The Basics

The Hindsight Manager Progressive (HMP) is a league where you begin with your favorite team's real-life roster from 1980, then manage the team however you want through trades and subsequent drafts. We will play through the 1980's and crown a champion at the end of 1989. The big twist? The draft order is determined by how much better your SIM team does in comparison with their real-life counterpart. This league should measure the real ability of a manager to do the best they can with what they have. With the benefit of hindsight, can you out-manage the real-life skipper and turn your team into a dynasty?


The Format

We will use all 26 teams in the real-life 1977-1992 divisional format. The AL will have two divisions of 7 teams, and the NL will have 2 divisions of 6 teams. Each league will have the division winners square off in the LCS, with no wild cards. We will use 6/2 below average AAA to help teams that might be a little short on PA or IP. Trades are, of course, allowed and encouraged, while the waiver wire is off-limits. Real-life team names must be used. The salary cap will not be an issue and I will set it at $255M.


Starting rosters

This format eliminates the lengthy, burdensome initial draft that most progressives have, but keeps the fun of rookie/free agent drafts each subsequent season.

To get your initial roster, you will load up the historical roster from 1980 in the draft center. If there are not enough players on your roster, you should draft enough $200K guys of your choice to fill the roster. These players should be sent to AAA once the season starts and never used.

The issue will arise about a player who is listed on multiple teams in 1980 historical draft center rosters (i.e. Gaylord Perry). I really wanted to have the team with which the player started the season have the rights to him, but I have been unable to find a reliable source of historical opening day rosters. Hopefully, myself or someone else will find one before the season starts. Otherwise, we will award the player to the team with which he played more PA or IP.


The Draft

Hate tanking? This is the best anti-tanking method I can think of! The best managers, who get the most out of their team are rewarded with the better draft picks. Even if your team is terrible, it's to your advantage to squeeze every win out of them you can - just like a real-life manager would do. Basically, I'll figure how many more (or less) wins your sim team earned compared to it's real life counterpart (I'll project wins based upon PCT for the shortened 1981 season). The SIM team that overperforms their rea-life counterpart by the most wins gets the first pick, all the way down to the team that underperforms the worst who will get the last pick. The tiebreaker will go to the team with the better record in the SIM for the current season. After that, we'll go by head-to head records, head-to-head runs scored, and divisional records if needed.

For example, let's say the 1980 SIM records ended up like this:

Team	1980 SIM	1980 RL	Difference
San Diego	90	73	17
Seattle	69	59	10
Milwaukee	95	86	9
Houston	101	93	8
Atlanta	89	81	8
San Francisco	83	75	8
Texas	82	76	6
St Louis	80	74	6
NY Mets	73	67	6
Baltimore	104	100	4
Minnesota	81	77	4
LA Dodgers	95	92	3
Pittsburgh	85	83	2
Chi Cubs	66	64	2
Toronto	68	67	1
Philadelphia	90	91	-1
Detroit	81	84	-3
NY Yankees	98	103	-5
Kansas City	92	97	-5
Cincinnati	83	89	-6
Chi White Sox	64	70	-6
Montreal	83	90	-7
California	54	65	-11
Oakland	70	83	-13
Cleveland	63	79	-16
Boston	62	83	-21

San Diego, whose SIM team won 17 more games than their real-life counterpart, would get first pick. They didn't have the best team, but they managed their team the best. The Yankees, however, while they won 98 games, will get a low pick because they underperformed how their real-life expectations.

At the end of the season, each team will assign up to 25 keepers. All players WIS eligible in the following season that are not listed as a keeper will comprise the draft pool.


Schedules and deadlines:

One of my biggest complaints with progressives is that small handful of people who delay the whole league for everyone else. To help avoid that, I'm setting up some deadlines ahead of time so we all know what is expected.

The trade/roster deadline will be at game 120. After this point, keeper lists should be turned in since the roster cannot change. Any team that does not have their keeper list turned in by the final game of the season will be assumed to have abandoned their team, and I will look for a replacement owner. The draft will begin within 1 week of the conclusion of the world series. If any team is unowned at this point, I will draft for them (or I'll get a HOF volunteer from the opposite league if the open team is in the same league as me) as we continue to seek an owner.

Counting from the last scheduled day of the draft, owners have one week to make up any missed picks, conclude any pre-season trades, and enter their team into the league. Anyone missing after a week will be assumed to have abandoned the team, and we will seek a replacement owner.

Exceptions - Life happens. I certainly understand that. That's why I urge you to try to get keepers in at game 120 so you have some leeway before the season ends if things get hectic. Even then, if you're having trouble getting your team in, shoot me a quick sitemail, and I'll work with and have patience with anyone who will have enough respect to keep me informed. If an emergency kept you away from the team and someone else has claimed it, site mail me as soon afterwards as you can, explain the situation, and I'll do anything I can for you.


Other Notes:

I'm sure I've missed some details in this description, so please ask if there's a question. Any and all feedback/suggestions are welcome.

Sign up now with which franchise you want to run! My two favorite teams are Texas and Detroit. Once someone selects one of those teams, I will sign up with the other.

Sounds like fun, I'll take Oakland if that is alright with you 

So are you going with the comparison to the RL record to determine the draft position for every season?

Posted by gumbercules on 4/12/2011 4:23:00 PM (view original):
So are you going with the comparison to the RL record to determine the draft position for every season?

Yep.

You've got to prove your long-term planning is better than the real-life manager's was. Is the 1982 version of your team better off than real life? How about 1985? 1989? The better you succeed at outpacing real life, the more you are rewarded.

Signup list:
1. mattedesa (Detroit or Texas - whichever remains)
2. id_203 (Oakland)
3. dh0220 (Kansas City)
4. fabulous (Houston)
5. gumbercules (Milwaukee)
6. bringinsxybk (LA Dodgers)
7. macattack87 (Pittsburgh)
8. crazyjoe02 (Cincinatti)
9. benfc (Cardinals)
10. mw100 (Red Sox)
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KansasCity

Posted by dh0220 on 4/12/2011 5:36:00 PM (view original):
KansasCity

Thanks, dh0220. Gotcha signed up.

Houston

Posted by fabulous on 4/12/2011 7:24:00 PM (view original):
Houston

Welcome aboard, Fabulous. Good luck in Houston!

Posted by gumbercules on 4/12/2011 8:43:00 PM (view original):

Not like I'm in enough progs already... give me Milwaukee.

Haha, well that's what you get for browsing the Classifieds!

Great to have ya, and thanks for the vote of confidence by joining a second league I'm running.

This is cool as hell. Just getting back into progressives now... I will take the Dodgers.

However, I do have one question. Some players appear on multiple teams after being traded. Would both teams keep the player, or how would that be figured out?
Also, how would wins be decided for the 1981 season?

Either way, cool concept.

Pittsburgh please =D

Posted by bringinsxybc on 4/13/2011 12:23:00 AM (view original):
This is cool as hell. Just getting back into progressives now... I will take the Dodgers.

However, I do have one question. Some players appear on multiple teams after being traded. Would both teams keep the player, or how would that be figured out?
Also, how would wins be decided for the 1981 season?

Either way, cool concept.

Uh, oh...someone who doesn't read the whole post before asking questions. I'll let it slide because of the compliment :)

Anyway, a recap on your questions:

1) If I can locate a reliable source to determine teams' opening day rosters (any help here would be appreciated), I'd prefer for the traded players to be on the team they began with. If I'm not able to locate such a source, the only method I can think of is to award players who played for multiple franchises to the team they had more PA with.

2) For the 1981 season, I will extrapolate the expected wins for a full season from their winning percentage during the shortened season. For example, if they played at a .500 clip in the shortened 1981 season, I would count that as an 81 win season. If they played at a .400 rate, I would call it a 65 (rounded up from 64.8) win season.