Steve Stein from the Transcontinental Baseball League sends us a press release on their upcoming draft held one week from now. There are links included to rosters, eligible draftees and draft previews (some with a bit of humor).
Each APBA leagues have their own rules governing their drafts and each do it a little bit differently. Through the years, I’ve noticed that the TBL’s rules on draft eligibility are pretty close to my league’s. That’s why I pay close attention to the TBL draft previews and the actual draft results. I’m just glad the TBL schedules their draft ahead of the Illowa League’s.
Steve writes:
The 2014 Transcontinental Baseball League draft will be held in Milford MA on February 8 (next weekend), starting at noon. We are expecting over 20 of the 27 managers to attend in person (of our 24 teams, 3 have shared ownership). We are indeed transcontinental (Boston to Sacramento) and indeed international (one of our franchises is in Alberta, Canada), so achieving this attendance is indeed remarkable. Last year, our draft (in Peekskill NY) coincided with a Nor’easter snow storm on the east coast, which held attendance down significantly. No matter, our internet tools allowed the draft to go pretty smoothly, except for those who lost power in New England, who coped.
Each team has a 35-man roster – 840 players under ownership. We don’t draft or use XCs, so that allows us a universe of 900 carded players. We do, however, allow rosters to carry uncarded players.
Our roster website displays rosters, draft availability, transactions, and draft grids for the current and next season (we allow next year’s draft picks to be traded). This site can be set to auto-refresh, displaying live data, including during the draft.
This year’s draft is especially rich. For example, Puig, Myers, Jose Fernandez, Profar, Wacha, Yelich are all un-owned, among many others.
The league has developed a tradition, wherein certain managers write predictions for the draft (these are PDF files):
Giuseppe’s Tip Sheet is the most extensive of these. A look at the league and a 2-round deep prediction.
A Stat-Drunk Look At TBL – the Stat-Drunk Computer Nerd’s stat-based analysis describes his methods, looks at a comparison between MLB and TBL, and predicts one round of the draft, with analysis of its impact. (If you were familiar with rec.sport.baseball on Usenet in the early 90s, you’ll be familiar with the term SDCN. If not, well, you just had to be there.)
Whitey’s Rap Sheet is a one-round prediction of the draft, from the (ENTIRELY FICTIONAL) standpoint of "Whitey", a notorious prisoner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and General Manager of the Grand Cayman Havens. (Note to NSA and FBI – this is ENTIRELY FICTIONAL. Really.)
I hope this has been at least entertaining, and possibly enlightening for your own draft research. ONE WEEK until the draft!
Thanks for the update, Steve. Good luck to the TBL managers on Saturday! I’m looking forward to the results.
