These were the top eight teams as I like them for the 2022 APBA National Convention Baseball Tournament. I seeded teams by the top nine players by OPS then tried to fill out the defensive positions. Also, I consider the bullpen, but don’t rely on it as a determining factor. With the APBA Convention Tournament rules, if your starting pitcher isn’t good enough to start with, when he gives up enough runs to be downgraded, then the game is essentially over. Sometimes the bullpen can make a difference, but that is more of a time period factor.
Anyone familiar with bullpen usage throughout the history of MLB knows that in the late 1980’s Tony LaRussa started using relievers almost on a batter-by-batter basis and bullpen specialist came into existence. By the 2010’s, good teams had five or six quality relievers who could blow the ball by hitters and starters began to feel that a rulebook Quality Start actually meant something.
The analytics crowd began to understand leverage situations. Based on the score, inning, number of outs and baserunners, the pitcher and batter had an opportunity for a stat called Win Probability Added. It was a system for evaluating the importance of a situation and rate the success or failure of offense and defense. All that said to say that more recent teams that make the playoffs and win a high amount of regular season games may or may not have a great rotation, but most of them have a lights-out bullpen. An APBA tournament limits teams’ usage of the bullpen, so it is still important to have quality starters.
For tournament team selection, I tend to follow the Meatloaf philosophy of, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” This means I want to have at least a great offense, a great pitching staff or a great defense and to have a better chance of competing, I need to be great at two out of three. In the third category, I need to be really good. Some teams can have a questionable defense, but it helps to have adequate defensive substitutions for the late innings when I need to bring in that glove man to hold a lead. With some teams, that could mean having available pinch hitters in key situations with defensive backups to help hold a lead.
The Convention Tournament uses the Advance Optional Defense which increases the importance of defense, so that has to be considered. Relievers with an asterisk can only pitch an inning, with the possibility of pitching an extra third of an inning if the last batter they face hits into a double play. As in my team previews I posted last year, 24s and 25s are killers. I count those and don’t want too many. I also want first column 1s. The cards follow a pattern and every card has a 25 and a 27 (there might be an exception, but not many) so having a fielding one third-baseman can convert those 27s into two outs.
One factor to consider with starting pitching is control and strikeout ratings. Sometimes an X-rating can turn a double play into a strikeout. While this is not a favorable outcome, there are enough times that an X-rating turns a groundout into a strikeout and the runner(s) will not advance. Also, the Z-rating is important when turning a potential base-on-balls into a two-ball count. The positive is that it reduces the number of walks allowed. The negative outcome is that the batter gets a reroll and that can lead to an unfavorable outcome. For the most part, the reduced walks are worth it. The ZZ-rating reduces walks in a bases empty situation so it is even more powerful, but then again, the reroll has the possibility of a negative outcome. It is worth it in the long run.
As shown in the picture above, I copy & pasted the top three starting pitcher grades from my APBA Baseball inventory list. Pitching Grade is the top priority. Control rating is next, ZZ is best followed by Z, no control rating then W is undesirable. Then I rank according to defense with 2 best and 1 next. I then rate according to strikeout rating. KXY is the best followed by (in order): KX, KY, K, XY, X, Y, no strikeout rating, then R. I prefer strikeouts over contact because strikeouts can turn a bases loaded situation into an event that has minimal damage. I never want the W-rating because it turns Double Plays into walks – two outs becomes an extra baserunner. It also can turn a strike, ball or foul into aa baserunner. Sometimes I will tolerate a KXYW because I can control when that reliever is used. These situations would be at the start of an inning or with first base open when a walk isn’t the ballgame.
My key to selecting a team is picking a team I am comfortable using. I prefer a team that requires a minimal number of moves as I get wrapped up in the game and will either forget to make a move or possibly make the wrong move. From personal experience, “Thinking Hurts the Team.” I know my strengths and I am not going to outsmart the other team. I will let the dice determine my success or failure. If my team needs me to be smart, then we will not have a lot of success.
As for my reliance on OPS (On Base Percentage Plus Slugging Average), I feel OPS is most closely associated with winning and the APBA game best simulates this with the cards. I will shuffle my lineups a bit based on the individual numbers but for the most part, I trust the game engine. I have a spreadsheet I have built and tweaked through the years (with a great amount of assistance from Mark Miller!). As I learn more about Excel, I feel the spreadsheet helps me find teams that standout as having the possibility to be fun tournament teams. And like I said above, I do my planning beforehand, so when game day arrives, I just hope for favorable dice outcomes.
SteveMRyan's Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.