Meeting of the Minds (continued)

Continued from: Part 1

You recently wrote a post about up and coming players. Which player under 21 will have the biggest impact on the ABL this season?

BB: Yeah it's hard to see SA repeating their performance from this season, given that Collins will be gone and the fact that they really didn't have a stand out performance from a 'home grown' player as such (offensively anyway). They did have the biggest crowd numbers last season and it will be interesting to see what SA does in order to grab the interests of baseball fans and keep crowd numbers up. Agree with your assessment of the other teams as well, from the looks it will be a two horse race with NSW and Victoria leading the way.

In terms of the biggest impact from a young player, I'm going with SA's Angus Roeger. He managed to do fairly well last season in limited time, and given SA's roster, he will definitely be getting plenty of at bats this season. The at bats situation to me is the thing that stands out the most. Young guys from stronger states won't get the same opportunities, you only have to look at Matt Smith winning rookie of the year for a different state.

DS: I watched your Angus Roeger love fest video on your blog, were you holding the camera?? He's a big unit, I didn't realise he was so young! Another great point you make about opportunity - states like SA and Qld will have more of a chance to play their kids. If the league manages to stay afloat for a few years, these states will obviously benefit from the miles they got into their youngsters.

With that in mind i'm climbing on the back of Trent Baker. He hit in the 2 hole last year for Queensland and held down centrefield. Solid numbers for a young guy on a pretty average team. He hasn't played very much this year professionally so hopefully he can shake off whatever injury he may have.

What have you thought about the ABL's approach to kicking off the new competition?

BB: No I wasn't holding the camera, but have had some decent views of him from across the diamond in the past, he has quite a bit of pop! Good call on Baker, to play CF and pull those numbers on a fairly average team is very impressive and hopefully he manages to get some support.

I guess it's hard to say what the actual approach has been so far, given the lack of information! Although, the lack of information being released, for me, is a good move in itself. If the BaseballAustralia went out and told everyone every detail about the league, they may not be able to generate the same hype toward the start of the season as they would if they hold information off.

For fans like us, we will go and pay money to see baseball regardless of the marketing strategy. However, for those people out there that aren't really 'baseball fans' early marketing would not be effective. I'll use a real life analogy for this. Say you get invited to a party. You get the invitiation 6 months before the actual event happens. Then after 6 months, you have completely forgotten about the party. Come the night of the party, you don't actually remember to go. So what I’m trying to say is that from that standpoint, I don't think Baseball Australia have the funds to market the league to fans daily. I would assume that come closer to opening night, we will receive a lot more information to build up 'hype' for the league amongst new fans.

It also has to be said that the Home and Away Claxton format has been a real winner and definitely provided teams with a pro forma with how to run their teams for the coming season.

DS: Pay money to see baseball?? The Defensive Specialist doesn't pay! That's actually not true; the Defensive Specialist always hands over his hard earned to see baseball in Australia.

The lack of information can mean one of two things:

1) They’re not organised and are a long way behind schedule.

2) They want all their ducks lined up so when they launch, its a prime time (or as close to prime time as you can get in Australia) operation.

I’m hoping number 2 is the reason.

Another great point on the marketing budget restrictions. Why start pumping the tires up now when the kick off is still 3-4 months off? 

I do think the ABL would be well served to start drip-feeding some information to the public, though. People are genuinely excited to know what the team names are and what the teams will look like.

We keep hearing about things not going to plan (facilities, coaches, players) but we do need to remember that a monolith (MLB) is propping this thing up and they tend to run the big leagues fairly well.

We are at the stage where this performance is going to have to be split into two parts. Take this opportunity to talk up your site and what you’re planning to do

BB: Exactly, the fact that MLB is behind it all is a major positive. Coupled with the fact that there was the pro forma league last season there shouldn't be too much trouble (touch wood) with the format side of the league. From my site’s perspective, I think we covered a lot on stats early on and that will be a big focus with regard to how I will look at team and individual performances. I was essentially motivated by Deep in the Hole and I think it's going to have the same type of feel. With the anticipated lack of coverage (whether that be newspaper or television), I think that offering fans multiple blogs that will focus on reporting results/opinions can only be good. I know from my point of view I stumbled across Deep in the Hole after endless google searches on Australian baseball turned up many donuts.

So hopefully we can manage to work together and offer the Australian blog-o-sphere a couple of mediums that provide them with up to date baseball news, other than maybe a weekly newspaper article that is written by a someone who isn't really sure what they are watching.

Well there you have it folks, two passionate baseball fans going back and forth via email for 2 and a half hours! The Defensive Specialist enjoyed the experience and hopes that it can become a semi regular occurrence. Be sure to checkout the Backyard Baseballer out (new post up now).

The Defensive Specialist will be back next week with a dirty dirty rumour that is sure to elicit some reaction!