------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | International Replay Baseball League - Founded October 30, 1973 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ***************** IRBL NEWSLETTER # 694 ***************** 3-7-04 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ...................................... PLAYER TRANSACTIONS: The INDIANS released IVANON COFFIE, JAMIE ARNOLD, TIM BYRDAK, DARWIN CUBILLAN, JASON KARNUTH, ANDREW LORRAINE. The BRAVES released BRIAN COOPER, TODD ERDOS, BRETT JODIE, ONAN MASAOKA, BRIAN ROSE, ANTHONY SHUMAKER, ISMAEL VILLEGAS. The BLUE JAYS traded CURT SCHILLING to the DODGERS for JARROD WASHBURN. The ANGELS traded MARK COREY to the RANGERS for RICKEY HENDERSON. The ORIOLES released DAVID JUSTICE, ROD LINDSEY, COREY LEE. The PHILLIES traded DAMIAN ROLLS to the PADRES for RAMON SANTIAGO, JAMAL STRONG, SEAN DOUGLASS. The RED SOX released SEAN SPENCER. ...................................... 2004 IRBL Schedule: Due to the continued use of an unbalanced schedule and Interleague series that the Major Leagues has used since 1999, the 2004 IRBL schedule is again unbalanced. Although all IRBL teams play 81 road games and 81 home games, the number of series per team varies. AL teams play 38 or 40 series and NL teams play 43, 44 or 46 series. So that the NL teams will not get an advantage of having extra days off for scheduling starting pitchers, NL teams have 6 series where there are no days off between series. These series are noted with an asterisk, "*", on the Starting Pitchers Rotation sheet after the series date. For these noted series, there will be no day-off between this series and the preceding series for calculating the days off between starts for starting pitchers. You will find the post-season schedule at the bottom of the SCHEDULE.Y04 file. ...................................... My thanks again to Gerry McDonald for volunteering and preparing the 2004 IRBL schedule. This is the seventh straight year that Gerry has completed this time consuming task and I appreciate the effort. ...................................... IRBL # 694 3-7-04 2 Included with this newsletter are the following items so you can prepare your 2004 season team instructions (refer to IRBL Rule # 15): 1) Starting Pitchers Rotation forms for all teams (PITCHING.Txx) 2) Inactive List forms for all teams (INACTIVE.Txx) 3) Team Instructions forms (INSTRUCT.Txx) 4) Player Usage forms for all teams (PLAYERUF.Y04) xx: IRBL team code number NOTE: To edit the above files, select "Display or Print Series Results or Newsletter Files" from the IRBL Menu Program. Highlight the file name in the LIST file selection display and press the [E] key. This will invoke the DOS EDIT program. Use this method to edit the file rather than your own word processing program so that the file remains pure text. Be sure that you are in the "Overwrite mode" (the cursor will be a blinking rectangle) and not the "Insert mode" (the cursor would be a blinking underscore, "_"). You can switch between modes by pressing the [Insert] key. The "Overwrite mode" is easier to work with because it will not "push out" the remainder of the line when you type. If you prefer, you can also use a Windows text editor program (such as Notepad) to edit the files. Be sure not to use the [Tab] key to align columns. Instead, use the [spacebar] to insert spaces to align columns. Please do not use a word processing program (such as Word, Works or WordPerfect) because these programs will modify the format of the file and will insert special characters that will be time-consuming for me to remove. You can verify that the file is saved as pure text by viewing the file with the IRBL Menu Program and verifying that you do not see any strange characters mixed in the file. ...................................... Please use the following guidelines when filling out the forms: IRBL # 694 3-7-04 3 1) Starting Pitchers Rotation form: Fill in the pitcher's initials (2 capital letters only) next to each game number. At the bottom of the page, list each pitcher's full name, the initials used, indicate if he throws "L" or "R" and the number of starts he is scheduled for using the following format: T GS - -- BOUCHER, DENIS (DB) L 25 DELUCIA, RICH (RD) R 30 GROOM, BUDDY (BG) L 30 JONES, JIMMY (JJ) R 27 MILITELLO, SAM (SM) R 11 PUGH, TIM (TP) R 8 ROBINSON, RON (RR) R 2 WILLIAMS, MIKE (MW) R 29 When typing the above chart, make sure that you do not exceed 60 lines on the page or 80 characters on a line (refer to the line and column counter in the lower right corner of the editing screen). 2) Inactive List form: Place an "XX" (use capital letters only) in the appropriate box for each player on the Inactive List for each series. There must be exactly 25 players on the "Active List" for each series (i.e., 25 boxes next to a player's name in each column that do not have a "XX"). At least four pitchers (in addition to the scheduled starting pitchers) must be on the "Active List" for every series. 3) Team Instructions: Edit this file to contain your starting lineups for all your road and home series (including all lineups stored in your Computer Manager profile). If you leave out your home series lineups, your instruction package will be considered incomplete. If you list a player in every lineup who cannot play 162 games, you must include a note indicating which games he will be sat out and who will replace him. When typing this page, make sure that you do not exceed 60 lines on the page or 80 characters on a IRBL # 694 3-7-04 4 line. 4) Player Usage Form: The PLAYERUF.Y04 file contains a filled out form for each team. You can select and copy your team's form to a file (use file name PLAYERUF.Txx) using the directions detailed in IRBL Rule # 21A. 5) Computer Manager: Create your profile following the guidelines in IRBL Rule # 15 and export the file to the C:\IRBL\RESULTS.Y04 directory naming the export file MP-xx (where xx is your IRBL team code number) (if your number is less than 10, then precede it with a "0") (i.e, the DODGERS file would be MP-03) (the DMB procedure is Transfer-Export statistics, select your team, select nothing on the next two screens, navigate to the RESULTS.Y04 directory and type in your MP-xx file name) NOTE: Remember to set the "AB vs LHP" or "AB vs RHP" to zero for the players who cannot enter the game vs a LHP or vs a RHP (per IRBL Rule # 15A1C) (some people forget to do this). NOTE: The computer manager will ignore pitchers who are not listed in the "Relief" pitcher profile and will use "ineligible" pitchers ahead of such "eligible" pitchers if no other relief pitcher is available. Therefore, if you want a pitcher (starter or reliever) to ever to be used in relief, you must list him in the "Relief" pitcher profile (and set him to "ineligible" in the games that you do not want him to relieve). Prepare the above detailed files and then select "Create ZIP file of Team Instructions Files set" from the IRBL Menu Program. This will combine the files into one file called INSTRUxx.ZIP (where xx is your IRBL team number). Send me this INSTRUxx.ZIP file via email. The 4 files are summarized as follows: 1) INSTRUCT.Txx 2) PITCHING.Txx 3) INACTIVE.Txx IRBL # 694 3-7-04 5 4) MP-xx.ZIP NOTE: The xx is the two digit IRBL team number. These numbers are: xx xx -- -- D-BACKS 29 ANGELS 13 DODGERS 03 ATHLETICS 14 GIANTS 04 MARINERS 25 PADRES 05 RANGERS 15 ROCKIES 27 ASTROS 01 INDIANS 20 BREWERS 19 ROYALS 16 CARDINALS 07 TIGERS 23 CUBS 08 TWINS 17 PIRATES 12 WHITE SOX 18 REDS 06 BRAVES 02 BLUE JAYS 26 EXPOS 09 DEVIL RAYS 30 MARLINS 28 ORIOLES 21 METS 10 RED SOX 22 PHILLIES 11 YANKEES 24 ...................................... NOTE ABOUT MY REVIEW OF THE TEAM SEASON INSTRUCTIONS: As I indicated last year, I will no longer perform a detailed review of all team season instructions to verify that every plan is sufficient so that no player would be overused because it is just too time consuming. There are IRBL Rules that penalize you for over- using players (such players cannot be used in the post-season and you are penalized in next year's draft) so be sure you are carefully planning and monitoring your players' usage during the season. When I will do is make sure that the instructions are as easy to read as possible (i.e., upper and lower case instead of all capital letters, separate line items for each special instruction and separate sections for road and home instructions). ...................................... All the team instruction files will be distributed shortly after the instructions receipt deadline. ...................................... DEADLINES: Mar. 21 - Team instructions to be received by League Office Apr. 1 - First series of 2004 season ...................................... IRBL # 694 3-7-04 6 Files included on LRD # 694: --------------------------- INACTIVE.Txx --> Inactive List Forms INSTRUCT.Txx --> Team Instructions file IRBLROST.TXT --> IRBL Rosters IRBLRULE.TXT --> IRBL Rules NEWSL694.xxx --> Newsletter # 694 PITCHING.Txx --> Starting Pitchers Rotation Sheets PLAYERUF.Y04 --> Player Usage Forms for all teams SCHEDULE.Y04 --> IRBL NL and AL league schedule File Extension Legend (xxx): --------------------------- T1C --> Viewable one column newsletter text format TXT --> Viewable text format ...................................... BK