When not being Australia’s preeminent authority on
baseball, the Defensive Specialist spends time in the business sector. One of
the Defensive Specialist’s favourite expressions heard in business management
is the expression “we don’t know what we don’t know” which is a really wanky
way of saying that you screwed up because you didn’t take the time to research
or think about the task at hand. However, there are situations where it
actually holds true…. such as when discussing the new Australian Baseball
League.
The Deep in the Hole mailbox takes a pounding on a
daily basis with questions and enquiries about the status of the ABL and its
franchises – it seems that Australian baseball fans have a palpable hunger for
information about this exciting occurrence. Information hasn’t exactly flown to
the masses and even a plugged in dude like the Defensive Specialist doesn’t
have too much to share.
So it seems like a good idea that we identify what it
is that we don’t know.
Before we do that, lets talk about what we do know.
First off, we have a logo for the new league:
And that adverisements have started to run showcasing
the league.
So that’s got to be a sign that the league is actually
happening right?
Aside from that, a lot of other details are a tad
sketchy. Let the Defensive Specialist toss out a few questions that we could do
with some answers for, as well as some learned comments:
What
are the team names, logos, colours and uniforms?
A competition was run during the past baseball season
for fans to suggest team names with lucky winners getting the chance of a major
prize. Those winners have been named, but their suggestions not broadcast. A
simple solution would be to locate the telephone numbers of these people and
call relentlessly until they cough up their winning response. That wouldn’t be
the most sociable thing to do however and the Defensive Specialist is a fine
upstanding citizen who cannot condone that sort of thing.
Fans want to know the ins and outs of their teams, and
the announcement of team names and logos is an exciting time. The Defensive
Specialist was given the heads up that one franchise may have had a licensing
issue that was holding up the process but now that has been rectified, these
announcements aren’t too far off.
What’s
the status of the franchise in Canberra?
We all know that Canberra sold its soul to the
Baseball Gods to get a franchise. We just don’t know who’s running it. The Defensive
Specialist is loathe to Google Canberra too much for fear of overloading the
Deep in the Hole super computer with links to Australian porn sites or worse
yet federal politics, but a cursory search doesn’t turn up a great deal related
to the ABL in the nation’s capital.
Word on the street is that a ‘consultant’ is heading
up the show until a full time general manager is put in place and that decent
chunks of change are being contributed by the government to get facilities up
to speed.
How
are player allocated to teams and how will players be paid?
It’s all well and good having a team in your town, but
it’s even better if it has players! Many fans would assume their team’s rosters
will be made up primarily of local guys. But what if a franchise from another
state makes a play for players from other states? Will franchises get the first
crack at players who played on their Claxton Shield team or will it be a free
for all?
On top of that, what about foreign players. Each GM
who’s spoken to the Defensive Specialist has indicated that they would love to
have professional players on their squads (both American and Asian). How will
franchises source these players? In the first incarnation of the ABL, many teams
had an affiliation with MLB teams that then sent down prospects to take part in
the offseason league. Will that happen in 2010 and if so, how will teams form
this affiliation?
It has been widely stated that the ABL went belly up
the first time because expenditure got out of control. Obviously player
payments will be tightly controlled which begs the question, “What sort of
money can players hope to make?” The Defensive Specialist is fairly confident
that it’s not going to be enough for players to use as a basis for a mortgage.
Since it’s likely to be a minimal salary, that will control a lot of player
movement across states. Who’s going to pack up shop and move to another state
if they aren’t making a princely amount? That leads to another interesting
scenario whereby teams potentially offer players jobs off to the side (through
deals with sponsors etc) as a means of attracting talent to their clubs. Will
this behaviour be governed by some sort of salary cap?
We saw during the Claxton Shield that travel rosters
often caused problems with depth – especially in the bullpen. If professional
pitchers are participating in the league surely they’ll be on strict pitch
counts which will also impact roster depth. Will rosters be expanded to combat
these depth issues? With a likely expanded season, non professional players who
have to work will be impacted. Will there be flexibility for adding and
subtracting players from rosters?
What
state are the various franchises in at present?
Well we know that two of the franchises (Perth and
Queensland) recently lost General Managers, which is an odd development 6
months before the league is about to start up. It’s pure speculation but the
Defensive Specialist would have to suggest that remuneration or budgetary
issues were the cause. It’s still not clear if replacements have been found for
either franchise, which is cause for concern.
Aside from that, we haven’t really had too much
information on what each team is up to and how things are progressing
Does
each team have a suitable facility?
It’s known that both Queensland and Melbourne had
major issues finding suitable facilities to conduct ABL calibre events on. Not
only are playing surface and conditions critical, but also the fan experience.
Both franchises require a permanent home base that can support the fan numbers
required to make each team financially viable.
Perth, Adelaide and Sydney are well placed facility
wise and Canberra appears set to use the Narrabundah facility (that will
require upgrades)
How
many games will the season consist of?
The Defensive Specialist is led to believe that the
season will be approximately 40 games and the schedule is being finalised at
the moment. What the Defensive Specialist is unsure of is how the games will be
spread across the season. Will double headers take place or will teams play 4
game series across Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday?
When
will the league launch and how will it be promoted?
Well it would be nice for Bud Selig (Commissioner of
Major League Baseball) to fly down with a big set of scissors (obviously not
stored in his carry on luggage) and cut a big ribbon to launch the season but
statistics show that approximately 30% of Americans have passports so Bud may
not be able to scramble one in time. The Defensive Specialist is assuming that
an official launch will come closer to the season start date – lets speculate
late September.
Television ads started today (Tuesday) and a
highlights show is rumoured to be in the mix that is likely to be short, sharp
and entertaining. It would be nice if full games were shown on Australian
television in the first season but unlikely due to the cost of production.
Ok folks, that’s a broad spectrum of stuff that the
Defensive Specialist doesn’t know. If there is anything else that you don’t
know, send an email in to the Deep in the Hole inbox or leave a comment and the
Defensive Specialist will do his damndest to find an answer.
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