For Round Four, there will be six leagues of 24 teams each. The premise of this round is pretty simple, as you shall see.

Once the spots earned from Round Three have been tabulated and the owners are listed in each league in order of how many wins their Round Three team earned, there will be a draft order listed for each of the six leagues. Since National League and American League teams will be grouped together in this round, there will only be six "Number One Draft Picks" available to those advancing. Therefore, I'll take the owners with the twelve best W/L records in Round Three and give them the Top Two picks in each of the six leagues.

The person with the first pick in each league will choose which franchise he wants to use for that league and which year-ending number he desires. The draft will go on until all 24 spots are filled.

For example, in League One, the Yankees, Giants and Phillies are the teams available. If you have the first pick, you might want the Yankees teams that all end in "7" (i.e., 1907 (Highlanders), 1917, 1927, 1937, etc.). You simply make up your roster with these players.

IMPORTANT: The only thing I require when building your rosters is that you have at least one player from each year during the time-frame. In other words, if you choose a team from any of the first five leagues, you must have a player from a season in each decade that ends in the number you chose. So yes, if you choose an "Athletics" squad, you must use at least one "Kansas City Athletics" for your roster. If you choose a Brewers squad in League 6 and choose the number "9" - then you must have at least one member of the 1969 Seattle Pilots on your roster.

Alignment in each league will be based on the draft order - the first four draft picks in each league will be the N.L. East, etc.

League 1 through League 5 are the original sixteen franchises. All of the expansion era teams are in League 6 to try and keep things kosher.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:


SEASONS - We're using the seasons between 1901 and 2020 for this round.

NO CAP – Build the best roster you can from your franchise/free agent combo.

Clones: None

Designated Hitter: Yes

Waiver Wire: No

Injuries – Turned Off

Trades: No

A.A.A.: No

You may use either partial or full season stats of any player who had a split season - as long as the stats indicate it was for your franchise.

Stadium – You can use any stadium that your franchise called home anytime between 1901 and 2020.


Who Moves On?

Once Round FOUR is complete, the owners who own the eight playoff teams in each league will earn a spot in Round Two. 8 x 6 = 48 spots. That leaves 48 spots to fill. The final 48 spots will be awarded to the teams who had the most wins across all 6 leagues (who didn't make their league's playoffs). The tie-break (should it come into play) will be (1) Most Home Wins, and (2) Most Runs Scored minus Runs Allowed.

Rounds Five through Seven will be different than any previous rounds. I've already got them figured out but will post them at a later date.



Here are the teams in each League of Round Four:

LEAGUE ONE:

New York Highlanders/Yankees
New York/San Francisco Giants
Philadelphia Phillies/Blue Jays


League Two:

Boston Americans/Red Sox
Brooklyn/Los Angeles Superbas/Robins/Dodgers
Washington Senators (1901-1960)/Minnesota Twins


League Three:

Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics
Detroit Tigers
Boston/Atlanta Beaneaters/Doves/Bees/Braves


League Four:

Chicago Orphans/Cubs
Cincinnati Red Stockings/Reds
Chicago White Sox
St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles (1954-2020)


League Five:

Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals
Cleveland Blues/Naps/Indians


League Six:

Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels
Toronto Blue Jays
Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers
Washington Senators (1961-1971)/Texas Rangers
Kansas City Royals
Seattle Mariners
New York Mets
Houston Colt .45's/Astros
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals
San Diego Padres

Since there are so few seasons to choose from for these last four, I was going to leave them off of the list but figured what the heck - if someone wants to give one of them a shot....why not?

Florida/Miami Marlins
Colorado Rockies
Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Rays
Arizona Diamondbacks

Hey juice, how are the divisions going to be aligned in each league? Part of the selection strategy (at least for me) was looking at my potential divisional opponents.

This is perplexing to me. My first thought when I came up with this theme was to just do it in pick order where the first four picks are the N.L. East, and so on and so on. Then I thought, "Well, maybe part of the season pick that someone grabs could also include the division they want to be in. For example, if Pick #1 goes in the N.L. East, maybe pick #2 wants to go in the N.L. Central or the A.L. West. THEN, I thought about well - we could just do a random realignment of all six leagues once all 24 picks are made. Of course, I'd then just have to separate the teams that belong to the same owner as much as I possibly can.

What do you guys think - I'm open to the best idea(s). If we can't get a majority on how the best way to do it would be, then I'll just stick with the original plan (although I didn't post it) and just put the picks in chronological order...

I'm in favor of the way you wrote it. First 4 picks go into the NLE, etc.

Not that this matters much, and it's just one person's opinion, but I would also prefer that we not allow draft picks to be traded.

I agree with contrarian23 on both points. Also, the teams with the best records in round 3 get rewarded by getting the "best" picks but even if you pick 21st -24th, at least one of those teams is guaranteed to make the playoffs and advance to the next round.

Posted by contrarian23 on 10/27/2020 7:17:00 PM (view original):
I'm in favor of the way you wrote it. First 4 picks go into the NLE, etc.

Not that this matters much, and it's just one person's opinion, but I would also prefer that we not allow draft picks to be traded.

I'll agree with both these points as well.

I strongly disagree on the trading of draft picks. My brother is an 80's and 90's A's fan and got stuck in an NL division. I facilitated a trade so he could move and he drafted a team with the 89 A's. I saw another post from somebody who traded out of a deadball era because he likes the modern era better.

If we got to chose which divisions we played in, I could see no trades... but many people are just thrown into a division. I really don't see any issues with a trade if both parties agree.

(Also, for what it's worth, thejuice6 didn't really ask for opinions on trading. We've been allowed to up to this point, and don't see a reason to change this).

My comments regarding division alignment... first I will address each of thejuice6's suggestions.

My first thought when I came up with this theme was to just do it in pick order where the first four picks are the N.L. East, and so on and so on.
This is certainly feasible, Although what happens when this rule results in an owner with two teams ending up the same division or league (which will be possible). This also has the affect of penalizing the top teams. Assuming the pick order correlates to the strength of teams, you could see the NL East with three 90-win teams while the AL West division leader has 78 wins. Not ideal.

Then I thought, "Well, maybe part of the season pick that someone grabs could also include the division they want to be in. For example, if Pick #1 goes in the N.L. East, maybe pick #2 wants to go in the N.L. Central or the A.L. West.
This idea is better than the first idea, but once again, it's possible for one owner with multiple teams to end up in the same division/league, if they have one of the last picks and don't get a choice.

"We could just do a random realignment of all six leagues once all 24 picks are made. Of course, I'd then just have to separate the teams that belong to the same owner as much as I possibly can."
There are a number of owners with multiple teams. Trying to randomize so each person with multiple teams is in opposite leagues will be a problematic. It may take dozens of realignment tries to get it right.

Let me propose something different.

Here's a suggestion that combines ideas 1 and 2 from above.

I doubt any single owner will get two of the top three picks in a league (or two of picks 4, 5, 6). So, what I would do is force that the the first six picks in a league are in separate divisions. Pick #1 is in the NL East, pick #2 is in the NL Central...., pick #6 is in the AL West. Then, starting with pick #7, each owner would choose which division they want to play in... with the following stipulations...

(1) If one owner has two teams, he would have to pick a division in the opposite league as his other team.

(2) If one owner has two teams and is near the bottom of the draft order, and there's a possibility his team would end in the same league as his other team, this could force the choice of the owner(s) right above him.

He is an obvious example. contrarian23 and thejuice6 both have two teams in league 1. contrarian23 and thejuice6 both have a team in the NL. There are three people left to pick (10.ff09, 11.contrarian23, 12.thejuice). There are two spots left in the AL and one in the NL. ff09 would be forced to pick the NL spot to avoid contrarian23 and thejuice6 from having two teams in the NL.

For the rare instance where somebody has 3 teams in a league, this same rule would apply to division selection.

Any trades involving a top 6 pick would only be allowed as long as the same owner wasn't going to have two of the top 3 picks or two picks from spots 4, 5, 6.

By forcing the top 6 picks into different divisions, this at least keeps the six (theoretically) strongest teams separated, while at the same time giving those folks picks 7+ some say in what division they will compete in.

I believe the general concept is to reward owners for their performance in the previous round, thus basing the draft order on their records. I don't think that the division alignment as written supports that concept. I would much rather have picks 13-16 than 9-12 if the divisions are aligned that way. We could align them snake style based on draft order. NL East: 1-12-13-24 NL Central 2-11-14-23, etc. No problem with random or picking either. Hopefully, whatever alignment occurs, Juice can simply swap teams once to ensure an owner doesn't end up with 2 teams in the same league.

Just my opinion. GL everyone

Right, I agree that we don't want 1-4 in NL East, 5-8 in NL Central, etc. That's the least desirable option.

Your suggestion of aligning them snake style is similar to my suggestion, but after the top 6, those picking 7th thru about 21st will get an option of which division to play in. The last few spots may be decided depending on how many folks have multiple teams in that specific league.

Posted by coachgreat1 on 10/28/2020 12:48:00 AM (view original):

Posted by contrarian23 on 10/27/2020 7:17:00 PM (view original):
I'm in favor of the way you wrote it. First 4 picks go into the NLE, etc.

Not that this matters much, and it's just one person's opinion, but I would also prefer that we not allow draft picks to be traded.

I'll agree with both these points as well.

Agree with both these points as well

Still reading over all of this, trying to come up with a final solution...