Not sure if anyone has volunteered to run this in '24. Unfortunately, I cannot, though I am happy to contribute, including being a round 1 commissioner.

And of course it's possible no one has the bandwidth to do this - we're all busy and the WISC is a lot of work for whoever steps into the lead role.

But I thought we could start crowdsourcing some theme ideas, in case that eases the burden for whoever ends up stepping in. I'll kick us off with a few ideas. In general, I like WISC themes that are not complicated, that don't take more than 2-3 sentences to explain. Also, no offense to ozomatli, who did a great job running this thing, but he liked themes that involved a lot of complicated math...a good theme, in my opinion, should not require an owner to be facile with spreadsheets.

First, a special plea. Let's make the round 1 low cap theme a 60M, rather than 70M (as has been the case in recent years). Admittedly, my reasoning is selfish. There is a 60M TOC right now that is languishing at 20 teams, the first of which qualified in 2020...it would be nice to fill that bracket during my lifetime...

60M Theme Ideas:
1.) Basic open league. No restrictions, build the best team you can.
2.) Franchise league (make the best team you can from any historical franchise league)
3.) Decade league (make the best team you can from any 10-year period)
4.) Decade-franchise league (basically combine 2 and 3 above)
5.) Albatross league (must roster at least one position player with a salary of $10M+)
6.) Budget league (no player can have a salary of $5M or greater - including pitchers)

80M Theme ideas:
1.) Tens: Every player on your roster must have another player on your roster from a season EXACTLY ten years apart. So if you have a player from 1951, you must have at least one player from 1941 or 1961, etc.
2.) Ohtani league. Every team must roster at least 1 hitting and 1 pitching version of Ohtani. No other clones allowed.
3.) LCS league. Pick a year from 1969-1993 (the 4-division, no wild card era). Your roster must consist only of player from the 4 division winners that season.

100M Theme ideas:
1.) Extreme split league. You must spend at least 65M on offense OR pitching. The catch is, if you make it to round 2, you must build another 100M team with the reverse split.
2.) Gold glove or silver slugger league. Every position player on your roster must have won the gold glove or silver slugger in the season you chose. Pitchers must be from 1957-2023 (the gold glove era), but do not need to have won the gold glove.
3.) Use the whole roster league: Every position player must have had between 100-400 PA/162. Every pitcher must have between 50 and 150 IP/162.
4.) Manager theme. Pick a manager and choose only players who played for your manager. You must use seasons in which he played under your manager.

110M Theme ideas:
1.) MVP/Cy Young league. Every player on your team must have won the MVP or the Cy Young award in the season you chose.
2.) Multiple-franchise league. Using the BBR.com franchise tool, pick any two franchises and build your team using players who played for both franchises.

I like themes that are simple, but involve some research. Given that this is the WISC, I think there should be a bit of a reward for those who are willing to put in the time to find those perfect options. Open-style leagues tend to favour those who play more and have a good familiarity with/personal database of the performance of players in the SIM.

Just my two cents.

I don't disagree. Themes can be uncomplicated but still VERY challenging. The "Tens" theme under the 80M ideas listed above would not be an easy build by any stretch. But it is easy enough to understand, and not all that hard to do the roster validation.

2.) Gold glove or silver slugger league. Every position player on your roster must have won the gold glove or silver slugger in the season you chose. Pitchers must be from 1957-2023 (the gold glove era), but do not need to have won the gold glove.

A fun play on this one would be to make people choose. Either a full GG team or a full SS team.

I agree with jtpsops that at least a couple of research leagues are a good idea.

I also like Contrarian’s Albatross, Tens, and Extreme split ideas.

I thought redcped did an excellent job running the championship last year and schwarze, as well, for the many years he did it. I would strongly support either assuming control of the 2024 version.

I am willing to assist in anyway including First Round commissioner and team-checking duties.

Great ideas guys, let’s keep them coming. Ideally we’ll end up with dozens of ideas and whoever steps up to run this thing can just pick 6 and get things started.

Last year's WISC was so well run by redcped and schwarze and the volunteer commissioners. I hope they have the time and motivation to do it again.

No idea if it’s considered WISC appropriate, but I’m intrigued by the No Catchers league fatguyrd started recently. Draft one <$300k catcher, everyone else plays C out of position. I didn’t read about the league signups until too late but it sounds wild

I also had a stray thought for a ‘One Championship Or Less’ theme: use only players and stadiums from the 9 current franchises with one or zero championships.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Angels
Milwaukee Brewers
San Diego Padres
Seattle Mariners
Tampa Bay Rays
Texas Rangers
Washington Nationals

Plus a balanced spending rule. $100m cap, spend at least $10m per franchise, that kind of thing.

I think you might end up with some interesting rosters since there’s not a lot of cookies on these 9 teams

Posted by doctorcc on 2/18/2024 12:20:00 PM (view original):
No idea if it’s considered WISC appropriate, but I’m intrigued by the No Catchers league fatguyrd started recently. Draft one <$300k catcher, everyone else plays C out of position. I didn’t read about the league signups until too late but it sounds wild

Although this league is weird and somewhat fun, I would consider it to be too gimmicky for the WISC.

The Wrong Stadium league.

Choose one of two options:

– Draft batters with a combined maximum of 50 HR. Play in a stadium with +2 or greater HR LF and HR RF.
– Draft batters with a combined minimum of 200 HR. Play in a stadium with -2 or less HR LF and HR RF.

I hadn’t seen this thread until tonight, so sorry for the delayed comments.

I am willing to run this again, at least at the moment. My work situation could change soon and make me rethink it, but let’s assume the best.

I like several of the ideas above. Let’s keep the discussion going.

The REAL Champions League: Every player on your team must come from a season in which their team won the World Series.

There's an idea for a draft league (so, 2nd round of WISC) that's been kicking around my head for awhile. I have no idea whether it would be deemed appropriate for WISC, or whether this has ever been done, or even if it's a good idea at all, but here goes.

The draft would consist of nine rounds. In the first eight rounds, rather than drafting individual players, you'd be drafting last names. For each selection in the first eight rounds, you have to roster 3 unique players with that last name. In other words, this is NOT a clone league. Names are exact (Mathews and Matthews are two distinct names). In the 9th round, for your 25th roster spot you may draft any remaining player.

According to my calculations, there are 943 last names in the database with at least 3 unique players. The list of these players, and the number of unique players per last name, would be provided beforehand, and will be posted below this post for reference.

First round draft order would either be determined by order of finish in the first round of the tournament, or by a draft of draft slots. The rest of the draft would either:

1. be serpentine, with 9th round order being 24-1 so that the person who picked last in the first round gets Babe Ruth , or
2. use a schwarzian system whereby the draft order of subsequent rounds is determined by each owner's cumulative number of available players drafted, with lowest number drafting first.

I haven't worked through whether I think there should be a salary cap, and I'd be somewhat in favor of using the DH.

Any thoughts?

PS - a slight variation on this, which would be more complicated but even better IMO, would be: instead of a 9 round draft as detailed above, have a 10 round draft of last names with the stipulation that, rather than using each last name exactly three times, each name may instead be used a maximum of 3 times. Therefore, you'd have 3 options:

1. Use 5 names three times and 5 names twice
2. Use 6 names three times, 3 names twice and 1 name once
3. Use 7 names three times, 1 name twice and 2 names once

I actually like this version a bit better because it allows you to take Babe Ruth in the first round if you so desire.