Benchwarmer News Archive - 2007

12/22/07

• Some of you have indicated interest in the Benchwarmer Benefactor.  Thanks for inquiring.  There's now a button on that page that will allow you to pay via credit card or PayPal account.  Contact me for other options.

12/21/07

• If you won your division or a post-season tournament in 2007, you've won a free team.

12/6/07

• Planning for 2008 - Check out:
  • An offer to never pay for teams again
  • Additional free teams
  • Design a BWB logo or Advertisement
  • BWB Help Wanted

11/26/07

• New salaries and positions for players in 2008 are now posted.
• You can begin making carry over decisions for 2008.  The exact deadline will be later in December...to be set in the future.

10/30/07

• BWB Playoffs - Championship Week - We're done!!!
• League Champions:
  • Hall of Fame: Leucadia Longboarders - Jeff Deeble
  • Shadowball: Las Vegas Billionaires - Jim Sowerby
  • Chevy Chase: St. Cloud Ice - Jerry King
  • Beer:  Foster's Oil Cans - Phil Dang
  • Beatleball: Lake Wobegon Whippets - Andy Marquis
  • Reality Bites: Gashouse Gorillas - Rob Behymer
  • Longball: Nokomis Choo Choo Trains - Jacob Vass
  • Golden Throat: Boomer Sooners - Phil Dang
  • K Street: Atco Baseball GURU - Chris Bellina
• The field for The Benchwarmer Bash is finalized.  Any teams that want to change their lineups (for the remainder of the off-season) have until Friday night at midnight.
• All league champs get their same team for free in 2008 PLUS an extra free team in a new league (or orphan team) if they would like to use it.
• All other post-season winners in the Gore Cup or the Bottom Feeder Open win a free team in a new league or an orphan team.

10/20/07

• Congratulations to owners with multiple conference-winning teams:
  • Phil Dang - Foster's (Beer) and Boomer (Golden Throat)
  • Tom Twomey - Hoboken (Beatleball) and New Jersey (K Street)
  • Rob Behymer - Gashouse (Reality Bites) and Mudville (Longball)

10/5/07

• Congratulations to owners with multiple division-winning teams:
  • 4 Teams:
    • Phil Dang - Key West (Chevy Chase), Foster's (Beer), Buffalo (Longball), Boomer (Golden Throat)
  • 3 Teams:
    • Tom Twomey - NJ (Shadowball), Hoboken (Beatleball), New Jersey (K Street)
  • 2 Teams:
    • Rob Behymer - Gashouse (Reality Bites), Mudville (Longball)
    • Scott Campbell & Leif Johnson - Seattle (Hall of Fame), Beijing 2008 (Reality Bites)
    • Jeff Deeble - Leucadia (Hall of Fame), Los Anaheim (Beatleball)
    • Dave Regan - Boar's (Hall of Fame), Jundland (Shadowball)
    • AND...after 7 years of being shut out of the playoffs...Jon Swanson - Edinburgh (Chevy Chase), Gettysburg (Longball)

10/1/07

• There's been some criticism on the "dragging out" process of the playoffs....but there are a lot more manual processes in displaying playoff results.  We can do about a game per day. Generally, our playoffs extend through the MLB playoffs...we always say that Benchwarmer Baseball is a "year round activity."
• Tiebreakers for Division Place and Tournament Seeding

9/29/07

• We have a winner - South Pole wins the tiebreaker game in a Glavine vs. Smoltz showdown to beat Gladstone and win the Bachelor Division in Reality Bites.

9/27/07

• We're done with the regular season...and yet we're not
  • In Reality Bites, Gladstone took 2 out of 3 from South Pole to force a tie.
  • Gladstone will host a one-game playoff against South Pole - Game 151 - to decide the division
  • The game uses Week 25 lineups - it's just an extension of the current week.
  • The result of the game will be posted SATURDAY.
• See Standings in All Leagues for a look at all the races.
• Playoff match ups will be posted over the weekend (I need to figure out some tiebreakers).
  • Don't forget all teams make some sort of post-season play.
  • You can change your lineups for Week 26 - the first playoff week - now.  The deadline is Monday night.
    • No expanded rosters - taxi squad and minor leaguers won't come into play.
    • You must meet all lineup guidelines (you may be forced to keep some guys in the minors).
    • You can reset your pitching rotation for this week AND for the second week of the playoffs without any concern for 5-days rest compared to the previous week.

9/19/07

• The field is expanded - and the format slightly changed - for this year's Benchwarmer Bash.  The Bash is played after all of the league championships.  In the past, results have shown up in the spring.  I make no promises, but I'm going to attempt to do it all before the end of 2007 this season.

9/18/07

• We're done with Regular Season transactions and lineups.  The Week 26 lineup deadline - for the first week of the playoffs - is Monday, October 1.
• There's no "roster expansion" for the playoffs - taxi squad and minor league players will have no impact on games.

8/19/07

• Point of rules clarification - all playoff games will be pulled by a random draw from MLB games 81-160.  (The rule change this year was for "2nd half" of the season, with clarification to come.  Sure...the 2nd half started on game 82, but this provides a nice even range of 80 games).

7/30/07

• All the Rosters in Your League (Link will be available elsewhere eventually)
• Are you in "wait until next year" mode already?  Here are some thoughts about why you should keep working on your team.

7/2/07

• This probably needs some clarification (maybe it's been a couple years at least...and will probably be more specifically stated in next year's rules update)
  • When filling in substitute positions, we DO NOT check what alternate positions your starters can play - the starting lineup is essentially fixed.
  • We only check the DH and the five bench players.

6/15/07

• 2007 First Round draft picks are now in the player list.  For now, you'll find them by looking for players new in Week 12, but later this weekend there will be a filter to pick them out specifically.
• A note on signing first-rounders: if they don't sign a contract with their team before the Rule V draft in December, they are dropped from BWB (and from your roster).

5/30/07

• Here's an updated version of the BWB Rules (pdf format).  Over the course of the summer, we'll try to get the online version to match this.  As before, at this time the written version supersedes anything on the web.
• Actually, I thought this was in the rulebook, but I don't think it is - What determines the winning and losing pitcher in the box score and stats?
  • Winning team:
    • Starting pitcher must complete 5 IP and have an ERA less than 5.00 for the game - or pitch a complete game - to get the win.
    • Otherwise, the bullpen is the winning pitcher.
  • Losing team:
    • The starting pitcher is always the losing pitcher...unless...
    • Unless he pitches 5 to 8.7 innings and only gives up 1 run or less (6.3+ IP, 2 ER is OK), in which case the bullpen picks up the loss.

5/8/07

• There is now an option on the lineup change page to allow you to move a player to IR immediately - similar to the "cut" option (and you still must use the Transactions to actually put the player on IR).
• Starting with Week 7, putting more than 2 players on the taxi squad will no longer be an acceptable lineup loophole - even if you are cutting the players.
• If you see "Transaction Warning" or "Lineup Warning" by your team name in the upper left corner - there's a reason.  If you don't fix it, BWB will need to adjust your lineup or delete your transactions.  (Note - you'll always see a warning if you use the cut or IR options while setting your lineups).

4/30/07

• This will become available soon on a soon-to-be-updated history page for your league, but for now, you can check out standings for your league in past seasons.

4/27/07

• As you look at the box scores, keep in mind that the runs your team scores in the game won't quite match up with the runs your hitters score or the other team's pitchers give up.  Our "box scores" actually are showing you the tally of all the statistics for that game - and the scoring formula takes those stats and converts it into the final score.

4/16/07

• If you're looking for a disabled list, that's really what the "Taxi Squad" is (just that they don't have to be really injured).  Your other option is to put a player on "Injured Reserve" but you can never activate him the rest of the season.
• A few final rule changes that I just haven't had the chance to write up.

4/15/07

• How to view results?
  • On your league home page, click the link for "This Week's Games"
  • On any page, look for the link "Results" in the page footer area.
• How to view standings?
  • On your league home page, you'll see a shortened version of the standings.
  • On your league home page, you can click "Current Expanded Standings" for more details.
  • On any page, click the link "Current Standings" in the footer area.
• You'll also find a link to view all the league standings on your league's home page if you want to peek at what else is going on.
• Note: Team names during the scoring process - that show up in the box scores and the standings - are taken from an off-line copy of the teams table that's updated only when transactions are processed.  If you've changed your team name since April 11, those changes will show up in the results posted after Week 2's transactions are run.  We're not set up for frequent team name changes.

4/11/07

• For those of you who didn't ask, but wondered...transactions and lineups are frozen between the deadline and the time that they are processed.  Typically, that will not stretch into 2-3 days like it did this time.  The fact that you only need to submit/set once a week should give you plenty of time.
• Warning; Make sure you spend a few minutes on checking your transactions.
  • Transactions are a 2-step process.  After you mark WHO you want to sign/cut, you need to go back and indicate WHAT TYPE of transaction and WHEN you want it to occur (what round).  There were many transactions deleted this week as a result.
  • Just be careful - there's no error-checking right now to prevent you from "signing" a player you already own or "cutting" a player you actually intended to sign.  (Someday, perhaps).  It's tough to be a mind reader, so those transactions were left unchanged and, as a result, did not go through.
  • Watch your roster limits that appear at the bottom of your team roster page...particularly when you are trading.  You need to make sure that after the processing you'll still have a legal roster.
  • We try to give you plenty of warning if your transaction submission is not legal or your lineup is not correct.  See the upper left corner of any page by your team name...
• Cash balances above 7 million were reduced to that level (except for the Chevy Chase League and Beer League).
• There's no urgency on contract extensions right now - you have until the end of July.  Unless you want to make sure you do it with the money you've got and don't trust yourself to have any left in July, you may want to wait (a player with a season-ending injury right now will definitely have a lower salary next season...you'd be overpaying).

4/9/07

• The Benchwarmer Bash - Championship - Congratulations to the NJ Dirty Bombs of the Shadowball League.

4/8/07

• 2007 Schedule is now posted.

4/4/07

• All teams received a 2 million dollar cash disbursement.
• Returning Leagues...A reminder - you can only have a maximum balance of 5 million (5000 as displayed on your team page) coming into the season.  However, the deadline is extended through Week One this season - giving you until the April 7 deadline to get your team to 7 million or less (because all teams got an extra 2 million to start the season).

4/2/07

• Some of you may be waiting for the results from the Benchwarmer Bash to see what you need to pay this year.  Because of that, roster and lineup restrictions for non-payment will not go into effect until the Week 2 deadline.
• Want to learn more about Benchwarmer Baseball?  Check out the BWB Tour.   However, we're not starting any more new leagues in 2007.

3/21/07

• Chevy Chase League:
  • Draft Index  -- Phase Two - Part Three Complete
• Beer League:
  • Draft Index -- Phase Two - Part Two - Complete.

3/14/07

• Contract Extensions are now open.  Access the form from your cut/sign page or the main transactions form.  Suggestion - only returning teams with balances over 5 million probably want to do this right now.

1/22/07

• Rosters and free agent lists are now updated for RETURNING leagues.  We are now in Transaction Week -9 with deadline Friday night at midnight.  You can trade and pursue other transactions.  Contract extensions will be turned on and allowed starting in March.

1/21/07

• Redistribution Draft Results