CFCL Owners of 1989

1989 was the first year the CFCL thought to chronicle its draft via pictures and it was by chance.  Below are three photos that captured all the owners.  We have Mrs. Mahlan (David's mom) to thank for stopping by our apartment with a camera and snapping a few pics.

From left:  Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels and eventual 1989 CFCL Champion); Eric Lamb (Lambchops - obscured head); Pat McGuire (McGuire's Picks); David Mahlan (David's Copperfields); Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles); Kelly Barone (Six Packs); Dave Holian (David's Ruffins - or at least his right hand); Empty Chair - was being saved for Scott something who never showed up so his team was renamed Headless Horsemen;

From left:  Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels and eventual CFCL Champion [can that be typed enough?]; Eric Lamb (Lambchops); Pat McGuire (McGuire's Picks); David Mahlan (David's Copperfields); Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles); Kelly Barone (Six Packs - or at least Kelly's right arm);

From left:  Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles); Kelly Barone (Six Packs); Dave Holian (David's Ruffins);

A few things, first of all this was 1989 so David and I hosted the draft at our apartment in Forest Park [Mount Olympus].  In all three pictures I see beer bottles (looks to be Coors).  I don't remember that at all.  I was under the impression that we had outlawed alcohol from the beginning.  That may explain why we ended up with the The Mitch Williams Incident.  I'm of two minds.  One, I really got burned by the Mitch Williams thing, but two, I WON THE PENNANT!  Maybe we should rethink alcohol at the draft.

You will also notice that, being the last of the decade of the '80's, the Lambchops were sporting a really nice porn star 'stache, the Picks had the 'fro going and Dem Rebels were getting it done with a full head of hair and glasses that covered half his face.

One other note, in pictures one and two you see plastered across our window a big sheet of paper.  Part of the pre-draft ritual was for David to measure out on this big sheet all the CFCL teams drafting that year and the slots for their players.  After each player was selected, David would write the name and salary of the player under the draft team's name which allowed for everyone to have an instant visual of who needed what.

Bad Boy Dance

Before there was The Voice, The Sing-Off, America's Got Talent or American Idol the world had . . . the CFCL videos!  Usually captivating in and of themselves, the video in 1996 got a little "oomph" from Ken Welsch, owner of the Flatfeet.

There doesn't seem to be any true explanation as to the reason Ken broke into song other than he wanted "to liven things up."  Based on the reaction of the other owners he may have had the exact opposite affect.

Nick Esasky Award

We complete our tour of the CFCL Post-Season Awards by highlighting the most uniquely named award.  When you see the Nick Esasky Award you may think the CFCL has an affinity for honoring mildly obscure power hitting corner infielders.  Not so.  Here's the official description:

The antithesis of the Steal of the Year. This award is given to the player acquired in the Draft that year whom the CFCL owners feel was overpaid the most. Like the Steal of the Year, the Nick Esasky award is purely subjective. The award was first given in 1990, and named in honor of the ex-Red and Brave, Nick Esasky. After playing for the Reds, and routinely clobbering the Braves' pitching whenever Cincinnati played in Atlanta, Esasky spent a year in the AL with Boston where he hit 30 HR. Then, in 1990, when he returned to the NL as a Brave, everyone in the CFCL figured he was a cinch for 40 homers playing in Atlanta. The Bald Eagles thought they had themselves a great deal when they got him in the Draft for a mere .25. Unfortunately for the Eagles, however, Esasky developed vertigo shortly after Opening Day and didn't play the rest of that season. Or any other season. His final 1990 stats: .171 - 0 - 0 - 0. Not exactly what the Eagles were expecting for their quarter. Not all was lost, though. Out of the misfortune of Esasky and the Eagles, a new CFCL award was born.

Any time the CFCL can benefit from the pain of the Bald Eagles, it's a win-win.  Most of the time the winner fits perfectly with what happened with Esasky.  A team waaay overpays for anticipated production of either a stud or a highly over-hyped player.  Occasionally it will be a consistent stud who just has an off year (recently see Tim Lincecum and Hanley Ramirez).  On the rare occasion, the owners will vote for a player who didn't play at all yet was drafted on Draft Day (Brandon Webb).  This is certainly one award each owner is not excited about winning.  Here are the past "winners":

1990		Nick Esasky		Bald Eagles		.25
1991		Von Hayes		Dem Rebels		.15
1992		Dave Righetti		David's Ruffins		.23
1993		Rob Dibble		Twin Picks		.42
1994		Mitch Williams		Six Packs		.24
1995		Rudy Seanez		Six Packs		.23
1996		Paul Wilson		Six Packs		.18
1997		Jeff Brantley		Dem Rebels		.39
1998		Mark Wohlers		Eric's Lambchops		.43
1999		Mark Wohlers		Steve's Slackers		.18
2000		Mike Jackson		Matt's Hard Hats		.29
2001		Matt Mantei		Da Paul Meisters		.44
2002		Kevin Brown		Steve's Stones		.37
2003		Robb Nen		DoorMatts		.22
2004		Nick Johnson		By Kennen		.29
2005		Barry Bonds		Splendid Splinters		.23
		Jeff Bagwell		Sludge Sundae		.26
2006		Eric Gagne		Da Paul Meisters		.32
2007		Chris Capuano		David's Copperfields		.25
2008		Andruw Jones		Kenndoza Line		.29

 2009    Brandon Webb    Morkertzuma's Revenge  .31
 2010    Brandon Webb    Graging Bulls               .11
 2011    Hanley Ramirez   Dem Rebels                 .49
 2012    Tim Lincecum     Twin Killers                 .37
 

Paul Mahlan Award

The name on the award may be familiar.  Paul Mahlan was an Original 6 owner of the CFCL.  He ran the Penguins/Bunyans from 1984-1987.  In 2000, well here's the description of the award and why we started it in 2000.

Paul Mahlan Award

The Paul Mahlan Award was established in 2000 to honor of one of the charter members of the CFCL. Each year the award goes to the team that overcomes the most adversity during the season; the team that, through injuries, was expected to do poorly, but somehow managed to come back and finish the season strong. The team doesn't necessarily need to win the title, but just show that they didn't give up. It should go to the team whose owner made moves to overcome the injuries, retirements and/or trades to the American League.

The Executive Committee determines the winner of this award each year.

The award is named for one of the CFCL's original owners. During the 2000 season, Paul was paralyzed in a diving accident, but impressed everyone with his determination and never-say-die attitude. The following is from Rich Bentel's original proposal for the award:

Given what Paul is facing, it might be a reminder for us all that even though our team may be languishing in the 2nd division, we should still work to do as well as possible. Seeing the challenges that lie ahead for Paul, there can't be justification for taking the second half of the year off because one didn't feel like researching a recent call-up, or make a trade to improve for next year, or replace a player on the active list that has recently retired.

So for eleven years we tried to identify an owner who never gave up; who kept working to build either for this year or next; who consistently made moves to keep his team productive.  The challenge was that there was inherently something different about the Paul Mahlan Award from the GM of the Year Award and the CFCL Champion.  But to fairly identify the differences and recognize the proper owner was getting to be more and more difficult each year.

So following the 2010 season, the decision was made to discontinue handing out the Paul Mahlan Award.  This was in no way reflective on Paul, it was more that we didn't want to take the award lightly and not just pick someone to pick them.  We wanted the award to be meaningful and the concern of not being able to keep up with the standard the award was intended encouraged us to stop even though we continue to be impressed with Paul's focus on life and accomplishing the next day's goals.

Here is a list of the eleven winners:

2000		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2001		Matt Grage		Matt's Hard Hats
2002		Rich Bentel		Dem Rebels
2003		Eric Lamb John Lemon		Eric's Lambchops
2004		Steve Olson		Steve's Stones
2005		David Holian		David's Ruffins
		Matt Grage		Hot Sludge Sundae
2006		Kenn Ruby		Kenndoza Line
2007		Kenn Ruby		Kenndoza Line
2008		Bob Boryca		Mo's Red Hots

 2009    Kenn Ruby         Kenndoza Line
 2010    Mike Coulter     Candy Colored Clowns
             Bob Boryca        Mo's Red Hots

GM of the Year

In 1996 we began to award the owner who ran their team the best.  You might think, well Team A won the championship, didn't that owner run his team the best?  Not necessarily, though unfortunately I think that is the thinking for most owners when they are voting.  Here's the definition of the award:

CFCL General Manager of the Year

In 1996, we decided to vote on which of the CFCL managers had done the best job of running his team during the season. Criteria for this award includes trades and free agent acquisitions, as well as intelligent movement of players between the Active and Reserve Rosters. Unofficially, no owner who allows his pitchers to pitch in Coors Field should be eligible for this award. More often than not, the owner who finishes in first place will probably win this award, however, it is the quality of the owner's management, not the performance of his players that should determine the winner of the GM of the Year award.

Clearly this was written before the Rockies installed their humidor.  If the logic is "Well, that owner won the league so he should be GM of the year" then we don't need this award.  We already have this award - it's called the Copperfield Trophy.  This award is meant to recognize the owner that did the best job of managing his team throughout the season, not who had the best draft or walked in with the best players.

The GM of the Year could easily be an owner whose team finished sixth, but during the season the owner picked up some talent on waiver wires, made astute trades to put them in position to compete next  year, freed up some salary to give them flexibility at next year's draft, etc.

The main problem in trying to vote for this award the way it's supposed to be voted on is that during the course of a loooong season, we are focused on our teams, making our moves, living our lives, working, family time, etc.  It is very difficult to also monitor what another owner does when the moves are more subtle.  If one owner makes a ton of trades to acquire massive young, inexpensive talent - that's not too hard to identify.  But the intelligent waiver claim, the subtle trade, the constant bi-weekly tweaking of the active roster is less easy to identify - especially if that owner's team isn't all that talented to begin with.  But that owner could have worked his ass of to have his team finish 6th when had he not worked as hard as he did, the team easily could have finished last.

In fact, in the seventeen years the award has been handed out, only two and a half times has the award gone to an owner who did not also win the league.  In 2008 Bob Boryca won the GM award despite the Stones (Steve Olson) winning the league.  The following year in 2009 Matt Bentel won the GM award when the Kenndoza Line (Kenn Ruby) won the title over Bentel in a tie-breaker.  And last year (this is the "half" I referred to) Mike Coulter (who won the CFCL title) and Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels) tied in the voting for GM of the Year.  Here are all the past winner:

1996		Rich Bentel		Dem Rebels
1997		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
1998		David Holian		David's Ruffins
1999		Kelly Barone		Six Packs
2000		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2001		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2002		Eric Lamb John Lemon		Eric's Lambchops
2003		Eric Lamb John Lemon		Eric's Lambchops
2004		Steve Olson		Steve's Stones
2005		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2006		David Holian		David's Ruffins
2007		Kenn Ruby		Kenndoza Line
2008		Bob Boryca		Mo's Red Hots

 2009    Matt Bentel        DoorMatts
 2010    David Holian     David's Ruffins
 2011    David Holian     David's Ruffins
 2012   Mike Coulter      Candy Colored Clowns
             Rich Bentel        Dem Rebels
 

Rookie of the Year

In 1996 the CFCL added two more awards.  Even though we recognized the CFCL Cy Young and MVP in 1990, for some reason we waited six years to add Rookie of the Year.  For a player to qualify for ROY in the CFCL they must have had rookie status according to MLB heading into the season.  The reality of it is that almost all of ROYs have never previously been activated by a CFCL club prior to that year (as opposed to the MLB which has AB or IP threshholds to determine if a player holds "rookie" status).

Additionally, the ROY winner (the owner that receives the certificate) is the owner that owns the player at the time of his CFCL activation.  So for example, in 2009 Andrew McCutchen won the ROY for the CFCL.  Dem Rebels received the award, even though David's Ruffins had selected McCutchen in the Rotation Draft years before.  The Ruffins traded McCutchen to Dem Rebels when they (the Ruffins) were making a push to a CFCL title.

Here is a list of past award winners:

1996		Todd Hollandsworth		David's Ruffins
1997		Scott Rolen		David's Ruffins
1998		Todd Helton		David's Ruffins
1999		Scott Williamson		David's Ruffins
2000		Rafael Fucal		Matt's Hard Hats
2001		Albert Pujols		DoorMatts
2002		Damien Moss		Matt's Hard Hats
2003		Scott Podsednick		Dem Rebels
2004		Jason Bay		Splendid Splinters
2005		Willy Tavares		Kenndoza Line
2006		Hanley Ramirez		Graging Bulls
2007		Ryan Braun		Da Paul Meisters
2008		Geovanny Soto		David's Ruffins

2009     Andrew McCutchen      Dem Rebels
2010     Jason Heyward              Twin Killers
2011    Craig Kimbrell               Kenndoza Line
2012    Bryce Harper                 Graging Bulls

Best Reserve List Pick

In 1992 we added an award to recognize the owner who was most prescient during the second stage of our Draft. When we expanded to Ultra, we added seventeen man reserve lists to our teams (actually originally we test drove Ultra in the beginning with a 12 man reserve list and then shortly thereafter expanded to the recommended 17 man reserve roster). So now on Draft Day, we acquire, via auction draft, our 23 active man rosters. Then we move right into a true draft to fill our seventeen man roster.

You would think that (in a ten team league) once you have filled your active roster (230 players) there isn't much talent left. Au contraire. There has proven to be scads of baseball goodness lingering on the Reserve Rosters. And for the owner that grabs the most productive player, he is bestowed with the Best Reserve Pick Award. Here is the list of past winners:

1992		Eric Anthony		David's Copperfields
1993		Derek Bell		David's Copperfields
1994		Bobby Jones		DoorMatts
1995		Pete Schourek		David's Copperfields
1996		Eric Davis		David's Ruffins
1997		Kevin Young		David's Copperfields
1998		Gregg Olson		ForGoetz Me Nots
1999		Kent Bottenfield		ForGoetz Me Nots
2000		John VanderWal		David's Copperfields
2001		Paul LoDuca		Da Paul Meisters
2002		Junior Spivey Tomo Ohka		David's Ruffins Six Packs
2003		Joe Borowski		Tenacious B
2004		Doug Davis		Reservoir Dogs
2005		Derek Turnbow		Reservoir Dogs
2006		Roger Clemens		Dem Rebels
2007		Heath Bell		Steve's Stones
2008		Ryan Dempster		Moore Better

2009    Randy Wolf              Morkertzuma's Revenge
2010    Brandon Lyon          David's Ruffins
2011    Emelio Bonafacio    David's Ruffins
2012    AJ Burnett               Candy Colored Clowns