What is Going On
7/29/2015
by Trent Steffes
It’s not hard to get lost in the shuffle during the peak of wiffleball season. It’s even easier when 2015 seems to be the most busy wiffleball season of all time. NWLA Tournament is already big enough, but this year: two more whole weekends got added for Regional Tournament. And then for nationals, the tournament saw its highest attendance, with 16 teams trekking to Ohio for the 3-day out-of-this-world wiffleball experience. Besides the actual wiffleball, there are seemingly countless outlets for your mid-season wiff-drawls. There’s the WSEM Media beast with Weekly Wiffle Round-Up and their controversial podcasts. Palisades WBL’s This Month in Wiffleball remains the best wiffle-production in the country. And now with the popularity of the new Twitter-based app Periscope, it’s impossible to get through a Monday or Thursday with 7 notifications from HRL live-streaming their league games.
So with all this and much, much more available, what about MNWA? Since April, there have been just 6 articles posted to this site, and only one wasn’t a required article by the NWLA Tournament. There hasn’t been an MNWA BEAH!-cast since the end of May, and that was solely focused on NWLA Regionals Tournaments. And the only videos posted to the MNWA YouTube account are highlights from NWLA Tournament (do you see a pattern?) So basically, the proverbial MNWA coverage ball has indeed been dropped. And on behalf of myself: I apologize. Mainly, to the MNWA players and fans because without decent coverage, some people may not know this but… this 5th MNWA season has been INCREDIBLE.
If you listen back to the pre-season BEAH!cast produced by yours truly and guested by the most elite MNWA minds, the common theme is that “this season will be the most competitive season to date.” In years past, this line had been uttered before but once the balls started flying and the bats started swinging, a true number one rose to the top and left the others in the dust. It was the Strikers in 2011, Giants in 2012 and 2013, and the Snappers in 2014. But so far in 2015, it would be impossible to name a true #1 team without acknowledging the fact that at least 1 other team is so close behind them, they could check them for prostate cancer. As it sits right now, the Buxtons sit in the top spot with a 7-4 record, and the Big B’s are at #2. With a 7-4 record. Bad Company owns a 5-6 record and the Dragons are in the basement with a 3-8 record. Even with the dismal record the Dragons have, only a fool would count out the Dragons.
I think the most intriguing part of this season has to be the pattern of “foils” that has been created. Mainly, each team has a team that it routinely beats, and a team that it routinely loses to. And it all creates a perfect square. Let’s start with Bad Company. Bad Co won the season series with the Buxtons with a 3-1 record. Matt Newell and the timely hitting of Bad Co proved often to be a lot for the #5 team in the nation to handle. On the flipside, the Buxtons have a 3-1 record against the Big B’s. In almost all their games, the Buxtons have beaten the B’s with clutch hitting and aggressive base-running. The Big B’s have a 3-1 record against the Dragons. Bussmann seems to have no trouble shutting down the Dragons line-up. And to complete the paradigm, the Dragons have a 3-1 season series record against Bad Company. Devin Nelson is to Bad Company what Bussmann is to the Dragons. Nelson seems to really turn it on against the Orange and Black.
Before I break down the tournament, context needs to be established. Coming up on Saturday is the start to our Final Tournament festivities. Each team has 11 games in the books, with one more to be played. On Saturday, the Big B’s will play Bad Company to complete their season series, and the Buxtons and Dragons will do the same right after. After the regular season is officially completed, we will host our Home Run Derby with the rights to represent MNWA in the NWLA Tournament Home Run Derby on the line. After that is our awards ceremony where we will name the MVP, Pitcher, Rookie, Fielder, Manager of the Year, Most Improved Player and the All-MNWA team. The plan right now is to stream that puppy over Periscope. After that, we will play a night-game with some light up balls and bats and stuff. Then on Sunday, the real competition will start. The Final Tournament will feature two play-in games to start. The #3 and #4 seeds will battle in a play-in game, with the winner turning around and facing the #2 seed in similar fashion, a single-elimination play-in game. Once the challenger is determined, that team will play the #1 overall seed in a Best-of-Three series for the MNWA Championship. It’s a unique format, with a lot of emphasis put on doing well in the regular season. To put it bluntly: if you want a better chance at winning it all, win during the regular season. As it stands, the Dragons and Bad Company will have to win 4 games total for the championship, and the Buxtons and B’s with either have to win 2 or 3.
No matter what the outcome of Saturday night’s games, Bad Company owns the #3 seed, and the Dragons are the #4. Those two teams will battle it out in the first play-in game of the day. Even though we are bound to see two sub .500 teams in this game, it won’t be short of storylines. You have two teams who would really like the beat each other. You have two pitchers who are more or less on top of their game right now in Matt Newell and Devin Nelson. You have loud mouths on either side between the combo of Matt Newell and Andrew Johnson, and everyone’s favorite chirper Andrew Lindor. Here is my unbiased opinion on this game: Bad Company is the better team top to bottom. But as mentioned earlier, the Dragons have pretty much dominated the series up to this point. So what we really have here is a toss-up. I could legitimately seeing either of these two teams going on to play the #2 seed.
Being the manager of Bad Company, I’m optimistic that we have a chance to make a run in this tournament. But the much more realistic side of me tells me to bank on a B’s vs. Buxtons finals. The #1 storyline heading in to this season was the impending saga of Jordan Johnson of the Buxtons vs. Zach Bussmann of the B’s. These two dominated the MNWA together on the Strikers and Giants for 3 years and for really the first time, the two were pitted against each other for a whole season. Anytime the two match up, it’s a clash of two of the best players in MNWA history. So with that being the top story heading in to the season, it would be poetic justice for the season to end with Bussmann vs. Johnson. The Buxtons and B’s have put on the best games throughout the whole season and giving them a best two-out-of-three series would be best for business. This matchup potentially matches my take on the Dragons vs. Bad Co matchup. The Buxtons are the better team on paper but if you bet against Bussmann in the playoffs, you’re looney. And the Buxtons being the better supporting cast doesn’t mean that the Bussmann has a cast of scrubs behind him. Chris Polzine has pushed himself into the Fielder of the Year conversation and Ethan Fabel and Auston Steffes have proved to be valuable at the plate, giving Bussmann baserunners to drive in. I believe the #1 thing that could potentially make or break the Buxtons is the presence of Andy Hartung. Andy played in 4 games during the season and put up the best offensive numbers for the team. If the B’s have Hartung’s bat in the lineup behind Bussmann’s, that will make the opposing pitches sweat. At the core, the Buxtons are centered on aggressive base-running, smart hitting and great defense. While the fielding tandem of Chris Polzine and Andy Hartung is one of the best in the league, Kapsner and Monsrud might be the one keeping them from being number one. As folks in Ohio saw, Peter Monsrud is not only amongst the fielding elite in MNWA, he is amongst fielding elite in the entire NWLA. Add to that Ben Kapsner’s baseball brain and quick feet and Jordan Johnson has a duo backing him up that almost every pitcher in the country would die for.
No matter how the Final Tournament shakes out, one thing is for certain: it will be great and competitive. I expect it will be a perfect cap on the best season in MNWA history. If you want live, up-to-date happenings this week, follow @minnywiffs. Sorry again for the lack of coverage but my bread and butter is off-season cures for wiff-drawls. Keep wifflin.
by Trent Steffes
It’s not hard to get lost in the shuffle during the peak of wiffleball season. It’s even easier when 2015 seems to be the most busy wiffleball season of all time. NWLA Tournament is already big enough, but this year: two more whole weekends got added for Regional Tournament. And then for nationals, the tournament saw its highest attendance, with 16 teams trekking to Ohio for the 3-day out-of-this-world wiffleball experience. Besides the actual wiffleball, there are seemingly countless outlets for your mid-season wiff-drawls. There’s the WSEM Media beast with Weekly Wiffle Round-Up and their controversial podcasts. Palisades WBL’s This Month in Wiffleball remains the best wiffle-production in the country. And now with the popularity of the new Twitter-based app Periscope, it’s impossible to get through a Monday or Thursday with 7 notifications from HRL live-streaming their league games.
So with all this and much, much more available, what about MNWA? Since April, there have been just 6 articles posted to this site, and only one wasn’t a required article by the NWLA Tournament. There hasn’t been an MNWA BEAH!-cast since the end of May, and that was solely focused on NWLA Regionals Tournaments. And the only videos posted to the MNWA YouTube account are highlights from NWLA Tournament (do you see a pattern?) So basically, the proverbial MNWA coverage ball has indeed been dropped. And on behalf of myself: I apologize. Mainly, to the MNWA players and fans because without decent coverage, some people may not know this but… this 5th MNWA season has been INCREDIBLE.
If you listen back to the pre-season BEAH!cast produced by yours truly and guested by the most elite MNWA minds, the common theme is that “this season will be the most competitive season to date.” In years past, this line had been uttered before but once the balls started flying and the bats started swinging, a true number one rose to the top and left the others in the dust. It was the Strikers in 2011, Giants in 2012 and 2013, and the Snappers in 2014. But so far in 2015, it would be impossible to name a true #1 team without acknowledging the fact that at least 1 other team is so close behind them, they could check them for prostate cancer. As it sits right now, the Buxtons sit in the top spot with a 7-4 record, and the Big B’s are at #2. With a 7-4 record. Bad Company owns a 5-6 record and the Dragons are in the basement with a 3-8 record. Even with the dismal record the Dragons have, only a fool would count out the Dragons.
I think the most intriguing part of this season has to be the pattern of “foils” that has been created. Mainly, each team has a team that it routinely beats, and a team that it routinely loses to. And it all creates a perfect square. Let’s start with Bad Company. Bad Co won the season series with the Buxtons with a 3-1 record. Matt Newell and the timely hitting of Bad Co proved often to be a lot for the #5 team in the nation to handle. On the flipside, the Buxtons have a 3-1 record against the Big B’s. In almost all their games, the Buxtons have beaten the B’s with clutch hitting and aggressive base-running. The Big B’s have a 3-1 record against the Dragons. Bussmann seems to have no trouble shutting down the Dragons line-up. And to complete the paradigm, the Dragons have a 3-1 season series record against Bad Company. Devin Nelson is to Bad Company what Bussmann is to the Dragons. Nelson seems to really turn it on against the Orange and Black.
Before I break down the tournament, context needs to be established. Coming up on Saturday is the start to our Final Tournament festivities. Each team has 11 games in the books, with one more to be played. On Saturday, the Big B’s will play Bad Company to complete their season series, and the Buxtons and Dragons will do the same right after. After the regular season is officially completed, we will host our Home Run Derby with the rights to represent MNWA in the NWLA Tournament Home Run Derby on the line. After that is our awards ceremony where we will name the MVP, Pitcher, Rookie, Fielder, Manager of the Year, Most Improved Player and the All-MNWA team. The plan right now is to stream that puppy over Periscope. After that, we will play a night-game with some light up balls and bats and stuff. Then on Sunday, the real competition will start. The Final Tournament will feature two play-in games to start. The #3 and #4 seeds will battle in a play-in game, with the winner turning around and facing the #2 seed in similar fashion, a single-elimination play-in game. Once the challenger is determined, that team will play the #1 overall seed in a Best-of-Three series for the MNWA Championship. It’s a unique format, with a lot of emphasis put on doing well in the regular season. To put it bluntly: if you want a better chance at winning it all, win during the regular season. As it stands, the Dragons and Bad Company will have to win 4 games total for the championship, and the Buxtons and B’s with either have to win 2 or 3.
No matter what the outcome of Saturday night’s games, Bad Company owns the #3 seed, and the Dragons are the #4. Those two teams will battle it out in the first play-in game of the day. Even though we are bound to see two sub .500 teams in this game, it won’t be short of storylines. You have two teams who would really like the beat each other. You have two pitchers who are more or less on top of their game right now in Matt Newell and Devin Nelson. You have loud mouths on either side between the combo of Matt Newell and Andrew Johnson, and everyone’s favorite chirper Andrew Lindor. Here is my unbiased opinion on this game: Bad Company is the better team top to bottom. But as mentioned earlier, the Dragons have pretty much dominated the series up to this point. So what we really have here is a toss-up. I could legitimately seeing either of these two teams going on to play the #2 seed.
Being the manager of Bad Company, I’m optimistic that we have a chance to make a run in this tournament. But the much more realistic side of me tells me to bank on a B’s vs. Buxtons finals. The #1 storyline heading in to this season was the impending saga of Jordan Johnson of the Buxtons vs. Zach Bussmann of the B’s. These two dominated the MNWA together on the Strikers and Giants for 3 years and for really the first time, the two were pitted against each other for a whole season. Anytime the two match up, it’s a clash of two of the best players in MNWA history. So with that being the top story heading in to the season, it would be poetic justice for the season to end with Bussmann vs. Johnson. The Buxtons and B’s have put on the best games throughout the whole season and giving them a best two-out-of-three series would be best for business. This matchup potentially matches my take on the Dragons vs. Bad Co matchup. The Buxtons are the better team on paper but if you bet against Bussmann in the playoffs, you’re looney. And the Buxtons being the better supporting cast doesn’t mean that the Bussmann has a cast of scrubs behind him. Chris Polzine has pushed himself into the Fielder of the Year conversation and Ethan Fabel and Auston Steffes have proved to be valuable at the plate, giving Bussmann baserunners to drive in. I believe the #1 thing that could potentially make or break the Buxtons is the presence of Andy Hartung. Andy played in 4 games during the season and put up the best offensive numbers for the team. If the B’s have Hartung’s bat in the lineup behind Bussmann’s, that will make the opposing pitches sweat. At the core, the Buxtons are centered on aggressive base-running, smart hitting and great defense. While the fielding tandem of Chris Polzine and Andy Hartung is one of the best in the league, Kapsner and Monsrud might be the one keeping them from being number one. As folks in Ohio saw, Peter Monsrud is not only amongst the fielding elite in MNWA, he is amongst fielding elite in the entire NWLA. Add to that Ben Kapsner’s baseball brain and quick feet and Jordan Johnson has a duo backing him up that almost every pitcher in the country would die for.
No matter how the Final Tournament shakes out, one thing is for certain: it will be great and competitive. I expect it will be a perfect cap on the best season in MNWA history. If you want live, up-to-date happenings this week, follow @minnywiffs. Sorry again for the lack of coverage but my bread and butter is off-season cures for wiff-drawls. Keep wifflin.