West Coast League
 |
|
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| President | Donnie Marbut |
| No. of teams | 11 |
| Countries |
 United States Canada
|
| Most recent champion(s) |
Corvallis Knights |
| Official website | West Coast League |
The West Coast League (WCL) is a collegiate summer baseball league founded in 2005, comprising teams from Washington, Oregon,and British Columbia. The WCL was previously named the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League (WCCBL), but in 2008 was renamed to their current name the West Coast League. The league is designed to develop college talent, and only current college eligible players are allowed to participate. Top college eligible players compete in the West Coast League, which has produced dozens of professional players and a number of major leaguers. League teams are operated just like professional minor league teams. The WCL season runs from early June to mid-August.
* = Denotes 2016 WCL Champion
(M=indicates the field is of MLB size(325' LF,RF, and 400' CF))
In 2005 the teams played 42 games. For the 2007 season, this was the first year that the WCL started to use divisions. They separated the league into 2 divisions, called the East and West based on their geographical location. The playoffs worked in an odd way. The top 2 teams in the standings at the end of the season would playoff a best 2 out of 3 in both divisions. Then, the winners of the sets would playoff in the championship series, also a best 2 out of 3. and in 2009 it expanded the schedule to 48 games, at the same time going to an unbalanced schedule.
In 2010 the league added Longview/Kelso (Cowlitz), Washington for the 2010 season, along with Walla Walla, Washington, which in turn cause a balanced schedule. The Moses Lake Pirates ceased operations following the 2010 season. The leaders in avg., home runs, RBI, and ERA, strikeouts, and wins for 2010 are as follows:
(Avg. – Must have a minimum of 2.7 plate appearances per team game.)
(ERA – Must have a minimum of .8 inning(s) pitched per team game.)
In 2011 the league expanded to Klamath Falls, which in turn caused a 54-game unbalanced schedule. Also, in the Summer of 2011 the Wenatchee Applesox won the East Division Pennant, and the Walla Walla Sweets came in second and beat the Applesox in the Division Playoffs to go on to play the Corvallis Knights where they lost 2 games to 0. In the West Division the Corvallis Knights won the Pennant and the Bend Elks were 8 games behind them but lost 2–0 in the Divisional games. The batting and pitching leaders are as follows:
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Wikipedia