I am listening to the audio book The Glory of Their Times and it is great stuff. I started looking at the subjects who were interviewed for the book and found the stories fascinating I have never done a deadball league and I wanted to see if there was interest in a new progressive.

12 Teams -
2 year progressive starting w 1901/1902
No salary Cap
No clones
No DH
Owner may choose which season or partial season to play
Player must have a defensive position rating to start at that position
Bones players will be used to fill the needed ABs and IPs
Rule changes by majority vote
25 man rosters with IR
Initial draft will be snake 1-12 then 12-1
No trading of draft picks more than two years ahead
Eligible stadiums will be drafted as part of initial draft

Wins floor of 40 at 120 with a bottom 4 lottery - I wouldn't be opposed to another anti tanking method but not sure how to do it in a 12 team league so we can start here


1. jonstephen25 - in
2. oooohdoggie - in
3. luvyablue - in
4. Mickr9 - in
5. Strbosll - in
6. jgaleo062066 - in
7. Bagchucker - in
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poppapomp; ooooohdoggie; bagchucker; firesalt; cholatse; mickr9; fatboydad54; strubrosII; jgaleo062066; shawbigred; luvyablue

I’m interested.

Posted by jonstephen25 on 11/5/2021 3:53:00 PM (view original):
I am listening to the audio book The Glory of Their Times and it is great stuff. I started looking at the subjects who were interviewed for the book and found the stories fascinating I have never done a deadball league and I wanted to see if there was interest in a new progressive. I figure we would start with 1901 with 16 teams, have a random draw, snake draft, and go on from there. I'm open to suggestions having never done a league like this...

I’ve read The Glory of Their Times and it’s one of the finest baseball books that I have read. And yes, I’d be interested.

I also really enjoyed The Glory of Their Times. The Image of Their Greatness is a similar book from Lawrence Ritter.

I am interested.

Question on your audiobook, is it unabridged? I have only seen it offered on Audible in an abridged format?

I can tell you from experience, there won't be enough players to go around for 16 teams. And even if you throw in some scrubs from a different era to get to 25 players per team, there won't be enough PA's and IP's to go around. Even if you cut it down to a 12 team league, you'll still be facing the same problem. A couple of suggestions......

#1-switch it to a two season progressive, meaning 1901-02, then 1903-04, etc. You can eliminate clones so that only one version of each player is eligible, but the owner gets to choose which version to use. You still will probably be a little short, but you could make up PA/IP shortfall with AAA players.

#2-you could start with 1901 and 1951 (or any other year) and then progress to 1902/1952, etc.

I would be interested in possibly joining, but only with some changes to make it feasible.....

Yes. The audiobook is abridged. It is just the interviews of the players and some commentary from Ritter


I really like idea #1. I think that’s what we did with the original Beer League starting in 1960 and had a group of set players with ABs and innings that everyone could use as their AAA. That way everyone has the same chance instead of random AAA.

I am also interested, but would not enjoy a multi year (01-02, 03-04) progressive or a dual year progressive.

An option that you could do is similar to Gonoles progressive and have 16 teams, 8 NL and 8 AL, each with their own unique players and drafts. AL teams only play/trade with AL teams and NL teams only play/trade with NL teams.

otherwise I think 12 teams with more AAA options like bagchucker suggested is the best idea.

I am also curious on how the drafts will work. I enjoy leagues that either make the 1st round completely random or with a formula similar to gonoles or just4me.

without that, there will be lots of tanking during years with big FA’s (specifically for that Ruth guy).

I’m cool with other options besides dual seasons…..

I’m open to figuring out a way that is acceptable to all in the league. I am kind of partial to the two year idea with no clones because it keeps the player years similar. If we can do it with one year that is great too. I don’t oppose reducing to 12 teams.

In other single season progressives that I have done we have a list of players that everyone can use. They are crappy enough not to help much but can fill in innings and abs. I’ll list them below. We call them Bones players in honor of Bones Ely who was an original one. I like this because it puts everyone on a level playing field.

I’m fine with whatever anti tanking measure we can agree on.

here are the Bones

C - Luke Sewell - 1929

1B - Ivy Griffin - 1920

2B - Jimmy Jordan - 1936

3B - Ralph Miller - 1920

SS - Tommy Thevenow - 1936

OF - Shano Collins - 1923

SP - Dick Coffman - 1935

SP - Chubby Dean - 1940

SP - Jack Knight - 1926
SP - Cotton Pippen - 1939

I would be interested, but not if it's a multi year or dual year progressive. I think that the "bones" idea has worked OK in the past, although maybe having some different guys might be a nice change of pace. There's enough crappy seasons out here.. You could also provide a ton of way below average AAA as well.

For planning purposes, I calculated the number of hitters and pitchers as well as the PA's and IP's for 1901. And yes, I did delete out duplicate versions of all players (I used the highest salary version of each one). Here are the results:

Hitters by Position:

• Catchers: 38 & 12,062PA
• 1st Base: 21 & 10,208PA
• 2nd Base: 21 & 10,900PA
• 3rd Base: 22 & 11,446PA
• Shortstop: 20 & 10,634PA
• Outfield: 70 & 35,083PA
• Total Hitters: 192 & 90,350PA
• AVG/Tm (16 tms): 12.0 & 5647PA
• Total & Avg Salary for Hitters: $579MM & $3.02MM

Pitchers:

• 92 total pitchers & 21,998IP
• AVG/Tm (16 tms): 5.75 & 1375IP
• Total & Avg Salary for Pitchers: $508MM & $5.52MM

Total Players = 284 (Avg/Tm = 17.75)

If you assume all teams would likely be between +/- 25% of the average number of PA or IP, then teams on the low side of that would be about 1800 PA and 450 IP short of what they need. I would think that 12 AAA hitters and 8 AAA pitchers would cover that shortfall. My preference would be to draft the bones and then immediately send them to AAA and keep them there all season and then cycle through the fake AAA players for depth purposes.

This all seems reasonable to me.

I'm in