With Compliments of the Chef

The Defensive Specialist was faced with a conundrum on Wednesday evening – attend a sneak preview of Sex and the City 2 or sit down with the new CEO of the Australian Baseball League Peter Wermuth.

And what a movie it was! Full of glitz, glamour and high fashion….

Ok, so you know the Defensive Specialist well enough to know that Carrie Bradshaw wasn’t going to stand in the way of shooting the breeze with the head honcho of the league we’ve all been waiting for. The Defensive Specialist slipped on a strappy pair of Jimmy Choo’s as a concession for missing the film and sat down with Wermuth to get a handle on how things are shaping up.

You may notice that the following give and take doesn’t match the Defensive Specialist’s usual format. That’s not because the Defensive Specialist plied Peter with copious amounts of booze so he’d spill the beans, rather the conversation just became a good old-fashioned 8-hour rambling discussion over a sumptuous meal. The Defensive Specialist did not record the conversation so what transpires is the Defensive Specialist summarising key topics (and adding in numerous references to how awesome Deep in the Hole is)

But first, some background on the new CEO.

Peter Wermuth came from Germany to play college baseball in the United States, returning to Deutschland to play and coach after graduation. As is often the case, matters of the heart (cue Air Supply) drew him back to the US where eventually the real world knocked and he entered the work force. His first stint with MLB was in 2005 as an advisor to what was essentially the CFO. This role involved working with the powerful player’s union to negotiate the collective bargaining agreement (focusing heavily on revenue sharing).

Peter was always interested in International baseball and had wanted to set up a professional league in Germany. With this in mind he moved into Major League Baseball International where he worked on new league development. The ABL evolved as a realistic opportunity and as it began to take on a life of its own it required more resources. In 2008 he became part of the joint venture between MLB and the ABL.

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As we kicked off our feast with a tasty amuse-bouche, the Defensive Specialist delved into why MLB would want to pump millions into baseball in a country on the other side of the planet.

There are number of reasons, but primarily to showcase Australian baseball talent. With so many young Australians playing professional baseball, what better way to showcase their talent and use this to draw more people into the game.

It was important for the Defensive Specialist to get an update on how the franchises were shaping up, specifically Canberra. After the entrées were cleared away Peter had this to say:

Canberra is still looking for a General Manager, after an initial offer was turned down. The key is to find the right person. The role of the GM is primarily sales and marketing with player interaction handled for the most part by the coaching staff. The GM has to be in the market, promoting the team and increasing the profile of the product. That person has to be able to draw new fans into the game. That’s why it is critical to have the right person in the role.

In better news, the government has provided a million dollars to upgrade the Narrabundah facility which may very well turn out to be one of the nicer facilities when it is completed. Player safety is critical so upgrades to lighting and the field are important.

Perth is without a GM but we are close to appointing someone in that role.

Queensland has Paul Gonzalez in the General Managers role. Facilities are still somewhat of a question mark. We’d like to have them at RNA showgrounds but can use Windsor (the facility used last year) if we can get the necessary upgrades. It may be a situation where Queensland splits time between facilities.

Victoria is the biggest question mark and perhaps the biggest challenge. Victoria Park is a ground that would be good to play on but we have to make sure that local residents are comfortable. Residents and the council need to be convinced that hosting an ABL franchise won’t be a disruption. We would need to demonstrate security and crowd control as well as monitoring the impact of the lights.

Geelong is a great baseball facility but does not have the infrastructure (seating, club rooms etc) to support a professional league. 

With main course arriving, the Defensive Specialist was keen to know MLB’s expansion plans.

We’d like to expand but quick and aggressive growth will absolutely depend on crowd support. The league must get to a breakeven point before any additional teams would be considered. There are a number of areas that could conceivably support ABL franchises – Geelong, Newcastle, Sydney (2 teams), Lismore. But the big determinant is crowd support. A crowd of 2500 per game is required to break even which means that we either grow junior baseball because these are the additional people who will be attending or we will have to draw from outside the baseball community.

The Defensive Specialist shook his head at no mention of Tasmania. 

Major League baseball began its investment last year so the Defensive Specialist wanted to know what did and didn’t work in Peter’s opinion.

Norwood (South Australia’s home field) was by far the biggest success story. The field was central to the city and enclosed which gave it a real baseball feel. South Australia had great support and atmosphere. The council there needed to be shown that baseball in this facility could work and they absolutely did. A partnership was created with the council and the football club which was great.

We learned a lot of little operational things like scheduling but having the teams work collaboratively and share best practice was a real benefit.

Not a great deal of branding and marketing went into the Claxton Shield last year and that really showed in the crowds that we drew. We definitely expected to draw more crowds and in places like Victoria where there wasn’t a full time facility it was tough to get people to come along. We were wondering if it was viable and what more we could do.

Main course was delicious and the Defensive Specialist was having a tough time maintaining Peter’s focus as he devoured his meal, however the Defensive Specialist pressed on asking about the Assistant GM’s that each team had last year, all of which had a minor league baseball background.

It worked in some instances and not in others. Using people on a temporary assignment didn’t work but provided fresh thoughts and knowledge transfer. We’ll probably scale it back this year and have one or two people working with all of the franchises with a greater mix of Australians and Americans. MLB is supporting and utilising available expertise to run the league.

The Defensive Specialist was very interested to know how US professional players will be allocated or assigned to teams in the ABL. After polishing off his palate cleansing sorbet  (compliments of the chef) the Defensive Specialist posed the question to Peter:

Professional players will be allocated on a needs basis. There will not be a one-on-one affiliation and the reason for that is that there are so many Australians playing professional baseball that we would have multiple MLB teams represented on each franchise. We want to keep local players playing in front of their home crowds and family and friends. If a team requires 3 starting pitchers, then we will guide starting pitchers to that team no matter what Major League club they belong to.

Every state has players and coaches who have links to Major League teams so there will be situations where clubs may want their players to head in certain directions.

The Defensive Specialist probed on the interest levels of Major League teams sending their prospects to Australia:

Almost every club would be interested. In fact, I don’t think we could accommodate all of the requests for player placements. It is important to remember that we will not be displacing local professional talent.

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With only dessert to come, the Defensive Specialist’s mouth began to water at the sweet treats to follow. Your loyal reader will have to tune in again at Deep in the Hole to get your treats as part 2 contains thoughts on Aussie player allocation, player salaries, coaches, the schedule and of course the ABL launch. Stay hungry.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

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 the framework of a new website:

http://www.theabl.com.au

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.