Backyard Baseball League Season 8 (CrazyLegs)

## Season 8

The final score of the Bombers' World Series winning Game 3.

## **The Beginnings**

For the first time since Season 5, the league format returned to 2 leagues (conferences), each with 3 divisions of 4 teams. The teams had a draft to determine their field and division slot, unlike the previous two seasons where the leagues were divided by the experience of the coaches.

A first-time rule this season was that batting power ups could only be used by a team's ninth round draft pick. If a team had multiple 9th round picks, they could choose which one received the power ups, but they must stick with that choice for the whole season. If a team traded out of the ninth round, they were not allowed any batting power ups. If a player was dropped after the draft and an undrafted player was picked up in their place, the undrafted player could use the power ups.

This season was colloquially called the "Crazy Legs" league, keeping up with the Season 5-6 theme of naming leagues after Backyard Kids and their nicknames.

## **Setting Up the Season**

The 24 coaches signed on to Season 8 were as follows:

## **The Draft**

The players were assigned in a 24-team, 9-round draft. The format is known as a "scattered snake" draft, where each team gets one pick per round, but the order of each round is different in order to make each team's total draft positioning relatively even.

Coach JorgesBankAccount of the Red Sox took the draft slot with the #1 overall pick. However, he soon left the server after a disagreement, and Eauxps I. Fourgott temporarily took over to draft. Eauxps selected Julie Dunkel with the first overall pick, and his tenure as coach eventually became permanent. The Red Sox were later renamed the Atlanta Royals

The last pick of the draft was Esmarelda Heimann, selected by coach Vissery of the Hornets, another coach who eventually left his team. Esmarelda was also eventually released into free agency.

## **The Season**

This season was notable for having very few coaching changes. The only coaching changes this season were already mentioned: Eauxps I. Fourgott taking over for JorgesBankAccount before the draft, and Vissery giving up the Hornets after one week to coach mbless1415. While looking for a substitute, the Hornets were coached by GSchlim for game 1. Other than that game, every coach had perfect attendance for the entire season.

### Players of the Week

Keeping up with last season's new tradition, the Batter of the Week and the Pitcher of the Week awards were given weekly to the in-game players who made the biggest impact at the plate and on the mound. The winners were as follows:

### Match of the Week

Another upheld tradition continued this season, as one game per week was featured as the Match of the Week on various league members' Twitch accounts. Both opponents recorded video of their games, sent it to the MotW organizers, who then spliced the videos together and provided commentary over them. Match of the Week became notable for featuring many close games throughout the season, even though the matchups were not always selected by how evenly matched the opponents were.

### Final Standings

At the end of the season, the final standings were as follows. Teams in **bold** made the playoffs.

### Stats

The stats were well-kept throughout the season. The league leaders are listed below: (ERA and WHIP are minimum 28 innings pitched)

## **The Playoffs**

### Structure

With the return of the tradition Backyard Baseball season format, the playoff format returned too. The division winners all earned a playoff berth, as well as the best-performing non-division-winner, the wild card, in each league. If the top overall seed and the wild card were from the same division, then the #1 team would play the #3 team in the first round.

### Participants

The bracket was as follows:

* American League
	+ 1 Mariners (13-1) vs. #3 Melonheads (9-5)
		- The Mariners faced the Melonheads because the wild card winning Hornets were from the same division.
	+ 2 Tigers (9-5) vs. WC Hornets (9-5)
		- The Tigers earned the #2 seed over the Melonheads by defeating them head-to-head in Week 1
* National League
	+ 1 Bombers (12-2) vs. WC Braves (10-4)
	+ #2 Fishes (11-3) vs. #3 A's (10-4)

### First Round

* The Melonheads and Mariners each stole a game from each other's home field to tie the series 1-1. In the decisive Game 3, both teams turned in one of their best performances of the season, with the Mariners ultimately winning, 29-18.
* The Hornets dominated the Tigers in Game 1, 23-13. However, after coach mbless1415 was reminded there was a streaming or recording requirement, he streamed the final two games and struggled mightily. The Tigers came back to win the series two games to 1.
* The Bombers defeated the Braves very easily in two games, by scores of 39-6 and 25-1. However, coach Natetastic28 was still proud of his Braves for making the playoffs at all, after a 4-10 effort the season before.
* In an extremely exciting series, the Fishes got past the A's two games to one. All three games were recorded and broadcast side by side on Discord. The first two games were incredibly close and came down to tiebreakers.

### Second Round

* In the ALCS, the Mariners offense showed up big time, blasting the Tigers 39-4 in Game 1. Game 2 was a little closer, but the Tigers left too many kids on base, and the Mariners won Game 2, 10-8, to advance to the World Series.
* The Bombers and Fishes met in the NLCS with the World Series on the line. The Fishes were one of two teams to beat the Bombers this season, and they did it again in Game 2. However, the Bombers won the other two games and reached the World Series.

### World Series

* The World Series was a matchup of two of the most dominant teams throughout the season. The league was expecting a bloodbath. Both teams had great offense throughout the series, but the Bombers handled business swiftly, winning the three close games by scores of 15-13, 23-21, and 21-16.

### Consolation Bracket

All non-playoff teams were invited to play in the consolation bracket, called the Bonus Tournament. In a twist, teams who declined an invitation to the consolation bracket could have their teams coached by newcomers who were not BBL coaches yet. This happened twice, as Itaniium coached the Rangers and bobbybones2370 coached the Angels. Exactly 8 teams volunteered for the bracket, so the format ended up being the same as the big playoffs. The Expos won the Bonus Tournament after defeating the Angels, Royals, and Orioles.

## **League Awards**

The league awards were voted on by a panel of volunteer coaches.

* **MVP:** For the first time in BBL history, there was a tie atop the MVP voting, so the two tied contestants shared co-MVP honors. Zenon Estrada of the Angels was one of the MVPs, batting 0.808 with a league-leading 27 home runs and 90 RBIs. He was the main source of offense for the struggling Angels squad. The other MVP was Cheryl Reynolds of the Mariners. She batted 0.776 with 26 home runs and 76 RBIs and played stellar defense as the AI catcher in order to help the Mariners obtain a league-best 13-1 record.
* **Ace Wilson:** The Ace Wilson award for best pitcher was awarded to Tiffany Bosworth of the Twins. Tiffany led the league in innings pitched with 84, struck out 94 batters, and posted an impressive ERA of 0.64, allowing just 9 runs on the season. Tiffany is the first player to win the Ace Wilson award twice, she also won it in Season 5 with the Yankees.
* **Goldie Glove:** The Goldie Glove award for best fielder was given to Pete Wheeler of the Rangers. Pete was a menace roaming the outfield, as he was fast enough to track down any fly ball, and his great height limited his drops compared to other outfielders. Pete is the first outfielder to win Goldie Glove since Raul Mondesi in Season 2.