How the Baltimore Crabs built a dynasty the right way
I know that just reading that headline will raise blood pressures and get the discourse flowing among Blaseball fans, and all I ask is that you give me a chance to explain myself.
I am not a Crabs fan. Not by a longshot. I rejoiced as a Shoe Thief when Stu Trololol did the impossible to Shame the Crabs and win the Season 9 finals. I have cast votes for nine seasons, often thinking “does it even matter?”
But it’s worth taking a look at the history of the Crabs to see how they got to where they are, and what exactly the fanbase did to build their dynasty franchise. It’s not all about sheer voting power and numbers. It’s about picking the right blessings and a bit of good fortune along the way.
The Early Days
Back in Season 1, the Crabs were not a powerhouse, but they did make some moves in the very first election. Sparsely attended by a much smaller fanbase at the time, the Crabs were able to grab Polkadot Patterson in an early trade, and boosted their team by 6% overall. This set a trend for the Crabs. This defined their approach.
In each season since, the Crabs made the biggest impact to their lineup with votes for blessings that do two things: Steal the best player at something, or boost their entire team in every stat or in a specific stat.
That wouldn’t happen again until Season 3, because in Season 2 the team actually lost Patterson to the Defection blessing and cast the most votes for a 10% hitting boost but did not win. In the third election, Baltimore stole Nagomi Mcdaniel and also had the most votes for “steal best pitcher” but did not have their ticket drawn.
In Season 4, the team overwhelmingly voted for two blessings that stole the best players from their lineup to their rotation, and vice versa. This brought speedster Tillman Henderson and Oliver Notarobot into the lineup, and Finn James into the rotation. These blessings were not that popular, and the Crabs dominated the voting, seeing a great chance to really improve their lineup and exploiting a soft spot in the league’s collective voting plans.
The Dynasty Begins
In the following two seasons, the crabs would win blessings for improved baserunning and to steal the best player (Nagomi Mcdaniel, who they lost the season before), plus voting heavily in a moderately popular “pitch from the plate” blessing to grab Axel Trololol. They also led the vote for Vulture (steal the best player) and Spin Attack (team speed boost) but did not win them.
The dynasty was well underway, to the point where the league overwhelmingly voted for the team to be cut off from blessings via Bless Off in Season 7.
So to that point, the team had stolen the best player in the league multiple times, and pretty much every other blessing they voted for and won focused on boosting stats across the board on their team.
That’s a trend worth noting.
The Roller Coaster
The Crabs had grown into an unstoppable force by Season 8, and led the voting in several blessings: Home Field Advantage, a team-wide boost to play better at home; Flame-Resistant Foam, to prevent incinerations for the whole team; Replacement Elbows, a boost to most of the pitching staff; Affinity for Crows, a team-wide boost in Bird weather; and Precognition, a boost for three hitters, and lost. They lost each of those votes, but almost all of them were team-wide boosts or protections.
In Season 9, they voted for and won the fifth base bubble, a team and division-wide buff, and had the most votes for but did not win Tag Team Hitting, which would have boosted their entire lineup. The trend continues.
In Season 10 … all of those boosts paid off. The Crabs went Up. They were gone. They lost players in the election, but did it even matter? (We know it did.) Mcdaniel was gone, again, as well as star pitcher Montgomery Bullock.
Sticking to the Plan
But in Season 12 … they were back, and they were up to their old tricks. In their first election back in the ILB, they voted for Fourth Strike to counteract Flinch, with 96% of their Enrich Will votes, and called up Jacoby Podcast to replace Bevan Underbuck in the rotation with a 40% probability. Stealing their best shadows player, and a team-wide buff. The team even lucked into a team-wide defense boost from The Rack, despite not casting the most votes for this very popular blessing.
The combination of a solid foundation from team-wide buffs and star power from steals and exchanges has created an absolutely unstoppable Blaseball franchise in Baltimore. The Crabs have combined their voting power (fanbase) with voting strategy to always build and improve a roster that now has impossibly good defense and base-running, even after countless losses and steals.
So if you’re bummed to see the Crabs win it all again, you’re not alone. Lots of fans are not happy to see the title brought home to the Crabitat once again. But look to what the Crabs did over their first few seasons in Blaseball and what they continue to do now that they’ve returned, and bring that back to your team.
Because ultimately, many of the Crabs’ notable blessings wins were not the most popular or contested blessing of the season. They weren’t the most flashy or interesting. They weren’t the most fun with all of the good memes on the Discord.
They were just the right picks at the right time. That’s been the story for the Crabs.
