The USPBL'S 45th SEASON is here in 2024.

After a rather eventful off-season where the emphasis was on trading and drafting instead of recruiting,

the USPBL Season kicks-off. Oh yeah, the MLB season is starting too.

It took some time to determine the Champion from the 2023 Season, but at long last, Brad's Lake Superior Riptide came out on top, defeating Dustin's Ottawa Banditos. It was Brad's 5th Championship.

The final results were late but are now included in the Fall Beacon which is still posted.

While there was an off-season ballot regarding USPBL Rule changes, only 1 is a real change.

We'll have a new YEAR END BONUS CHART in use now. The new chart is included in the USPBL RULES

and is still included in the YEB page here. The change is rather minor with the emphasis being on increasing the amount of bonus money awarded to the teams with more losses and a small decrease to those with more wins. The other rule voted on was a clarification regarding the Game's Rules Option as to which

MLB season's Rules we'll be using. Previously we opted for the Pre-2020 rules since we weren't all in on the short-season rule changes. However since MLB returned to normal activities we figured we'd go with the current rules. As a plus for most of us, with a few nay-sayers, is the Ghost Runner rule for extra innings.

This will shorten some games and provide us a little usage relief. On the negative side, we have to follow the "3 batter" rule for relief pitchers which is extra tough to handle in a computer game. And this rule can present an even bigger problem when it comes to closer situations with a C0/C1 reliever.

The voting went:

17-3 in favor of using the Current MLB Rules

14-6 in favor of using the Closer Rule

10-10 draw regarding whether to use the Clutch rule or not. The tie meant that we'll keep it.

13-6 in favor of changing the Year End Bonus Chart.

The Beacon took a long look at the Tradelog from the now-passed Off-Season.

And besides the usual glance at how many trades and who made the trades, we did a more thorough investigation of the Tradelog.

108 

That's the number of trades for the 2024 season.

By Month: July 13   August 14   September 3   October 18   November 3   December 23

                 January 12   February   17   March   6    

Furthermore, this breaks down to 54 before the Money Draft, 31 between the Money Draft and Rotation

Draft, and 23 after the Money Draft. 

There were already 29 trades by the time the MLB season ended. Trading started at the All-Star break.

133

There were 133 players traded.  Some were high priced stars, some were the 40th player on the roster.

Here's something you might find surprising. Only 28 of the 108 trades involved players being exchanged from both teams! The rest involved one side giving up just Draft Money or Draft Picks. 

67 

There were 67 trades involving Draft Money. That's 62% of all trades.

While all leagues have some sort of Rotation Draft, the USPBL is a rare league with a Money Draft.

Draft Money seems to have quite an importance in the USPBL. While ultimately it's use is to purchase players in the Money Draft, it's use as a trade commodity is evident from the 67 trades involving K Money.

1940

No, this isn't referring to the date that Great Britain invaded Iceland. It's the total of Draft Money used in trades for 2024. The amounts ranged from 5K ((only 6) to 175K. There were only 2 trades of over 100K which is way fewer than the norm. The average comes out to about 30K per trade.

There's actually 2 different Money Drafts involved in this past off-season. From the start of the trade season in July, up to the 2024 money Draft there were 34 trades with money totaling 1,283K. After the money draft

in early December, there were another 33 trades involving 657K for use in the 2025 Money Draft. Notice how

the pre-draft total averaged 38K per trade while the post-draft trades averaged 20K per deal. 

There was another 45K spent on 9 Waiver players. While these are posted on the Trade-log, they are really more of an extension of the Rotation Draft with a touch of the Money Draft included. So Waiver acquisitions aren't counted in either the Trade numbers or money totals.

77

There were 77 trades involving Draft Picks. Now this doesn't mean just 77 Draft picks traded. Many trades involved numerous draft picks, sometimes with both sides contributing to the deal. Draft picks then are an even bigger trade commodity than draft money having been used in 71% of all deals.

Again, there were 2 drafts involved in the off-season. Of the 77, 49 were for the 2024 Rotation Draft while 28 were made (after the Money Draft) for the 2025 Rotation Draft. 

WHO WAS THE 2024 TRADE-KING?

The winner of the "Trader-Bill Award" for this past off-season was none other than the team stuck in permanent rebuilding mode....

Chris Malitsky and the Cherry Hill Cardinals #9 with 21.

And the winner of whoever represents the opposite of that award...

Jim JJ Walsh and the Gilbert Gila Monsters #18 who had a grand total of 0 trades.

I don't know if that's ever even happened before.

#18 GGM                     0 trades

#7 OTB                        5 trades

#12 CON    #14 MIR   6 trades

#13 SAS                      7 trades

#15 SRR   #20 LSR    8 trades  You don't need to trade a lot to have a great team

#3  OOS   #4 CLC   #8 RVD   #17 LMD    9 trades   

#19 SSB                   10 trades

#5 MIX                      13 trades

#6 WDW                   14 trades

#16 SCS                   15 trades

#1 BRM                     16 trades

#2 VAV   #10 WIS   #11 EHH    17 trades

#9 CHC                     21 trades

xxx