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This post is the first of five counting down all 48 NABF teams. Each entry will include vital stats, a short history, and its best players and season. This entry will cover teams #48-#37.

48. The Pittsburgh Crawfords
Overall Record: 2174-2446, .471
0 Conference Titles
0 Division Championships
Last place finishes: 9
Original/Highest Division: 3
Lowest/Current Division: 4

No team has embodied failure more than Pittsburgh, who began in Division 3 with high hopes, winning 89 games and ending in second place behind Charlotte. But that turned out to be their high water mark - the most wins the franchise would have - until 2031, when they won 90 (again finishing second, this time two games behind Nashville). In fact, with Phoenix’s thrilling 2036 Conference title, the Crawfords are now the only team in the NABF that have never won their conference, and never competed for a Division Championship. The Crawfords have had a winning record in only seven seasons, and finished in last place nine times - nearly a full third of the seasons they’ve played. Their .471 winning percentage is the 4th worst of any team, and Pittsburgh has been home to few if any major stars. To their credit, Pittsburgh fans keep showing up; they outdrew 12 other NABF teams despite losing 86 games last season, so maybe there’s hope yet.

Best Position Player: 1B Roberto Vazquez, a holdover from the pre-NABF Crawfords, still holds virtually every offensive record in team history despite playing just over seven seasons with Pittsburgh in the NABF. His franchise record home run total of 52 in 2010 still stands, as do his 8.5 WAR, .315 BA, and .630 SLG, all in 2007.

Best Pitcher: This is a tough choice, but it’s probably Ray Nowell, who spent most of his career with Pittsburgh and was generally an above-average starter with FIP- under 100 every season he pitched in D4. He represented the Crawfords at three All-Star games, and finished second in Pitcher of the Year balloting in 2033.

Best Season: 2031. The Crawfords were in first place much of the year, but a late season slide coupled with a Nashville surge ended with Crawford the closest it had ever come to a Conference title - just two games out in second place.


47. The Las Vegas 51s
Overall Record: 2163-2457, .468
Conference Titles:1 (D3W 2015)
Division Championships: 1 (D3 2015)
Last place finishes: 8
Original Division: 3
Highest Division: 2
Lowest/Current Division: 4

The Las Vegas 51s won a championship in 2015. It’s worth mentioning, because it remains not only their only championship, but their only first place finish, and in retrospect it looks like an outlier: they snuck into the D3 Championship series with just 84 wins that year, one of the weakest teams to ever win a championship. It was enough in a weak conference to earn them promotion to Division 2, but they were back in D3 two cycles later, and then slid into Division 4, where they’ve remained since. It has been three decades of futility for Vegas, who have lost more than every team save 1 in their history. Their 8 last place finishes include a devastating Cycle 8 where they became the first team to finish last in a D4 Conference every year of a single cycle (the Brewers would equal that feat in Cycle 9). The 51s can boast one of the three greatest pitchers in NABF history - the incredible Oliver Chase - but it gets rough after him.

Best Position Player: it is slim pickings here, so we’ll go with SS Jimmie Rodriguez, who spent his whole career in the desert and gave Vegas its only MVP, in 2029 when he led D3 in slugging.

Best Pitcher: Oliver Chase, by an absolute mile. The Hall of Famer Chase would be the best pitcher for any franchise that couldn’t claim Malcolm Bush, so it’s no surprise to see him here. Chase holds a dozen single season team records, including the six best seasons by WAR of any player in 51s history, pitcher or position player, despite playing only nine seasons with Vegas, where he won all five of his Pitcher of the Year trophies.

Best Season: it can’t be any other than 2015, when the 51s won their only Conference title and Division Championship, and earned their only promotion. They won more games in other seasons, but 2015 is the greatest they’ve had.

46. The Havana Sugar Kings
Overall Record: 2187-2433, .473
Conference Titles: 3 (D2E 2007, 2009, 2017)
Division Championships: 1 (D2 2009)
Last place finishes: 10
Original Division: 2
Highest Division: 1
Lowest/Current Division: 4

What are the only two teams to ever play in all four Divisions of the NABF? Every NABF fan can correctly identify the Baltimore Terrapins here, having seen their meteoric rise from D4 to D1 in just three cycles. But the other is tougher, because it’s not a story of rising but one of falling. The Havana Sugar Kings began their NABF play a winner, taking the first D2 East crown and winning the D2 Championship in 2009, earning promotion to D1. Since then, it has been a long slide down - they were no match for D1 competition, finishing last twice in Cycle 2 and dropping back down. They stayed in D2 for three cycles, even winning a Conference title in 2017 while the great Jim Betz was in his prime, but by Cycle 5 things were headed downward. Between the end of Cycle 4 and today, Havana has finished in last at least one time in each cycle (10 total, the most in NABF history), has been relegated to Division 3 and then to Division 4, and has even finished last in D4 East, in cycle 9. If you take away those first three years, they’re the worst team in NABF history. They also hold the dubious distinction of being the only team in NABF history to finish last in their conference in five different cycles - three relegations, and two D4 East last places.

Best Position Player: the Hall of Famer Jim McCabe patrolled left field for Havana for nearly his entire career, from 2008 to 2023. Perhaps his team contributed to his being overlooked his entire career, but he was a strong offensive producer and 12-time All-Star who ranks among the top 15 players all-time by career WAR.

Best Pitcher: the immortal Jim Betz had his finest years for Havana, though he got more attention in his shorter stint with Baltimore. Hall of Famer Betz earned 52.4 WAR with Havana over 10 seasons, and is the all-time franchise leader in WAR, wins, and strikeouts.

Best Season: they won their only championship in 2010, but their best season was 2017, when the Sugar Kings won 92 games (a franchise best) and the D2 East for the third and final time, with Betz and McCabe both in their final great stretches with the team.

45. The St. Louis Browns
Overall Record: 2258-2362, .489
Conference Titles: 1 (D4W 2020)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 7
Original/Highest Division: 3
Lowest/Current Division: 4

It is not, probably, going too far to call the Browns the most boring team in NABF history. No team has a smaller gap between their best and worst seasons: the Browns’ best was 2020, when they won just 88 games and their only Conference title, and their worst was 2034, when they won 63 - a difference of just 25 wins, easily the smallest gap of any team. They haven’t been very good over their history, but also not historically bad - they’ve just been… there. The greatest moment in team history was probably when an aging Bobby Usry set the NABF all-time hits record while playing for St. Louis, but he did most of that work between Washington and New Orleans, not St. Louis. Beyond Usry, most fans would be hard-pressed to name a genuinely great player who spent more than a handful of seasons in St. Louis, at either the very start or the very end of their careers -the Browns are actually the only franchise that has never won either an MVP or Pitcher of the Year. Even St. Louis’s payroll has been solidly middling for their existence. All of that, maybe ironically, adds up to the fourth worst team in NABF history, as the lack of titles and the consistently low win totals pull them down.

Best Position Player: RF Tim Milam has the highest WAR in a St. Louis uniform, but Jim Guthrie is the best to wear it, having spent six seasons in brown between 2007 and 2012. Guthrie holds many of the best offensive seasons in St. Louis history, including its top 3 WAR seasons, the single season best slugging percentage, and 4 of the five highest HR seasons.

Best Pitcher: Alex Fierros spent only six seasons of his 19 year career in St. Louis, yet holds most of the career pitching records for the club, including wins (84), WAR (30.7), and shutouts (6).

Best Season: 2020 saw the Browns win 88 games and their only Conference title, and by process of elimination that’s it.

44. The Milwaukee Brewers
Overall Record: 2225-2395, .482
Conference Titles: 3 (D4W 2016, D3W 2022, 2026)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 8
Original/Lowest/Current Division: 4
Highest Division: 3

We round out our bottom five with Milwaukee, a team with some historic success but far more futility. Milwaukee has topped 90 wins only once, in their second D3 West Conference title in 2026, but that’s one of only 9 winning seasons in the team’s history. They were able to earn promotion after Cycle 4, having won the 2016 D4 West with 89 wins, and they saw some success in D3, winning two Conference titles. But since 2026 they have been arguably the worst team in the game, finishing in last place in all but three seasons, dropping to Division 4 and finishing last in D4W in two straight cycles, 9 and 10. That recent slide is what drops them all the way to #44.

Best Position Player: 1B Troy Silverstein had some exceptional seasons for Milwaukee in the early 2010s, including a brilliant 9.4 WAR 2011 in which he hit a career high 47 homers. Silverstein collected 65.1 WAR with Milwaukee in his 12 seasons there, represented the team in the All-Star game ten times, and is Milwaukee’s only Hall of Famer.

Best Pitcher: Walt Amend won Milwaukee its only Pitcher of the Year Award in 2023, and holds the career WAR record for Milwaukee, having never thrown a pitch for any other NABF team. Amend put up a 6 WAR season and two others above 5 in his prime, winning 131 for the Brew Crew.

Best Season: 2026, in which Milwaukee won 91 games - the only 90+ win season in its history - and a D3 West Conference title, but were swept by the Zephyrs in the Championship Series.

43. The Phoenix Firebirds
Overall Record: 2213-2408, .479
Conference Titles: 1 (D4W 2036)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 5
Original/Highest Division: 2
Lowest/Current Division: 4

Had this list been compiled at the end of Cycle 9 rather than the end of Cycle 10, the Firebirds would be much lower; after all, just a year ago they were one of only two teams without a Conference Title, and the other sits at #48 on this list. But then the Firebirds had the best season in their history, winning 89 games and the D4 West, their first ever Conference title. Though they lost in six to Miami, it was still a thrill for the Phoenix faithful after nearly three decades of disappointment that have seen their Birds drop from Division 2 to Division 4, with only ten winning seasons. They remain one of only five teams to never win 90 in a season, but for the most part they’ve been simply mediocre, with their five last place seasons coming in bunches: three in a row between 2011 and 2013 that included a drop to Division 3, and then another two in 2031 and 2032 that precipitated the relegation to D4. Could we be on the verge of a rebirth in the desert? We will see…

Best Player: Easily James Keesler, the long-time Phoenix 1B with 426 career homers who was responsible for one of Phoenix’s three MVP awards and owns most of their offensive records. Keesler was a controversial Hall of Fame snub in the Hall’s inaugural 2036 season.

Best Pitcher: Various excellent pitchers have spent a season or two in Phoenix, but the best long-time Firebird is Jonathan Pursley, who came to Phoenix in 2020 from the Maple Leafs. Pursley’s 38.5 WAR is more than double the next highest on the list, and he holds team records in wins, shutouts, and strikeouts.

Best Season: it just happened. 2036 might not have been the season Phoenix fans have been waiting for, but they’ll no doubt take it (and hope for more in 2037).

42. The Washington Senators
Overall Record: 2273-2348, .492
Conference Titles: 2 (D3E 2015, D4E 2029)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 7
Original/Highest Division: 2
Lowest/Current Division: 4

The Senators got off to the worst start of any NABF team, and have never really recovered from it. From their initial Division 2 perch, they came in last in each of their first four seasons, immediately being relegated to D3 after Cycle 1. They spent the next 15 seasons there, winning a single D3 Conference title in 2015 before hitting another downturn at the end of Cycle 6. For the last 12 years, they’ve been a middling performer in Division 4, winning the conference in 2029 and coming in last twice, but mostly living in the solid middle - one of the reasons they’re as high as #42, as their winning percentage is higher than several other clubs. But the Senators have had few good seasons, and fewer good players, leading to a low ranking.

Best Position Player: on a very thin list, Sam Bratcher gets the nod here. After coming to Washington from Pittsburgh in 2013, Bratcher has amassed most of the career and single season offensive records for the Senators, and has more PA, AB, and games played than any other Senator.

Best Pitcher: John Lawrenz is the easy and obvious answer. With most of his legendary career spent in Washington, Lawrenz has given the franchise 3 Pitcher of the Year trophies and a host of records, including strikeouts. He is the only player to wear a Washington cap in the Hall of Fame.

Best Season: unquestionably 2015, in which the Senators won the D3 East with 96 wins - 8 more wins than in their next best season.

41. The Portland Beavers
Overall Record: 2163-2457, .468
Conference Titles: 4 (D3W 2007, 2008, D2W 2023, 2024)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 7
Original/Lowest/Current Division: 3
Highest Division: 1

Portland has had two short periods of success - an early back-to-back D3W conference title run in 2007 and 2008, and another in D2W that briefly got them as high as Division 1. So why are they down here? Because despite those four Conference titles, they’ve never won a championship and they’ve lost more games in their history than all but one other franchise. In fact, since being promoted to Division 1 after the 2024 season, Portland has lost an average of 88 games a season, including a 102-loss 2027 in their last D1 season. They will open Cycle 11 back in D3, where they originated, and if they keep up this pace they’ll join Havana as the only team to drop from D1 down to D4.

Best Position Player: RF J.J. Hern played with the Beavers at the very start of the NABF, spending five seasons with the Beavers that include the two best offensive WAR seasons in franchise history, as well as the top HR season - 45 in 2008.

Best Pitcher: Charlie Pimpinella has the franchise’s only Pitcher of the Year, and Oscar Vazquez the highest WAR with Portland, but we’ll split the middle and go with Andy Wright, who spent almost the entirety of his career in Portland, holds the second highest WAR for any Portland player, and is at or close to the top of every team leaderboard.

Best Season: 2008, in which both of the above players had strong seasons while the Beavers won the D3 West, losing in the Championship to Detroit.

40. The Houston Buffaloes
Overall Record: 2198-2423, .476
Conference Titles: 1 (D2W 2022)
Division Championships: 1 (D2 2022)
Last Place Finishes: 4
Original/Highest Division: 1
Lowest/Current Division: 2

Houston hasn’t been bad, exactly, over its first 30 years. In fact, if you take away those first three D1 years in which the Buffaloes finished in last twice before being relegated, the team has only finished in last place twice in D2, against one magical championship season and a lot of mediocrity. Houston has finished either third or fourth in their Conference 16 times, more than half the seasons they’ve played, and have one of the smallest gaps between their best and worst seasons (88 wins in 2022, 61 in each of three years). That 2022 championship is now nearly at the midpoint of their franchise history, an 88-67 season that ended in a one-game playoff and six game Championship Series win over Detroit.

Best Position Player: a surprisingly difficult decision given the team, but although the Buffaloes drafted and cultivated the great John Hansen, the real Mr. Houston is Hall of Fame 1B Josh Randall, a 12 year Houston veteran who compiled 449 of his 558 career homers while wearing Buffalo Maroon.

Best Pitcher: Houston played host to three and a half of strikeout king Jarrod Scott’s career, but that’s not enough to give him this title. Instead, it’s Kymani Smith, who played in Houston for seven seasons between age 28 and age 34. In addition to being a solid starter, Smith was also one of the better fielders at his position, winning three Gold Gloves as a Buffalo.

Best Season: it has to be that 2022 88-67 Championship year, the only chance Houston fans - in one of the biggest markets in the game - have had to celebrate.

39. The San Francisco Seals
Overall Record: 2185-2435, .473
Conference Titles: 2 (D2W 2019, 2021)
Division Championships: 1 (D2 2021)
Last Place Finishes: 7
Original/Highest Division: 1
Lowest/Current Division: 3

The Seals are, like Houston, another original D1 West team whose fortunes have not favored them. Just like Houston, they have a single Championship, in 2021 (the year before Houston won theirs in the same Division), but they have an additional Conference title, in 2019. Other than that, these teams are fairly similar, with SF getting the higher position due to that 2019 Conference title, despite a worse overall record and a second relegation. Much like Houston, San Francisco has seen great players come and go, but none have made a major impact. San Francisco also has something none of the other teams so far can claim: a 100 win season, as the club won 102 in that amazing 2021 championship year.

Best Position Player: San Francisco has never had a long-term superstar, but among their shorter-term stars none has been better than left fielder Nick Radosevich, who seemed destined for superstardom before leaving SF for the Angels after the 2015 season. Radosevich is the career Seals WAR leader, and holds franchise marks in BA, SLG, OPS, HR, and RBI.

Best Pitcher: here’s a bit of an out-there pick: long-time RP Troy Kamp was a fan favorite in SF and his 288 career saves for the Seals - almost all coming in an impressive stretch between 2022 and 2029 - rank in the top 20 in NABF history. Is this also a sign that the Seals haven’t had many great pitchers? Absolutely.

Best season: there’s no competition - it’s 2021, when the Seals won 102 games and their only championship.

38. The San Antonio Missions
Overall Record: 2280-2341, .493
Conference Titles: 2 (D4W 2013, 2035)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 4
Only Division: 4

Here’s a weird thing to say about the only team that has never played in a Division above D4: they really haven’t been that bad. Their .493 franchise winning percentage is only very slightly below the median, and they’ve only finished last four times, with only half of their seasons played below .500. They just… haven’t gone anywhere. They would have, once, if there had been a lower Division, but there isn’t, so they didn’t. Instead, they’ve just hung around, finishing in the middle of the pack for all but six of their 30 seasons.

Best Position Player: it’s easily Andy Sheffield, long-time first baseman who is second all time in the NABF in doubles. Sheffield played most of his seasons in San Antonio, but missed out on either of the Missions’ Conference titles, debuting in 2018 and leaving the team in 2031. He won the D4 MVP in 2026, San Antonio’s only major player award.

Best Pitcher: How about the best reliever of all time, Jeff Lasky? Lasky is third in saves, and has the highest WAR of any pure reliever at 36.9 along with a record five Reliever of the Year awards, most of which were won in San Antonio.

Best Season: Their 2035 campaign is the only season where they’ve crossed the 90-win threshold, and they were rewarded with the second Conference title of their history.

37. The Calgary Outlaws
Overall Record: 2223-2398, .481
Conference Titles: 4 (D3W 2016-2017, 2029, 2033)
Division Championships: 0
Last Place Finishes: 4
Original/Lowest/Current Division: 3
Highest Division: 2

While the Outlaws have clearly lost more games than they’ve won, they’ve experienced a couple of eras of relative success and have claimed some outstanding players over their years - Craig Wilson, Mike Makris, Kyle DeVincentis, and Ramon Rodriguez all wear Calgary caps on their Hall of Fame plaques. Calgary’s early years were largely uneventful, with a last place finish in 2009 followed by years of middle-of-the-pack seasons hovering around .500. In 2017 they busted out with 100 wins, their second straight D3 West title, and though they lost to the Red Birds it seemed to augur a good run. But the next season - the last of Cycle 4 - was a disaster for Calgary: they lost 90 games and narrowly avoided a last place finish. Despite that, their 2016 and 2017 Conference titles gave them a promotion to Cycle 2. The Outlaws didn’t finish in last in any of their first three D2 seasons, but none were good - in fact, they finished with an identical 69-85 record in each, before finally succumbing to relegation after Cycle 6. History repeated itself in 2029 and 2030, as a Conference title was followed by a collapse: after a 92-62 season that got them into the Championship series, 2030 was their worst season, losing 101 games for a first-to-worst pair of seasons to end Cycle 8. Since then, they’ve had a rough stretch of losing seasons, punctuated by one Conference title - an 81 win season amid weak competition that is their only winning season in the last 7. There have been worse teams in the division in all of those seasons, but the Outlaws continue to look for that combination of players to give them sustained success.

Best Position Player: you could do a lot worse than the great Craig Wilson, who manned shortstop for Calgary in all 16 seasons of his Hall of Fame career after his 2007 debut. Wilson is the franchise leader in almost everything, and his career 68.7 WAR is second only to Athletics great Mike Minyard among shortstops.

Best Pitcher: Mike Makris only pitched for Calgary in six seasons of his Hall of Fame career, but they were among his best years and the best stretch for any Calgary pitcher. Makris was a workhorse, leading D3 in innings during four of his Calgary seasons, and while he never won a Pitcher of the Year, he was in the top three in 2007, 2008, and 2010.

Best Season: 100 wins and a Conference title in 2017 gets it done easily. Calgary has crossed the 90 win threshold only one other time in their history.

Next: Ranking the Teams, #36-#25