Whiteford Wicked Aces Attribute Ratings

Championships - silver star: tournament champion, gold star: WSEM champion, gold triangle: division pennant
League averages - CON: 77, PWR: 77, PIT: 75, DEF: 79, OVR: 77 Team attribute ratings were determined by averaging the individual ratings of the four members of the WSEM Front Office's Tactical Media Wing. Contact (CON), power (PWR), pitching (PIT), and defense (DEF) were studied to determine overall (OVR) team rating. The thin bars included are the league average for each attribute. This writeup for the Wicked Aces is provided by Brandon Corbett.

Yes, Virginia, the three-peat attempting Aces are third overall in the preseason ratings behind El Diablos and Westside.

The reason for this is a perceived drop off in offensive production. The loss of Bortmas and speculation that Crozier will split time between Whiteford and Boston this season leaves Austin as the only big bat in the everyday lineup. Fisher, Little E, and Hughes combine for a .220 AVG, and that's good enough to see their contact rating third in the league, ten points above the league average. It's in the power category where the Aces slide back to the middle of the pack. The potential absence of Crozier also knocks their defensive rating down a bit, but they're still tied for second and very solid in this part of the game.

Of course, none of the above may matter when all is said and done. By far the largest advantage for a team at the front of the pack in any category, 8 points, is the one the Aces' hold in pitching. Little E and Fisher platoon as number-twos behind Austin, but either would easily be the ace on seven other WSEM teams. That near-perfect 99 in the most important facet of the game has the capability to readily override an overall rating of third.

Bold Ass Predictions

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

For those unfamiliar, a bold ass prediction reaches well beyond expectations. It is absolutely not a safe bet; saying it may call into question your credibility and sanity. When it comes true, though, having said it earns you the respect of a savant. Feel free to share any of your bold ass predictions in the comments, and sign your name so we can praise your foresight in August. Here are five of my bold ass predictions for 2013.


Nick Coffee will have double-digit extra base hits.
He had zero in 2012, but his bat began livening up late and in offseason games. Nick's routinely knocking the ball over outfielders heads, and even blasting a couple monster home runs. Only 9 players in 2012 had double-digit extra base hits (6 of them with less than 15), so this is a greater feat than it at first may seem. I think he'll do it the hard way, too, by keeping it in the park for most of them: 7 doubles, 4 home runs. All this attention paid to his offense, though, will once again see Nick snubbed for a Diamond Digit.


The Westside Warriors will win the 2013 Commissioner's Cup.
There are many questions about what their final roster may be, but I'm buying the hype that Alex Shore is selling. With the list of names he's working with you can count on the Warriors running out a talented squad every game day, regardless of whether or not some pieces change from week to week. Also, even if only featured in a limited role, the addition of Sam Hatt sends Westside's stock skyrocketing. He and Shore will be a dangerous 1-2 lefty punch in the lineup, and his guidance can also calm Maclin Malloy's "Wild Thing" tendencies on the mound: making for a lights-out rotation.


Chandler Phillips will lead the league in Ks.
Chandler was fourth in 2012 with 131, just 10 shy of the league lead. He only toed the rubber in 7 games, however, for a total of 52.1 innings. While true that all the 2012 K leaders pitched between 50 and 55 innings, I expect Chandler's innings to increase to around 65 this season as he gets more regular starts. His KPI of 2.5 will see him cutting down 162 batters on the season, running away with the "K crown" as the pitchers ahead of him in 2012 are not likely to see their innings increase


The Wicked Aces will throw 5 perfect games on the season.
Justin Hughes, Evan Bischoff, and Austin Bischoff all threw one in 2012. New signing, Evan Bortmas, threw two. The bats may be bigger and the mound further, but these pitchers will just be better. Evan (Bischoff) will reprise his against King Friday; Bortmas will avenge his only loss from last season by sitting the Squirrels down; Hughes will get one against the Islanders; and Austin will come up with two in huge games: the first against El Diablos, and then a nine inning thriller against the Ducks in the playoffs as the exclamation.


Ryan Alexia will lead the league in stolen bases.
Alexia had a .377 OBP last season, which was over two-times his AVG. His second year in the league will bring an increase in number of hits, and that good eye of his will inflate his OBP into the high .400s. Expect David Buhr to employ steals intelligently as a new facet of the game. We will see Ryan turning singles or walks into doubles and scoring opportunities at will for the Belgian offense: successful in seven out of nine attempts, three of which set up a game-winning run.

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: Whiteford W.A.

[Today's guest columnist is Joel Crozier: assistant captain of Whiteford W.A., creator of the WSEM Championship Trophy, an all-around do anything for wiffleball kind of guy, and possibly future WSEM front-office material.]

When Austin Bischoff first appeared on the WSEM scene, he was just a seventeen-year-old kid filling in for the Flying Squirrels late in the regular season. Players began to take notice, however, when he took the mound against the Warriors and DeLoppes, and posted two complete game shutouts. He soon became the Squirrels’ ace; in the last two weeks of the regular season and the playoffs, he allowed only one run over 46 innings while striking out 120 batters. When the newly revived Squirrels nearly upset the DeLoppes in the second round of the playoffs, Austin Bischoff became a major topic of discussion: “This guy is up there with Dennis Pearson!” “Does Whiteford even exist?” “Hey Carl, you know if they’ve got any like him left on Craigslist? Or was it Ebay where you found him?”

However, Austin was no wiffleball newbie. Like Carl Coffee, Austin was actually the founder and commissioner of his own league: the Whiteford Wiffleball Association.

The origins of wiffle activity in Whiteford trace back to Austin’s elementary school years, when he and close friend Joel Crozier experimented with various bat-and-ball games. They moved from tennis ball baseball to blooper ball to a game called smallball. Unfortunately, because they often played one-on-one, these games didn’t work well when they got older and stronger. That’s when Austin discovered the ultimate one-on-one game: wiffleball.

From the moment the two boys, now in eighth grade, watched a well-thrown pitch break three feet on its way to the strike zone, they were hooked. They researched pitching methods, built a strike zone, bought bases and a home run fence, and began forming a league. They launched a web site and recruited players from their school to join.


Whiteford's roster for Beat It: Colin, Austin, Joel, Justin, and Evan.
Unfortunately, it soon became clear many of other kids didn’t have the same love for wiffleball. The league operated sporadically over the next few years, with only three players actually competing in more than a couple of games. Organized tournaments fell flat on two occasions. Although their games were always intensely competitive, and usually featured high quality pitching, Austin and Joel wanted to find some real competition against other people who enjoyed the game as much as they did. During their search, they discovered a league known as Downriver Wiffle.

Austin contacted the commissioner, Carl Coffee, and a wiffleball relationship was born. As Downriver Wiffle evolved into WSEM, Austin tried to form a team and enter a tournament in Monroe. After the Fourth of July tournament was canceled, Austin got a chance to play organized wiffleball anyway — for the Squirrels. You already know how that turned out.

In the second round of the playoffs, Joel went with Austin to see what the league was all about. He liked what he saw. After the tournament, he and Austin had a long conversation about forming a team for the next season. The first step, of course, would be to enter a team in the end-of-season Beat It tournament.

They contacted Justin Hughes, a leading hitter on Whiteford’s varsity baseball team, and Colin Lake, a superb fielder who could also smash a wiffleball. Austin’s little brother Evan rounded out the team at five players. After Joel and Austin made jerseys, the Whiteford Wiffleball Association was no longer a league — it was a team.

In a great day of wiffleball, the WWA gave Austin the perfect present on his birthday: the Beat It championship. Joel missed most of the tournament due to a fall baseball obligation; with the new rotation rule in effect, someone needed to step up. Justin, who had never pitched in a wiffleball game before, was a pleasant surprise, shutting down the DeLoppes in a crucial playoff game and pitching most of the championship game. When he got in a jam, Austin showed his managerial prowess and faith in Joel, who took the mound, managed to escape the inning, and closed out the tournament.


Plans for WWA's field expansion for the 2012 season.
The WWA has big plans for its first WSEM season. They recently unveiled plans for their home field (name to be determined). Preseason odds released by Brandon Corbett generously list the team as a favorite. Austin, officially named the WWA Captain, and Joel, Assistant to the Captain and Head Publicist, plan to have a pool of players to draw upon throughout the season. They also want to utilize a full pitching rotation throughout the regular season (Austin, Joel, Evan, Justin, Colin, …?) for added versatility in the playoffs. Most of all, they are excited to be playing the game they love with others who are as enthusiastic about it as they are.

What to watch for:

• Bitter rivalries against the Squirrels (Austin’s a traitor!) and Thunder Ducks (think battle for the Clown Shu).
• Possibility of lighter, cooler alternate jerseys
• Closing of League Lineup site, opening of new team site
• Updates on field construction
• Promo vid!
• Video recaps/highlights of games