APBA Co. posts carded list and why we care

The official carded players list for the 2010 season has just recently came out and is posted on the APBA Company’s website. 

For the managers in our (ten-team keeper) league, it’s a last ditch effort to maybe get one more rookie pick for the upcoming 2011 draft.  Let me explain…

In the past (way way back), when APBA didn’t publish as many cards per team, our league had a simple rule.  If a player on your team didn’t get a card, he was eligible to be dropped in lieu of a rookie draft pick (if there a chance that he might come back and he was GOOD enough, you could keep him uncarded on your roster but that’s another topic).  It was a simple as that.

But APBA expanded the teams to 30 players total, 20 regular plus 10 XB.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great thing.  For solitaire players, that allowed them to replay seasons at more accurate level.  But it meant players with 30 at-bats were getting XB cards when they hadn’t before and our league teams weren’t able to cover their positions. 

So we went to strict playing limits to determine if a player was eligible to be dropped.  Specifically, here are our rules:

125 or more at bats constitutes an eligible card for position players.

21 or more games or 50 or more innings constitutes an eligible card for pitchers.

So, for example Jason Varitek, who got 123 at-bats for Boston this year (and plays for my Twin Cities Thunderchickens) would be eligible to be dropped in favor of a rookie draft pick for the 2011 draft despite the fact APBA gave him a card. 

I personally like the new rule (it’s not really new… we’ve had it place for a while).  It’s cut and dry.  Also, the eligibility is based on actual player usage not based on APBA or anyone else.  One further reason our league likes this rule is that we know at the end of the MLB how many picks our teams have.  We don’t have to wait for APBA to ship the cards or post the carded roster. 

But as I said at the beginning, there is one more hope for an extra pick (or two).  There will be an occasional player who exceeds our eligible player limits but yet still doesn’t get a card even an XB card.  It’s very rare but it does happen.  It’s noted that it’s more likely that a player who was traded late in the season (and perhaps didn’t have the impact otherwise) would be left off.

This year, only player in our ten-team league fell into this category.  Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Johnson pitched 26 games and his manager would have had to keep him for the year had APBA decided to give him a card.  But APBA gave his manager in our league a gift and didn’t give a card.  One more draft pick for him!