It’s become somewhat of a common practice in many sports leagues around the country; a season divided into two halves. It’s usually done to create and maintain fan interest, sort of a mid-course correction giving teams in a league new life and enthusiasm.
So, if you’ve been involved in a sport for more than 35 years, chances are you’ve been involved with the intricacies surrounding the practice. Surprisingly, that’s not the case for Gabe Sinicropi, the Williamsport Crosscutters’ director of marketing and public relations.
“In my 35 years in baseball, I’ve never had to deal with a first half and second half of a season. So, while a lot of people in the Minor Leagues have dealt with split seasons, this is new to us. Last year the Draft League kind of had a first half and second half, but it wasn’t delineated.
“This season, the league’s first half was a true Draft League made up of amateur players, draft-eligible players playing for the purpose of trying to get drafted and/or signed as a non-drafted free agent. We’ve decided to experiment for the second half of the season as the various team rosters are made up of professional players and paid players; at the conclusion of the season, hopefully, we’ll be able to tell if this will help us achieve some of the goals the league has.
“But this is an expensive proposition. The teams in the league will be paying the players, not directly, but we pay the people running the league, who in turn pays the players. With that goes all the other items like worker’s compensation, etc. that we didn’t have in the first half of the season as the players were all amateurs.”
Of the 26 players on the Crosscutters’ second-half roster, five were with the team during the first half, although three of them were pitchers that joined the team during the last week of first-half play. During the first half, league rosters included a maximum of 35 players, but with the players being paid, the rosters have been reduced.
At season’s end, the winners of the two halves of play will meet in a single-game playoff to determine the overall Draft League champion. Should the same team win both halves, the second-place team in the second half will play in the championship game. Although the Crosscutters led for much of the first half, West Virginia emerged as the champion. As a result, they gained home-field advantage and will host the championship game.
Prep Baseball Report, the organization that runs the Draft League, was responsible for recruiting the players for the second half. They assembled a pool of players 26, times six teams, and then they divvied them up. They didn’t go too deep into the individual skill set of the players; rather, making sure that each team had the same number of pitchers and position players. The roster makeup of the teams features a variety of different players that have come from all over. These players are older, 22 to 25. During the first half, the players were 18 to 22.
As for fan attendance at Muncy Bank Ballpark, Sinicropi indicated, “We are ahead of last year’s attendance, but we are still not at the pre-pandemic levels. From what I understand, most of the teams at the minor league level across baseball are facing that same circumstance. In our case, groups have not come back to what they were before the pandemic. Last year, we had almost no group sales, although it picked up a bit at the end of the season.
“This year group sales have been slow to rebound to previous year’s levels. Groups are a large part of what all teams do. They are kind of the lifeblood of baseball teams. Season ticket holders are a base we can count on every night, and then there are group sales that add to that nightly base that can be added to the walk-up game sales.
“A lot of the groups would come back year after year. It was just something they did to schedule a Cutters’ game outing. Since COVID, that hasn’t been the same for a couple of years, and perhaps they got out of the habit. Monetarily, things are tighter for everybody, and it’s more difficult to conduct an employee group outing.
“I am pleased that we played meaningful games throughout the first half. It’s always more fun when the team is winning on the field. Even though we finished only a few games above .500, it sure felt good. We won almost every night at home, although we weren’t very good on the road. With that good home record fans went away happy, and that always helps.”
The Draft League’s sudden death extra-inning rule has also gained Sinicropi’s favor.
“It’s something fans had never seen before, but it adds to the excitement, and there were a few nights when the stands were really alive when that sudden death inning took place.”
As for future rule changes MLB may adopt, Sinicropi feels that “change is a coming.”
“There are too many things currently being experimented with for some of them not to stick. Some baseball traditionalists might be opposed, but such things as bigger bases, pitch clocks, and extra-inning rules, but long extra-inning games just kill your pitching staff. So, I think we will see changes of this type at the MLB level sooner rather than later.”
