Sun-sational Six (Preseason Edition)

While the standings will tell us one thing about how our teams our doing, we'll attempt to keep a more subjective eye on the power in the Sun Baseball League with the Sun-sational Six, a weekly tab on who's the biggest and baddest among the SBL.

Since no one has played any games yet, this really is The Barometer of the best and brightest among this season's teams. So without further ado, here's the Sun-sational Six after Tuesday's draft (no brownie points to the Inmates for hosting the draft).

1. The Moaners (who else?). Not exactly an upset here. Seeing as how they have been even more dominant than the real Yankees, I'm thinking maybe we should rename them the Bronx Moaners. That might have a different meaning in NYC, but for the SBL, the Moaners are BFD. Or as my 13-year-old daughter would say, "OMG!"

2. Damian United. We give a tip of the cap to some real gamers, who celebrated their second championship series run in 2010, but still seek their first title. Hey, it's tough to win a baseball title with a soccer nickname. Suck it, DU.

3. Abu Dubai Zeroes. Good thing this league ain't in Arizona or I doubt we'd even let these foreigners play, but there's little doubt that the Zeroes are an institutional power worthy of the upper-echelon of the SBL. They're kind of like the Moaners Light, both in substance and receding hair line.

4. Badgers. Hurts to give any credit to this Bay Area franchise, because let's face it: Andy ain't afraid to pluck some low-lying fruit on his team. The Badgers, despite a propensity to draft all that he sees from the A's and Giants, still manages to pound most of the SBL. Plus, now Andy is an author. That's got to get him a pass onto the Sun-sational list.

5. Godfather. You gotta give some props to the inventor of this glorious game. Plus, it's the spring. We can all hope Vic has a chance just like the Cubs. Chances are the Godfathers will flame off this list in a week or two, but it never hurts tug at our furlocks, as Ed Mauel would have said. Vic's probably starting to look like that guy, too. Hope he never talks like him, though.

6. Pope's Pontiffs. Not sure where this Vatican Madmen shit came from, but there's no denying anyone who can take Kendrys Morales with the 28th pick of the draft deserves to be on some list (probably not this one anymore at the beginning of next week.) But you have to give the guy credit. He was the only one in the draft room who could count to 300 and right on the button. Sweet.

-- Dan Evans, owner of the Cherry Valley Bombers

Draft Night 2011 In Chino Hills!

That one day a year is here! The Sun Baseball League's 29th annual draft night.

Owners for the Inmates, the Bammers, DamianUnited, the Vatican City Madmen, and the Moaners, the 2010 SBL champions, are already here.

We're still waiting for owners from the Bombers, the Badgers and the Whiteskins.

The Zero's will be drafting from Abu Dhabi, UAE, the Godfathers from Dallas and the Derelicts from Seattle, Wash.

Draft selection is pending. Stay tuned.

PaulO's Note: Week 5

Let's make this brief. Go right to what seemed to make the difference among the cellmates. The Z's: Five saves and a 1-0 record from the bullpen; Dotel and RSoriano 5IP, 0ER, 3BR, 9Ks and a 1-1 record. ... The Bat-faced Girls: King Felix, 3.1, 7ER, 9BR and an L and an 0-2 record. The Papacy: Mark Teixeira finally showing signs of waking, going 9-for-27 in the OBP world, with four runs, 8BI, a 2B and 3HR, as well as seven saves from three guys, Capps (!), Feliz and Lidge in a 2-0 week. ... If the Bitsy Threesome manages to beat any outsiders, it may come down to a big sub-in Thursday for all three at the catcher spot. Z's: (JBuck) 5223 with two taters; BFGs: (Barajas) 4223 with two taters; Papacy: (YMolina) 5143 with 2B and SB.

PaulO's Note: Week 4

"The defending-champ Zeroes showed they were ready to play -- three weeks after the season began -- by slugging 19 homers (a franchise high?) and plating 49 runners in a week of offense utterly outlandish by the puny standards of the first three weeks. This was how good it got: The Z's got a three-homer sub-in from John Buck. Yeah. And their pitching wasn't horrible for the first time this season, including a tidy 4-2 in W/L. The Z's really need a 6-0 week to get back into something vaguely approximating contention. ... Queer weeks for the cellmates here. The Bat-faced Girls had a decent week of offense but their pitching, which was steady-to-good for three weeks, went up in flames. (Maybe Joel Pineiro was available to the Angels for a reason.) Check that 8.83 ERA, just a couple of runs short of crossing 9.00, which Commissioner Davis could tell us (basically) never happens. And the 2.13 BR stat (crossing the 2.0 threshold; also quite unusual), the 0-4 and only two saves. BUT, there is that seeming anomaly of a glittering 1.08 K-rat. Long-time observers of the game have noted that pitchers being bombed often rack up a "good" K-rat. Something, perhaps, about throwing such fat pitches that they either get driven over a fence or missed entirely. Or facing so many batters that eventually the whiffs amass? Anyway, so what, you ask. Just this: That 1.08 K-rat is the one pitching stat the BFGs pluck from the Papists in their matchup. Which matters because the Girls take five offensive categories from the papacy, three by the tiniest of margins. That is to say, by one counting stat. The Girls had one more HR, one more RBI, and win OBP thanks to having one fewer PA (the teams tied in BR). In a 6-5 game. Game of millimetres (as we spell it over here) indeed."

PaulO's Note: Week 3

"Some genuinely shaky numbers here, but somebody has to win. And it is the Bat-faced Girls who, true to early form, are the (marginally) better team ... and the Zeroes who didn't do enough to take advantage of weaknesses by their cellmates. ... The BFGs beat The Champs (hah) 8-3, but the Girls' game with the Papists was a excruciatingly tight affair. The BFGs won 6.5-4.5, avoiding a tiebreaker on the basis of (pick one) one more out recorded/one fewer baserunner allowed, winning the pitching BR stat by .001 -- 1.296 to 1.297. ... The Girls perhaps deserved to win, having put up the one genuinely impressive number on offense from this trio, those 12 (!) steals (five by NCruz). ... The Vatican's game with the Z's was nearly as close, coming down to a handful of baserunners in the OBP stat, which the Papacy carries by .015 points in a 6-5 game. ... So, onward and downward; we make no claims that any of the Tiny Trio will do much outside of this sad little pod."