Tottenham Oldtimers Slo-Pitch League

The week that was in baseball.  

I think that this week we'll have a little chat about the playoffs.  We're back to 15 teams in the league and we'll return to our previous format which is tried and tested.  

There will be three playoff pools of five teams.  Whoever finishes 1st in the regular season will be the #1 seed in pool "A".  Whoever finishes 2nd in the regular season will be the #1 seed in pool "B".  Whoever finishes 3rd in the regular season will have the #1 seed in pool "C".  Those teams, theoretically anyway, will have the easiest schedules AND only home games.  

Here's how each pool is comprised based on regular season standings:

Pool A:  1st, 6th, 7th, 12th and 15th place teams

Pool B:  2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th and 14th place teams

Pool C:  3rd, 4th, 9th, 10th and 13th place teams

You will play everyone in your pool once for a total of four round robin games played.  When the round robin is complete late Saturday afternoon, 1st and 2nd place in each pool automatically moves on to six of the eight quarter final spots on Sunday morning.  

The next four best records overall, will move on to play against each other in a sudden death elimination game on Saturday evening.  The two winners from those games will take the remaining two quarter final spots.

And then Sunday we see who lasts through quarters, semis and finals.  

Now there's a couple of trends that we've noticed with this setup.  One is that an unusual number of the "next best records" that play in the Saturday night elimination games seem to come from pool B.  One year in fact, all five of the pool B teams made it out of the round robin. 

Another is that Pool C has never actually won a championship to my recollection, whereas the other two Pool's are pretty evenly represented.  

To that end, people will be starting to pay attention to the standings a little closer in the coming weeks to see where the likelihood of where they slot in.  So far, we've determined very little.  We know that the Draft Kings, Rusty Rebels and Dusty Cleats can not finish in 15th place.  We also know that the Dog Catchers can finish no higher than 4th.  But everything else is wide open and is normally the case, we'll have less than a handful of spots locked up with a week to play.  

I've used this chart for years now and will start including it.  

The numbers in the yellow columns are rankings in the final standings.  The team abbreviations in blue show who can still finish in those positions.  Currently, positions 4-14 can have all 15 teams finish there.  (DCL = Dusty Cleats; DCA = Dog Catchers, DCR = Dodge City Rounders)

Snapshot

Rounding up the week, your teams that had a:

4 point week:  Grisslies (2-0), Gruesome Devils (2-0)

3 point week:  NONE

2 point week:  Hot Tub Woody's (1-0), Hurtin' Units (1-0), Draft Kings (1-0), Sons Of Pitches (1-0), Dusty Cleats (1-0), Inglorious Batsters (0-1), Master Batters (1-1), 

1 point week: NONE

0 point week: Sliders (0-2), Tap Masters (0-2), Rusty Rebels (0-1), Dog Catchers (0-1), Dodge City Rounders (0-1), Beer Bros. (0-1)

Beer Cup..........

The Master Batters first title defense was against the Hot Tub Woody's and the Woody's stole the jug in a close game that finished 17-15.  Those Woody's now are on the clock, setup to play the Draft Kings on Monday as they'll play their first Beer Cup game of the season.  After this game, the Sliders and Beer Bros, will stand as the only teams who haven't had a shot at the cup. 

Weird, eh?

I can't even imaging the Draft Kings and Hot Tub Woody's playing a game with beer on the line. 

Beer Cup Games Defended. 

1  Master Batters

2  Rusty Rebels

6  Dusty Cleats

Beer Cup Games Played. 

1  Grisslies

1  Dog Catchers

1  Inglorious Batsters

2  Hot Tub Woody's

2  Gruesome Devils

2  Sons Of Pitches

2 Dodge City Rounders

2 Hurtin' Units

3 Tap Masters

3 Master Batters

6 Rusty Rebels

8 Dusty Cleats