SBL Notebook, Week 13

We've reached the halfway point in the season, numerically if not chronologically (MLB's new midweek start ensured that the real-world season won't reach its midpoint until the middle of this week), and 81 games in, it's almost anybody's ballgame. The division races are a beautiful mess, with eight teams solidly in the picture, fortunes ebbing and flowing depending on who's hot and who’s not at a particular moment in time, last week's Cinderella turning into this week's pumpkin, and then back again. The two hottest teams in Weeks 11-12, DamianUnited and the Moaners, tripped on a crack in the sidewalk this week, and now it's the Godfathers and the Zero's who are on the ascension after going 6-0 and 5-1, respectively, to tighten the division races like braces on a middle schooler's teeth. Blessed with a talented and versatile roster but cursed by injuries much of the season, the now-fully-functional G-Daddies got it all together and scorched the earth with perhaps the most dominant 6-0 week we've seen all year. A big hitting week in which they ranked first or second in the league in five categories (40 RBI, 36 runs, .387 OBP, 37 TB, 9 HR) was complemented by lights-out pitching (1.40 ERA, .98 BR, 1.09 Ks, 5-1), resulting in a Sherman-through-Georgia march that left body parts hanging from tree limbs -- three 10-1 blowouts and no other game closer than 8-3. The 6-0 surge lifted the GFs to within one game of the National division-leading Inmates, who held their own with a 4-2 mark grounded in some pretty impressive pitching of their own (2.25 ERA, 6 saves, 1.03 BR). Meanwhile, the Derelicts (2-4) and DamU (0-6) fell back to five and eight games out, respectively. . . . Good pitching was a recurring theme this week, with eight sub-3.00 ERAs and, even more remarkably, four under 2.00. The best of them all, and in fact the best ERA seen in the SBL all season, was the 1.18 posted by the Zero's, who also had six saves, a 1.09 BR and .98 K-rate and rode it all to within two games of the first-place Bammers -- the closest to the top the Z's have been all season, and the closest any American division team has been to the Bams since Week 5. The Bammers, who started 13-0 and 18-1 and have occupied the AL catbird seat from the get-go, had their own sterling ERA (1.45) to brag about, but all it got them was a hard-luck 2-4 week that included two 6-5 losses and a 6.5-4.5. The four defeats also cost them the Best Team In Ball status they'd clung to all season; the Mental Defectives took possession of the coveted yellow jersey at 52-29, with the Bammers and Godfathers sharing the runner-up spot at 51-30. . . . Another team on the rise, albeit intermittently, has been the Cherry Valley Bombers, whose best-o’-week 14 HRs, not to mention 37 RBI, 35 runs and 1.98 ERA, were the key ingredients in a 5-1 week. The Bombers had a disastrous start -- 1-12 and 3-16 -- but since Week 3 they've gone a respectable 35-27, moved to within five games of .500 and become, more often than not, a Team You Don't Want To Play. At 14 games behind the Inmates and 13 back of the second-place Godfathers, the CVBs face a long hard climb to get into playoff contention, but stranger things have happened.

Week 13 standings

AMERICAN DIVISION
Team, LW..................W....L....PCT....GB
Bammers (2-4)............51...30....630....--
Zero's (5-1)................49...32....605.....2
Badgers (4-2).............47...34....580.....4
Moaners (2-4).............46...35....568.....5
Barristers (5-1)...........22...59....272....29
Puny Pontiffs (0-6).......13...68....160....38
NATIONAL DIVISION
Team, LW..................W....L....PCT....GB
Inmates (4-2)..............52...29....642....--
Godfathers (6-0)..........51...30....630.....1
Derelicts (2-4).............47...34....580.....5
DamianUnited (0-6).......44...37....543.....8
Bombers (5-1).............38...43....469....14
Whiteskins (1-5)..........26...55....321....26

Trade, Pre-Draft DL Rules

From the Office of the Commish...

"We have a reminder to pass along on the subject of trades –- they are not permitted on draft days. Any trades made leading into a supplemental draft must be completed, and the commissioner’s office notified, by the Sunday night before the draft. . . . And what the heck, as long as we’re sending out notices, here’s another, on the subject of DL moves: When an SBL owner activates a player from his DL, necessitating that he drop someone to create a roster spot at that player’s position, that move must be made no later than Sunday evening before a supplemental draft. That way, the rest of the league can be notified in advance of the draft that the player being dropped will be available in the draft pool."

SBL Notebook, Week 12

DamianUnited and the Moaners, division champions last season but fourth-place also-rans and fifth wheels in the NL/AL chases for most of this one, have rather suddenly elbowed their way into contention in what is turning into a compelling pair of come-one, come-all divisional races. Employing diametrically opposite methods, DamU and the M’s both arrived at the same 7-0 Week 12 destination, leaving us with the following unusual but highly desirable situation: Eight quasi-contending teams (four in each division), all at least 11 games over .500, none more than six games out of first place. While the Damned United remain in fourth place -- despite going 13-0 the last two weeks, 18-1 the last three and 22-3 the last four -- they now are 44-31 and only four games behind the National division-leading the Inmates (seven games closer to the top than DamU was just three weeks earlier), and only one game back of the runners-up Godfathers and the Derelicts. The Moaners, who as recently as Week 8 were treading water at .500 (25-25) and trailed the American division-leading Bammers by 16 games, have ridden a 12-1 surge the last two weeks to gain a whopping nine games on the suddenly struggling Bams, who went 1-6 this week after last week’s 1-5 toe-stub. That has vaulted the M’s into a second-place tie with the Zero’s at 44-31, with the Badgers right on their heels at 43-32. And the Bammers’ once unassailable division lead, 11 games over the Z’s and Badgers after Week 10 and nine games over the same pair a week ago, is down to five over the M’s and Z’s. The Bam-Bams, an eye-popping 41-9 through eight weeks, are 8-17 since. . . . DamiamUnited, coming off last week’s franchise record-smashing offensive display (19 HRs, 62 RBIs), laid down the lumber and let the pitchers pick up the slack this week, to the tune of a 1.64 ERA, 1.07 BR stat and a stunning nine saves, also believed to be a franchise record. That, plus significant spikes in a couple hitting stats (46 TB, .369 OBP), led DamU on a largely unchallenged romp, with none of their seven wins closer than 7-4. . . . The Moaners went in another direction, relying on big offense, as in days of yore. In a week when the spectacular hitting numbers seen earlier this month went into full retreat for the rest of the league, the M’s posted league bests for the week in RBI (45), runs (40), HRs (11) and OBP (.398), plus 44 TB, second only to DamU’s 46. Those numbers weren’t just better than the competition’s, they were conspicuously better -- in those five stats the M’s beat the next-best team in their division by 17 RBIs, 19 TB, seven runs, four homers and .037 in OBP. And league-wide, no one (other than DamU in TB) really came close to them in any of those five stats, either. They stuck out like a sore thumb. How out of character was this? Last Wednesday, Moaners hitters bashed six homers and drove in 18 runs, exceeding in one night the team’s totals in those categories for the entirety of Week 10 (five and 16, respectively).

Week 12 standings

AMERICAN DIVISION
Team, LW..................W....L....PCT....GB
Bammers (1-6)............49...26....653....--
Moaners (7-0).............44...31....587.....5
Zero's (5-2)................44...31....587.....5
Badgers (4-3).............43...32....573.....6
Barristers (0-7)...........17...58....227....32
Pontiffs (5-2).............13...62....173....36
NATIONAL DIVISION
Team, LW..................W....L....PCT....GB
Inmates (4-3)..............48...27....640....--
Godfathers (5-2)..........45...30....600.....3
Derelicts (1-6).............45...30....600.....3
DamianUnited (7-0).......44...31....587.....4
Bombers (3-4).............33...42....440....15
Whiteskins (0-7)..........25...50....333....23

Free agent draft No. 6

Pre-draft moves:
Pontiffs: activate 1B Hafner, LaPorta to DL
Whiteskins: activate RP Broxton; RP Sanchez to DL
DamianUnited: SP Johnson to DL
Zero's: activate 2B Uribe, drop O.Cabrera; C Barajas to DL
Badgers: activate OF Wells, Craig to DL
Derelicts: OF Kubel to DL

1. Pontiffs take OF Morse, drop Tabata
2. Barristers take 2B Ackley, drop Sanchez
3. Whiteskins take 2B J.Weeks, drop Hall
4. Bombers take SS Hardy, drop Tejada
5. Moaners take SP Humber, drops Drabek
........Taxi: Humber, Liriano up, Zambrano, Lohse down
6. DamianUnited take SP Karstens
........Taxi: Karstens up, Happ down
7. Zero's take C Soto
........Taxi: Kennedy up, DeLaRosa down
8. Badgers take 3B Moustakas, drop Callaspo
........Taxi: Anderson down, Bumgarner up
9. Godfathers take OF Cuddyer, drop Span
........Taxi: Cueto up, Hanson down
10. Derelicts takes OF Blackmon
........Taxi: Romero up, Oswalt down
11. Inmates take 3B Wigginton, drop Valencia
........Taxi: Stauffer up, Morrow down
12. Bammers take SP Norris, drops F.Garcia

Derelicts, 'Tiffs Make Deal

From the Office of the Commish...

"For those who missed it, there was a trade over the weekend between the Derelicts and the Puny Pontiffs:

RP Papelbon and 3B Alvarez to the Double D's; RP Lyon and 3B Roberts to the Poontiffs."

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The trade was a fairly even swap. The 'Licts bolster their already stout bullpen with a Papelbon-er, and the 'Tiffs get a warm body at third base.