Want to gauge the interest on a new type of progressive.  In fact....it's not really a progressive at all, in the true sense of the word.

Here are the rules:

1)  Every owner picks an exclusive franchise
2) The league will include the years 1967-present day
3) We will NOT start in 1967 and move forward.  Each owner can use EVERY SEASON ONCE in ANY ORDER they would like
4) Huh ....you say??   Let's say I pick the Cardinals...as I will.   Each season I can pick any season between 1967-present day.  That is the season I will use ....real life stats and all....for that season of our league.
5) This is where the SUPER SECRET part comes in......the rest of the league won't know what season you are using until they have entered their team in the league.
6) Each year every owner will sitemail me by a deadline with their year selection for their franchise.  For example...if someone is using the Reds they would sitemail me with "1981 Reds for our current season."    Maybe that same season I am using the 2003 Cardinals.  It will be teams from across the decades all in one season.  It is important to NOT LET ANY OTHER OWNERS KNOW WHAT SEASON YOU WILL USE.
7) By keeping it a secret every season we will have no idea how our team will compete.   Even if we have chosen one of our franchises bad seasons....doesn't mean our team will be bad.  Maybe there are a lot of other bad teams in the league.  
8)  Each year can ONLY BE USED ONCE.  Once you use it the year is burned...gone...never to be seen again. 
9) Again.....to be clear...you are simply using the real roster of your team.   For "combined season" players you may use full OR partial, just as long as they are listed with your team.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:

AAA - yes....a decent amount to fill in IP and PA.....but they will be BELOW AVERAGE.  (You WILL be able to manually add real life overflow players from your roster to your AAA if you'd like)
DH - my first thought is No...since PA may be a problem anyway....but I will listen to ideas or arguments.
Trades - NO
WW - NO
Transaction Deadline - not until end of season

ALIGNMENT

Each season once I have the teams we will align by real life win pct for each team's season....highest to lowest.   So the AL West will be the 4 worst teams.  That way everyone will still have a chance to win every year

                                                                         ********HERE ARE THE NEWEST RULE ADDITIONS**************

1 OF EVERY 5 SEASONS MUST BE A SUB-.525 WIN PCT
I went with .525 because some teams just won't have enough sub .500 seasons to be able to follow the rule.  Now...you can use MORE than 1 sub-.525 season every 5 yrs...but you must use AT LEAST 1.   I will track this.    I still think there is a large SECRET aspect to each season this way.    I think it still keeps the main point of the league intact.

TEAMS WITH A WIN PCT UNDER .600 CAN CHOOSE 1 NYYANKEE FROM THE SAME SEASON AS THEIR TEAM
Here is how this will work.....each season when an owner sitemails me with their teams season they will also SEND ME A LIST OF THREE YANKEES FROM THAT SEASON THEY WOULD LIKE.   If we get multiple teams from the same year then the team with the lowest win pct gets their first choice...and so on.   So if 2 teams have the same player first....the lower win pct gets that player....and the other team would get their 2nd choice of Yankee.  I will inform you after I have received all teams which player you get

I like this rule because it does get Yankees into the league...but rather than them getting everyone else's players each year....they have to split up and play with the common folk around the league

INTERLEAGUE PLAY
Man...I've been going round and round with this.   With NO interleague it means the best teams in the NL can't beat up on the bad teams in the AL.    However...if there is a good team or two in the AL East they would get to play all season against worst teams in the rest of the league.   So YES interleague would force good teams in the AL East to still have to play good teams from the NL.     So I am confused on this one.

For right now......I want to go with NO interleague.   For this rule I will still take some feedback.

THE ISSUE OF BAD TEAMS HAVING NO CHANCE IN THE PLAYOFFS
Well....I guess this will most likely be the case.....but a) you do receive monetary credit for making the playoffs and b) we have ALL seen 82-80 teams take out 115 win teams in the playoffs.  I know I have.   Personally, the fun of playing with players I NEVER use is intriguing enough for me to use those teams....but I am probably in the minority.    If people want to quit after using their good teams knowing it will screw everyone else....I guess we can't totally avoid that.  I am going to use some trust in humanity here


AVAILABLE FRANCHISES (will use 24 teams in league)
Chi Cubs
Chi White Sox
Colorado/Florida combo
Kansas City
LA Angels
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
San Diego
Seattle/Tampa Bay combo
Texas (Washington)


**** SORRY......HAVE TO OUTLAW THE YANKEES SINCE THEY ARE SO GOOD SO OFTEN.   Don't want their presence to keep others from joining league.  Just too many good seasons ****

TEAMS TAKEN
1) St. Louis - dn3524
2) Cincinnati - forte4him
3) Detroit - occsid
4) Toronto/Arizona - crustydoc
5) Oakland - ff09
6) Baltimore - topkat
7) Atlanta - tabasko
8) Boston - busterglen
9) LA Dodgers - dannino
10) Philadelphia - lenbo1212
11) Houston - cstrohmier
12) NY Mets - antoncresten
13) Washington/Montreal - ljemd
14) San Francisco - JAMESA
15) Cleveland - grayfoxx
16) Minnesota - specsman
17)
18)
19)
20)
21)
22)
23)
24)

**** SORRY......HAVE TO OUTLAW THE YANKEES SINCE THEY ARE SO GOOD SO OFTEN.   Don't want their presence to keep others from joining league.  Just too many good seasons ****

HERE ARE SOME OF THE IDEAS THROWN OUT THERE THAT WE'LL HAVE TO SORT OUT:

* aligning the teams by real life winning pct. That further gives each team a chance for the playoffs regardless of real life success or failure.

* NOT have interleague play so bad teams won't play good ones

* If we don't use the Yankees as a franchise, why not draft individual Yankees, who would be used in conjunction with your franchise's season.  As an example, if you are using 2011, and you drafted A-Roid (!), you'd have to use his 2011 season.  If your next season is 1999, then his 99 season, and so on.  My only thing would be one Yankee per team...so maybe HoFers only (if there's 24 HoFers from 67-present).

* Or, instead of a draft, pick one Yankee from the season you are using for your franchise - if I use the 73 WhiteSox, then I get to add one 73 Yankee

* I would prefer interleague play, everyone from the same division would be playing the same teams anyway, so I wouldn't matter that much.  Plus it would break up the monotony of playing the same teams all season.

* why would anyone take one of their teams "bad" seasons. The idea is unique and cool and all that jazz but isn't everyone planning on playing the best seasons to start? And then when you run out of the best seasons, just bail?

* regarding teams without 25 players to fill roster.   Shouldn't be many of them, but I'm sure there will be some.   I guess we can use 200k from any  year of franchise

* like the idea of drafting  1 Yankee using the year that you will be using.

* playing with a bad team and everyone else is using a good team or at least a better team, you definitely will end up in the ALWest and you'll **** away that season. It's too risky to even try a bad season if you ask me. On top of that you give yourself very little chance in the playoffs when you go up against the "good" teams. I realize that anything can happen in the playoffs but why would you put yourself at a disadvantage before the season even starts? If I'd take the "88 Orioles and they would somehow miraculously win the division and reach the WS and have to go up against the '95 Braves I'd guess they would have about a 0% chance of winning.

* maybe you should allow trades, even if they are only for a single season.  That could allow for a team like the 88 Orioles to make a move to make them viable.

* I think that picking which season you'll use when will be part of the strategy.  If I use a couple of bad seasons early, presumably when most everyone else will be using good seasons, I may suffer early, but I'll have my better seasons in reserve.

* I may suffer early, but I'll have my better seasons in reserve.  I think this is what bheid408 is trying to point out........you wont have anyone to play against if you hold your better seasons for reserve........after everyone plays their better seasons they wont stick around anymore

* how about something like ye must use your  franchises worst 3 seasons in the first 6 (or something similar)

* Or how about making everyone use a sub .500 team every 3rd year?

* What if instead of taking a Yankee free agent we take a player from our own franchise but from a year we won't use.  Take a 20 game winner from a sub 500 team & put him on a good team that needs a #1 or #2 starter. Once you use him he's done. If you end up using that team he was on you have to draft another free agent starter.

* IF.........and I say IF we choose to use a free agent, why dont we give each owner a choice?, a Yankee from the current year or a player from your own franchise. But we would have to put a *one time* tag on our own FA - no using the 68 Luis Tiant every year.

* No two consecutively-selected teams' winning percentages may exceed a total of 1.100."  This would work for most franchises for a good, long time.  And would keep owners from burning the best 5 seasons and bailing.

* I'd volunteer to keep the books on this stat . . . and I think most owners would feel good about fielding a .550 team most years.  Of course, if you wanted to field a .630 team one season, you'd have to put no better than a .470 team on the field in surrounding seasons.  And the disparity between sub-.500 teams can be just as great as the disparity between "good" teams, at least in terms of winning percentage.

* I am in favor of using the original concept proposed by dn and is why I signed up and  chose the Red Sox in the first place.   Yankee free agent use doesn't matter either way.  Could use sub .500 year every 3rd year if everyone wants.  Sox only have 5 of them since '67, though.  I would prefer to bring your best every year or randomly pick a year from a block of six or so of your choosing.  I sort of like the random idea.  Then you don't even get to pick the precise season.  All these other restrictions are just over complicating a simple and fun concept.

* some teams don't belong in this kind of league.  One way to even things out would be to pick your 5 favorite seasons and one season below .500.  Number them 1-6 and a simple role of the dice for each team will select which season gets played.  Get through 6 seasons and set it up again.  Blacklist those seasons if you want to or not.  Use an exclusive wild card draft pick from the yankees (small y) or your own franchise if you want, matters very little to me.  Or if the remaining teams are so terrible, may just play with 16 or 20 or make everybody use seasons between .475 & .525 pct.  I also don't mind the playing every other year below .500.  Might be fun in the rotten seasons since everyone is rotten and has no chance to improve over anybody else.

* seasons over .550:

New York           25
Boston               17
Cincinnati           16
Oakland             16
Baltimore            16
Atlanta                16
LosAngeles         15
St.Louis               14
SanFrancisco      13
Detroit                 11
Philadelphia        11
NY Mets              10
Tor/Ariz               10
KansasCity           9
Cleveland             8
Houston                8
Wash/Montreal     6

and for those still undecided:

Minnesota            11
Angels                  10
Pittsburgh              9
W/Sox                    9
Seat/TB                 9
Milwaukee             8
Texas                    5
Cubs                     5
SanDiego              4
Col/Fla                  4

* if you use a .600 team you do not get to add a FA(yankee or franchise)

* How about an equalization schedule?

year 1 - bring it on, best of the best
year 2 - bring it on, one more try
year 3 - sub .500, this should be fun
year 4 - .500-.550 nobody is the favorite

year 5 - back to the best
year 6 - same as above
year 7 - sub .500 scrubs battle for gold
year 8 - .500-.550 *the Cubs win, the Cubs win*

Put me down for the Tigers

Posted by dn3524 on 6/12/2012 3:22:00 PM (view original):
so do you mean that once I have the seasons for each team....align them that way, and it will change year by year?

Exactly! I'm in a progressive league that does that. Give those "woefull" teams something to play for. Also adds an element of surprise each season (who will I be going against)

I think that is a great idea.  Also.....I hope it keeps people from wanting to quit the league when they have a bunch of bad teams to use.  They may have a BETTER shot at playoffs going against other bad teams all yr

Hard to pass on the boys from Hotlanta . . . but the combo idea really has me going.  I'll work with Toronto/Arizona.

Posted by dn3524 on 6/12/2012 6:44:00 PM (view original):
I think that is a great idea.  Also.....I hope it keeps people from wanting to quit the league when they have a bunch of bad teams to use.  They may have a BETTER shot at playoffs going against other bad teams all yr

agreed. Also adds to the strategy of when to play your strongest team

Baltimore Orioles please.....

I will take the ATL Braves for old times sake.

I'll throw my hat in with the Bosox.

This sounds interesting.  Plus, no long draft.  I'm in, and I'll take the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Do we use our franchise's home park?

Yes