The Bottom Line

I've been thinking hard and long about how success is defined in BABI. The Pickled Pecklers joined BABI in 1994, making this our 12th season in the league. In that time we've finished 2nd twice, third once, in the middle probably about 4 times and out of the money about 4 times. That might be 3 and 5. Who knows?

I think we're considered pretty good players, and the Doc is an excellent player, having with George won BARB last year. Up until now, our only strategy is to find a way to finish first. Not many have done it, and we really only came close once, in our second season. We led the league from wire to almost wire, getting destroyed by injuries in September. It seemed pretty easy then, but it has not been. So we have not been successful based on our definition of BABI success.

I suspect Jeff Busch defines that success differently. Of course, having won the league a couple of thousand times, that might be easy for him. But I bet if you posed the question to him, he would answer simply, "to make money over the long run."

Net winners. It's how you define all gambling success. You don't have to win the World Series of Poker to be a successful poker player by this standard. This week I couldn't draw a hand in our monthly poker game, losing a buck ninety. I only won 3-half pots, two with garbage. Given the cards I drew, I actually played pretty well to limit my losses. Over the past year, I've probably made a little more than I lost. This week's massacre is just part of the bigger picture.

I don't know if we've been net winners or losers in BABI since 1994. My guess is pretty close to even, but probably slightly behind. If we finish in the top two this year we'll probably be a little ahead. But we've never really played to make money. We've always played to finish first.

As a result, we've made some transactional moves that cost us money for even the most minor edge. We've reserved players we were unlikely to reactivate or keep in the future just to have the option of doing so. Last season we picked up some players like Pete Munro and Eric Valent who had very little chance of turning into 5X keepers. We've always used every minor league draft pick we could even though good prospects were not available. And when we've been close to the top, money was no object.

Each of these transactions costs money, maybe the money that would be the difference between being ahead or behind in this game. And because there are two of us, the money doesn't mean as much as if we were playing separately. If we drop $800 one season into the pot as we did last year, it's only $400 each.

But as a game player, I'm intrigued at moving toward consistent winning of money. It's not easy. Other than Jeff, I'm not sure who is net ahead. Maybe Mark. Maybe Larry. Hell, maybe the Bums. It's not obvious. And it's not obvious because the formula for winning on this basis isn't obvious.

I asked Mark to send me the last 2 years' accounting spreadsheets to get a clue. The pot runs between about 9 and 10 thousand each year, net of league expenses which are about $100 per team, including the entertainment. First place gets 40%, 2nd 25%, 3rd 15%, 4th 10%. Since the average team contributes 8.33% of the pot, and the top teams tend to contribute a little more than that, 4th place is usually about break even. If the Bums finish 4th, they win a little money (hell, they won money in 2003 finishing 5th with only a 5% payout!) If Any 9 or the Old Rips finish 4th, they'll lose money because of their heavy transaction fees. Mark said he thinks he lost money finishing third once because he paid in so much.

My theory is you can't win money consistently unless you finish at least 2nd periodically. If you finish 3rd one year and out of the money the next, you're probably behind. Second place, however, can cover 2 years of out of the money. I don't mention first, because it seems so unattainable. In 2003 when we finished 2nd, we played all out even though it was the best we could finish. And we enjoyed doing so, but Larry and Lou got much smaller payouts without the potential upside of finishing first.

The challenge is that usually if you finish in the top 3, you bust up your team and finish out of it the following season. The three of us did that without even the chance of finishing first. That probably was not smart in playing to make money. Jeff's dominance of BABI has virtually taken away the ability to challenge for first place money. As a result, the best we've been able to hope for was to break even over time. Actually, I don't think that's healthy for the league, but at the same time, it is really challenging to have such a good player to play against.

Until we've actually won the league, we'll probably keep trying to win it all. But I'm going to start paying attention to the nickels and dimes, and try to find a better balance between this year and next year. I do vow this: I'm not going to break up our team if the best I can hope for is 2nd place. Because as Larry and Lou learned in 2003, you might not get 2nd. There's a grand between 2nd and 3rd, and $1500 between 2nd and 4th. If you blow up your team, you'd better finish at least 2nd.

And next year, Jeff's going to return to the pack, if you assholes will stop trading incredible, cheap talent to him. If you must trade away those kind of players, trade them to us.