The final division in the Backyard League could also be referred to as the “Super-Duper Division”, as it boasts two different teams with that moniker in addition to the only two-time champion. On the other hand, given that it’s the Backyard division with the two sandy fields and the only two-time champion, visits to this division could prove to be anything but super-duper for opposing teams. In any case, it won’t be any more of a walk in the park than the other divisions in the Backyard League.

Blue Blue Jays

Coach Profile: Kiiiiiiiiiiiiis made a statement even before his first BBL season by scoring over 100 runs against a standard AI team. He went on to dominate in Season 4, going 13-1 in the regular season and defeating a series of elite teams to win the World Series. While he’s the only veteran coach this season not to have participated in last season’s Lulu league, whose ruleset is being used for the entire league this season, in the hardcore Paste league he dominated once again, going 10-2 and then winning the World Series to become the BBL’s first two-time champion.

Team Analysis: The Blue Jays led off their draft with a pick of reliable catcher Jason Kendall, before proceeding to fill out the roster with a variety of BBL fan favorites, including Star Moonbeam, Chico Pappas, Johnny “Jomar” Omar, and Fernando “Base on Foul Balls” Diaz – and then tainting the roster with controversial hurler Betty Houston. The resulting team is something of a hodgepodge of different skills, but an overall focus on good hitting does stand out when analyzing the roster. Six hitters have batting ratings of 7 or better, all of which come with respectable power, and from solid outfield line drives to home runs, the entire team should hit well except for Omar and the speedy Moonbeam. Five running ratings of 8 or better should also help the Blue Jays to score quite a few runs.

Defense is a bit more suspect. The Jays did secure Kendall as a strong catcher, their largely speedy outfield should rein in fly balls fairly quickly, and their pitching depth appears to be sufficient, but on the whole they do not appear to have an elite defense. With one 8 in fielding, two 7s, and everything else lower, errors could become an issue, and the arms on this team aren’t great either, with three weak arms and only four particularly strong ones. The weak arms are positioned in places where their impact shouldn’t be too damaging – at least at the beginning of games – but on the whole this is certainly not a lockdown defense like some others in the league are.

Finally, the presence of three slow kids with running of 4 is a cause for concern for this team. While all three have solid power to hit balls far, on those that don’t go out of the park, they’ll go nowhere fast, especially in the sands of Casa de Pablo. And while, again, they’re in positions on defense where the problem will potentially be minimal, the right side of the infield will waste precious extra seconds getting to groundballs that stop in that part of the field, which could give up critical bases. On the whole, the Jays have the tools to perform solidly, but several warning signs indicate that they may not be the best squad.

Prediction: Second place. K13S is untested in the Lulu format, but the top of the lineup is dynamic enough and the defense workable enough that he should be able to adjust without too much difficulty.

Players to watch: The entire team was built around Jason Kendall at catcher, and if he doesn’t deliver there, they will start to look much weaker. Top hitter Chico Pappas ought to lead the way for this team on offense, and may well be the difference between victory and defeat in some games. And after falling 166 picks in the draft from last season, league legend Jomar will surely be looking to reassert himself and earn another first-round pick in the future.

Oakland Orioles

Coach Profile: Mavfatha is entering his fourth season in the BBL. He had a rough first season with the league, but took the lessons from that and had one of the best drafts of Season 4, forming a formidable team that only missed the playoffs due to a tiebreaker. The Orioles struggled more in Season 5 thanks to inconsistent hitting, but with a return to Oakland and a sandy field, Mav is hoping for a return to his Season 4 success.

Team Analysis: This is a team very clearly built with a focus, and that focus is hitting for power. Everybody on the team has a batting rating of 7 or better, with the sole exception of Nan Porter, whose 6-batting rating is more contact than power. All of the others are power hitters though, and we are seeing the repeat of a strategy that was seen two seasons ago: Big Bats at Sandy Flats. That strategy didn’t work out so well for the Melonheads in Season 4, but the Orioles’ bats might well deliver more reliably and put up big scores.

And they’ll need to, because their hitting is certainly the biggest strength the Orioles have. Their defense isn’t terrible, with only two weak arms on the team and a powerful catcher in Brenda Markart, but it’s also not a lockdown defense. Only four players on the team have particularly strong arms, and the Flats could result in quite a few throws from the others stopping short of their targets, forcing fielders to trudge through the sand to pick up the ball. It’s not guaranteed to be a problem, but it’s not the most promising. The Orioles also aren’t too fast, which will be further accentuated by the sand. Only Porter has a “speedy” running rating of 9, and five different players are relatively slow runners at 5 or 6. Fortunately, nobody is slower than 5, but all those slower players could well cost the Orioles in extra bases, and force them to rely more heavily on home runs to keep the score up. At least pitching depth should be all right – with ace Matessa Sturges and two other average pitchers to back her up, the O’s aren’t in too much danger of running out of talent and being forced to use the weaker players on the mound.

Prediction: Fourth place. History has not vindicated the Big Bats at Sandy Flats strategy, and while this team appears better-equipped than the last to follow that strategy, some of the same vulnerabilities remain and it may be hard to score enough runs to keep up.

Players to watch: Joella Minotti was the last pick for the team, and will be aiming to prove her worth by leading the team in home runs. Meanwhile, the faster, less-powerful hitters in Nan Porter and Dmitri Petrovich might struggle in the sands to get on base very often – but if they’re successful, it could swing the team’s fortunes.

Super-Duper Melonheads

Coach Profile: Eauxps I. Fourgott has been coaching since Season 3. In the space of two seasons and the Winterball short season, he coached five different teams, all of which finished with losing records. His breakout came in the Lulu League of Season 5, where his Melonheads finished 10-4 to win the division and made it to the League Championship Series. This will be his chance to prove that this wasn’t a fluke and that he can compete in this format.

Team Analysis: The successful Melonheads of Season 5 were a team built primarily around offense, and this season’s all-girls squad follows that trend. With boosts taken into account, six of the nine players have batting ratings of 8 or higher, and one of the remaining three has a 5 rating with plenty of power in it, leaving only two really weak hitters on the team. Running follows a similar pattern, as six players have running ratings of 8+, another has 7, and the remaining two, slow hitters are two of the best sluggers on the team. This team doesn’t have the raw speed of the Season 5 Melonheads, but it does have more heft in the bats, and good series of well-placed hits have the potential to spark some big rallies.

The Melonheads have accomplished this while also improving on last season’s defense. The raw fielding ratings aren’t too impressive, with four ratings below seven opening up the potential for errors and the Webber twins being prone to overthrowing, but looking at the throwing ratings reveals that the Melonheads will be able to get the ball around the field much better this time. Six of nine players have a strong arm of 4 or better once boosts are factored in, and only Olga Tollefson has a weaker arm. Instead of last season’s team that had weak-armed Star Moonbeam behind the plate and slow, poor-fielding Angela Delvecchio on the mound, this squad has super-defender Maria Luna on the mound and Sidney Webber’s cannon arm behind the plate. The team’s pitching depth is solid, as well – only one really good pitcher at 9, but a host of 7s and 5s mean that reasonably capable hurlers will be able take duty throughout the game. While there is still room for concern, especially with the slow Molly May and Fabienne Callahan leaving the middle of the field vulnerable to balls hit past the pitcher, this is undeniably an improved defense from before, and should give opposing hitters a reasonably tough time.

On the whole, this seems like a recipe for another Melonheads playoff appearance – but some concern enters the picture when you factor in scouting reports. In preseason scrimmage games, the Melonheads have not been able to replicate the smashing success and high scores of last season’s team. While there are still rallies, they are less common, shorter, and more volatile, and this team cannot be expected to consistently provide the same output that last season’s did. It remains to be seen whether their improved defense will be able to compensate for this or not.

Prediction: Third place. It’s hard to know until there’s a realistic idea of how much opposition will score off the Melonheads, but the reduced run output doesn’t bode well for their playoff chances.

Players to watch: Maria Luna has been a star on the mound in preseason training, and has the potential to be a top pitcher this season. At the plate, Fabienne Callahan has been hitting like a star, and as last year’s team leader in home runs and RBI, she’ll be looking to replicate that feat this season. And there will undoubtedly be a lot of focus on late-term addition to the team Jane Davis. As the reigning MVP, will she be able to replicate that success or fall back into obscurity with a weaker season?

Super-Duper Wombats

Coach Profile: Wizard is the only coach in the Backyard League with only a single season of experience, but that season has left no doubt that he belongs with the grizzled vets. In both the Lulu and Paste leagues, he led his team to the League Championship Series, and he’ll be looking to book a return trip there and farther this season.

Team Analysis: This is another team with a clear focus on hitting – seven out of nine players have batting ratings of 7 or higher. But there’s some concern with this array of hitters, due to some of them having low power – Ellen Martinez and Richie Sexson seem to have weak 7’s in hitting, and Ichiro’s 8 is more contact than power. Like most in the division, this team also has speed as a concern, as five players have 6 speed or less, and three grade out as slow with a 3 or 4 running rating – in addition to those three players having potentially the weakest bats on the team! Tiffany Bosworth and Butch Sherrod in particular don’t appear to add much value to the Wombats’ offensive, and could prove to be fatal liabilities.

The Wombats do have a solid defense. Richie Sexson at first base is the only fielder with an arm rated at worse than 3, and the five strong arms on the rest of the team are spread nicely across the field for good coverage. Vlad Guerrero and his rocket arm cover the somewhat vulnerable space between Sexson and second-baseman Randi Uno, and Ruth Proutt’s potentially concerning, relatively weak arm in the outfield is countered by her speed and proximity to a great cutoff man in Sherrod. The only potential major weakness in this defense comes from the lack of pitching depth – while the team boasts reigning Ace Wilson champion Tiffany Bosworth, after her the strongest pitcher on the team is Sherrod with a rating of 6, and the rest of the team is even weaker. If opposing offenses can punch through the defense enough to remove Bosworth, the team’s stock could plummet rapidly. Otherwise, though, this will be an intimidating defense to face.

Prediction: First place. The Wombats make up for having the division’s weakest offense by also having its strongest defense, and that plus taking advantage of the other teams’ weaknesses could well result in a return to the playoffs.

Players to watch: After winning last season’s Goldie Glove award for his work behind the plate, Ichiro is playing catcher again, this time for the Wombats, and it will be interesting to see if he’s as effective there as he was last season. Of more concern are two later picks and weaker arms, in Randi Uno and Richie Sexson. Will they be able to contribute enough on offense to offset their weaker 6-running ratings and prove to be worthy players for the team?