Posted by buckeyenatio on 11/20/2019 8:12:00 PM (view original):
have not been on the site all that long so this may have been done already and people will probley shoot holes in this but IMO Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson are the two players who changed MLB more than any others so a 1915/1946 start on a progressive would be a nice tribute and have enough platers for a 24 team league

There are many dual season progressives and I am sure you can find some that started with that approximate time frame.

Posted by bheid408 on 11/20/2019 8:25:00 PM (view original):
Had an idea a while back where everyone would draft 25 exclusive players from the entire WIS database via draft. Thus 25 different players on 24 rosters.
Each season you would have a 24 round draft and you would pick 1 player from everyone else's roster. You could use the same version they used or not, your choice. Only the 600 players that made it onto rosters would make up the draft pool. You could not draft any player you already used. After the 24 rounds are complete everyone would have 1 player left that wasn't chosen. You'd then have a choice to either replace that player with any player that wasn't already in the league, or you could keep that player but you'd have to use a different version of him.

I like it.

OK...I continue to tinker with this idea. I'm currently thinking of the following general outline

-- Like the NWPEE, each team will have a fixed number of contract points (1 point = 1 season). When a player's contract expires he becomes a free agent. Teams may not extend contracts.
-- Each season a random number generator will determine the season you use for each player on your roster:
1 = 2 seasons prior
2,3 = 1 season prior
4,5,6,7 = current season
8,9 = 1 season ahead
10 = 2 seasons ahead
If you end up with a season in which your player is not in the WIS database - for any reason - he is considered on IR for that season. That season still counts against the player's contract.
-- You will not know what versions you have until keepers have been posted. Likewise, you will not know what versions you have of players you draft until after the draft is complete.
-- The draft pool will include all players in the WIS database for the current season AND the 2 preceding and 2 succeeding seasons. So in 1913 you could draft Babe Ruth. You would have to start his contract immediately though, and you would only have a 10% chance of getting a useable version of him in 1913 and only a 30% chance of getting a useable version of him in 1914. Heck, if you have really bad luck, you might end up not being able to use him until 1917. Them's the breaks.
-- Likewise you can keep a player for up to 2 seasons after his last WIS season, if you want to spend the contract points on him. Want to keep Koufax in 1967 and have a 30% chance of getting a useable season for him? You can...
-- We will have rosters larger than 25 to allow owners a buffer, and in extreme situations (you get really bad luck with PA or IP) there will be a set number of truly execrable players from the WIS database that you can slot in if needed.

Note I am NOT starting this league right now - so please don't use this as a signup thread. I am just posting some ideas to keep the discussion going. If I get really ambitious I may start this some time in the coming months, or it may never see the light of day.

Thanks jeff. I figured this would be too complicated for you.

As rsp777 mentioned, I run leagues with both random elements and free agency. The Ultimate Random as Possible Progressive (URAPP) League and its younger brother The Modern Era Random as Possible Progressive (MERAPP) League. The difference being URAPP is all of baseball history and MERAPP is just the DH era.

But basically, you draft your roster and then once the draft is complete, a random season is chosen for each of your players. You use that season of that player. After each season, four (URAPP) or five (MERAPP) of your players are randomly drawn and lost to free agency, creating turnover and a draft pool. There is a draft lottery to weaken tanking in URAPP and in MERAPP every single round of the draft is random. This doesn't address the benefit of drafting a one-season wonder, but we have a limit of three one-year or two-year guys per team.

In my obviously biased opinion, these are fun leagues. If you have any questions about what we've learned along the way, feel free to let me know.

I know I am new at this and not very good, but I have one thought. We name our teams in many progressives after real teams and often have none of that teams players. What about 1 round (first or second) where we pick one player from our real team. Sort of like the old NBA territorial draft.

Bump.

I am thinking more seriously about getting this league started. A few posts above this one I outlined the basic idea...it has evolved from there and I have written a draft constitution that explains everything.

I am not taking signups at this time, but I am looking for interested owners. Please, only owners who are experienced SLB progressive owners. My intention is never to post an ad for this league; I intend to fill it (and find replacement owners over time) by invitation only.

If you are interested in a spot once this is ready to go, please send me a sitemail. Do not post here - I will be not be checking regularly. In your sitemail, if we have not played in leagues together before, please let me know a little bit about your SLB progressive experience. As jeff4noles sarcastically but correctly noted above, this league is going to be significantly more complicated than your standard prog; it's not for newbies, and definitely not for anyone who doesn't have the time to really put in the effort. The standard progressive strategies (gear up for 1 or 2 seasons when your best players have their best seasons, draft 1-hit wonders to fill out your roster, then post terrible records for a few seasons while you rebuild through the draft) will not work here.

In your sitemail, if you include your reallife email address, I will email you the draft constitution. It's a 7-page outline in Word, just to give you an idea what I'm talking about. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, I will eventually post it in full somewhere in the forums.

And if you're really ambitious, start researching the SLB database for the 1899-1903 seasons. Once we get this going, we will use the 1901 season as our inaugural, meaning players from 1899-1903 will be the initial draft pool.

contrarian...what do you think about a league where you take the player pool for the initial draft, randomly carve off about 20% of the players and assign these players at random to simulate the unknown/unpredictability factor you are talking about, then draft the remaining 80% or until all rosters are full. Then each successive year, you could carve off 20% of the rookie pool and assign those players at random as well. I use 20% of the players to be randomly assigned, but that is just for example. Obviously that number could be lower or higher.

Additionally, a certain number of your players maybe get randomly chosen each year to become free agents. Maybe you let owners protect a small handful from potentially being selected or maybe not...could be done either way. The free agents are placed in a separate draft pool with the draft order being determined at random rather than by win/loss record.

The randomness of the draft tries to simulate reality in that the draft process is an inexact science and sometimes you miss on a player or you get a "hidden gem" that based on your draft position you shouldn't get. The free agent portion tries to simulate real life in that player turnover is a part of the game and teams no longer can sit on a player as long as they want.

Anyway, just some thoughts.....

It's an interesting idea, but not one I have time to run with right now. I've introduced plenty of variables in this new league that I'm hoping to launch in the coming weeks. Will require a lot more strategy and active roster management than a typical progressive, for sure. And tanking will be a complete non-issue.

still in for this league if and when it gets going...thanks

I have posted the constitution in the Theme League Forum.

Posted by contrarian23 on 11/10/2019 2:01:00 PM (view original):
Like many of us, I love progressives. And like many of us, there are things about progressives I dislike. In the past when I have run leagues, I have mostly prioritized around removing any incentive to tank. That's still important to me. I won't join leagues that use traditional reverse-order-of-finish draft orders, even if they have win floors or lotteries of the bottom X teams or whatever.

But there are other aspects of progs I don't particularly like either. One is the lack of roster turnover. You get lucky enough to draft Ruth, he's yours for his entire career unless you decide to trade him or cut him. There is no free agency in most progressives; in effect WIS progs are similar to MLB pre-1975 when the reserve clause dominated baseball for 100 years. As an economist I don't like the reserve clause, and as a baseball fan I like it even less. In the past I have created a league (still in existence, though I am no longer part of it) that used contract points to limit the number and duration of players you could keep long term. I still like that, but am open to other ways of doing it. One interesting way might be to say that each player has an x% chance of becoming a free agent every year, and we use random.org or some other method to let the chips fall where they may.

Another aspect I don't like is predictability. Yes, we all know that even a full season is a relatively small sample size and that wacky things can happen. But still, if you have Norm Cash you know that 1961 is going to rock and 1964 is not. The Tigers had no such luck. They went into every season knowing that Cash was a really good player, but didn't know if we would give them a good season, an All-Star season, or an MVP season. We have a lot more clarity around that. Similarly, I think about 1-year stars like 1986 Grubb, 1979 Champ Summers, 1974 Buzz Capra...when owners know they are going to get exactly that season, they can plan and draft accordingly. When in real MLB, getting that kind of lightning-in-a-bottle performance is a lucky gift, not something one can reasonably plan for.

I know there have been leagues in the past that used randomness to generate a specific season, rather than following a player chronologically though their career. Can anyone who has played in those leagues advise on (a) how exactly was it done (b) how well did it work? Are there other ways to address this issue?

Would love to hear from other owners on either of the above issues (free agency and/or randomization of career). As well as other things you would like to see done differently in progs. Note that I am NOT asking for programming enhancements from WIS. I am only looking for things that can reasonably done with the simulation that we have.

Brainstorming on Progressives, from November 2019.

I always thought about starting a franchise progressive whereby you pick a franchise and you must use the players season he played for you with a couple of twists. START the Clock if you will. I think the following rules would eliminate the Top frustrations from Progressive leagues.
- Each player can use/start whatever year you want but once you start, you go from there...and if they leave your team in RL, you lose them.
- Also, if you ever cut someone, they are gone for good to you. So pick your years wisely. So Cards may have 2001 Albert Pujols but chose to start Musial a few years into his career to line up good years....but then that limits Stan. Also, Ted Williams...no IR so if you take him, and cut him due to War years.....he is gone forever. Rickey Henderson who played for everyone...once you use/lose him..."he gone".
Also would want to start at least 1935 or later to remove the Ruth, Cobb, Walter Johnson nonsense of domination. No other players have that kind of impact. Also would consider letting two teams combine that were expansion in 1969 or later (i.e. Padres, Blue Jays).

There would be no trades allowed and it also eliminates tanking as there would be NO league wide draft...you just pull forward from whatever you have in your franchise history. Those are the 2 most controversial things in leagues that cause problems. Poof. Gone.

Just an idea Im kicking around...there may be holes in this but always open to suggestion.