Basic Premise

10 year progressive league using the all time greats from all across baseball history.  We will have an initial draft where each team selects their 25 man roster plus any stadium/ballpark available in the WIS database.  The catch is this.....in season 1, all players must be used in a season ending in "1" (e.g. 1891, 1901, 1911, 1921, etc).  Season 2 will use players in 1892, 1902, 1912 etc and so on and so forth until we go though the "0" season.  At the end of a season, owners will post their "keepers" for the next season. 

A player that you keep must be used in succession.  For example, if you choose 1921 Babe Ruth, in season 2 you must use 1922 Ruth (not 1932 Ruth).  In the case of a player that has missed seasons, you can't skip his missed seasons.  If you choose Ted Williams and choose to use his 1941 season to start.....you can't go 1941, 1942, 1953, etc (skipping his 1943-46 missed years).


Roster Rules

#1 - In the initial draft, we will draft 25 players per team.  All players are EXCLUSIVE.  For a player to be eligible in the initial draft, he must have a season in the WIS database ending in "1".  No players will be allowed to be drafted and placed directly on the DL. 

#2 - In subsequent years, each owner will declare his list of keepers.  No MIN/MAX # of keepers.  Players who are "keepers" must be used in their successive season.  If you choose a player and use his 1951 season, you MUST use his 1952 season next, then 1953, '54, etc.

#3 - If a player has a missing season for what is the next season in line, you may place him on the DL until he has another eligible season.  You may only have ONE player on the DL each year, so make sure you take that into account when planning your roster.  If not placed on the DL, said player must be dropped.

#4 - Any "dropped" players go back into the pool and may be drafted by anybody (including the owner who dropped him).  The player is considered to be a new player and thus not required to be used in succession (example-a player drafted in 1971 and dropped after 1973....if he were redrafted, he could be used in 1974 or 1984 because he is a "New" Player).

#5 - Trades are allowed, however in this case the new owner MUST use the next consecutive season as this isn't a "New" Player.

#6 - No blacklisted players and/or seasons.....pre-1900 seasons are OK, John Clarkson is OK, full/partial/combined all OK.  All players are exclusive however.  As far as players with the same name....the Excel Database will settle any questions.  They have a unique Player ID for each player.  If they have an obvious mistake in the database, then baseball-reference.com will be used to settle disputes.

#7 - "Retiring Players" must be dropped and return to the draft pool.  For example, Roy Campanella played from 1948-57.  If you drafted Roy in season 1 (1951), then after the 1957 season you can't roll him over and pick up with his 1948 season.  You MUST drop him and then through the draft he may be picked up and used 1948-50.  You also can't trade him to someone else after the 1957 season to be used in 1948 (per rule #5).

#8 - Players who were hitters and pitchers at different points in their career.  Even though in the database these may be considered two separate players, we will still count them as 1 player.  Example:  Babe Ruth....he was a pitcher and in the WIS database from 1915-17.  Therefore, in season "5", he can't also be drafted by someone else to be used as a pitcher (unless an idiot dropped him after 1924 which would send him back to the draft pool).  

Not sure if anybody in the database would fit this example, but if hypothetically a pitcher was in the database from say 1901-1905 as a pitcher, then switched to a hitter from 1906-retirement....the drafting owner would have the right to keep the player through the transition from pitcher to hitter (or vice versa).

#9 - Draft Order and Format.  Initial draft order will be determined at random and will be a snake style draft format using the WIS Draft Tool.  This will help ensure that the same player isn't accidently drafted twice due to an oversight/ommission/typo by the commissioner or anyone else.  All subsequent drafts will be done in the forums and will be worst to first each round based on final regular season record.

#10 - Commissioner Latitude Rule - If there are any roster quirks or future issues (relating to rosters or otherwise) that were unforseen and therefore not addressed in these rules, the commissioner has final authority to make a ruling on the issue.  If the commissioner's team is involved in the issue, then a vote among all charter members of the league will be held to determine the outcome.  Simple majority of voting owners will rule.


Other Rules

#1 - This will be a 24 team league with standard WIS format and alignment.  Teams will be randomly assigned to divisions in season 1 and then will stay that way for the duration of the league. 

#2 - No Salary Cap, no DH, no WW, no AAA.  Trades allowed with the stipulations above (10 vetoes to stop a trade).  Live play is next series only.  Injuries will be set to ON and the transaction deadline will be enforced.

#3 - Once a ballpark/stadium is determined.....it may not be changed throughout the life of this league.  The exception to this is if a new owner takes over a team in which case a 3/5th majority of the league (excluding new owners) would have to approve the change.  The new owner would have to declare in advance the proposed new ballpark.

#4 -



(Still a Work in Progress).....I will update any additional rules that I may have overlooked at a later time.  Nothing that will significantly change the spirit of the league will be added however.

Owners Signed Up


#1 - neabaseball
#2 - homiealiens
#3 - daveymac
#4 - doubletruck

Count me in.  Would love to join a league like this.  Hope this gets a lot of interest.

I'll do this

I'll join, too. Looks interesting.

Question: What if you want to draft, say, Stan Musial. If you draft him in the first draft, would you have to begin with his 1951 season (since he did not play in '41), or could you make him your DL player and then activate him in the next season? Or, to put it another way: If you drafted him in the first season, would you then have to use his 10 seasons beginning with 1951?

Since you are setting this up as a 10-year progressive, why not just eliminate the possibility of players being drafted again after they've been cut. For instance, in the Campanella example, someone who drafted him would apparently have to begin with his 1951 season, but would be precluded from rolling him over in the next season to 1948, even though someone else would be able to do so and then use him up through '48, '49 and '50. Does that really make sense? What are you solving or preventing by not allowing such rollovers in a league that's limited to 10 seasons?

I am considering your league, but I am already in too many progressives, so I can't commit yet.  However, I do have a suggestion.  I think you should blacklist Babe Ruth's 1920s seasons and Walter Johnson's 11-20 seasons.  Having them available just gives too much advantage to the first and second drafters.

To answer questions above:

On the Musial question, yes if you drafted him in season "1", you would have to use his 1951 season and could not put him on the DL.


On the Campanella example, my primary purpose for doing it the way I set it up was to make it simple to keep up with from the commish's standpoint.  Each team has a list of keepers for each year and everybody else is thrown back into the pool.  I didn't allow for rolling a player over because I was afraid some owners might do this to capitalize on their best seasons even when the player hasn't officially hit his retirement year.   With 25 players x 24 teams it would be virtually impossible to track all players to make sure nobody broke a roster rule.  That's why I want to keep it as simple as possible.

That said, as we get closer to filling, I would be fine with owner input and tweaking the rules to what the consensus wants provided it is manageable.

So, sticking with the Campanella example, an owner might draft him and then cut him after the 1955 season. And then some other owner might draft him in the "8" season and use his 1948-49-50 seasons -- but an owner could not draft him in the "6" seasons and use him 1956-57-48-49-50. Do I understand correctly?

It is not obvious to me that it will be easier for you to police rosters with or without the rollover prohibition, but either is fine so long as I understand the rule.

In my original plan to do this league I was going to allow an owner to "roll over" to a prior year. After thinking about it some more I would have no problem allowing an owner to roll back to a previous year as long as it was a 1 time roll back and that the 10 yrs put together were consecutive. In other words, you couldnt do 1961-62, then 1953-57, then 1948-50.

Guys, I think I may put this one back on the shelf for a short time and work out a few of the kinks and try to relaunch later on this year.