In the holiday spirit of giving, I'd like to bring back my Twelve Random Pages league, founded on the "random page" feature of www.baseball-reference.com
We'll make it a $90m cap league, and we'll go without a DH this time around. No trades, WW, or other nonsense ... you have to play with the cards you're dealt. [No clones, either ... you can't have three Walter Johnsons on your squad even if you have three ways to get him.] Stadium choice should be limited to a park that one of your players actually played in that season. [With the 25th man wild card, though, you could take any stadium you wanted as long as you picked a qualifying player.]
When you sign up for the league, I'll go to the web site and let its randomizer choose twelve pages of wonder. Each page will determine two players on your 25-man roster. [The 25th man is a wild card, totally up to you, except no Hall of Famers, please.] For example:
If your random page is a player, you can choose any season of that player's career, plus a teammate from the same season. [no twisting of teammates]
If you draw a team, you choose two players from that team/season.
If you draw a leaders page, you take any two players listed on the page. [If it's single-season leaders, you have to take that season; if it's career leaders, you can choose any year of their career.]
If you draw a box score, you can take any two players who played in the game in question, in that season. [again, no twisting]
If you draw a manager page, you can take any two players in a season they played for him.
Then there are the oddball pages, such as "Kenesaw State University Owls" (6 players) or "115 players buried in Connecticut". I'll spell out the rules clearly for you in these cases. They often provide memorable team names.
My one rule that's sometimes been hard for people to follow is what happens in case you draw a player who never had a sim-eligible season. For example: Herb Washington. In such cases, I insist that Herb Washington makes your roster. So, the deal is that you pick a 200k player, and then replace him on your roster with a pick-your-own average AAA player who should be re-named Herb Washington, in this case. You would also choose a teammate of Washington's from the 1974 or 1975 Oakland A's. Depending on the vagaries of the random page generator, you could wind up stuck with as many as three players like this on your roster, but with the pick-your-own AAA, their lack of choice for teammates is made up for by their real value vs. 200k cost.
To give you an idea of what it's like to build a roster, here is a sample of a random draw:
1. 1966 American League fielding appearances [any two players 1966 AL]
2. * C Jim Byrnes 1906
3. OF Charlie Hanford 1914-15
4. 1B Heinz Becker 1943-47
5. P Darryl Kile 1991-2002
6. SS Bones Ely 1884-1902
7. 2004 Minnesota Twins lineups and defense [includes pitchers, so you could use any two players who started a game for them]
8. Progressive Leaders & Records for Errors Committed as OF :)
[this page lists the career, single-season, active total, and yearly leaders for errors as an OF. You can use anybody going back to 1885 who's on the page, but you have to use a season in which they are listed on this page. For those dying to know, Tom Brown is the career leader in OF errors with 491, a category he's led since 1893. 1890 Ed Beecher set the single-season record, with 55 errors. Bobby Abreu is the current active leader with 73. See how educational this league can be?]
9. 1996 New York Yankees lineups and defense
10. * DH-C Luke Montz 2008-13
11. 1922 Major League Baseball Neutralized Pitching [all pitchers from 1922]
12. 1936 Detroit Tigers batting, pitching & fielding
If you have any questions, ask and I will clarify the rules here. Also, the first sign-up who wishes to may generate 12 random pages for my squad. Be kind to me! Merry Christmas!
I forgot: when you do decide on your final team, please copy your original 12 pages and list the two players you've chosen for each page, to help me verify rosters. Example can be found on page 2 where you'll find my team.]
Owner list: dodgebob; dlchow; thaneoffife; bublooo; bigben83; houseofbayne; pinotfan; kentol; sevenfifty5; rjj4191; btoy1975; specsman; reddtrain; beachhouse; midknight; Pzzaman001; uncleal; Rattlers; dcmatcheck; daddyzander; bobbyj7; finn2030; benfc; bigfatjew
12/22/2014 3:42 PM (edited)