Tea and Scones with the GM

The Defensive Specialist has morphed into a social butterfly this offseason, spending countless hours chewing the fat with key people behind the ABL scenes in an effort to keep baseball fans plugged in to the goings on. This past week, the Defensive Specialist sat down with Eddie Bray – General Manager of the NSW Patriots franchise. As the tea and scones began to flow, the Defensive Specialist realised he’d stumbled onto a veritable gold mine of information. Eddie got verbose and provided a snapshot of both his franchise and the ABL in general.

In fact, Eddie had so much to show, that the Defensive Specialist had to crack open the Deep in the Hole expense account and foot the bill for dinner as the scones were just not hitting the spot (despite ample servings of jam and cream). After a solid 3-hour session, the Defensive Specialist had enough material for a two-part post. Lets roll out part one to whet your appetite:

What’s the toughest thing about building a franchise from the ground up?

Where do I start? I came onboard 6 weeks before the season started then got hit with the ‘World Masters’ for 2 weeks… the last GM appointed, then further compounded by the ‘target’ baseball manager withdrawing from the role.  Glenn Williams stepped into the role and what a godsend! He was sensational and I’m extremely grateful he is our ‘main man’ going forward.

The biggest issue in Season One was ‘communication to our members’. We relied heavily on email and Facebook communication. This works well when you have good ‘email address integrity’, ‘Facebook aficionados’, & ‘people turning on computers’. Based on feedback from the baseball community sadly we lacked these ingredients here in Sydney.  Needless to say our ‘go to market’ strategies will dramatically change this coming season. In addition we need to get out to the community beyond baseball (that being where our growth and new entrants to baseball will come from).

What have been your key objectives this offseason?

Highest priority has been in chasing sponsorship. We got off to a late start last year (due to commencing the position so close to season start up) and that put us behind the eight ball. I’m happy to report that we’re off to a strong start.

What has the ABL in 2010 learned from the ABL in the early nineties?

It is critical that we manage budgets and costs hard – spiraling costs and gluttonous excess killed the previous league.

The centralized structure of the ABL with no independent owners allows for a tight control and focus on the league.

In addition across the country and each franchise it is critical that our product is also consistent in quality, value, and entertainment.

Again I’ll repeat I can’t stress enough just how much the centralized structure will ensure we don’t fall into the bad practices of the 90’s, benefits are: 

• Provides League stability.
• Removes the player bidding wars (rampant in past league).
• Maximizes synergies across league.
• Shares best practice benchmarks across the league.
• Quick decision-making. 

This time around we’re much better placed.

Do you believe franchises can be financially viable playing a 60+ game season in Australia?

I can’t see why not. The ABL needs to (and will) follow a minor league business model. Simply put we’re not just about a game of baseball. Strategies need to be put in place to maximize venues 12 months of the year and importantly beyond just baseball games. In addition franchises need to consider and develop income streams beyond just baseball. For example, check out some of the market strategies MiLB franchises like Lake Elsinore employ = that is our likely future. Don’t expect it straight away it’ll take time to develop. Importantly we’ve got to get the ‘core product’ right first up before we get too clever!

The NSW team has seen a number of experienced players retire from this level in recent years, however NSW has remained competitive. What areas of NSW are generating the next wave of baseball talent? Which players do you see leading the franchise in the coming years?

Defensive  Specialist you’re right (as always!) in the past 5 years we’ve seen several key players retire and yet we continue to be around the mark. When you consider names like Williams, Fingleson, Lewis, Kingman, White, Van Buizen have all retired and then add the players who didn’t play for the Patriots last season for various reasons we’ve had some big holes to fill.

It is a credit to Baseball NSW and the fantastic development programs they run that we continue to see good quality young prospects coming through. These development programs have laid the base for many of these young guys to come into the team and begin producing results from Day 1. At the risk of embarrassing the individual, a good example of this is Jarrett Commane. Jarrett didn’t make our original 30 man roster, came in when we were in trouble, grabbed his opportunity when it came, and by season end was one of our ‘go to’ guys.

Heck, we share it around! Matt Smith is also a product of our high performance program.  Tony Harris & Pat Kelly gave him an opportunity on the SA roster and he walks away with the season ‘Rookie’ award = job well done Matt.

Regarding your question “Which players do you see leading the franchise in the coming years?” I suspect that this will be a collective group of senior players currently on the roster. It is a pretty tight ball club so I’m not going to single them out for mention here – needless to say the club and the individuals know who they are!

Which NSW players should baseball fans be looking out for and why?

Now Defensive Specialist why would I give you the breaking scoop here when I could announce that stuff on our website? Give it time (not much longer) and we’ll start cranking up the announcements and PR for the coming season. You’ll get to read all about them in our media communications!

Do you expect the increase in games to limit the availability of non-professional players who must hold down jobs?

Possibly - time will tell. It’ll be an interesting time managing player rosters that may be influenced by player availability. If I look at last year’s roster we had 25 players (of 30) signed professionally. Based on that the reliance on unsigned players is likely to be early in the season (maybe 2 – 3 series). I’m sure some guys will take annual leave to ‘chase the dream’ and at worst it’s likely to reduce annual leave by 2-3 days. It’s important we provide them with as much information ASAP so they can plan accordingly.

The big plus is, the additional games will provide quality game time for guy’s in the off season looking for more work. Oeltjen immediately comes to mind as an example. He chose to go to Mexico this past off-season to get more at bats. How good would it have been if we’d been able to provide him with the opportunity this season just past. Additionally, some will need to choose ‘do I chase the game or settle for a dollar on the factory floor’. It’ll depend on their own personal dreams and how driven they are. 

There has been little information on how professional players will be allocated to franchises. Are you able to explain how this would ideally work?

This is still being negotiated behind closed doors at the moment. I concur with Kim Jessop’s article regarding how it will be implemented. Personally from a Sydney franchise perspective I’m excited about the possibility of having some Korean or Japanese players on the roster. We have a large population of both Koreans and the Japanese living here in Sydney and yet we don’t see too many in the stands at BOP. Given baseball is the No 1. sport in both countries it is a shame. Tapping into these population bases will drive an incremental increase in audience to that which we traditionally have. The flow on effect to that is it will then also open up potential sponsorship markets we currently are not likely to successfully access.

How many professional players would each team be able to have on the roster?

No limit as such and each request is considered on what is best for the competition and the respective club.

Why would Major League ball clubs send their prospects down under?

The reasons are pretty obvious:

• The demise of the Hawaiian league has created an opportunity not only for an influx of MLB aligned players but also players from Asian Markets.
• Most other leagues that would provide an alternative for US players could be considered ‘volatile’ markets.
• Australia is a country that is fairly easy for a US resident to assimilate into. Culturally we’re not too dissimilar.
• Australia has a good performance record on the world baseball circuit. It wouldn’t be too unrealistic to assume we will develop quickly into a strong league providing quality development opportunities for MLB prospects. 

Yet more reasons why we need more games not less.

The Defensive Specialist was critical of your promotional efforts in 2009/ 2010, what is the franchise planning in terms of fan engagement in 2010 /2011?

Yes you were - you’re entitled to your view. Simply put we need to improve! Having said that I believe last year the fan engagement was better than that of the last 5 yrs.

Going forward for 2010/11 you will see:

• A fanfest out at BOP to introduce the team to the fans.
• Direct mail campaigns.
• School campaigns.
• Junior Supporter clubs.
• Strong visibility through local high volume people traffic centres (ie. Shopping Centres, Local Markets, etc).
• Pocket Schedules everywhere! 

We won’t go away from the electronic forms of communication but it is clear that it needs to be supported by a very strong ‘traditional’ campaign (I guess the world hasn’t moved on as much as we think!).

Seeing a semi trailer truck roll out onto the field in between games of a double header to reveal a band, was one of the more impressive things the Defensive Specialist has witnessed on a baseball field. What other sort of whacky promotions do you have up your sleeve?

I’m glad you liked the ‘truck + rock band’ stunt = certainly got the crowd going. It’s important that we provide the total entertainment experience for a family when they come to a game.

Yep, we’ve got some whacky stuff planned that I can confirm. Having said that I’m not about to tell you = don’t want to spoil the surprise.  I know I’ve definitely got one that will see BOP providing what will be a unique experience that will be a first for any sporting venue in Australia.

Watch this space !

Part 2 coming on Thursday morning.