Basic Concept

This will be a 16-team progressive league beginning in 1976 that incorporates free agency into the process. The reason we will start in 1976 is that off season was the first year of the modern free agency era. Each off season, all players who were real life free agents that year will become free agents in our league. Example, Reggie Jackson became a free agent after the 1976 season. Therefore, the owner who drafted him in 1976 will lose him the next year to free agency.

Each off season, we’ll have a “free agency signing period” which will precede the regular draft. This will start after the transaction deadline (120 game mark) has passed. All teams will have a pool of free agency dollars to spend. The details of this process will be explained below and right now are just proposed. I will take owner input to finalize the process.

After the free agency period, we’ll then have the regular off season draft for all rookies and veteran players not on a roster. Draft order will be worst to first each round.

League Rules

1. Format is Alternate Format E (4/4/4/4 with 4 playoff teams and a balanced schedule with inter league play)
2. Alignment is random in the first year and will remain the same for at least 10 seasons (3/5^th majority vote to change will be required at that time)
3. Ballparks – all those available in 1976 and chosen during the initial draft
4. Salary Cap – $255M (or the maximum necessary to allow all teams to enter while still making our winners as competitive as possible in TOC)
5. League Settings:
   1. No: AAA, WW, DH, clones, or Live Play
   2. Yes: Trades, Injuries, and Transaction Deadline
   3. Note – Draft picks are allowed to be traded as well
6. Players who drop out of the database for one or more seasons may be placed on injured reserve without penalty
7. Partial/Combined Season – For players who have partial/combined seasons, the season of choice is up to the owner

Initial Draft

1. Draft order determined at random, serpentine style
2. 20 Rounds: 1 player/pick in rounds 1-15 and 2 players/pick in rounds 16-19, 3 players/pick in round 20
3. Forum draft
4. Time slot length(s) will be determined based on owner feedback
5. Missed picks can be made up at any time

Free Agency Signing Period – proposed format

The final format will be determined after the league is full but prior to the start of the initial draft. I will propose my basic idea in this thread, but I would like owner discussion/feedback/input on the topic to try to develop the best process possible. We must find something that makes the league fun, is equitable, and is logistically feasible to manage. I don’t want a system so complex and time consuming that it becomes a full-time job for someone.

Here is my basic idea. Each off season, owners will be given a pool of dollars to use for bidding purposes. I don’t know whether everybody will receive the same dollar amounts or if we’ll develop a formula that awards variable amounts based on predetermined criteria. I would love to come up with a system that rewards teams for not tanking and thus gives them the chance to earn a bonus to be used during this process. Maybe all teams that finish over .500 but fail to make the playoffs get a 10% bonus on top of their normal allotment while teams that win 70-81 games get a 5% bonus. This is all open to debate by league owners. I also believe that unused dollars should be carried over to future seasons, probably with some limitations in place to keep someone from just sitting and building cash over multiple seasons.

Players would be divided into four groups based on their WIS determined primary position. Group A = SP’s, Group B = RP’s, Group C = C/OF, and Group D = IF/DH. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday would be live days and each day would be assigned to one of the four position groups. Bids would be allowed all day on that day (basically from 12:01 am until midnight). The forums time stamp posts/edited posts so any bids that weren't within the proper time constraints would be declared invalid.

Let's say Monday is for Starting Pitchers. Only bids for SP's will be valid on Monday. After midnight on Monday, the commissioner will record all the winning bids and adjust each team's available pool of dollars accordingly. He will complete this on Tuesday which will be a dead day. On Wednesday, the next position group will open and the process will repeat. On Thursday, the commish will again record the winning bids and adjust the $$$ accordingly. On Friday, the third position group will go and Saturday will be the off day to record/recalculate everything. On Sunday, the final position group will be open for bids. At the conclusion of bidding on Sunday, any unsigned free agents will simply go into the draft pool and be available via the draft.


Off-Season Draft

After the free agency signing period is concluded, all teams will name their cuts and keepers. The remaining players who aren’t on a roster plus rookies will be combined into a draft pool. This off season draft will be held as follows:

1. Draft order is worst to first for all rounds based on playoff success and regular season record
2. This draft will be six rounds; rounds 1-5 will be one player/pick and round 6 will be a “finish-up” round where teams draft enough players to finish off their 25-man roster
3. Forum draft
4. Time slot lengths TBD
5. Missed picks can be made up at any time

I proposed a similar version of this a week or two ago, but took it down to work out a better free agency signing process. This is a work in progress and I welcome help/suggestions/feedback to tweak it into a final version. Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions

Sign-Up

1. Razorhawg1
2. szczubelek

I’m in man. Looks like fun.

Great to have you!

One thing i just realized, on baseball reference, the year they are listed as a free agent is the final season with their old team not the new team. In other words, 1976 FA's joined their new team in the 1977 season. Therefore we'll adjust this one season and begin in 1976. I doubt that really is a make or break change for anybody but just wanted to throw that out there.....

Disco,
I'm going to own that one. I had just signed up for WIS and joined your league. I got busy for a few days and being new at this, it wasn't in my daily routine yet. Once I got past the busy and remembered to check back, somebody had already made 2-3 picks for me and I was embarrassed that I had goofed. However, I have since started a league that is up and going and am on the road to getting hooked on this. I would welcome help from veteran players like yourself and szczubelek to help me along. If you'll sign up, I promise you and everyone else that I will see this through.

I would definitely do this if it was 24 or 26 teams (starting 1977). 16 teams seems like the rosters will be too strong

I don't think that there will be enough depth for 24 teams. Down the road, when the 90's expansion teams were added, I'd be open to adding some teams but there is no way we can do 24 teams without using fake AAA players.

Posted by Razorhawg1 on 8/20/2019 6:16:00 PM (view original):
I don't think that there will be enough depth for 24 teams. Down the road, when the 90's expansion teams were added, I'd be open to adding some teams but there is no way we can do 24 teams without using fake AAA players.

I have been in many progressive leagues that use 24 teams, starting in 1969. AAA is allowed in those leagues but most teams do not make extensive use of it. If you had them draft real players to be AAA players, you'd probably get every roster filled.

I don't think there are enough extra players to fill 8 AAA spots with real players. I don't remember exactly how many I counted but it is around 630 or so I think. We would need 792 to get 25 man rosters + 8 AAA spots. That said, as more owners show interest, if the majority want to do 24 teams and use fake AAA (or a combo of real and fake), then I am ok with it.

well it doesn't look like this is going anywhere...... i think it is time to pull the plug