Saturday, February 20, 2010

First Bracket Unveiled

Each of the four brackets are named for the four most successful franchises in world history: Kansas City, Pawtucket, Jacksonville, and Texas.

Today I'll show you the Kansas City bracket.

This bracket features two World Series Champions, as well as 3 World Series runner-ups.

The AL Champion Jacksonville Juggernauts of season 8 are the brackets #1 seed. In the first round, they will face off with the Houston Aggies of season 1, and wildcard team who made a run to game 7 of the ALCS before losing.

The winner of this game will play the winner of the season 9 Fresno Fire Dragons/season 6 Texas Tittyballs game. The Fire Dragons 104 wins in season 9 was among the highest totals ever for a team that could not win its division. Meanwhile, the season 6 Tittyballs were the first of back to back NL Championship teams for owner longdayintro.

In the #5 seed are the Kansas City Shuffle of season 7, the first KC team in 5 seasons to not win the AL Pennant. They face off against the 12th seeded Colorado Springs AltiDUDES of season 8, which was the 7th straight team ohiopirate had put into the playoffs, but looking to become the first to reach the NLCS.

Awaiting the winner of this matchup is the World Series Champion Pawtucket Polythene of season 8, the 4th seed in the KC bracket. That is, of course, if they can beat the Rochester Raging Rhinos of season 4, the NL North Champions who got upset by a 6th seed in their only playoff series that year.

In the bottom portion of this bracket, is the 6th seeded Cheyenne Chillipeppers of season 7, who lost the division to 5th seeded Kansas City, and then lost to them in the ALDS. They will face off with 11th seeded Pawtucket of season 3, one of six Polythene teams in this tournament who lost in the NLCS.

World Series Champion Kansas City, of season 6, sits in the 3 seed, facing off with the season 12 Charlotte knights for the right to face Cheyenne of Pawtucket in the round of 32.

Meanwhile, NL Champion Colorado Springs of season 12, led by Christopher Ramirez (who has 11 teams in this tournament), take the #7 seed in this bracket. They will face off with a forgotten great team of season 1, the 10th seeded Atlanta City Slickers, who won their division & a first round bye.

And closing out the bracket, in the 2/15 matchup, is the Kansas City Shuffle of season 2, the only KC team of the first 6 seasons to not win the AL Pennant, facing off with the Santa Cruz Bay Kings of season 1, yet another wildcard team to reach the LCS.

To view the bracket, click here. When viewing the bracket, the first number in parentheses is the teams seed in this tournament. The number in parentheses following the team name is what season that particular team is from.

The second bracket, the Texas bracket, will be released tomorrow, featuring first seeded Colorado Springs of season 10, the only #1 seed in the tournament from the National League.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Sharkey's World March Madness

This weekend, the bracket for the first ever Sharkey's World Top 64 teams of all-time Tournament is unveiled. And over the coming weeks, while real life March Madness is taking place, these teams will be pitted against each other, until finally we have the true greatest team of all-time.

I'm not talking about "Oh, the Kansas City Shuffle are the greatest team of all-time." That's boring. I'm talking about a bracket pitting the season 1 KC Shuffle against the season 11 KC Shuffle. Which single team is the greatest ever.

It was tough to compile these 64 teams. I took a couple of criteria into account:
*Any 100 game winner in history qualified.
*Any LCS participant in history qualified.
*Teams were seeded based on their regular season record of that year.
*No World Series Champion could be lower than a 14 seed.
*No World Series participant would be a 16 seed.
*No World Series participant could face another world series participant in the first round.

I'll unveil the entire bracket sometime in the next few days. For now, I'll give you the seeds of the 12 World Series Champions.

Season 1 Kansas City is a 13 seed.
Season 2 Texas is a 13 seed.
Season 3 Kansas City is a 9 seed.
Season 4 Pawtucket is a 6 seed.
Season 5 Kansas City is a 1 seed.
Season 6 Kansas City is a 3 seed.
Season 7 Jacksonville is a 12 seed.
Season 8 Pawtucket is a 4 seed.
Season 9 Jacksonville is a 2 seed.
Season 10 Charlotte is a 13 seed.
Season 11 Kansas City is a 14 seed.
Season 12 Boise is a 5 seed.

And before anyone can say I hope you were fair with the teams that made it, I wasn't. I went by record & LCS appearances. Most teams don't have a participant. Kansas City & Pawtucket each have 10 participants. It's not bias in doing this, that I want to see as many Polythene teams as possible. It's fact based.

As far as how I determine who wins each matchup, I'm open to interpretation. I'm not goign to hold a vote, but when I post the matchups, I'll listen to peoples arguments before I "sim" the game in my head, and determine a winner.

Hopefully this will be something to liven up the league blog & world chat this season.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Career Coaching Victories - Regular Season

Sorry I've been such an awful commissioner this season. We need to get this blog back to greatness, starting now.

Here's the updated all-time coaching victories list.

Once again, pvc & sharkeyke remain #1 & #2, as both crossed the 1200 career victories mark this season.

OP, Dupala, & badercubed round out the top 5. OP & dupala remain 3 & 4, while bader leapfrogs the no longer active longdayintro, making his way into the Top 5 for the first time ever. All 3 of them joined the 1000 career victories club. Congratulations on that accomplishment.

The 1000 W club will get a slew of owners joining it next season.

JohnDerasmo, the returned snarfuller, & dubabe401 also leapfrog LDI, moving into 6th, 7th & 8th.

LDI, who hasn't collected a W in two seasons, remains in the Top 10 one more time, at #9.

And rounding out the top 10, for the first time ever, is original owner Hausenpfeffe, whose Turbocors have emerged as a power in the last few seasons, and continue to collect more Ws than Ls.

The complete list of active owners:

1. pvc4twenty 1244 (103.6 wins/season)
2. sharkeyke 1214 (101.2)
3. ohiopirate 1098 (99.8)
4. dupala 1059 (88.3)
5. badercubed 1025 (85.4)
6. johnderasmo 983 (81.9)
7. snarfuller 962 (87.5)
8. dubabe401 953 (79.4)
10. hausenpfeffe 936 (78)
11. kalikgod 934 (84.9)
12. krs96 926 (77.2)
13. hallgren 893 (81.2)
14. dawgfan1974 892 (89.2)
15. telecasting 881 (73.4)
16. jtrueblue74 867 (72.3)
17. nnurmo 851 (94.6)
18. ripnsnort 818 (81.8)
19. irishfury1 798 (72.6)
21. benny b la 761 (76.1)
22. dave23 758 (84.2)
23. vladyhop 741 (82.3)
25. peteskin 705 (58.8)
28. jlinchec 644 (80.5)
32. frog06 429 (61.3)
33. mcrobbyj 364 (72.8)
34. cjwagner 344 (68.8)
39. voteforlou 158 (79)
40. hhavey 156 (78)
41. hooner65 154 (77)
42. mattyfaz 146 (73)
48. cctigerfan 124 (62)
67. mikeg740 58 (58)

Top 10 Wins/Season (minimum 5 seasons)
1. pvc4twenty 103.6 (12 seasons)
2. sharkeyke 101.2 (12)
3. ohiopirate 99.8 (11)
4. rmkelley 94.8 (6)
5. longdayintro 94.7 (10)
6. nnurmo 94.6 (9)
7. mhoffa1382 92 (7)
8. dawgfan1974 89.2 (10)
9. dupala 88.3 (12)
10. landmanatee 87.8 (5)

Complete top 10 & top 10 W/S posted on SWHOF blog (link up top of this page).

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

All-Decade Teams

No opinion needed on these. Every player got 1 vote for every All Star appearance, MVP Award, Cy Young Award, Rookie of the Year Award, Silver Slugger & Gold Glove won. Ramon Jang & Troy Harper also got a bonus point for being inducted into the Hall of Fame. A lot of players played multiple positions throughout the decade. In those cases, they were assigned to whichever position they won the majority of their awards at.

Players are listed next to the team where they won the most awards. Votes are listed in parentheses next to each player.

Sharkey's World First Team All-Decade
C Pete West, Scottsdale (8)
1B Ramon Jang, Rochester (13)
2B Steve Randolph, Scranton (14)
3B Bret Kubenka, Kansas City (14)
SS Wes Robertson, Nofolk (9)
LF Nicholas Bryant, Kansas City (20)
CF Jonathan Cummings, Rochester (12)
RF Billy Hernandez, Texas (16)
DH Paul Hasegawa, New York (6)
SP Christopher Ramirez, Pawtucket (18)
RP Frank Harris, Pawtucket (14)

Sharkey's World Second Team All-Decade
C Luis Reyes, Charlotte (7)
1B Troy Harper, Salt Lake City (8)
2B J.R. Lankford, Texas (8)
3B Mark Abercrombie, San Francisco (9)
SS Julian Thomson, Pawtucket (7)
LF Pat Tamura, Cheyenne (8)
CF Dennis Flanagan, Fargo (7)
RF Jesse Gentry, Cheyenne (9)
DH Henry Etherton, Scottsdale (4)
SP Dennys Shin, Kansas City (11)
CP Martin Baek, Scranton (10)

Records Updated

On the Hall of Fame page, the single season & all-time records have been updated.

And let's just get it out of the way now, Season 11 was the year of Christopher Ramirez.

The future Hall of Famer, who already held the single season IP, K & ERA records, significantly lowered his single season ERA from 1.72 to an unrepeatable 1.23. He also took over the single season wins mark, besting Orlando Javier's season 2 mark of 27 by one. And he lowered teammate Henry Mackowiak's single season whip mark from 0.89 to 0.82.

Ramirez now holds 5 of the 6 major single season pitching records. Only Jeremi Warden's 53 saves seems out of the question at this point, but who knows what the future holds for this man.

In the career records department, Ramirez added to his already impressive IP & K marks, putting them further out of danger of ever being broken. He also lowered his career whip (1.01), which was a record he held. And after chasing Dennys Shin for 10 seasons, he finally took over the top spot in career victories by earning 23 more victories than Shin in season 11. Lastly, his 1.23 ERA lowered his career mark to 2.43, which is now the all-time lowest career ERA.

So, like single season, Ramirez now holds 5 of the 6 major pitching records in the career field. The only unreachable record for him is Frank Harris' 457 career saves, which even Ramirez won't be able to topple someday. Harris is 43 saves away from becoming the first ever to 500 career saves.

Speaking of Frank Harris, the closer's career whip (0.89) and ERA (2.16) are both lower than Ramirez's, but because he hasn't pitched 802 career innings, he doesn't qualify. As has been talked about for awhile, barring injury season 12 is the year he hits that innings pitching plateau. Might he steal some of those career records away from Ramirez?

On the offensive side of the ball, not a single record changed hands. All single season remained just as they were.

And on the career list, Hernandez & Bryant continued putting distance between themselves and the field, for the most part.

Billy Hernandez is now only 38 home runs away from 600 all-time, while #2 on the list, Sean O'Toole still needs 32 home runs to hit 500.

On the stolen base list, free agent Nicholas Bryant had a career worst 24 SB's last year, while #2 Danys Castillo, 8 years younger, had 88, gaining 64 on the leader. Castillo now trails Bryant by 283 stolen bases.

These records can all be viewed on the Hall of Fame page.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Career Coaching Victories

For yet another year, pvc4twenty remains #1 on the all-time list, and sharkeyke continues to close the gap in the #2 spot, gaining 16 wins on the Shuffle this season.

Ohiopirate was the big winner this year, taking advantage of an NL-leading 110 wins as well as the absence of longdayintro and snarfuller to jump from 6th to 3rd. Dupala jumped one spot from 5th to 4th, falling behind OP but leapfrogging the two gone members.

Longdayintro settled into #5, for one year. He'll fall again next season, but should remain in the Top 10 thru at least season 13, while #8 snarfuller is probably spending his last season in the Top 10.

Badercubed & johnderasmo each moved up one spot, to #6 & #7, respectively. Kalikgod remained in the #9 spot.

Rockybill1, the 3rd Top 10 guy to leave the league after last season, plummeted from #10 to #17, becoming the only guy to exit the Top 10 this season. He's replaced by original member dubabe401, who recently won his first division title!

The following is the career list just for the 32 members who participated in Season 11, with their career victories listed, and their average victories per season listed in parentheses.

The Top 10 has been updated on the SW Hall of Fame page.

1. pvc4twenty - 1154 (104.9)
2. sharkeyke - 1122 (102)
3. ohiopirate - 993 (99.3)
4. dupala - 970 (88.2)
6. badercubed - 940 (85.5)
7. johnderasmo - 888 (80.7)
9. kalikgod - 860 (86)
10. dubabe401 - 857 (77.9)
11. hausenpfeffe - 850 (77.3)
12. krs96 - 832 (75.6)
13. hallgren - 807 (80.7)
14. jtrueblue - 805 (73.2)
15. telecasting - 795 (72.3)
16. dawgfan1974 - 795 (88.3)
18. nnurmo - 744 (93)
19. ripnsnort - 741 (82.3)
20. irishfury1 - 732 (73.2)
23. benny_b_la - 675 (75)
24. dave23 - 674 (84.3)
25. peteskin - 662 (60.2)
26. vladyhop - 652 (81.5)
29. jlinchec - 555 (79.3)
32. frog06 - 357 (59.5)
33. mcrobbyj - 295 (73.8)
34. cjwagner - 270 (67.5)
37. kingdean - 199 (66.3)
43. johncfremont - 124 (62)
46. voteforlou - 84 (84)
50. mattyfaz - 80 (80)
54. hooner65 - 75 (75)
57. hhavey - 72 (72)

Top 10 Wins/Season (min. 2 seasons)
1. pvc4twenty
2. sharkeyke
3. ohiopirate
4. nnurmo
5. dawgfan1974
6. dupala
7. kalikgod
8. badercubed
9. dave23
10. ripnsnort

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Shark Index

I put together a quick little formula to rank the teams – adding a small qualifier to the win/loss record to get a better picture of how well each team is performing. The formula is quite simple and it rewards scoring and good pitching [Winning percentage + (team OPS-opposition team OPS)]


Without further adieu I give you the first (in what will hopefully be a series) Shark Index!


Rank Franchise Owner Score
1 Boise Bombers nnurmo 0.872
2 Colorado Springs AltiDUDES ohiopirate 0.800
3 Charlotte knights dawgfan1974 0.685
4 Pawtucket Polythene sharkeyke 0.678
5 Kansas City Shuffle pvc4twenty 0.673
6 Scottsdale T's jlinchec 0.642
7 New Orleans Breeze vladyhop 0.610
8 Norfolk Rush mattyfaz 0.580
9 Houston Aggies dubabe401 0.573
10 Tucson Turbocors hausenpfeffe 0.570
11 Salt Lake City Dodgers benny_b_la 0.555
12 Jacksonville Juggernauts kalikgod 0.546
13 Rochester Raging Rhinos badercubed 0.534
14 Fargo Nines dupala 0.519
15 Buffalo Angry Dragons voteforlou 0.508
16 San Francisco Sourdoughs johnderasmo 0.508
17 Cheyenne ChilliPeppers johncfremont 0.498
18 Memphis Hound Dawgs dave23 0.485
19 Little Rock Big Rocks krs96 0.481
20 New York Moon Shots hallgren 0.472
21 Richmond Moonshiners II ripnsnort 0.459
22 Indianapolis Racers cjwagner 0.431
23 Dover Destroyers hooner65 0.424
24 St. Louis Birdnals irishfury01 0.415
25 Augusta Abenaki hhavey 0.412
26 Monterrey Cervezas mcrobbyj 0.367
27 Cleveland Steamers telecasting 0.356
28 Hartford Defenders frog06 0.355
29 Texas Tittyballs cctigerfan 0.349
30 Trenton Terror kingdean 0.327
31 Scranton Dunder-Mifflins jtrueblue74 0.313
32 Detroit Tigers peteskin 0.032