------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | International Replay Baseball League - Founded October 30, 1973 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ***************** IRBL NEWSLETTER # 916 ***************** 3-11-13 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ...................................... PLAYER TRANSACTIONS: The DODGERS traded OMAR VIZQUEL to the RED SOX for JAMIE MOYER. The PADRES released MIKE CAMERON, JAY GIBBONS, FELIPE LOPEZ, JEREMY REED. The BREWERS released CALLIX CRABBE, RYAN ROHLINGER, MIGUEL TEJADA, LUIS ATILANO, ADALBERTO MENDEZ, HENRY SOSA, MITCH STETTER, RANDY WILLIAMS. The ATHLETICS released BRENT DLUGACH. The PADRES traded BEN FRANCISCO to the BREWERS for NICK BLACKBURN. The RAYS released GUSTAVO MOLINA, RYAN SHEALY, LANCE CORMIER, LENNY DINARDO, JOHN GRABOW. The BRAVES released BLAINE BOYER, ZACH KROENKE. The BLUE JAYS released JAI MILLER, ENRIQUE GONZALEZ. The WHITE SOX released DUSTY RYAN. The RED SOX released DERREK LEE, MATT MACRI, ESMAILIN CARIDAD, TREVER MILLER, KEVIN MULVEY, JOSH RUPE, JAVIER VAZQUEZ, TIM WAKEFIELD. The YANKEES released ALFREDO AMEZAGA, CHIN-LUNG HU, WILY MO PENA, JOSH WILSON, WIL LEDEZMA, BRIAN SCHLITTER. The BLUE JAYS released KYLE HUDSON, TREVOR BELL, JUSTIN BERG. The WHITE SOX released RUSTY RYAL. The INDIANS released AARON ROWAND, WYATT TOREGAS, BOBBY CRAMER, JESUS DELGADO, GARRETT MOCK, MICHAEL O'CONNOR, GREG SMITH, TOBI STONER. The PHILLIES released RUSSELL BRANYAN, LANDON POWELL, JUSTIN MILLER, SCOTT OLSEN. The ASTROS released CONOR JACKSON, BUDDY CARLYLE, ARMANDO GABINO. The ANGELS traded SAM DYSON to the NATIONALS for ALEXI AMARISTA. The CUBS traded ALEX AVILA, BRETT GARDNER, WEI-YIN CHEN, DAVID PHELPS to the ANGELS for JASON HEYWARD, CARLOS RUIZ. The RED SOX traded SCOTT MAINE to the ATHLETICS for DARNELL MCDONALD. The WHITE SOX released MATT ANGLE. The ROCKIES released JOHN BOWKER, BRAD DAVIS, ANGEL SALOME, MATT DALEY, STEVEN JACKSON, RENYEL PINTO, TIM REDDING, JORDAN SMITH. The ROYALS released CRAIG TATUM. The GIANTS released BRENDAN HARRIS, WES HELMS, MATT MANGINI, PAUL IRBL # 916 3-11-13 2 MCANULTY, TRAVIS BOWYER, WILLIE EYRE, CARLOS ROSA. The CUBS released YHENCY BRAZOBAN, DANIEL RAY HERRERA. The ANGELS released JAKE FOX, RYAN SPILBORGHS, ALBERTO B. CASTILLO, EULOGIO DELACRUZ, MASON TOBIN. ...................................... The following teams are without permanent managers: Play your road series against these teams: ASTROS : John Parker (TGM) CUBS : Carmen Corica (TGM) NATIONALS : Gerry McDonald (TGM) ROYALS : Don Tobin (TGM) TIGERS : Chuck Hixson (TGM) BLUE JAYS : Chip Hopkins (TGM) The following teams have temporary managers who will be playing the home series for the team plus road series against the above other teams who do not have a game playing manager: PADRES : John Mattfeld (TM) ORIOLES : Ricky Diaz (TM) RAYS : Ian Roach (TM) (1) (1) : Jim Lee (TGM, off-season only) Ian Roach (TM, during season) ...................................... 2013 IRBL Schedule: Due to the continued use of an unbalanced schedule and Interleague series that the Major Leagues has used since 1999, the 2013 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, 45 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 4 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. There are also some series dates where some teams have no series scheduled. IRBL # 916 3-11-13 3 You will find the post-season schedule at the bottom of the SCHEDULE.Y13 file. ...................................... My thanks again to Gerry McDonald for volunteering and preparing the 2013 IRBL schedule. This is the 16th straight year that Gerry has completed this time consuming task and I appreciate the effort. ...................................... Included with this newsletter are the following items so you can prepare your 2013 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.Y13) xx: IRBL team code number Edit the files using Windows Notepad. Start Notepad by selecting "Start- Programs-Accessories-Notepad". Then open Windows Explorer, navigate to the RESULTS.Y13 folder and drag any of the files into the Notepad window. 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, Wordpad, 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. ...................................... Please use the following guidelines when filling out the forms: 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: IRBL # 916 3-11-13 4 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 line. 4) Player Usage Form: The PLAYERUF.Y13 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. IRBL # 916 3-11-13 5 5) Computer Manager: Create your profile following the guidelines in IRBL Rule # 15 and export the file to the C:\IRBL\RESULTS.Y13 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.Y13 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. If you are using 64-bit Windows, double-click the "Create IRBL team instructions zip file.bat" batch file in the RESULTS.Y13 folder. 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 4) MP-xx.ZIP ...................................... NOTE ABOUT MY REVIEW OF THE TEAM SEASON INSTRUCTIONS: As I indicated the past 10 years, I IRBL # 916 3-11-13 6 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. What 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). ...................................... SPECIAL DIRECTION REGARDING HOME SERIES INSTRUCTIONS: It is a struggle every year getting every manager to provide the home series instructions that cover all lineup changes and which players replace which players. The main purpose of preparing those instructions is so they will be available in case a manager cannot play his home series. A secondary benefit is that it provides each team with a plan that will prevent (if followed) any player overuse (and resulting penalties). The intent was not to make more work for the vast majority of the managers who will play all their home series just for protection against the few who fall behind or drop out. This is what I have accepted over the past 8 years and will accept again this year: If you don't want to prepare a home series plan and want to adjust player usage on your own during home series, if you state at the bottom of the instructions that you will complete all your team's home series, then you can leave out the home instructions. I would then expect you to either do what said (or submit home series instructions before you leave the IRBL). If you you do want to give your word to do this "no matter what" (regardless of any family, medical or financial emergencies), then please IRBL # 916 3-11-13 7 provide a complete home series plan. ...................................... All the team instruction files will be distributed shortly after the instructions receipt deadline. ...................................... DEADLINES: Mar. 24 - Team instructions to be received by League Office and all managers within your league Apr. 3 - First series of 2013 season ...................................... Files included on LRD # 916: --------------------------- INACTIVE.Txx --> Inactive List Forms INSTRUCT.Txx --> Team Instructions file IRBLROST.TXT --> IRBL Rosters MANAGERS.TXT --> Manager Address List NEWSL916.xxx --> Newsletter # 916 PITCHING.Txx --> Starting Pitchers Rotation Sheets PLAYERUF.Y13 --> Player Usage Forms for all teams SCHEDULE.Y13 --> IRBL NL and AL league schedule File Extension Legend (xxx): --------------------------- T1C --> Viewable one column newsletter text format TXT --> Viewable text format ...................................... BK