With less than a month to the BLB trade deadline, many contenders and sellers have already hooked up on some big trades.  Naptown put the rest of the Pilsner Division on notice as they acquired big upgrades at 2B (Cano), DH (Ortiz) CF (Span) and the rotation (Gio).  In that same deal Sudbury cleared a staggering $86 in salary commitments for 2017.

Sudbury has also made a few other smaller deals, sending Ian Kennedy to Woodbury, Melky Cabrera to Ottawa, and Darwin Barney to Edmonton (in a deal barely worth mentioning, but it’s my blog post so I’m mentioning it!).

Meanwhile, Payette had the league wondering what direction they would take at the deadline, but after their deal with Fargo they’ve committed to selling and building for 2017.  That deal sent stud hitting catcher/DH(?) Devin Mesoraco, along with Andrew Cashner and Danny Farquhar to Fargo in exchange for injured but talented Jose Fernandez, Jason Grilli and enigmatic Cubs prospect Javier Baez.  Fargo’s still looking to buy in order to try to close the gap on Shiner who currently have a 6 game lead on the Stout Division.

Remaining questions that this Commish has leading up to the deadline include:

• Will one (or any) of Allegheny, Newcastle or Bridgeport decide to become buyers to try to make a run at the 2nd wildcard spot now that Payette has bowed out?
• Are Shiner and Fargo done, or are there more moves to make in the battle for the Stout?
• Will Guadalajara make any moves to try to hold off Ottawa? Will Ottawa make any more moves to try to make a run at the division?
• What will Toronto do? “Trader Norm” has been awfully quiet this year, but he’s only 6 games behind Naptown. Given his history he could be a buyer or a seller.

So, if any of you are on the DLB group in facebook, you may have seen Jamie lose his cool at a customer earlier in the week who claimed that the dice roller was bias. One interesting tidbit that came out of this is that Jamie shared a page on DLB online that he’s been using since mid-May to keep track of ALL the dice rolls in the online game. That page is updated every 10 minutes, and linked here:

http://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/DiceStats.aspx

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Hey all,

Sorry for the “all quiet” around here the past while, but I’ve been quite busy at work these days. Figured I’d throw a post up here for people to discuss the first half, both in MLB and BLB, since we are at or near the halfway point now.

If the playoffs started today, here’s how the matchups would look:

SHI (1) vs BRI (4)

EDM (2) vs FAR (3)

GUAD (1) vs NAP (4)

WOO (2) vs OTT (3)

So, some interesting stuff in the playoff races. The wildcard in the Ale continues to be a mess, as there are essentially 4 teams battling for the last spot behind Fargo. Bridgeport holds a slim 0.5 game lead over Allegheny, with Payette (1.5) and Newcastle (4) right there as well.

Even more interesting, the Lager League could feature a division winner at or below .500 as Woodbury currently has a half game lead (at 41-40) over Naptown for the Pilsner Division. That would result in the interesting scenario of Ottawa not having home field advantage in the first round despite a much higher record. The Wildcard race is similar in the Lager League, as you have one team (Ottawa) running away with the top spot then several teams (Naptown, Sudbury, Dakota, Granite City and even Toronto) within spitting distance of the 2nd slot.

So to open some discussion up, I’ll ask a few questions:

1) Who on your BLB team has most overperformed this DLB online season, relative to expecations? Who’s underperformed?

2) Who on your BLB team has most overperformed in MLB (ie looking surprisingly good for next season)? Underperformed?

For me, in DLB online RA DIckey has been the biggest pleasant surprise (though he has regressed of late) as he’s got a 2.47 ERA. Biggest bust for me in DLB relative to expectations was Strasburg, but now that he’s gone I’ll highlight the back of my rotation disaster performance of Keuchel (6.71 ERA). Brett Gardner (.675 OPS) and Jason Heyward (.637 OPS) have also disappointed.

For MLB performances, most pleasant surprise out of the players I have control on next year has to be Albert Pujols’ resurgence. Gardner’s been hot of late too and looks to have a nice card for next year. Biggest disappointments include Rollins, Lucroy (hurt, but back and playing better of late), Tulo to some degree (possible buyout?) and Dickey.

blb@beerleaguebaseball.com

Newcastle’s Buster Posey demolishes Edmonton Trappers pitching in game 1 of the 3 game series played tonight, as he goes 5 for 5 with a 2 singles, a double, a triple and a homer in the 15-3 Newcastle win. Newcastle took 2 of 3 from Edmonton to run their record to 14-16, while Edmonton’s dropped to 20-10. Posey is hitting .299/.346/.453 on the season with 4 home runs.

The Payette Outlaw IPAs got dealt a tough blow in game 1 of their series vs rival Newcastle today, as they lost slugging DH Bryce Harper for the season.

Harper (pictured above in good spirits) was drilled by a fastball by Aaron Harang in the 2nd inning. The umpires felt the HBP was intentional and ejected Harang, who learned after the game that he’d been suspended an additional 7 games.

Harper finishes the year having played in only 25 games, hitting just .216/.269/.309 with 2 home runs.

Wow:

I’m a sucker for awesome defensive plays, so below are some of the top plays from the first week; which one do you think was the best?

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Nelson Cruz of Texas has been doing a lot of this:

this year as he leads the league with an insane .974 slugging percentage!

Other notes:

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Noah Syndergaard goes first overall in the 2015 prospect draft, as he’ll join the Dakota Nightstalkers.  Syndergaard joins the following players as #1 overall BLB prospect picks:

First overall prospect picks

1. 2008 – Kosuke Fukudome
2. 2009 – Dexter Fowler
3. 2010 – Stephen Strasburg
4. 2011 – Bryce Harper
5. 2012 – Matt Moore
6. 2013 – Jurickson Profar
7. 2014 – Masahiro Tanaka
8. 2015 – Noah Syndergaard