were disappointing. The ML, AAA, AA, and HiA World Series all saw either a sweep or a 4-1 series. While over in the LoA and Rookie World Series, they all saw 7 game series. I think with the example shown in the LoA and Rookie playoffs we all have a lot of great talent that should infuse this league with exciting games in the future. Lets congratulate the following:

Major League World Series: Dover Soles twisted Kansas City Tornados, showing the what an size Dover sole looks like 4 games to 1. Great job Dover Soles on your Major League Season 10 World Championship!!!

AAA World Series: Milwaukee Timberjacks cooked Omaha Steaks well done with a little BBQ sauce on the side, 4 games to 1. Great job Milwaukee!!! Milwaukee and Omaha have a ton of talent that could wreak havok in the major leagues. Lets hope Milwaukee gets put on ice and Omaha comes up rare when their players make it to the ML

AA World Series: Omaha Steaks chilled Chicago Turgid Warriors 4 games to 1 showing Chi-Town how they like to cook. Great job Omaha!!! If this is talent crosses over to the major league we all should be worried.

HiA World Series: New York New York Trekkies Showed the mormons in Salt Lake City how they ride with a 4 game to 1 beat down. Outer space and beyond for the Trekkies!

LoA World Series: Madison Muskies pulled out the big fish and edged Cleveland Frozen Ropes four games to one. I guess Cleveland was a little too frozen when it counted.

Rookie World Series: Salt Lake Mormins showed why it pays to be pure and rattled the El Paso Rattlesankes four games to three. I guess all that praying pays off... So does being a rattlesnake. Both teams have a lot to look forward to as both have excellent talent that may make it to the Major Leagues.

I think all of those teams deserve a big hand and congratulations as the World Series at all levels is very elusive for all of us. To make it there is a huge accomplishment, much less win it. Congratulations to ML World Series Winner - Dover Soles; runner up - Kansas City Tornados. Congratulations to AAA World Series Winner - Milwaukee Timberjacks; runner up - Omaha Steaks. Congraultions AA World Series Winner - Omaha Steaks; runner up - Chicago Turgid Warriors. Congratulations HiA World Series Winner - New York New York Trekkies; runner up - Salt Lake City Mashin' Mormons. Congratulations LoA World Series Winner Madison Muskies; runner up - Cleveland Frozen Ropes. Congratulations Rookie World Series Winner Salt Lake City Mashin' Mormons; runner up - El Paso Rattlesnakes.

We all have our standards that we thought would make for a successful year, my guess it that all of these teams surpassed their goals. Congratulations to all of our World Series winners again. Now, lets have a excellent season 11!

Great Season and...

2008-12-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

I want to say what a great season we all had. Some of us were destined to win, others were destined for the #1 pick in next years draft (me). Some of us had some very tough decisions to make of either tearing down the team and rebuilding or trying to eek out another playoff run, some of us just had to rebuild (me). Some of us made the playoffs, some of us didn't (me). Some of us will win a playoff series, some of us won't. 4 of us will see the conference championship series, and an elite 2 will see the world series; however only one of us can be the World Series Champion. That person can call their season a success. The rest of us have to figure out what we expected from this season and see where we finished to see if we can call our season a success. My mesuring stick was simple. All I wanted to do in my first season with Seattle was infuse the team with a lot of good talent for the future. We were not a playoff team by any stretch of the imagination, nor was it in the realm of possiblities for our squad. If pressed, I would have to admit my major league squad couldn't have seriously contended for the AAA World Series crown. However, that is the team I chose to take over. I am proud of what I did accomplish this season because what was done this season will only impact future seasons in a better way than what the last seasons did for the future of my club. Whoever ran Seattle before me really did a disservice to the team and ultimately the league. My season was a success, I can only hope you can call your season a success. None of us like failure, none of us should accept failure as an option.

I am going to come back for another beat down by the elite teams for next season, I hope you do the same =). Or if you are one of the elite teams, I hope you come back simply to compete for that ever elusive World Series title.

Great season everyone!

Also, I will be traveling over the next few days... So I'll say this early: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Please everyone if you choose to partake in the festivities over the holiday, please please please get a designated driver. If you are unable to get a designated driver you can always call a taxi. One friend or a taxi can save the lives of multiple people and keep you a free person out of the clutches of the state prison or possibly in the worst case senario. Some of the drunk driving statistics from 2007 (2008's are not released yet):

On average someone is killed by a drunk driver every 40 minutes. In 2007, an estimated 12,998 people died in drunk driving related crashes—a decline of 3.7 percent from the 13,491 drunk driving related fatalities of 2006.
About three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.
Alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost the public an estimated $114.3 billion in 2000, including $51.1 billion in monetary costs and an estimated $63.2 billion in quality of life losses. People other than the drinking driver paid $71.6 billion of the alcohol-related crash bill, which is 63 percent of the total cost of these crashes

Please do not become one of these statistics because of drunk driving or buzzed driving (which is drunk driving). Lets all be safe over the holidays so we can come back to our league and have fun =).

Again, have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanuaka, Happy Holidays, and...

2008-12-24T04:45:00.000-08:00

I want t wish everyone this year a very MERRY CHRISTMAS, a very Hanukka, and a very Happy Holidays. Please be safe, be merry, be joyous, be thankful for the food provided and family/friends that surround you, and remember the brave men and women who are not able to celebrate with their loved ones this holiday season because they protect our rights to celebrate by bravely serving overseas.

For those of you who celebrate Festivus... please remember Festivus does not end until the head of the household is pinned in a wrestling match. The official rule goes as such: Traditionally, the head of the household selects one person at the Festivus celebration and challenges that person to a wrestling match. The person may decline if they have something else to do, such as volunteer at the homeless shelter. However tradition states, Festivus does not end until the head of the household is pinned in a wrestling match.

Also if you are looking to buy your festivus poles please take a look at: http://www.festivuspoles.com/

My airing of the greviences are as follows: None. I am grateful for everyone as a friend and a competitor here. Please give me regards to all of your family and friends =)

Please... no one buy a one legged lamp that reads Fra-gee-lay on the shipping box because... That must be Italian.

Em_knaps

Hall of Fame -- Inductees

2008-12-21T08:02:00.001-08:00

Pioneer League

Year One

Unfortunately there were no inductees for year one.

Please stay tuned until the next season for Year 2 through 10 voting.

Year Two

Unfortunately there were no inductees for year two

We will do Year Three starting at the end of the week sometime. Stay tuned.

Hall of Fame -- Season One's Canidates

2008-12-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

I have compiled a list of players that are eligible, according to the rules previously stated, to our Hall of Fame for season one.

First, let me restate the rules to be eligible for the Hall of Fame:

Any player who retires becomes immediately eligible for the Hall of Fame if he has at least 10 years experience with at least 5 years of ML experience.
The Hall of Fame committee (all of us) will vote, any player receiving more than 70% of the votes cast will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. If you do not want to vote for anyone you must vote that way. Not telling me that you do not want to vote for anyone will count as a non-vote and will probably skew the percentages (IE: You do not tell me you don't want to vote for anyone, 31 others tell me their votes. I would then take the percentages based off of 31 votes).
Their shall be no minimum number of players, along with no maximum number of players. If no player garners enough votes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, then there shall be no inductions that year.
A player shall remain on the ballots for 3 years, provided the player garners at least one vote per year. After 3 years the player then goes to veterans committee vote (I am working on a veterans committee).
For years one through four and possibly a little bit more we will have to project the players stats by what we see for the years provided. WIS only shows stats for the years that the world was being used. An example is: Year one: Player A has 10 years of experience with 7 years ML experience. Player A would only show his 7th year of ML experience. We would have to project the other 6 years. It is each voters own opinion how to project the stats out, there will be no set projection.

Special Rules for the Hall of Fame

No player can be taken out of the Hall of Fame except in extreme circumstances. An extreme circumstance example would be the stats have signifigantly changed from what we had voted on.
You are responsible for checking to make sure I have included all of your players eligible for the year we are voting on. I am human, and I am checking 32 teams with 40+ players that played on that team on the ML level that year. I possibly could have made a mistake, by accident. I do not want to see anyone excluded on my mistake, so I recheck my lists, however; again, I am human and could make a mistake. With you checking your teams, you are one person checking one team. If I made a mistake, there is a very good chance you will catch it. Please speak up in a polite manner and inform me of my mistake. I will immediately correct it.
This is only for Hall of Fame years 1 - 10: we need to move sort of quickly to get through these years to catch up. It will not be possible to do all 10 seasons this season. We have 11 days until the season ends, which leaves us 1 day per season to debate and vote. Factoring in Christmas, that is not going to happen. My goal is to do 2 seasons this season and continue next season. With that said; Current voting is due to me (Trade Chat: Seattle Mariners; Sitemail: em_knaps) by either Chat (preferred preference so everyone sees your vote, I will check the chat by day); trade chat (I will still post who voted for who), or Sitemail (again I will still make your vote public) by Saturday December 20th, 2008. I am going to make votes public so everyone can be assured there is no sketchy business going on. My votes are at the bottom of this page. I really hope everyone enjoys this and it provides some good debates on our chat =)

The players are:

Em_knaps: my only vote is for Andrew Kennedy; while it is difficult to project his real numbers, he has been a ML starter for 20 years. He is also still playing at age 45, so that tells me he must have been a special player. I could project him as an overall 85 in his prime. I could go higher or even lower. Regardless not many subpar, if any at all, players are pitching at age 45.
I considered Junior Bragg, but he would have been a closer, and I am not a big proponent of closers (unless they are Dennis Eckersley like) in the HOF. I also considered Pete Richardson, but he would have been a mid-relief pitcher. Without any solid stats, he is really difficult to see how effective he was for his team(s).

Current voting is due to me (Trade Chat: Seattle Mariners; Sitemail: em_knaps) by either Chat (preferred preference so everyone sees your vote, I will check the chat by day); trade chat (I will still post who voted for who), or Sitemail (again I will still make your vote public) by Saturday December 20th, 2008.

Also I will be doing a Power Ranking mid-week and a playoff preview once all the playoff seeds are set. Yearly awards will not be done this year, those will start next season. I did not realize we were so close to the end of the season until I checked 10 minutes ago. Jamming that in with the HOF and writing everything else would be tight and probably not possible with Christmas coming up. Baseball History starts tomorrow too. IF WIS does a upgrade of HBD, I will post it and discuss it. I don't see that happening with Christmas on the horizon, but I could be wrong. Let's get to discussing and having a good and fun debate with our new HOF. Please add comments as you see fit =). Also I am on the look out for contributors, if you are willing to help out please trade chat me!

Hall of Fame and what the qualifications are

2008-12-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

With the departure of the member who was maintaining the blog came the erasure of everything on the old blog. That means the HOF went with it. With that said, we will have a Hall of Fame. I have been searching through the forums and other worlds blogs to see their Hall of Fames. I say we can do better. But for us to do better we have to start from the beginning.

Who should vote on who belongs in the Hall of Fame?

Everyone/team will have an equal vote

Who is eligible for the Hall of Fame?

Any player who retires becomes immediately eligible for the Hall of Fame if he has at least 10 years expirence with at least 5 years of ML expirence.
The Hall of Fame committee will vote, any player receiving at least 70% of the voting will be inducted into the HOF.
There shall be no minimum number of players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, along with no maximum number of players. If no player garners enough votes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, then there shall be no inductions that year.
A player shall remain on the ballot for a total of 3 years, provided that they garner at least one vote.
For years one through four, we will have to project the ML stats out for at least 5 years by ourselves. WIS only shows their stats for the first year of the world, regardless if the player has played for 15 years and has 10 years ML expirence. With that said, I believe that it is each voters own opinion on how they project it out. That will make it very interesting on who gets in and why. It should make for some very good chats.

Are there any "special" rules?

Yes, they are:

No player can be taken out of the HOF, except in extreme cases. I don't know what that extreme case would be, but if someone feels so strongly that a player should be taken out then a review of what the reason is will be taken at that time. Extreme cases are NOT: The player should be taken out because this is not the really good hall of fame, the player shoulld be taken out because I don't want him there. The player garnered enough votes to be inducted, so he will stay based off of that. An extreme case would be something like, for some reason that the stats we saw were changed.
You are responsible for checking to make sure I have all of your players that are eligible that year. I haven't made any mistakes yet in my life, but I am almost positive that I will eventually. I would hate that I missed your player for the year, and he wasn't eligible anymore because of it. With that said, I do re-check the lists, but I am only human and might make a mistake; Especially with 32 teams to look through and 10 seasons. If you take the time to look at one team and check the work I do, then mistakes can be avoided.

I am mulling over a veterans commitee, but I don't know how that would work. If anyone has any ideas, please throw them out. For the time-being we have a lot of voting to do. We have seasons 1 - 10 to do. Currently I am working on season 1's list. When I get that done, I will post it for everyone's review. With this, I hope inhances our chats and livens up some debates. Everyone continue to have a great HBD season! More to come....

Welcome to the Pioneer Leauge Part Duex Blog

2008-12-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

I would like to welcome everybody to the Pioneer League blog part deux. Unfortunately our other member who maintained our blog left our league, and in the middle of the season no less. Who leaves their team in the middle of the season other than Bobby Petrino (ex-Falcon coach, Arkansas Razorback coach)? Anyhow, regardless of why he left, we now have a new and hopefully an improved blog! Everybody in the Pioneer League in HBD is welcome to contribute, all I need is for you to sign up through the blog site, then trade chat me your user name. I will then add you to the contributors list.

I plan on contributing in a couple of different areas for this blog. The following things I will contribute on a regular basis: #1: a weekly power rankings, #2: a HOF (more on this later) , #3: Yearly Awards to mirror what the real MLB hands out (more on this later), #4: Baseball History, #5: Yearly and playoff preview, and #6: any issues important to HBD and our world.

Our Hall of Fame: This will be done in increments. Currently we have no HOF, which is a shame. I have been searching through the forums and other worlds blogs to see their HOF's. We can easily do better than them, and will. Our HOF rules will be announced in another article soon (probably the next article). This will definately add a new demention to our world and how we view our players. Also it will add more chatter in the chat area, which is always a welcome thing =).

Yearly Awards: While HBD automatically votes on the awards, we can certainly come up with and vote for an award winner for each award for the entire ML. HBD separates the awards in to NL and AL, we can combine it and vote for the ML winner. It will add more fun, and certainly more debate. Debate and chatter is always good!

Again, I am very open to everyone in our world contributing to this blog as it is ours. Only we can make it as good as we want it. With your contributing, it would be that much better. If you are interested, even for a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly article please sign up through the blog site, then trade chat me your username.

Lets all continue to have a great season! Some of the races are tight still and look to be close through out the rest of the season. Good HBD'ing to everyone!!!