Anyone got any new and unique ideas they would like to see in a progressive format?
I am in dspahlingers "5 year Plan" and enjoy it.
I also run the "Random Year Progressive", "The Franchise Soup Progressive" and "One Franchise at a Time Progressive".

These are all unique ideas far from the usual and would like to see somemore different ideas brought forward. Anything that might be of interest to you I'd like to hear about.

I tried an idea where instead of drafting players you would draft teams and positions within a team like MI, CI,OF so each season you would get those players that were on that team. If you had the 91 Red Sox OF then the next season you would get who qualified at OF for them in 92 unless you dropped and picked up a different team that was available. Drafts would be pretty short each season this way. I only got a few people to sign up

Both ideas are somewhat similar.... Drafting Teams instead of just players. It makes for quick drafts and allows some freedom to pick players.

This might require so much administrivia that it wouldn't be worthwhile to run it, but I just had a thought:

1901-2020 makes up twelve distinct decades. There are two teams for each decade (so this would work at 20 teams (starting in 1921) or 16 teams (starting in 1941)). One assigned to the AL, the other assigned to the NL.

Twelve drafts happening simultaneously: Two-team serpentine style, drafting the first eligible season of a player in that decade. At the end of the season, each team decides whether they want the next eligible season or if they want to drop the player.

Teams in the AL move forward a decade. Teams in the NL move back a decade.

Another two-team serpentine draft. Team with the worse record gets the first pick, ties broken by Pythagorean Win%. Any player that was not previously rostered is available in his first eligible season. Any player who was rostered is available in his next eligible season.

Drops would have to be made before the draft. (I'd say they should be sitemailed to the commish, because knowing a player will/won't be available in the next draft could be an advantage.) If a player is on your roster when the drafting starts, he's on a roster the entire season (yours or a trade partner's). When a player plays in his last eligible season, he's blacklisted for that decade.

Division alignment for the first season would be based on total salary for that decade - 4 highest in the East, then Central, then West. In subsequent seasons, the pennant winner would be in the East, then the other 11 teams in the league would be slotted based on prior Pythagorean win % - Central gets 1/4/7/10, West gets 2/3/8/9, East gets pennant winner plus 5/6/11.

Home stadiums: Each team will designate a captain (preferably putting his name in the team name). That player is the captain until he is no longer on the team. Teams play in the home stadiums of their captains for whichever year he's in. When the captain is no longer on the team, the owner nominates a new captain, but the new captain must play in a different home stadium. (If an owner is so monomaniacal as to only have players from that stadium, then they can stay in that stadium and enjoy losing 115 games a year.)

It makes sense to me to only allow full/combined seasons to be drafted, but that doesn't have to be the case. Clones would have to be allowed, because the draftable unit is player/decade, and that will remain distinct for each player. (A team could have 1973, 1982, and 1991 Nolan Ryan, for example).

There would be some work on the Commissioner's part to keep things straight, but I think it could be handled in a spreadsheet. You could spend hours down the rabbit hole, trying to figure out who to draft, balancing this year's needs with the future with what's likely to be available in your next draft. The drafts themselves should be fairly quick with only two teams, and teams picking 2 players at a time after the first pick.

No draft picks are eligible to be traded. Any other salient points I missed?

Here's an idea I have been working on. As with reddtrain's post above, this one would require really good record keeping by the commissioner.

The basic idea is the round 1 draft order each season would be decided by an auction. Each owner in the league would submit a bid consisting of 2 numbers. The first number would how many subsequent seasons you are willing to forego a first round pick. The second number would be how many subsequent seasons you are willing to forego a second round pick. The draft order would be determined by sorting the teams in descending order by the first number (so the team willing to give up the most first round picks would be ranked #1, etc.) Ties would be broken by the second number. If there are still ties, they would be broken by a random drawing. This would require a SLB player who is not part of the league to serve as a clearinghouse for the bids...but I really don't think that's a problem. It would take like 15 minutes each season for that person to do this.

So suppose it's the 1939 draft. Some fella named Ted Williams is a rookie. How badly do you want him? For how many seasons after 1939 are you willing to forego a #1 pick, and potentially a #2 pick, in order to get Ted?

Team	First Bid Number	Second Bid Number
A	3	5
B	0	0
C	6	2
D	0	0
E	0	0
F	6	1
G	0	0
H	0	0
I	0	0
J	3	0
K	3	0
L	4	4

In this scenario, Team C will get the #1 pick in the 1939 draft. Teams C and F both bid 6 first round picks, while Team C bid 2 second round picks compared to Team F who only bid 1. So Team C gets the #1 pick, Team F gets the #2 pick. Team L will get the 3^rd pick. Team A will get the 4^th pick – by virtue of bidding 5 second round picks compared to teams J and K who bid zero second round picks. A random drawing will determine which of teams J and K pick 5^th versus 6^th. And another random drawing will determine how the 7^th-12^th picks are distributed among teams B, D, E, G, H, I.

All teams must then “pay” their bids. So team C will forgo a first round pick for seasons 1940-45, along with a second round pick in 1940-41. Team F will forgo a first round pick in seasons 1940-45 and a second round pick in 1940. Team A will forgo a first round pick in 1940-42 and a second round pick in seasons 1940-44. The six teams that bid 0/0 will not forgo any picks.

Each season, only teams that HAVE a first round pick will be allowed to bid for the #1 overall pick. Note that in the example above, the first round of the 1940 draft will have only six slots, since the other six teams have forgone their #1 pick for 1940. This introduces a tremendous amount of strategy into the bidding process.

Each season we would use a random draw to determine the order of picks in round 2, and the draft will then proceed in serpentine fashion. The random drawing would include all 12 teams. Teams that do not have a 2^nd round pick will be removed from the round 2 order but will maintain their specified place for all subsequent rounds.

Very important: Because of the unique bidding rules, teams would NOT BE ALLOWED to trade 1^st or 2^nd round draft picks at any time. 3^rd and subsequent round picks could be traded.

One problem would be if an owner leaves the league while still owing future draft picks. Here's how I am thinking of handling that:

It is assumed that an owner will plan to keep his team as long as he has any forgone draft picks. However, if that is not possible and a new owner joins the league, they will have the option of either keeping the team as is (including the lost draft picks) OR releasing any previous first round draft picks that are still being paid for, in exchange for recovering the previously lost picks.

So in the previous example, if the owner of team C leaves after 1942, the new owner can choose to either (a) keep Ted Williams and continue to forego the remaining first round picks that were bid (1943-45 in this case) or (b) release Ted Williams to the free agent pool and get those draft picks back.

Posted by contrarian23 on 5/8/2021 6:52:00 AM (view original):
One problem would be if an owner leaves the league while still owing future draft picks. Here's how I am thinking of handling that:

It is assumed that an owner will plan to keep his team as long as he has any forgone draft picks. However, if that is not possible and a new owner joins the league, they will have the option of either keeping the team as is (including the lost draft picks) OR releasing any previous first round draft picks that are still being paid for, in exchange for recovering the previously lost picks.

So in the previous example, if the owner of team C leaves after 1942, the new owner can choose to either (a) keep Ted Williams and continue to forego the remaining first round picks that were bid (1943-45 in this case) or (b) release Ted Williams to the free agent pool and get those draft picks back.

I'm intrigued, but I do have a question.

I paid the 6 1sts to draft Williams. My team sucks come 1941, and someone makes me a Godfather offer for Williams (say, Roy Cullenbine, Lou Boudreau, and Hal Newhouser) to try to win this year, while letting me have the chance to dominate once the war starts.

1) If I fall ill and am unable to keep my team in 1942, does the replacement owner have to drop all three of them in order to get his picks back?

2) The person wanting Williams needs another starter to replace Newhouser, and I agree to add my newly-drafted Ernie White to Williams. If I fall ill, what happens if the replacement owner wants to get the traded picks back?

3) Having spent 3 1sts to draft Newhouser, the all-in owner gets the 1993 Giants treatment and rage-quits after 1941. If that replacement owner wants to get those picks back, what has to happen?

All good questions... I’ll need to think about how to handle various contingencies.

My inclination is to say that any player for whom you placed a bid to draft has a no-trade clause until the bid has been fully paid.

Posted by contrarian23 on 5/8/2021 8:31:00 AM (view original):
My inclination is to say that any player for whom you placed a bid to draft has a no-trade clause until the bid has been fully paid.

That is probably the simplest answer.

Couple other things:

1) Fast forward to the 1967 draft. I decide I NEED Dick Hughes. Am I limited to bidding 2/2 for him (because he only has 2 SIM seasons)?

2) Keep it in 1967. I bid 0/3 for a draft pick. I still have a 1st round pick in 1968, so I should be able to participate in the auction. Am I allowed to bid 2nd round picks in 1968 (to go further into the future)? Or will I not be allowed to bid 2nd picks until 1970?

It doesnt seem right to make a strong bid to get Williams, and lose, but still have to pay that strong bid on a much weaker 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th pick.
I made my bid thinking about Williams, I wont pay whatever my bid was for the 7th pick of the first rouind.

Posted by Landry19 on 5/8/2021 11:35:00 AM (view original):
It doesnt seem right to make a strong bid to get Williams, and lose, but still have to pay that strong bid on a much weaker 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th pick.
I made my bid thinking about Williams, I wont pay whatever my bid was for the 7th pick of the first rouind.

My thoughts exactly. If you lose under this scenario, you really lose.

Things I am thinking about:
Everyone drafts 3 Teams from the 1970, 1990, 2010 seasons. 72 of the 80 Teams would be used if it is a 24 Team league. You take 10 players from each with 5 going to AAA.
Random Salary Cap each season, (maybe within a range of $80M to $130M) so some years you can roster just about anyone and some years you have to choose average players instead of just taking all of the best players.
Each subsequent Season, some Teams get swapped and/or dropped depending on your finish within a division or if you make the Playoffs/World Series. Any new drafts would be done Best/First to Worst/Last to eliminate tanking.
A Player Twist or two is allowed, again depending on circumstances.
1 Player from 1920-1960 is added to everyone's roster, you choose which version to use of that player.
A Blacklist of 1 season for Award Winners of the previous season.
A revamped Injury feature that is more like real life and players actually have to sit out games or even entire seasons due to those injuries.
Everyone in the same division uses the same stadium. You have to win your division to change your Stadium.

Posted by Landry19 on 5/8/2021 11:35:00 AM (view original):
It doesnt seem right to make a strong bid to get Williams, and lose, but still have to pay that strong bid on a much weaker 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th pick.
I made my bid thinking about Williams, I wont pay whatever my bid was for the 7th pick of the first rouind.

That’s actually one of my favorite things about the idea. It forces real strategy, in every draft.

The real question you have to ask in deciding whether and how much to bid, is what am I willing to lose in the event that I don’t get the pick that I want?

Posted by bheid408 on 5/8/2021 2:53:00 PM (view original):
Things I am thinking about:
Everyone drafts 3 Teams from the 1970, 1990, 2010 seasons. 72 of the 80 Teams would be used if it is a 24 Team league. You take 10 players from each with 5 going to AAA.
Random Salary Cap each season, (maybe within a range of $80M to $130M) so some years you can roster just about anyone and some years you have to choose average players instead of just taking all of the best players.
Each subsequent Season, some Teams get swapped and/or dropped depending on your finish within a division or if you make the Playoffs/World Series. Any new drafts would be done Best/First to Worst/Last to eliminate tanking.
A Player Twist or two is allowed, again depending on circumstances.
1 Player from 1920-1960 is added to everyone's roster, you choose which version to use of that player.
A Blacklist of 1 season for Award Winners of the previous season.
A revamped Injury feature that is more like real life and players actually have to sit out games or even entire seasons due to those injuries.
Everyone in the same division uses the same stadium. You have to win your division to change your Stadium.

You could probably go ahead and sign me up for that one.

If I draft the 2010 Rangers in the initial draft, do I have the 2010 Rangers in season 2? Or do I have the 2011 Rangers?

Personal preference - I'd like to see the minimum possible salary cap lower than $80M. Even $70M would present an entirely different challenge.