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The  RCMBA  Register

Roberto Clemente Memorial Baseball Association ---------- Vol XXXVII

January 01, 2012

OFFICIAL APBA RULE CLARIFICATION

Man on 3rd only & play result is 6... It says "6-HOMERUN to leftfield (@ on player cards with double columns score this the same as #5, a double)." What they are saying is... If a player has double columns and the final result is a 6, in either column, it becomes a 5.

NEWS

Since the APBA numbers/letters have been revealed you've had the opportunity to checkout whomever you wished. Sometime all those numbers blur together and maybe you overlooked this information. There are 17 double one guys. We have six gents with five power numbers (Beltre, Braun, Downs, Giambi, Lawrie and Napoli). Ben Francisco and Victor Martinez have 25 second column 1's. Twenty guys have two 11's and Dee Gordon plus Tony Campana have three. Jason Bourgeois has four! Ten players have six or more 14's and/or 42's while Melvin Mora doesn't have any. Billy Butler has 23 second column 7's or 8's. There are nineteen guys with a 55=7. Ryan Adams and Craig Tatum have eight 24's while Pearce, Nieves, Rosales and Andy LaRoche have six. Trayvon Robinson has twelve 13's. Juan Pierre has one. Seven guys have only one 9 and I'm not going to even list them because they truly stink! Worst card in the set has to be Julio Lugo. He doesn't have one power number with 7's on 66 & 11 and he's only got two 8's. There are several dozen pitchers with better cards than that. YIKES!

On the defensive side of the lists we have four catchers rated at 9 (Butera, MolinaY, Ruiz, Wieters). Nine first basemen got a 5. The only two 2B's with a 9 are Mark Ellis & the O-Dog. There are eight 3B5's. You can find twelve SS9's plus Tulowitzki got an SS10. He's not bad with a bat either. We got forty eight OF3's. The gold standard for utility man has to be John McDonald.  He's 2B8, 3B5, SS9. Fastest man in baseball according to APBA is Emilio Bonifacio. He's the lone 20 speed guy. Slowest at a speed 2 is not only the expected Yadier Molina but Jim Thome is right there lugging around his own piano.

It's pretty easy to figure out who's going to get a good or bad hitting card. I mean you know Juan Pierre isn't going to get many 1's and Miguel Cabrera probably isn't going to get an 11. Pitching grades however are and always will be somewhat of a mystery. Even there some things have been known for months. Clayton Kershaw will have a nice grade and Brian Tallet is most likely someone you should avoid. The mystery is when two pitchers with almost the same ERA results in one getting a B and the other a C. We have 10 grade A starters with Gio Gonzalez's 3.12 ERA in the AL and Ian Kennedy's 2.88 in NL the highest. Clayton Kershaw got the top rating of 18. There are 46 grade B starters with Derek Holland's 3.95 ERA in the AL and Zack Greinke's 3.83 in the NL being the worst. There's a lot of grade C starters with Andrew Miller's 5.54 in the AL and Henry Sosa's 5.23 in the NL being the worst. Maybe the most amazing C is R.A. Dickey. He posted a 3.28 ERA, tossed over 200 innings but I think that 8-13 record did him in along with the "z". On the relief side David Robertson's 1.08 ERA racked up the sole AB* rating with a 27. There are 12 AC* guys with Jose Valverde posting the highest ERA of 2.24. There's 46 grade A* guys and the highest ERA of 3.32 was posted by Chris Perez. There are lots of B* and the honors here go to Phil Dumatrait's 3.92. One final note, APBA says Kyle Davies is the worst starter last year with his MG grade of 1. Five guys got that same rating on the relief side (Abad, Gearrin, Jepsen, Kuo, Tallet).

LANCASTER/DRAFT - This year our annual gathering won't be quite the same because we won't be able to drive over to the APBA site but it still will be a great time. It's going to be the first weekend of February and the draft itself will be on February 4th. As we did last year the site will be the Holiday Inn Express on Rt30. In case you need it 717-293-9500. I hope to see all of you there and for those who have never made the trip or missed the past few please make an effort to attend. When you are with friends it's a great time and a wonderful weekend that makes the dreary winter go by just a little bit faster. It's listed below in the important dates section in case you forget.

DUES

Here is an important message about RCMBA dues from the Hulk Hogan... "It's time for all you Hulkamaniacs to chip in and help to keep the RCMBA money pit afloat for another year, bro'. Where else in the world can all you get twelve of these outstanding newsletters? Listen to me brother. There is no where else cuz this is the true home of the best in APBA! My man Johnny B gets you all the scoop 'bout what's goin' on with those pencil necks at the APBA Game Company. He even tells you what's goin on inside his pin sized brain. Now all you little Hulksters pay attention! The dude has lowered the price to only $10! TEN DOLLARS!!! Must got his bell rung by the Iron Sheik or something. I just can't figure out how he does it man. Anyway that's what it is.. $10, so pay up brother so my man can pay those cats at Go Daddy. I know you don't want me to wrap these pythons round you. You ain't seen nothing like them brother! These are the biggest arms in the whole world!!"

PROPOSALS FOR RULE CHANGE

I know this looks like a lot of potential changes but it's mainly just tweaks in an attempt to make consistent rules, make easier calculations where necessary and playoffs. It's things we always should have addressed but for whatever reason we never got around to it. The first three are about calculations of game limits. The fourth is about how injuries are regulated. All of the rest are about the playoffs and their seeding, draft slots etc.

#1 .. ROUNDING FRACTIONS THAT CALCULATE GAME LIMITS - Currently for the guys between 2.4 and 3.1 we round the fraction after multiplying by 0.7 and go to two decimal points. That means a guy who comes out 3.077 gets rounded to 3.08 and not to 3.1. Not sure why but that's the way it has always been in the last twenty years. I think someone who is 3.077, when using one decimal point for the allowable range, should have a result rounded to one decimal point. The proposal reads...

Section II - Players & Limits > (Limits <> Offense) "Position player limits .. MLB PA per game between 2.4 and 3.1 = actual games x 0.7 (fraction is rounded to one decimal point)."

#2 .. ROUNDING PLAYERS WITH AB LIMITS - Currently those with less than 2.4 plate appearances per game receive a plate appearance restriction rounded up to the next five appearances. That is a guy with 235 PA or 239 PA is rounded to 240PA. We don't bump up players with game limits to the next five games but for some reason we feel these guys need to be rounded into a xx5 or xx0. It should be consistent with other limits. The proposal reads...

Section II - Players & Limits > (Limits <> Offense) "Position Player Limits .. MLB PA per game less than 2.4 = actual plate appearances."

#3 .. ROUNDING UP PITCHER INNINGS - If a pitcher throws between say 145.00 to 149.67 innings and anywhere in between, his limit is set at 150.00 innings. Not fair but that's what we do because we bump all pitchers to the next five inning bracket of 5 or 0. Why? You can't say it's easier number to read because we don't have trouble recognizing that Cano's 146 game limit means he can play in 146 games. You might say we need the extra innings because it's too hard to deal with instructions when you get close to his limit. That's a pretty lame reason because we seem to be able to handle that kind of math with position players and any pitcher when they get near their current game limit of xx0 or xx5. You can also demand in your instructions that Koufax will only pitch 5 innings and if the other manager violates that he will be crushed and melted. Again, looking for consistent rules. The change is...

Section II - Players & Limits > (Limits <> Pitchers) "All pitchers are limited to their actual innings pitched and any fraction (.33 or .67) of an inning will be deleted."

#4 .. GAME INJURIES - Since we already limit players to their actual games played there is no reason to extend injuries beyond the game it happens in. We already do this after game 112 and it shouldn't be any different before that. So the proposal is to change this rule reads...

Section XII - RCMBA Modifications (Injuries) "All injuries will not extend beyond the occurring game."

Section X - Playoffs (Injuries)... "All injuries will not extend beyond the occurring game."

#5 .. DRAFT SLOT FOR PLAYOFF TEAMS - Currently if a wildcard team wins the championship that team, in the following free agent draft, is slotted as if the playoffs did not happen. In fact that applies to all four participants. I think we should reflect our championship results in the final draft order for slots 14-15. The proposal reads...

Section V - Free Agent Draft - Draft Order > "Teams will be given a draft position based on the inverse order of the previous season winning pct however the winner of our World Series will be seeded 15th and the loser seeded 14th.

#6 .. PLAYOFF SEEDING - The MLB is abandoning the restriction that same division teams cannot meet in first round of playoffs. I think we should do the same. It's really a silly rule. That means the #1 seed will play the wildcard regardless of division in first round.

Section X - SEEDING/SCHEDULE - We delete the line reading "In the case of the wild card being in the same division as seed 1, then 1v3 and 2v4."

#7 .. ELIGIBLE PLAYOFF TEAMS - This is a generic proposal about increasing the number of wildcard teams. There are two ideas that I'm not going to detail because of numerous rules that would have to be changed and listed. I just want to get a yes or no about increasing the number. If you guys want to do that then I'll come back for a second vote on which way we will go. I think both ideas are interesting and just to give you a little idea they are about going to five or six playoff teams. The five format would add one game between those two wildcards. The six format would hand out byes to two best pennant winners and a new playoff round of best of 5 for the other four.

Section X - Playoffs (Time & Participants) > You don't need to specify a yes/no for either one or two it's just..... do you want to add one OR two more playoff teams?

Okay. There you have it. Majority rules on all and if passed, the first three would take effect next year and the rest immediately. Please make your vote by the end of the month.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Jan 29th (Sun) - Cut down day. Everyone cuts to 30 or less. No more trading of draft picks.
• Feb 3rd (Fri) - Lancaster gathering at the Holiday Inn Express on Rt30 > 717-293-9500.
• Feb 4th (Sat) - Free Agent Draft. It will begin at 12noon in an AOL chatroom.