What Could Have Been...?

		Coffee Time
		by Carl Coffee

The Whiteford Wicked Aces are the two-time defending champs, and it is a safe assumption that if they win it all in 2014 you can call them a dynasty. As I think about their dominance over the past two seasons, my mind wanders to the Manchester Punchouts and their historic 2012 season.

Just like the Wicked Aces, the Manchester Punchouts joined WSEM in 2012 and also once had their own league. Evan Bortmas was the commissioner of the Manchester Wiffleball League and then became the captain of the Punchouts when they joined WSEM. They had a great field, dominant pitching, lightning speed, flawless fielding, and even hit well in the ‘Year of the Pitcher.’

After starting the season 1-2, they then pulled off 25 straight wins to finish 26-2. They beat the Aces three times in the regular season, swept the very talented Belgian Wiffles and Thunder Ducks teams, and rolled into the playoffs super-hot. In the 2nd round they took care of Belgian three games to one, and then they were matched up with the Aces in the Best of 7 Championship Series.

At this point in the season the Punchouts were rolling with three guys: Bortmas, Sam Hatt, and Dakota LaDouceur. So not only were they dominating the league, but they dominated with one less fielder than their competitors. The problem though with only having three committed guys was that if one of them could not make it, the team did not have enough to play. So guess what happened as we were ready to start the Championship? Yep...

The league truly was robbed in 2012. That would have been an amazing Championship to watch and be a part of. The Aces took home the Commissioner’s Cup, the Punchouts broke up with the players all joining different teams in 2013, and the rest is history.

What if the Punchouts would have been able to play the 2012 Championship Series? They probably would have won it all. That is not a slam against the Aces. Check out the stats and their head to head regular season meetings: the Punchouts were just better. To be honest, I truly believe they were the best team in the entire NWLA that year.

So if the Punchouts would have won, would they have then returned in 2013 to defend their title? Would they be the team in the midst of being called a dynasty? Would Bortmas, Hatt, and LaDouceur be the players winning National Wiffy Awards? I cannot help but think what could have been.

Nifty Fifties

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

This offseason Wiffleball100, who runs the NWLA, has been putting out top 50 lists for NWLA teams and players on Twitter. Since 2006, he has always kept track of top teams on the season, and until this past year was also responsible for ranking the websites. With these latest lists, though, he is ranking based on all-time careers. So far, he has done the top 50 NWLA teams of all time and just yesterday finished running down the top 50 NWLA pitchers of all-time. It is a remarkably monumental task Hundy takes on developing each list, and these are definitely something we all can get excited about - even if you only know the names in this league. One thing to keep in mind is that longevity plays a large role in the rankings. Makes sense; a longer career leaves a larger imprint behind. Who do think made the cut from WSEM, and where do you think they fell? Read on to find out, and follow the NWLA on Twitter to be kept in the loop for new lists when they come out.

 TOP 50 NWLA ALL-TIME TEAMS 

Longevity, both in terms of being a young league and having frequent team name changes, hurt us in this list. Only one team broke into the top 50. They never won a championship and only played one year, but they put up a 26 win season and did not lose over the last 10 weeks. They went 5-1 in games played during the playoffs before forfeiting the Championship Series. Had those last five words not had to be said, the Manchester Punchouts likely would have come in much higher than #47. They finished their only season in WSEM as the number four team in the NWLA.

Team

W

L

PCT

RS

RA

DIFF

GB

DIV

iDIV

STRK

L5

Punchouts 4

26

2

.929

171

11

+160

--

15-1

11-1

W25

5-0

 TOP 50 NWLA ALL-TIME PITCHERS 

It is no shock that we fare much better on this list. Pitching ran the show in 2012; nine pitchers had an ERA below 1.00, and 13 had a WHIP below 1.50. On top of that, there were SEVEN perfect games thrown! 2011 was more forgiving for the offense by comparison, but soaring strike out numbers stole the show in the pre-rotation era. Impressively for a young league, WSEM snagged 4 spots of the top 50.

Counting down, our first hit comes at #46, Evan Bortmas. He has only played one season in the NWLA with us, but was one of the most veteran players in the league immediately upon his arrival. Evan had been doing it for years in the Manchester Wiffleball Association, and had developed filthy stuff over that time. The break on his curve/slurve could only be matched by his Punchout teammate. He also featured a nice riser, and a demented screwball that baffled opponents even at the NWLA Tournament. Most worthy of accolades, though: he taught any pitcher willing to learn the grip he used to throw his pitches. Stand up guy, who sat down batters. Evan adds another dominant arm to an already stocked Wicked Aces rotation in 2013.

	G	IP	R	H	BB	K	W	L	S	ERA	WHIP
2012:	12	50	7	13	34	136	10	1	0	0.70	0.94

WSEM's second pitcher on the list is another Punchout, Sam Hatt, at #38. Coming into his first season, most saw him as Manchester's number two behind Bortmas. Sam's swooping riser dazzled everyone at the first satellite tournament, but his fastball and breaking pitches did not leave as impressive a mark. The, the season happened. Hatt's drop-ball and cutter outshined the previous amazement of his riser. He was neck-and-neck in the Clown Shu race and proved to be WSEM's ace at the NWLA Tournament. For the 2013 season, Sam has tossed his hat into the ring with the Westside Warriors, and is penciled in as their ace to start the year.

	G	IP	R	H	BB	K	W	L	S	ERA	WHIP
2012:	11	55	3	13	39	138	10	1	0	0.27	0.95

At #35, Mike Constanti is a guy who benefits from having two years under his belt. Don't get me wrong, he is very deserving of a spot on the list. But if offered the choice of pitcher to take an at-bat off of, nine out of ten WSEM hitters would choose Mike over the two guys behind him. That said, Constanti is absolutely an ace through and through. He features a fantastic cut fastball and is dominant with it, paired along with his off-speed and breaking stuff. He is one of only two pitchers to defeat the potent Punchouts offense in the 2012 season, afterall. In 2013, Mike will join the next name on this list in a Ducks rotation that aiming to repeat as Garcia Division champs.

	G	IP	R	H	BB	K	W	L	S	ERA	WHIP
2012:	9	45	5	37	21	79	7	2	0	0.56	1.29
2011:	13	61.2	19	49	42	121	9	3	0	1.54	1.48

Dennis Pearson, 2011 NWLA Strike-out King, is our highest ranked pitcher on this list, coming in at #19. Twenty wins and 363 strike outs over two seasons is an impressive body of work, and the NWLA is paying attention. Dennis puts up those numbers by being the hardest thrower in WSEM, able to climb over 80 mph. His bread-and-butter pitchers are a pair traveling that fast: one breaks away from right handed hitters, while the other cuts back in. During the 2012 season he also brought an off-speed riser into his repertoire to keep hitters off balance. You can bet 2013 for Pearson will be all about taking the Ducks back to the WSEM Championship and reclaiming the Clown Shu.

	G	IP	R	H	BB	K	W	L	S	ERA	WHIP
2012:	11	49	11	16	61	128	6	3	1	1.12	1.57
2011:	19	80.2	21	18	97	233	14	4	1	1.30	1.43

This, of course, will leave a question hanging on the lips of most WSEM players: "No Austin Bischoff?" Austin was our 2012 Clown Shu with a 0.49 ERA, 0.68 WHIP, and 141 K. Over 4 games pitched late in the 2011 season Austin also had a 0.00 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, and 56K. Wiffleball100 explained Bischoff's omission on a post at the NWLA boards:

Austin Bischoff- WSEM gets a bit shorted like several other leagues for limited playing seasons. - Wiffleball100

It may seem puzzling, then, that Bortmas and Hatt make it, but not Bischoff - with an additional half-season played to his name. However, all other WSEM pitchers on this list have a season on their resumes in which they pitched in 11+ games. Since, the Aces threw a three (and sometimes four) man rotation, Austin only pitched 9 games this season. That lends the appearance of him being a less active player, especially when looked at alongside a 4 game season, and that seems to be the reason he was not held in as high of regard as Pearson, Constanti, Bortmas or Hatt. Even if you think Austin was "snubbed", you cannot give anything but respect and kudos to Wiffleball100 for the effort he puts into this: looking over thousands of players and tens of thousands of stats to give us something to talk about during the dead of winter.

Splitting the A-team: The Manchester Project

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

The Manchester Punchouts may not have won the Commissioner's Cup, due to reasons ultimately anticlimactic and a little bit nauseating. However, what they were able to do is absolutely dominate the 2012 season (26-2, +160 run differential) and the individual stat categories. Punchouts owned the number-one spot in the five big offensive categories (AVG, HR, RBI, OBP, SLG%), and had the second slot in all of them except for AVG. Altogether, they filled 13 of the 25 possible slots; representing 52% of the league's offensive leaders!

It was three players filling those slots and doing all that damage: Evan Bortmas (2012 MVP, Batting Champ, co-HR King, and NWLA 1st Team Hitter), Dakota LaDouceur (2012 co-HR King and NWLA 2nd Team Hitter) and Sam Hatt, who may not have the offensive bling of his former teammates, but he does have the substance - top 5 in AVG, OBP, and RBI. Where Sam's stock really starts to shoot up, though, is on the mound. He narrowly missed out on the Clown Shu, finished the season second in Ks (138) and ERA (0.27), tied for first in wins (10), and earned a spot as an NWLA 1st Team Pitcher. Evan also gets a boost from his pitching: another NWLA 1st Team and 10 win pitcher, and top 5 finisher in K (136) and WHIP (0.94)in WSEM.

Three undeniably explosive players, who have all split up and signed with new teams. It was early in the offseason that Bortmas divulged he and Hatt may not be back for 2013, but the team might continue if someone else wanted to run it. LaDouceur was attempting to retool a Punchouts roster minus Evan and Sam. However, after Bortmas' signing with the Wicked Aces was announced in early October, LaDouceur accepted an offer to play with El Diablos in 2013. It was not until November 26th, after being courted by several captains over a parade of Thanksgiving dinners, that Sam finally announced his return to WSEM for the 2013 season, signing with the revived Westside Warriors.

Three better suitors could not have been found for the former Punchouts to spread their talents across. The impact of these free agent signings should be tremendous - assuming semi-regular participation, of course. Most early power rankings put the reigning champion Aces at the top with some combination of El Diablos, Warriors, and Ducks in spots two through four.

For the Aces, the Bortmas signing is out of Steinbrenner's book. They add a fourth pitcher with a sub-1.00 ERA, and third with a WHIP below 1.00. The team already ran a three/four man rotation last season with brothers Austin and Evan Bischoff, Justin Hughes, and Joel Crozier. So, having many effective options to run out is not new territory for them. That said, Bortmas' biggest contribution to the lineup is his bat. Last season the Aces' regulars hit between .246 and .291; Bortmas hit nearly .100 points higher with a .389 AVG. The Aces team hit 18 HR; Bortmas hit 20. Couple his power with moving into Poolside Park for a possible 14 games, and the new Evan may put up crazy numbers in 2013. What has already happened is a dominant Aces pitching staff not only got padded, but just added lot of firepower behind it.

Similarly, what LaDouceur brings to El Diablos is a huge bat to run out at the top of their lineup. 2012 RoTY, Kyle Tomlinson (.346 AVG, .515 SLG), prefers batting further down in the four spot. So, being able to slide LaDouceur (.339, .835) in at the top of the order will still bring up strong El Diablos at-bats more often in games. In 2012 it took Dakota until his sixth game to record his first hit. However, after that, he was only held hitless in two games for the rest of the season. Chandler Phillips and Craig Skinner have El Diablos pitching well-stocked, so the key to El Diablos getting the most impact from this signing seems to be, simply, getting Dakota out to games early and often.

Hatt provides a fantastic player to lean on early in the season for Alex Shore and a Warriors roster returning many players who have taken a year off, and bringing in a new crop of rookies. Having Hatt's arm in the rotation could give Maclin Malloy time to find the form he is capable of possessing on the mound. At the plate, Hatt and Shore are similar hitters: lefties with a good deal of power and solid contact. Also, once on base, both are smart, aggressive baserunners making them a dangerous duo to build a lineup around. This signing has the makings of one that can push the Warriors up to the front of the line to play for a Commissioner's Cup.

The chance of former Punchouts returning to the WSEM Championship Series looks promising. The fact that we very well may see them on both sides of it is enticing, in that we may finally get the chance to see these stars play for the Commissioner's Cup!

Team Tuesdays: Manchester Punchouts

by Evan Bortmas

The people of the small village of Manchester, Michigan know only three things: farming, broiling chickens, and Wiffleball. Ever since Manchester native Evan Bortmas started playing Wiffleball in second grade he had dreamed of playing competitively in a league, which eventually led to the beginning of the Manchester Wiffleball Association, or MWA. In Manchester the pitcher's mound was a mere 35 feet from the strike zone, bases 40 feet from the plate, and in some parks, the fence just 50 feet from home. That meant in order to be a dominant pitcher you had to have a repertoire of pitches that moved extremely far, extremely quickly, or else the batter could easily tag one and send it over the fence. On the other hand, if you wanted to be a good hitter against good pitching, you had to have a great eye with excellent reaction speed. The MWA survived two seasons, but was shut down in 2008 in order to find more widespread competition. In turn, the best players from the league were selected to represent Manchester in Saline's annual “Wiffleball World Series”. The team was based heavily on the pitching aspect of the game, hence, the Manchester Punchouts were born. Throughout the years, the Punchouts have made several changes in their logo, colors, and roster, but the core of their team has always been there. Dakota LaDouceur, Jimmy Hamilton, and Sam Hatt have played in over 25 games collectively with Bortmas and the Punchouts, including finishing in 4th place or higher in three tournaments, and not including any pickup games. Last year, the Punchouts with Bortmas, Hatt, LaDouceur, and two fill-in players finished fourth overall in WSEM's fall “Beat It” tournament. Although the newest additions to the Punchouts' roster, Logan Zigila and Craig Spring, have not played competitively in any games outside of the MWA, they are great athletes and former baseball players that should fit nicely into the Punchouts' lineup. Early lineup speculations for the season are as follows:   - Batting 1st, #2 Craig Spring, OF/DH   - Batting 2nd, #12 Logan Zigila, 3B/ DH   - Batting 3rd, #9 Evan Bortmas, P/OF   - Batting 4th, #5 Dakota LaDouceur, RP/OF   - Batting 5th, #3 Sam Hatt, P/OF   - Batting 6th, #99 Jimmy Hamilton, OF/ DH The key to the Punchouts' success in 2012 will be offense. Nearly one-hundred percent of Punchouts victories since the end of the MWA have been deficits of three runs or less; most of which were one-run deficits, and about half have been 1-0 wins. Though pitching has proven to be the strong point for the team, the offense has a history of stranding runners on base. Statistically, the four original players are above average, but at any time there are hot hitters, one or two players seem to be struggling, which makes it hard to string offense together. This being the first full season that the Punchouts have ever played, it should be interesting to see if a growing chemistry throughout the year will affect their statistics at all. If they can produce offensively at a more consistent rate, the Punchouts will be one of the teams to beat in 2012.