I just came back from a very successful mini-APBA weekend where I went 12-6 against my league’s intra-division rivals including commish Mike Bunch (left). Lately, in the past few years, my team has tended to be a season late bloomer. I’ll be of the playoffs then out of the blue, I start winning like crazy. By winning (and most likely inching up the standings) that means I’m hurting my draft standing for the next year’s rookie draft since our league implements a simple last-to-first draft order.
I lamented this to wife (yes, on occasion she will listen to me talk about APBA). She said, “Don’t you wish you just had the higher pick instead?” I don’t think she was insinuating that I intentionally lose on purpose to get the higher pick. Rather, would I have felt better coming out of the weekend with a losing record (and therefore most likely a higher pick) knowing I had no chance for a playoff bid anyway?
The answer, of course is absolutely not.
The higher pick is the silver lining on the dark cloud. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not a ultra-competitive guy but winning is too much fun and it’s why we play the game of baseball AND the game of APBA and we all know that. To not to try is not fair to our competitors. Unfortunately, we all hear stories of teams from other (most likely newer) leagues and how they perhaps slack off a bit once they are out out of the playoff race. It takes a league with a solid core of members who are dedicated to the well being of the organization to not let that happen.
Earlier in our league’s history, we had a draft structure implemented so that the highest ranking non-playoff team would have the first pick, the next highest would have the second and so on. After the last place team (who would have the 4th pick), the last place playoff team would get the next pick and it would go on up to the first place team.
This particular system is probably ideal for newer leagues and leagues with “issues” (I’m being diplomatic here). The advantage of this system is teams that are out of playoff races are still fighting to get that high draft pick and aren’t slacking off because that B starting pitcher in the draft sure looks good right now. Note: it also works better for leagues who allow a liberal amount of teams into the playoff pool.
For our league, we grew out of that system. It certainly has it’s disadvantages. If you have a last place team that genuinely needs help and they don’t get that first pick they desperately need year after year, you’ll get a frustrated manager. We eventually went to the last-to-first after much discussion. And it’s worked pretty well for us.
So win I must. I’ll end up with the fourth or so pick and be happy with it. Maybe next year, I can coax my team start their winning ways a little earlier in the season.
