Read: American Association Playoffs

The American Association features ten teams, split into two divisions. The Lincoln Saltdogs, St. Paul Saints, Sioux City Explorers, Sioux Falls Canaries, and the Wingnuts compose the American Association North Division. The South Division includes the new Grand Prairie AirHogs, Pensacola Pelicans, El Paso Diablos, Fort Worth Cats, and Shreveport Sports.

The league plays a 96-game schedule split into two 48-game halves. The winners of each half meet in a best-of-five division series. The two division series winners then meet in the American Association Championship Series. If a team happens to win both halves, then they will face the team from their division with the second-best overall record in the first round.

Playoff home games are decided as follows:
The first half division winners are awarded Games 1 and 2 of the first round at home, while the second half division winners host games 3, 4, and 5. This is primarily meant to allow the first half winners to begin selling playoff tickets for guaranteed dates.

The one exception is in the North. If the same team wins both halves in the North Division, they will host a potential Game 5 at home, setting up the more conventional “2-2-1″ format. Again, this only applies to the North, but it does give the division’s first half winner something huge to play for in the second half.

The American Association Championship Series is a predetermined “2-3″ format. The North hosted Games 1 and 2 last year, while the South had Games 3-5. This year home field will be reversed, so the South Division Series winner hosts Games 1 and 2, with the North Division Series winner hosting the latter three contests.

…essentially, everyone is afforded a mulligan after 48 games. if a team plays terrific baseball, but is ultimately beaten by a team who wins a couple more games, they get to start fresh in the second half. the same goes for a team that does not play well at all in the first half. last year there were examples of both, with sioux falls finishing three games behind lincoln in the first half, despite having a winning percentage over .600, and sioux city, who had one of the worst first half records in the league, yet competed for the second half title up until the second-to-last day of the season…

…it should be noted that the “wrinkle” in the north rules should not be underrated. playing a potential game 5 in your own building has so many positive intangible effects. not only do you play the winner take all match at home, but you’ve forced your opponent to pack their bags and hit the road for a single game. it should also be noted that in the two years of the new american association, not one of the first half winners has ever made it past the first round. the safe explanation is that the second half winners have to be playing their best at the end of the year, which carries into the postseason. perhaps there is more to it than that, or perhaps it is just a series of coincidences in a relatively short amount of time. by the way, this is not to suggest in anyway that it is a bad idea to win the first half. that is absolutely ridiculous. but it is something to keep in the back of your mind as the season progresses…

Quote: Kash and Luke

As I wrote yesterday, I caught much of Saturday’s practice. While the team was warming up along the right field line, I overheard Wingnuts’ pitching coach Luke Robertson say, “Do everything with a purpose.” He said this several times, which really struck me as all the team was doing was stretching and playing light catch.

…there is an old baseball term called ‘giving away an at bat’, which basically means losing your focus. this can happen late in a lopsided game when you’ve had a rough night at the plate, or it can just be a simple break of concentration. either way, the fact that ‘doing everything with a purpose’ was something of a mantra on saturday is a great sign. if something as simple as longtoss is taken seriously, you can bet that there won’t be many at bats ‘given away’ this summer…

While doing some work in the radio booth this afternoon, I saw manager Kash Beauchamp running drills on pop flies. After one of the outfielders caught one, I could hear Kash shouting something along the lines of, ‘call for it’. The interesting thing was that the outfielder actually did call for the ball, but Kash wanted to make sure he had called loud enough so that the rest of the fielders could hear, thus preventing a collision, which are all too common on popups

…you have to be excited by this attitude from the coaching staff. it is obvious that kash wants to make sure the ‘little things’ are done perfectly, which is a major trademark of a winning ballclub. these are the types of things that players might find tedious, but payoff big time in the longrun. who knows, maybe there will be a situation during a crucial game in august in which three players converge on a short flyball. someone will take charge, and the play will be made, and we’ll think back to this practice…

Opinion: Independent Baseball in Wichita

One of the biggest questions myself and the rest of the Wingnuts staff has had to answer is, ‘where do the players come from?’ Obviously this is where the Wingnuts differ the most from the Wranglers, as our team is not affiliated with any Major League organization. For those of you familiar with the Wichita Thunder, and most of the Central Hockey League for that matter, it is essentially the same thing. Managers have to go out and recruit players from year to year, with a select group of core players that remain intact.

Minor league baseball is much more organized than minor league hockey in the sense that there is no crossover of affiliated or independent teams in any particular league. The CHL, for example, has a handful of teams with NHL affiliations. As a result, many of their players are under NHL contracts and are not controlled by the CHL franchise. The American Association and its fellow independent baseball leagues are under no such restrictions. This puts every team on the same playing field at the beginning of the year. No manager in independent baseball gets “free recruiting”.

The thing that independent newcomers need to understand is that the majority of players in indy ball, especially in the American Association, have come from Major League organizations. Some people have even asked questions such as, ‘are these going to be amateur players?’. My favorite was a post on a message board in which someone proclaimed the Wingnuts to be a ’step above high school’.

Out of the half-dozen or so independent leagues, the American Association is probably second in terms of talent level. The league’s talent is comparable to Double-A, which happens to be the same level the Wranglers had played at. Now, you probably won’t find the next Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez among the independent ranks. But you will find guys that are hungry and willing to do anything to get back to the next level. This means teams play to win every single night, no questions asked. Again, most of these players have been as high as Triple-A. Wichita already features two former big leaguers in Kevin Hooper and Dustan Mohr. And just to broaden your view of independent baseball success stories, here are several names you might recognize that have used independent ball to further their careers:

JD Drew

Darryl Strawberry

Kevin Millar

Luke Hochevar

Max Scherzer

Rickey Henderson

Affiliated minor league baseball is meant for developing players for the Major Leagues. Teams have millions of dollars invested in first round draft picks and will make sure that those picks get their at bats and get their innings pitched, even if it means giving up a win here or there. There is nothing wrong with this. And this is certainly not meant to be a critique of how affiliated teams are managed. After all, they are called “farm” teams for a reason. The point is that the Wingnuts will be focused on winning. Sure, it was fun to see high-profile prospects like Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran, and Alex Gordon come through Wichita. It was even more satisfying to see them plow through Omaha and eventually to Kansas City. But this summer Wichita baseball fans will be introduced to a brand of professional baseball where everyone from the manager, to the players, and all the way down to the grounds crew wants to see the Wingnuts bring home a championship.

…i get the sense that most of wichita is coming around to the wingnuts, which is great to hear. there is definitely a buzz in town, especially now that opening night is a week from wednesday. there are still some people who are either hesitant or simply bitter over what the wranglers ownership did by moving the team away. hopefully these people jump on board with everyone else, and truthfully i believe they eventually will. the heavy competition for roster spots, combined with the fiery nature of Kash Beauchamp, combined with some dynamite on-field entertainment should make for a fun summer…

News: Spring Training Underway

Players officially checked in on Thursday at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. 28 players will vie for 22 roster spots over the next week and a half. The Wingnuts will hold practices at home until Friday May 3rd when their exhibition schedule kicks off. Practices begin at 9am and are open to the public.

…and with the arrival of the team, baseball has officially returned to wichita. i was able to catch most of saturday’s practice, and it is clear that everyone is hungry to start playing. the team looks very good, which also means that the cuts that have to be made in the coming week will not be easy. this is definitely a good problem to have, as many independent teams are scrambling to fill those last two or three roster spots. as we get closer and closer to opening day, i’ll start posting season preview information as well as some essentials about independent baseball…