European club rankings 2008

A struggle to obtain public and private funds to support infrastructure and growth permeates the history of baseball in Great Britain, and with the decision in 2005 to remove the sport from the Olympic programme there is no sign of this easing, at least in the short term. For Great Britain and other non-powerhouse European nations attempting to grow the game in this type of environment, it must be helpful (even if it is only marginally so) to frame the continent’s baseball as the sum of its parts, rather than viewing the member nations’ contiguous programmes in isolation.

One such method to unite European baseball in this way is to compare European clubs across the continent (and by club in this post I mean the top team within each club), rather than ranking clubs only within their separate countries. Last month, two lists of European club rankings for 2008 were published on the Internet, one on www.mister-baseball.com and the other on www.baseballdeworld.com. The two lists are compared below.
 

Mister-Baseball Top 50

Date of publication: 12 November (click here).

Number of clubs ranked: 52 (there is a 4-way tie for 49th place).

Goal: While this is not explicitly stated on the website, the list is not intended as an ordered list of the 50 best clubs in Europe. If it were, one would look at it and conclude, for instance, that Mr Cocker HCAW and the Richmond Flames, with their equal-29th placings, were evenly matched teams in 2008. Having seen both teams play this year, though, I can confidently say that the Richmond Flames would struggle against the superior Dutch club. Instead, the purpose of the rankings is to offer a snapshot of the year across the continent, providing a sense of which clubs had the best seasons relative to their own league, while still including some lower-performing clubs from the best leagues. If you did not realize this, it would be easy to attack the rankings as poorly calculated, given the inclusion of only a handful of Dutch clubs for example. However, a list designed to order the 50 absolute best clubs would be not only weaker at unifying European baseball, but also less interesting and thus less likely to provoke debate. That is not to say that there is no place at all for an alternative list of the 50 absolute best clubs.

Method: Clubs were assigned points in two categories. The first was strength of baseball in the club’s country, both domestic (through factors such as the country’s overall performance in CEB club events and the number of baseball participants in the country) and international (based on the recent and historical success of national teams). The second category was the club’s performance (derived from domestic standings and performances in CEB competitions, including the CEB Final Four).
 

BaseballdeWorld Top 30

Date of publication: 27 November (click here).

Number of clubs ranked: 48 (although presented as a Top 30, points are provided for 48 clubs in all).

Goal: Again, the aim of the rankings is not explicitly stated, but it would be safe to infer a similar goal to that of Mister-Baseball, given the broadly similar standings that the two approaches generated.

Method: The rankings were determined through voting by the BaseballdeWorld staff. The criteria that were offered to guide voting decisions were the strength of domestic league, win-loss records, and performances at international tournaments. The CEB Final Four tournament results were excluded from consideration, because of the absence of Dutch clubs and because the competing squads were missing several regulars.
  

Full results

Full results are shown in the table below, with the column headers MB# and BdW# representing Mister-Baseball rankings and BaseballdeWorld rankings, respectively. The London Mets and the Richmond Flames are the only clubs from Great Britain to make the list. The Croydon Pirates and the Manchester Eagles have appeared on earlier-published lists.

MB#	BdW#	Club	Country
1	1	L&D Amsterdam	The Netherlands
2=	5	Danesi Caffe’ Nettuno	Italy
2=	3	T&A San Marino	San Marino
4	2	Corendon Kinheim	The Netherlands
5	6	FC Barcelona	Spain
6	4	Marlins Puerto Cruz	Spain
7	10	Montepaschi Grosseto Orioles	Italy
8	7	DOOR Neptunus	The Netherlands
9	11	Buchbinder Legionäre	Germany
10	12=	Rouen Baseball 76	France
11	9	Konica Minolta Pioniers	The Netherlands
12	8	Fortitudo 1953 Bologna	Italy
13	16	AVG Draci Brno	Czech Republic
14	25	Les Templiers de Senart	France
15	15	Mannheim Tornados	Germany
16	12=	Sparta/Feyenoord	The Netherlands
17=	17	Heidenheim Heideköpfe	Germany
17=	19	Solingen Alligators	Germany
19	23	London Mets	United Kingdom
20	18	Sant Boi	Spain
21	24	MGPU SYOS Moscow	Russia
22=	14	Cariparma Parma	Italy
22=	27	KNTU-OSVSM Kirovograd	Ukraine
24	20	El Llano	Spain
25=	26	Port of Antwerp Greys	Belgium
25=	30=	Stockholms BSK	Sweden
27	33=	Arrows Ostrava	Czech Republic
28	41=	Savigny sur Orge Lions	France
29=	33=	Karlskoga Bats BBK	Sweden
29=	46=	Montpellier Université Club	France
29=	22	Mr Cocker HCAW	The Netherlands
29=	30=	Richmond Flames	United Kingdom
33	35=	ESHSM Moskvich Moscow	Russia
34	38=	Zagreb BK	Croatia
35	21	Telemarket Rimini	Italy
36	30=	Bern Cardinals	Switzerland
37	38=	Technika Brno	Czech Republic
38	41=	MZLU Express Brno	Czech Republic
39	35=	Hoboken Pioneers	Belgium
40	35=	Mosquito Athletics Attnang-Puchheim	Austria
41	41=	TNU Tigers	Ukraine
42	46=	Olimpija Karlovac	Croatia
43=	–	Brest Zubrs	Belarus
43=	–	MKS AMZ Kutno	Poland
45	–	Beograd 96	Serbia
46	–	Blagoevgrad Buffaloes	Bulgaria
47=	–	Juodasis Vikingas Vilnius	Lithuania
47=	–	Zajčki Rabbits	Slovenia
49=	–	Dublin Spartans	Ireland
49=	–	Expoos	Finland
49=	–	Óbuda Brick Factory	Hungary
49=	–	TJ STU Angels Trnava	Slovakia

 
Main differences in results

Overall, the results are strikingly similar, which is surprising given that one set was derived purely from a predefined scoring system while the other was generated by a vote. Perhaps the BaseballdeWorld voters referred to the Mister-Baseball rankings in making their decisions. Regardless of whether they did or not, though, the BaseballdeWorld rankings can be seen as validating those of Mister-Baseball, which appeared first. Still, there are some differences that are worth considering.

Firstly, there are a number of countries included in the Mister-Baseball rankings that are not featured in those of BaseballdeWorld, namely Belarus, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. (The coverage of the Mister-Baseball rankings is extended to Latvia, Norway, Portugal, and Romania through “honourable mentions”). By not including clubs from these countries, the BaseballdeWorld voters found space on their 48-club list for outfits from Austria (Union Kufstein Vikings), Germany (Mainz Athletics and Paderborn Untouchables), Spain (Beisbol Navarra), and Sweden (Rattvik Butchers and Sundbyberg Heat) that were not included in the Mister-Baseball rankings.

Secondly, looking at the clubs within each country, there are some differences in order. Isolating the Dutch clubs from each list reveals that they are placed in the same order on the two lists, and the same can be said for France and the UK. In Italy (including San Marino), though, Mister-Baseball ranked T&A San Marino and Danesi Caffe’ Nettuno equal while BaseballdeWorld placed T&A San Marino ahead. An explanation for this is that T&A San Marino, who won Italy’s national title, lost to Nettuno in the CEB Final Four competition, which was factored into Mister-Baseball’s rankings only, as explained above. Another difference among Italian teams was that Mister-Baseball had Montepaschi Grosseto Orioles ahead of Fortitudo 1953 Bologna while BaseballdeWorld had them the other way round. In Spain, Mister-Baseball put FC Barcelona ahead of Marlins Puerto Cruz, but BaseballdeWorld ranked them the other way round. FC Barcelona finished second to Marlins Puerto Cruz in Spain’s domestic championship but won one of CEB’s European Cup trophies, so the variation between the rankings presumably relates to a difference in the importance placed on the competitions. Finally, in Germany, BaseballdeWorld placed Heidenheim Heideköpfe ahead of Solingen Alligators while Mister-Baseball ranked the two clubs equally.