Lakeview Apba Baseball League
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2009 - LABL DRAFT
How do you prepare for the draft? I want to know your process of preparation.
Do you wing it? Do you take the old school approach of using paper/pencil by making lists? Do you use Google Sheets or Excel? Does your league use a website (see my season 3 post above) like many do in this league.
Do you draft to win the title every season? Are you more methodical about building for a particular season or two? Do you prefer to simply be competitive each season in hopes that one of those seasons will result in a World Series shot?
Do you always go for players you like or simply just go for the best available? Do you pay attention to the rosters of your opponents?
For me, it is simple. I attempt to win each season with the most competitive team I can put on the tabletop (or screen in this case). I feel I owe it to my league mates to win every game in respect to their efforts to do the same. I usually pick a season or two to focus on during draft time in which I build for those seasons. In other words, since the 2004 season when I lost the championship series in five games, I started building for the 2008 season. I was very competitive with records hovering slightly above and below .500 for 2005-2007. While I did not make the playoffs those seasons, I did reach the Herson semifinals in 2008 and lost four games to three to the top seeded team. I was pretty pleased with that despite blowing a three games to zero lead…ugh!
For 2009, I don’t expect to be a playoff contender based on the talented rosters I see on my divisional foes, but in Apba (just like reality), the dice will tell the real story. Thus, my plan for this draft was to look for talent for the 2012 season with a focus on bolstering my starting pitching.
As a Pirates fan, this was the rookie season for Andrew McCutchen. While I definitely could use an outfielder for the next several seasons, my guess was that this former MLB MVP would not be available at pick 1-11. As it turned out, I never had a shot!
As for my preparation, I use Google Sheets to create a draft sheet. As players comes off the board, I simply delete the row. Below I have posted my most recent sheet that has five tabs (batters, starting pitchers, relief pitchers, and my rosters). It helps me keep organized to know what I have and what I need to stay competitive. I do my homework as I look at the cards up to and including 2021 if the player is still currently playing in the league. While that can certainly be time consuming, looking at cards has been a thrill for me since childhood.
Keep in mind that the players left on the first three tabs were not drafted, so I will keep them on the board for the 2010 draft. This saves me time during the next offseason.
So who did I end up with in the 2009 draft at 1-11? Jordan Zimmerman - I was very happy to add a starting pitcher who will provide many LABL starts from 2011-2016, mostly as a B with a Z control rating. I thought he was definitely deserving of a first round selection. Here is how the first round went down. What do you think?
LAT Buster Posey C
SCS Madison Bumgarner P
VOL Brett Anderson P
OMA Andrew McCutchen OF
BUR Tommy Hanson P
WAS Michael Brantley OF
WFB Mat Latos P
HOM Doug Fister P
DET Neftali Feliz P
CAN Trevor Cahill P
ERI Jordan Zimmermann P
CIN Carlos Carrasco P
VOL Andrew Bailey P
CBR Matt Wieters C
CAN Matt Guerrier P
HOM Rick Porcello PBuster Posey was an easy top pick. There was an LABL record 12 pitchers taken in round 1.
Now, I want to know how you prepare for your draft leagues. I am always looking for hints and strategies.
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Good morning!
Today is a quick post to simply ask the question, “How do you keep standings in your Apba GO league?”
Do you simply use the standings provided in the Shared Collections?
Or do you use another format?
Collections is fabulous for a small league or a league that does not have divisions. I hope that some day Apba GO will include the option in Shared Collections to set up separate divisions and/or leagues. Since we have four divisions of four teams (Two divisions per league), this is the Google Sheet that we use for standings. We post a link to our league message board for managers to access 24/7.
Here are the current LABL standings! You can check in here from time to time for updates.
How does your Apba GO league keep track of standings?
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My league is DABB (Drugs are Bad for Baseball) which is just finishing it’s 2nd year. In the collections section of APBAGO the stats can be exported, which I download. Once downloaded I drop each file into a separate spreadsheet page. Other spreadsheet pages glean the information regarding the batting, pitching and team stats and transfer the input to their respective pages. There exists one page for every team which tracks batting, fielding and pitching, a page for all batting, fielding and pitching by team. I also include a page for team vs team won and loss.
It would be nice if the box score was available to other league players. When I delivered newspapers in the 1960’s, all the box scores could be viewed. I learned alot from studying them.
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@striker2550 - I look forward to that as well!
Thanks for responding!
What is your league like? Name? Number of teams? Retro or Modern?
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@Bruce66 - Hi, Bruce! DABB is run by our good friend, Dev! He is in this league as well as a Zoom league with cards and dice that is a lot of fun. I enjoy my games and friendship with him. His team in this 2009 season is off to a great start as he has done a great job building it the past few seasons.
I am very curious about this spreadsheet page that you use. Am I able to have a copy for review? If not, I understand, but I have always been fascinated with stats spreadsheets to see if I can make improvements.
Thanks for responding!
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@DSchulz , I post a couple of games from each “Round” on the Facebook APBA page. 30 teams, all managed by me. :) Here is my simplest explanation of my weird league.
My creation…a league with 30 teams picked at random. Each round will be played in “steps”. 15 steps w/2 teams per step. Winners move up a step. Losers move down a step. Each round the loser of step 15 will be booted out of the league, dragged through the streets and publicly humiliated. Then a new randomly picked team will take it’s place.
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@DSchulz , yes. Each Round a new team is randomly picked to replace the team that dropped out. I chose randomly from the pool of ALL the teams in APBAGO. Every year, every team. Sometimes its a great team, sometimes a real stinker. “It’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” :)
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That is such an unique and incredible idea for solo play! Thanks for sharing this idea! @striker2550
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Wow! I am having a hard time finding time to come back to this thread.
How is everyone’s leagues going?
If you check the standings link previously posted, we are approaching the 60 game mark for each team. I am currently 36-24 with 24 games to go against teams that are over or near .500. My division continues to be one of the strongest even though we have failed to bring home a championship.
We will have someone leaving soon, so if you are interested, let me know!
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2009 is in the books!
What a thrilling ride for my Erie Express as they clinched the fourth and final playoff spot in the Herson league! However, the defending champs, the Homestead Grays, swept my squad in four straight to quiet any thoughts of a surprise championship in Erie. Haha!
Since we decided to drop back to only four playoff qualifiers in each league, this was how everything transpired.
Playoff Results:
Seitz Semi1 Series (Best of 7) - Detroit over Oak Park 4-2
Seitz Semi2 Series ( Best of 7) - Omaha over Burlington 4-1
Herson Semi1 Series (Best of 7) - Homestead over Erie 4-0
Herson Semi2 Series (Best of 7) - Chesapeake Bay over Cincinnati 4-1
Seitz LCS (Best of 7) - Detroit over Omaha 4-3
Herson LCS (Best of 7) - Chesapeake Bay over Homestead 4-1
World Series (Best of 7) - Chesapeake Bay over Detroit 4-3
Congrats to Jay Demarest and his Retrievers on a fabulous run to the organization’s first LABL title. Devlin Toth, manager of the Detroit squad, had an amazing 60-24 regular season and nearly came back from his second 3-1 deficit.
Click below for the season review that includes the following:
- All Star Team, Awards, Milestones (First two perfect games in league history!)
- Final Hitting and Pitching Leaderboards
- Final Stats
- All Playoff Game Boxscores and team stats
There are changes coming coming for the 2010 season!
- We are returning to an all DH league - As we continue to climb towards modern ball, it just seemed to make sense to return.
- Free Agency will be limited to a short window around mid-season.
- Rosters will be increased by one to 32 for ensuring enough pitching.
I will update everyone on the upcoming 2010 draft soon! There are some big names including Freddie Freeman, Giancarlo Stanton, Chris Sale, Steven Strasburg, and more!
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I realized this evening I never posted the first round of our 2010 draft. Using our website, this is how the first 16 picks went down.
1 1 1 PHI Freddie Freeman 1B
1 2 2 COR Mike Stanton OF
1 3 3 VOL Starlin Castro SS
1 4 4 SCS Chris Sale P
1 5 5 WFB Craig Kimbrel P
1 6 6 BOG Stephen Strasburg P
1 7 7 CAN Alexi Ogando P
1 8 8 COR Aroldis Chapman P
1 9 9 OAK Josh Donaldson C+
1 10 10 BUR Carlos Santana C
1 11 11 ERI Kenley Jansen P
1 12 12 CIN Jason Heyward OF
1 13 13 COR Jake Arrieta P
1 14 14 HOM Jeremy Hellickson P
1 15 15 DET Jonathan Lucroy C
1 16 16 CBR Austin Jackson OFLots of exciting names on this list as the league is starting to see more and more players who are still competing in real life today.
Hope everyone has had a great start to the new year!
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Well, I know I am severely behind in keeping this thread up-to-date, but life is busy. We have completed the 2010 season, and also expanded our league to compete in both directions. We call it LABL Retro. Since we launched on Apba GO with the 2002 season, we started the retro version with 8 interested managers and will be working seasons in reverse. Since my last posting here, we have completed the 2001 and 2000 seasons. The 1999 season expanded to 12 managers with that season just getting ready for the playoffs! After 1998, we would like to get to 16 managers and we are looking for 1-2 of you to be a part of this fun!
Please keep in mind that we want our newest expansion managers to be as competitive as possible sooner than later. We think our plan is a good one to ensure that possibility. If interested, please respond to this ad below asap.
**The LABL is a unique league that works in both directions.
Currently, the league is in the middle of the 2011 season with 16 managers. This end of the league moves forward likes most leagues.
However, it also runs in the opposite direction with 12 managers currently in the 1999 season. This league is called LABL Retro and we are looking for 2 new managers to expand to 16 by the 1997 season.
This is a laid back league with a great group of managers. Seasons generally run 4-5 months max with an 86 game schedule. With Apba GO taking care of the stats, it is a great way to simply play the basic game with your own roster management and meet a lot of great community people.
If interested in our drafting website and other league details, reach out to Commissioner Ken at schulzka02@yahoo.com for more information.**