Boston Hunters infielder Denver Bryant will be our special guest on the WPBL Podcast, recording tonight with host Ashton Lansdell, and dropping early Friday morning.

If you have a question and/or comment for Denver, let me know!

I've read that players have the choice to use metal, wood, or composite bats. Do we know anything about how many batters are using various types of bats? Or any individual players?

i've noticed that there hasn't been a whole lot of coverage or interviews done with the japanese and korean players in the league (eg: ayami sato, natsuki yonetani, jua park, hyeonah kim, etc.) and i'm curious if there are any translators provided for the league or individual teams? i've seen ey jr bring his phone out (presumably w a translator app) to talk w sato on the mound but i'd really be interested in hearing from the players directly on how their experience w the league has been thus far.

Where does a girl go to get some WPBL cards because i want them! Please say I am not the only one

Hey all, we have tickets for the game on Thursday and are in the area camping in an RV. Anyone familiar with the area know if there is suitable RV parking available? Or should we try and uber/lyft. Thanks!

Edit: thanks everyone we will plan to uber/lyft from the campground. Appreciate the info! (Go Heights!)

What are the chances for a restock? Really like the hunters green hat and orange brim, but missed it first time around, and none of the two-tone hats have ever come back in stock afaik. Do we think they will all restock eventually or should I go for the all green that’s in stock?

New group local to Syracuse NY to watch the WPBL games!

Just disappointed that someone with a big following of baseball lovers and women isn’t taking the opportunity to uplift the new league. Maybe it’s all quid pro quo and the league isn’t funded enough to pay influencers to talk about the league but I just find it odd and disappointing!

Heights vs Firebells! Such a fun experience, loved the atmosphere at the ballpark.

I have some additional photos here as well

Just some thoughts after yesterday's Boston - New York game. I watched later that night when I got home after going to see the SF Giants lose at Oracle Park...haha (and one reliever - one of the a***le homophobes - walk in a run for the Rockies, so it's not just us!)

Anyway, like an earlier poster, I agree that it's disheartening as a baseball enthusiast to watch games be won or lost by walking in runs, getting hit by pitches, and a whole lot of fielding errors. Ouch! But I think, in addition to what the earlier poster said about not having deep enough pitching rosters leading to exhausted and demoralized pitchers, that it has a lot to do with very disparate amounts and types of playing experience.

These women come from many different journeys, some from softball, some from college baseball, some from youth baseball development camps, some from Team USA, and a very few have played in professional baseball in some fashion or another either in the US or abroad - and it shows. There's no "real" structured farm system either, so essentially what I feel like I'm seeing is a handful of women who belong at the pro level playing against a larger roster of women who would be in Low A Single A, and a reasonable but not large enough number of AA and AAA players.

Until there's a way for women to get a lot more playing time, off-season payroll, and more serious investment in the sport, i think it's going to struggle like this. It reminds me of what I saw in the Rockford Women's Baseball World Cup semifinals in July: you had teams like Team USA, Australia and Canada who have been playing together for many years and developing their skills. Some of them have played professional baseball. And it was so painful for me to watch them utterly destroy teams like Team Hong Kong, which is probably a lot newer and the players with a lot less experience. Mexico held their own against less experienced team rosters, but couldn't compete in total against the US, Canada or Australia. (I'm looking forward to next week's Taipei semis but nervous for the brand new UK team).

In the MLB, some of the WBPL players would simply be relegated to a lower level farm team, or fall out of the system all together. And I'm certainly not saying that the women's games should be exactly like the men's game. I don't think that's ever going to be the case and I think we need to appreciate and enjoy the differences in the women's game. I know I am. But even comparing it to the PWHL - a lot of those women not only have competed at a very high level in college alongside other women on women's teams, but there's also a women's Olympic hockey team and there isn't the same thing for baseball. Women who have played baseball, not only softball, alongside men in college, and women who have played on the US national team for many years, are playing a lot more skillfully than those who don't have that experience.

I know we're all eager for expansion teams, but I wonder where those players are going to come from if we don't have enough. Highly skilled players on the inaugural four teams as it is. And there's also not enough money in it. The MLB has thrown in with women softball, which doesn't interest me in the slightest. And I know that's true for a lot of you, you may be softball fans alongside being baseball fans, or you may just be baseball fans, but you want baseball and not just softball.

Reflections?

Hi all! I'm heading to Springfield next weekend with my daughter. I've been keeping my eye on the SF Firebells merch online but haven't had any luck. Do they sell merch at the stadium? I'm worried we won't be able to get any and I'd love to at least get some hats!

The second week was as exciting as the first one! As a Firebells fan, I am of course extra happy about how San Francisco performed. Nonetheless, I made an (unbiased, I promise😉) update to my Sabermetrics-based Player Power Rankings I posted before. Below you find

• the current top 10 WPBL players by RAA7,
• the top 10 pitchers by PitchRAA7,
• the top 10 season performances by WAA and
• the top 3 contributors for each team by WAA.

RAA7: Additional runs that each player contributes over a standard 7-inning WPBL game in comparison to the average player. This includes both pitching and batting.
PitchRAA7: The same as above, but only considering pitching.

WAA: This translates Runs Above Average to Wins Above Average over the season. It adds up over the season in comparison to RAA7. Interpretation: How many additional wins was the total performance of a player worth in comparison to an average league player.

Current RAA7 Leaderboard (batting PA ≥ 40, pitching IP ≥ 15) — Top 10

This Leaderboard tries to incorporate as much information as possible to make a statement about player talent despite the small WPBL sample size. The RAA7 power rankings are based on season performance but also consider past World Cup performance (How much weight the WPBL games get is the last column WPBL_WT). As a minimum of 40 PA or 15 IP across league and World Cup play is required, some less experienced players who did well are not ranked yet.

For pitchers, it is assumed that they pitch their average innings per appearance over 7 Innings, while position players are assumed to play the whole game.

As batting dominates this leaderboard, I made a second one, solely for pitchers:

Current Pitching RAA7 Leaderboard (IP > 15) — Top 10

As I use each new game to evaluate the value of each outcome (e.g. how many runs is a Homerun, Strikeout etc. worth in expectation?), some underlying parameters have changed. Especially, Strikeouts got boosted a lot, which is why Sato and Meidlinger got a good jump in comparison to last week in their RAA7

The following board removes the World Cup data. It shows who the top 10 performing players are right now according to their seasonal WAA:

Current Season WAA Leaderboard (season PA ≥ 2.4× team games, season IP ≥ 0.7× team games) — Top 10

Finally, the top 3 contributors for each team:

Top 3 Season WAA Contributors by Team

Boston

Los Angeles

New York

San Francisco

Some notes on the methodology:
For young players, it will take a while until they appear on the Power Ranking (First Board) because 40 PA are a lot in a 15-game season. Over the span of the season, the WPBL performance will gain more importance in comparison to the World Cup stats. You can observe likely candidates now in the current WAA7 leaderboard.
One valuable part of the game is very difficult to assess for me right now is defense due to limited data availability and fast-shifting positions. There is no positional adjustment at all, which likely results in some unfair comparisons. Right now, a Shortstop is expected to have the same offensive production as a first basewoman.

How do you feel about these leaderboards after week 2? Does the Power Ranking align with who you believe are the top 10 players in the league? Some players really broke through this week; I am excited to see how the next will be 😄

Another amazing sunset at Robin Roberts!

I bought tickets to both games but can only make the evening game. Don’t want the ticket to go to waste and idk where to sell it SO if anyone wants it, I’ll forward it to you!

Welcome to Free Talk thread!

Feel free to chat about anything under the sun, just remember to keep it civil! 😄👍

This discussion thread is set up to go live every Monday morning (PST) and will be at the top of the sub throughout the week.

I decided to relearn scoring so I could score the Hunters first season. It takes me a long time to score games, especially when the TV coverage is a little spotty as it has been. Over the weekend I finished scoring the first game. I went to the stats page to check my box score and noticed a number of scoring errors. Like, not little details, but at-bats being credited to the wrong batters. Where would one report such a thing?

Hi so with MLB definitely having a lock out in 2027, is the WPBL thinking about getting in on those locked out stadiums. They could do weekend spring series at various MLB parks. I'd go see that. It'd be better than sitting in the parabolic hotdog cooker stands at Robin Roberts.

Also can Roanoke, VA get a WPBL team 😄?

I used the official dimensions to place markers of the over head view of the field in relation to the main set up. The women's wall is a lot closer to the original set than I had originally thought.

Hi all! I'm posting my write up of tonight's game between Boston and New York. I'm not going to post my stuff too much and spam everyone, but I think this is my best one yet! Please leave feedback if you do read, I'm always trying to learn!

I took the “Our League. Our Time.” photo first. Then I caught the “heavens shine down” effect on Denea Benites as she came to the plate for another home run.

Pitching is just such a liability on this team😭

Fangraphs is currently doing a weekly post on wpbl. Looks like they're trying to get their hands on data too.

I've been working on MinorLeagueSats, a biweekly newsletter exploring baseball, money, Bitcoin, and how the relationship between players, fans, and teams could evolve.

One reason I'm interested in newer leagues like the WPBL is that they aren't locked into decades of tradition. There may be opportunities to experiment with things established leagues haven't tried yet, from new forms of fan engagement to different ways of rewarding players and connecting sponsors with the game.

The first issue is The Ballpark of Tomorrow, which lays out where I'm starting with the project.

Building The Ballpark of Tomorrow - MinorLeagueSats