WWBL Independent No. 12

Clipper · 06-19-2002, 07:13 PM

The Independent
Vol. 1 No.12 Thursday, June 20, 2002

Top draft pick pitchers making early waves in minors

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The hype was huge for the WWBL’s No.1 overall draft pick Zack Wright.
Interviews all day, cameras following his every move.
Well, when that hype died down, Wright got a chance to live up to the media legend that had been created.
The 18-year-old No. 1 pick of the Battle Cats is 1-0 with a 4.22 ERA at the team’s Double A affiliate. He’s struck out 14 batters while walking just four in 10 2/3 innings.
Wright was joined by three other big-name prospect starting pitchers on draft day. Each of the pitchers has come up big early for their respective teams.
Austin’s Raymond Drakes has impressed at the Rattlers’ Double A affiliate winning two games in three starts and posting a 2.12 ERA. Palm Beach’s Nicholas Fries has performed similarly, posting a 1.00 ERA and a 2-0 record on the Single A level. He’s thrown two complete games, one of them a shutout.
At West Texas’ Single A affiliate in Alpine, Willy Holliday has posted a 2-1 record with a 3.86 ERA and 17 strike outs in 16.1 innings.
Apparently, the hype was warranted.

Fillmore starts season with no-no

MISSISSIPPI -- Mark Agustin this and Mark Agustin that.
Juan Fillmore’s heard more about Agustin during the offseason than he wanted to, so, he made a few headlines of his own. Fillmore threw a no hitter in his first start of the 2002 WWBL season. It was also the first no-no in league history.
Mississippi, which leads the Gulf Coast Division, won its first game against Albany 3-0 with the help of Fillmore’s no hitter.
The 34-year-old was often overshadowed by Agustin last season, despite his 3.17 ERA and 15-6 record for the Gulf Coast Division champions last season.
He’s made headlines with his 3-0 record and two complete game shutouts already this season.
Guess he’s found the best way to stop being overshadowed by Agustin — by casting a larger shadow of his own.

League’s highest paid player: A boon or a bust?

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Speedy shortstop Randy Walczak makes $80,246.91 — per game.
After hitting .329 with 35 homers and 111 RBI last season, the 28-year-old inked a six-year, $78,000,000 contract extension with the Storm. The deal made him the highest paid player in the WWBL, making $2.5 million more than the second highest paid player, Player of the Year Mark Agustin.
The Storm hasn’t exactly cashed in on Walczak’s hefty paycheck. He is hitting .222 with four homers and 10 RBI this season while making up almost a fourth of the team’s $60 million payroll. He has also stolen eight bases.
Meanwhile, Hartford is one game over .500 and in a tie for second in the always-tough Patriot Division race.
First baseman David Hurst, who is paid a paltry $3 million a year, is leading the team in hitting with a .393 batting average.

Best teams from 2001 take the lead again

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Dallas, Idaho and others may have made drastic trades for draft picks and talented veterans, but the same teams remain at the top.
Four of last season’s six division winners lead their respective divisions after the first two weeks of the season, and all but one are right in the chase.
Spokane, last season’s champion, remains at the top of the Frontier Division with the league’s second best record (11-4). The team with the best record, Madison (12-3), has picked up right where it left off as well. Madison won the Great Lakes Division last season before losing to Spokane in the championship game.
Savannah and Mississippi also lead the divisions they won last season. Hartford, which advanced to the playoffs last season is one game out of first and Fargo and Memphis are each just three games out of first.
Springfield has fallen the farthest from its playoff prowess, falling to seven games out after two weeks.

***

Division-by-Division Dispatches

Great Lakes

After the first two weeks of play, the Muskies are once again in first place with a league best 12-3.
What makes this even more amazing is that they've won 6 games in a row with two of their best hitters out (SS Bertram and 1B Millender).
Manager Alex Lamambe is pushing all the right buttons and players are responding to the increase in playing time because of the injuries...
CF Coleman Murray is hitting .431 with 12 SB's, 2B Nicholas Hermosillo is hitting .444 while starting at SS.
Even more astonishing is that only one starting pitcher is averaging over 5 innings per start. When a team is hitting .345 as a team, I guess that can be overlooked.
Look for Millender to return this week sometime and if the starting pitching comes around at all, it could be a long season for the rest of the teams in the Great Lakes division.

Gulf Coast

LUBBOCK, Texas -- Manager Stump Goodenough could still smile, a little.
The Wildcats went 3-4 in the second week of the season to run their record to 9-6, falling to one game behind first-place Mississippi. The good news, Goodenough beamed, was that West Texas beat Austin to begin the week.
"Any time you can whip them Rat'lers, that's good," he said. "If only we hadn't lost four to Madison."
West Texas beat Austin 5-1 to take two of three in the teams' first ever meeting. The Wildcats went on to take two of three from Springfield, including a 22-2 romping. Free agent pickup Mike Statler improved his record to 3-0 after throwing seven innings of one-run baseball.
But the Wildcats faltered against the team with the league's best record, loosing to the Muskies four times.

LUBBOCK -- While the majority of the league focuses on winning the league championship trophey, three teams are shooting to add some more regional bragging rights to there trophey cases.
The first two games between the three Texas teams, Austin, Dallas and West Texas, were played between the Austin Rattlers and the Wildcats this week.
The teams split a pair of games and will play one more game before the series resumes in mid-May. The Wildcats won the first game 3-0 as free agent pick up Michael Statler threw seven scoreless innings. The Rattlers evened the series with a 10-4 win in which Eli Ekstrom bashed two homers.
The competition will heat up again May 12 when Dallas and West Texas begin a three-game series. Austin and Dallas will follow with a series beginning May 15. After eight games Dallas and Austin are 4-4. West Texas is 6-2.

Bluegrass

A deal was made through the weekend between the Little Rock Rapids and the Melbourne team that sent SP G. Mock, CF T. Currey and MR M. Huertas to Melbourne and sent LF J. Vosburg, RF 3B Van Encinas, RF Andrew Neely, SP Ricky Cambron and SP Marion Richeson to Little Rock. Even though Little Rock had to gave up one of their best starters, it is also true that Mock never found his spot on the rotation, and posted a 12-14 record last year. As for Currey, even though he was one of the key run producers on the team, he´s age (38) was the main reason he was let go.
On the other hand, Little Rock got a great batter in Junior Vosburg, who has already been given the starting job in RF, not his usual spot but one he handles just as well, and he´ll be hitting second in the order. Richeson is going to take Mock´s place on the rotation, and even though his numbers are not as impressing as Mock´s, he´s expected to perform fine there. RF Neely is expected to replace Currey as the starting CF later this season.

Sunshine

Hey everybody, this is Charlie, the new owner of the Charleston squad. I've just been looking around the site the last couple of days to get to know the league a bit. I've played in an OOTP league before and did pretty well, so I have a plan in here and I know what I'm doing. I'm online quite a bit (AIM name is SumoChaday), so hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to some of you. I'm always up for trade talk or just shootin the *!#*.
As far as the team is concerned, I am looking to retool, or really pretty much rebuild. So I'm mainly looking for very young players or prospects rookie draft picks. Almost everyone on my roster will be availible, so if your looking for that extra piece of the puzzle, just IM or email me and
maybe we can strike a deal. Hope you all enjoy the rest of the weekend.

*Dispatches are pulled according to timeliness and appropriateness to league happenings. Information that is already invalidated will not be placed in the dispatches.

***
Players of the Week

Blue League: Philip Bart, Mississippi, hit .440 with three homers and nine RBI last week. He is hitting .358 for the season and has 14 RBI and five homers. Of note, the first baseman caught the final out of teammate Juan Fillmore’s no hitter.

Gray League: Derick Fanning, Spokane, hit .448 with three homers and 10 RBI last week. He has 18 RBI and a .417 average this season.

***
Line of the Week

Juan Fillmore, who is 3-0 with two complete game shutouts and a no hitter this season.
IP H R ER BB K DEC
9 0 0 0 0 0 WIN

***

The WWBL Independent is published weekly on Thursdays at the offices of the West Texas Wildcats. This publication is a work in progress. Please send suggestions, articles or constructive criticisms on how we can serve you better to: wt_wildcat@verizonmail.com

To inquire about openings in the WWBL, please contact Brian Ferris, league chairman, at brianwferris@hotmail.com or visit the league Web site at http://216.247.185.27/wwbl/.

WWBL Commissioner · 06-20-2002, 12:36 PM

once again another great newspaper for the WWBL.....Great work clipper

nix · 06-20-2002, 12:39 PM

hey is that league filled up?

WWBL Commissioner · 06-20-2002, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by nix
hey is that league filled up?

Yes the league is full at this time. We are taking apllications for the associate program. If you have filled out an application you will hear from us when is it accepted

nix · 06-20-2002, 01:09 PM

oh ok does the associate program does the media w0rk stuff?

Clipper · 06-20-2002, 03:37 PM

No, associates get a chance to do lots of things, which vary according to the owner they are assigned to. I've had many associates offer trades or broker deals for their owner.

Also, they vote in league polls and usually get their own team pretty quickly, I'd encourage you to sign up. This is a great league to be a part of. Check out the impressive web site (the link is at the bottom of the first post in this thread).

Jared, West Texas

TippsTheFoo · 06-20-2002, 04:03 PM

Spokane Cougars?! Weird. That was the name of my fantasy baseball team a few years back. I lived in Spokane, WA for 15 or so years and went to Washington State University (the Cougs!) for my undergrad work. Very cool.

Looks like an awesome league.

Clipper · 06-20-2002, 04:24 PM

Thanks for the kinds words about our league. You've got a pretty nice Reds site yourself.

nix · 06-20-2002, 05:32 PM

Oh ok basically, the associate programm is like an assistance gm or something like that?? clipper? just asking! and does owners gets fire for poor records? maybe it'll better because if the league is so great, then no one would want to leave and if no ones leave then whats the point in waiting list??
ive noticed that a lot of commish dont want to install the "gm firing"because of bad records because they feared they may one day get fire out of their own league they created

Clipper · 06-20-2002, 06:08 PM

Let me see if I can answer your questions. Yes, it is sort of like an assistant GM, in that you get to do GM stuff, you just have to get everything Ok'd through the GM.

General Managers aren't fired for having bad teams. I've only heard of one or two actually being removed and that was for inactivity. This league will buckle down and fire a GM for inactiviy. We expect our owners to post on the league's discussion site regularly, get their lineups in regularly -- just be active. It makes the game more fun when owners participate.

It is a good league, but there are openings fairly often. Owners leave for a variety of reasons...to little time, computer problems, family problems...it is just the nature of online leagues to have fairly regular turnover. So, if you were to join the league as an associate, you'd probably get a good chance to learn under one of the more experienced GM's and then get your own team. I can't promise you when, but probably not too long. I'd guess no more than a month or two...maybe less.

Hope that helps. I'm not the man in charge, I'm just an active owner who would like to see the league continue to flourish. I'd encourage you to fill out an application and try being an associate. If you don't like it...just move on.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Jared

WWBL Commissioner · 06-21-2002, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by TippsTheFoo
Spokane Cougars?! Weird. That was the name of my fantasy baseball team a few years back. I lived in Spokane, WA for 15 or so years and went to Washington State University (the Cougs!) for my undergrad work. Very cool.

Looks like an awesome league.

Thanks for the kind words about the league. Spokane was named by its founding owner who was from the Pacific Northwest. He to was a big cougs fan!

06-19-2002, 07:13 PM	#1
Clipper Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Texas Posts: 83	WWBL Independent No. 12 The Independent Vol. 1 No.12 Thursday, June 20, 2002 Top draft pick pitchers making early waves in minors BATON ROUGE, La. -- The hype was huge for the WWBL’s No.1 overall draft pick Zack Wright. Interviews all day, cameras following his every move. Well, when that hype died down, Wright got a chance to live up to the media legend that had been created. The 18-year-old No. 1 pick of the Battle Cats is 1-0 with a 4.22 ERA at the team’s Double A affiliate. He’s struck out 14 batters while walking just four in 10 2/3 innings. Wright was joined by three other big-name prospect starting pitchers on draft day. Each of the pitchers has come up big early for their respective teams. Austin’s Raymond Drakes has impressed at the Rattlers’ Double A affiliate winning two games in three starts and posting a 2.12 ERA. Palm Beach’s Nicholas Fries has performed similarly, posting a 1.00 ERA and a 2-0 record on the Single A level. He’s thrown two complete games, one of them a shutout. At West Texas’ Single A affiliate in Alpine, Willy Holliday has posted a 2-1 record with a 3.86 ERA and 17 strike outs in 16.1 innings. Apparently, the hype was warranted. Fillmore starts season with no-no MISSISSIPPI -- Mark Agustin this and Mark Agustin that. Juan Fillmore’s heard more about Agustin during the offseason than he wanted to, so, he made a few headlines of his own. Fillmore threw a no hitter in his first start of the 2002 WWBL season. It was also the first no-no in league history. Mississippi, which leads the Gulf Coast Division, won its first game against Albany 3-0 with the help of Fillmore’s no hitter. The 34-year-old was often overshadowed by Agustin last season, despite his 3.17 ERA and 15-6 record for the Gulf Coast Division champions last season. He’s made headlines with his 3-0 record and two complete game shutouts already this season. Guess he’s found the best way to stop being overshadowed by Agustin — by casting a larger shadow of his own. League’s highest paid player: A boon or a bust? HARTFORD, Conn. -- Speedy shortstop Randy Walczak makes $80,246.91 — per game. After hitting .329 with 35 homers and 111 RBI last season, the 28-year-old inked a six-year, $78,000,000 contract extension with the Storm. The deal made him the highest paid player in the WWBL, making $2.5 million more than the second highest paid player, Player of the Year Mark Agustin. The Storm hasn’t exactly cashed in on Walczak’s hefty paycheck. He is hitting .222 with four homers and 10 RBI this season while making up almost a fourth of the team’s $60 million payroll. He has also stolen eight bases. Meanwhile, Hartford is one game over .500 and in a tie for second in the always-tough Patriot Division race. First baseman David Hurst, who is paid a paltry $3 million a year, is leading the team in hitting with a .393 batting average. Best teams from 2001 take the lead again SPOKANE, Wash. -- Dallas, Idaho and others may have made drastic trades for draft picks and talented veterans, but the same teams remain at the top. Four of last season’s six division winners lead their respective divisions after the first two weeks of the season, and all but one are right in the chase. Spokane, last season’s champion, remains at the top of the Frontier Division with the league’s second best record (11-4). The team with the best record, Madison (12-3), has picked up right where it left off as well. Madison won the Great Lakes Division last season before losing to Spokane in the championship game. Savannah and Mississippi also lead the divisions they won last season. Hartford, which advanced to the playoffs last season is one game out of first and Fargo and Memphis are each just three games out of first. Springfield has fallen the farthest from its playoff prowess, falling to seven games out after two weeks. *** Division-by-Division Dispatches Great Lakes After the first two weeks of play, the Muskies are once again in first place with a league best 12-3. What makes this even more amazing is that they've won 6 games in a row with two of their best hitters out (SS Bertram and 1B Millender). Manager Alex Lamambe is pushing all the right buttons and players are responding to the increase in playing time because of the injuries... CF Coleman Murray is hitting .431 with 12 SB's, 2B Nicholas Hermosillo is hitting .444 while starting at SS. Even more astonishing is that only one starting pitcher is averaging over 5 innings per start. When a team is hitting .345 as a team, I guess that can be overlooked. Look for Millender to return this week sometime and if the starting pitching comes around at all, it could be a long season for the rest of the teams in the Great Lakes division. Gulf Coast LUBBOCK, Texas -- Manager Stump Goodenough could still smile, a little. The Wildcats went 3-4 in the second week of the season to run their record to 9-6, falling to one game behind first-place Mississippi. The good news, Goodenough beamed, was that West Texas beat Austin to begin the week. "Any time you can whip them Rat'lers, that's good," he said. "If only we hadn't lost four to Madison." West Texas beat Austin 5-1 to take two of three in the teams' first ever meeting. The Wildcats went on to take two of three from Springfield, including a 22-2 romping. Free agent pickup Mike Statler improved his record to 3-0 after throwing seven innings of one-run baseball. But the Wildcats faltered against the team with the league's best record, loosing to the Muskies four times. LUBBOCK -- While the majority of the league focuses on winning the league championship trophey, three teams are shooting to add some more regional bragging rights to there trophey cases. The first two games between the three Texas teams, Austin, Dallas and West Texas, were played between the Austin Rattlers and the Wildcats this week. The teams split a pair of games and will play one more game before the series resumes in mid-May. The Wildcats won the first game 3-0 as free agent pick up Michael Statler threw seven scoreless innings. The Rattlers evened the series with a 10-4 win in which Eli Ekstrom bashed two homers. The competition will heat up again May 12 when Dallas and West Texas begin a three-game series. Austin and Dallas will follow with a series beginning May 15. After eight games Dallas and Austin are 4-4. West Texas is 6-2. Bluegrass A deal was made through the weekend between the Little Rock Rapids and the Melbourne team that sent SP G. Mock, CF T. Currey and MR M. Huertas to Melbourne and sent LF J. Vosburg, RF 3B Van Encinas, RF Andrew Neely, SP Ricky Cambron and SP Marion Richeson to Little Rock. Even though Little Rock had to gave up one of their best starters, it is also true that Mock never found his spot on the rotation, and posted a 12-14 record last year. As for Currey, even though he was one of the key run producers on the team, he´s age (38) was the main reason he was let go. On the other hand, Little Rock got a great batter in Junior Vosburg, who has already been given the starting job in RF, not his usual spot but one he handles just as well, and he´ll be hitting second in the order. Richeson is going to take Mock´s place on the rotation, and even though his numbers are not as impressing as Mock´s, he´s expected to perform fine there. RF Neely is expected to replace Currey as the starting CF later this season. Sunshine Hey everybody, this is Charlie, the new owner of the Charleston squad. I've just been looking around the site the last couple of days to get to know the league a bit. I've played in an OOTP league before and did pretty well, so I have a plan in here and I know what I'm doing. I'm online quite a bit (AIM name is SumoChaday), so hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to some of you. I'm always up for trade talk or just shootin the !#. As far as the team is concerned, I am looking to retool, or really pretty much rebuild. So I'm mainly looking for very young players or prospects rookie draft picks. Almost everyone on my roster will be availible, so if your looking for that extra piece of the puzzle, just IM or email me and maybe we can strike a deal. Hope you all enjoy the rest of the weekend. Dispatches are pulled according to timeliness and appropriateness to league happenings. Information that is already invalidated will not be placed in the dispatches. Players of the Week Blue League: Philip Bart, Mississippi, hit .440 with three homers and nine RBI last week. He is hitting .358 for the season and has 14 RBI and five homers. Of note, the first baseman caught the final out of teammate Juan Fillmore’s no hitter. Gray League: Derick Fanning, Spokane, hit .448 with three homers and 10 RBI last week. He has 18 RBI and a .417 average this season. * Line of the Week Juan Fillmore, who is 3-0 with two complete game shutouts and a no hitter this season. IP H R ER BB K DEC 9 0 0 0 0 0 WIN *** The WWBL Independent is published weekly on Thursdays at the offices of the West Texas Wildcats. This publication is a work in progress. Please send suggestions, articles or constructive criticisms on how we can serve you better to: wt_wildcat@verizonmail.com To inquire about openings in the WWBL, please contact Brian Ferris, league chairman, at brianwferris@hotmail.com or visit the league Web site at http://216.247.185.27/wwbl/.

06-20-2002, 12:36 PM	#2
WWBL Commissioner All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Hawaii Posts: 887	once again another great newspaper for the WWBL.....Great work clipper __________________ Offey WWBL Commissioner(2004-2014 real life years) WWBL: Hawaii Island Warriors 2005 Pacific League Champion 2006 Pacific League Champion 2007 Pacific League Champion 2008 WWBL WORLD CHAMPION 2010 WWBL WORLD CHAMPION 2019 WWBL WORLD CHAMPION 2029 WWBL WORLD CHAMPION The Island Warriors are 21-23 in World Series play. BadAssBaseball: Boston Red Sox 1906 American League Champion 1907 WORLD CHAMPION

06-20-2002, 12:39 PM	#3
nix Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 67	hey is that league filled up? __________________ nix

06-20-2002, 01:09 PM	#5
nix Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 67	oh ok does the associate program does the media w0rk stuff? __________________ nix

06-20-2002, 05:32 PM	#9
nix Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 67	Oh ok basically, the associate programm is like an assistance gm or something like that?? clipper? just asking! and does owners gets fire for poor records? maybe it'll better because if the league is so great, then no one would want to leave and if no ones leave then whats the point in waiting list?? ive noticed that a lot of commish dont want to install the "gm firing"because of bad records because they feared they may one day get fire out of their own league they created __________________ nix

06-20-2002, 03:37 PM	#6
Clipper Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Texas Posts: 83	No, associates get a chance to do lots of things, which vary according to the owner they are assigned to. I've had many associates offer trades or broker deals for their owner. Also, they vote in league polls and usually get their own team pretty quickly, I'd encourage you to sign up. This is a great league to be a part of. Check out the impressive web site (the link is at the bottom of the first post in this thread). Jared, West Texas

06-20-2002, 04:03 PM	#7
TippsTheFoo Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 51	Spokane Cougars?! Weird. That was the name of my fantasy baseball team a few years back. I lived in Spokane, WA for 15 or so years and went to Washington State University (the Cougs!) for my undergrad work. Very cool. Looks like an awesome league.

06-20-2002, 04:24 PM	#8
Clipper Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Texas Posts: 83	Thanks for the kinds words about our league. You've got a pretty nice Reds site yourself.

06-20-2002, 06:08 PM	#10
Clipper Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Texas Posts: 83	Let me see if I can answer your questions. Yes, it is sort of like an assistant GM, in that you get to do GM stuff, you just have to get everything Ok'd through the GM. General Managers aren't fired for having bad teams. I've only heard of one or two actually being removed and that was for inactivity. This league will buckle down and fire a GM for inactiviy. We expect our owners to post on the league's discussion site regularly, get their lineups in regularly -- just be active. It makes the game more fun when owners participate. It is a good league, but there are openings fairly often. Owners leave for a variety of reasons...to little time, computer problems, family problems...it is just the nature of online leagues to have fairly regular turnover. So, if you were to join the league as an associate, you'd probably get a good chance to learn under one of the more experienced GM's and then get your own team. I can't promise you when, but probably not too long. I'd guess no more than a month or two...maybe less. Hope that helps. I'm not the man in charge, I'm just an active owner who would like to see the league continue to flourish. I'd encourage you to fill out an application and try being an associate. If you don't like it...just move on. Let me know if you have more questions. Jared