The Reversible Jerseys League is coming back for Season Two!

Advanced sign-up is now open to owners who played in Season One. If you want to keep your current exclusive combination of franchises for Season Two, you can do that, although the two franchise combos that make the World Series will be blacklisted. You CANNOT reserve a new combination until the league is officially posted.

HOWEVER, I am adding a new wrinkle to Season Two that is aimed at leveling the playing field for owners who want to choose an expansion franchise as part of their two-team combination. Be sure to read about this rule change (in bold below) so that you can weigh your options accordingly.

Concept for this league is based on Baseball Reference's feature, Find Players With Multiple Franchises.

The rules are simple: you pick two franchises and build your team exclusively from players who played for BOTH. Not one or the other, but both. This means that single-franchise icons like Cal Ripken, Ted Williams, and Bob Gibson are all excluded, but every other player in baseball history is available... provided you pick the right combination of teams.

Want Willie Mays in CF? You'll need the Giants and the Mets.

How about Catfish Hunter as your ace? That'll be the A's and the Yankees.

Fancy Arky Vaughan at shortstop? Take the Pirates and the Dodgers!

In each of those examples, there is only one combination of teams that works for each player, but for guys who played for 3+ teams, there are multiple possible combinations.

In all cases, the pool of eligible players is limited to guys who played for both of your chosen franchises, so no change from Season One rules. However, in order to level the playing field between original franchises and modern expansion teams, there will now be two sets of rules around the pool of eligible player seasons.

• If both of your teams are among the 16 “original” franchises that have been playing continuously under one name or another since 1903 or earlier, then Season One rules apply, and the version of each eligible player that you draft must bear the name of one of your two franchises.

  • Applies to: CHC, ATL, STL, PIT, CIN, SFG, PHI, LAD, OAK, MIN, DET, CLE, CHW, BOS, BAL, NYY

• If at least one of your two teams is among the 14 “expansion” franchises that began play in 1961 or later, then you can draft ANY version of each eligible player, regardless of what team(s) they played for that year.

  • Applies to: TEX, LAA, NYM, HOU, WAS, SD, MIL, KC, TOR, SEA, MIA, COL, TB, AZ

To illustrate this by way of example, let’s say you wanted Pedro Martinez on your team.

• If you pick the Dodgers and the Phillies as your two teams, then you can draft Pedro, but you can only draft him in seasons where he played for Los Angeles or Philadelphia. You can’t draft him in any of his Expos, Red Sox, or Mets seasons.

• On the other hand, if you pick the Mets and the Phillies as your two teams, now you can draft Pedro in any season of his career regardless of team. This would also apply if you picked Nationals-Phillies, Mets-Dodgers, etc., but NOT if you picked Red Sox-Dodgers or Red Sox-Phillies.

The point of this rule change is to make these expansion franchises more attractive as options. Choosing an expansion franchise as one of your two teams will generally result in a smaller pool of players, but in exchange, you’ll have an unrestricted pool of seasons to choose from. My hope is that this adjustment will open up interesting new franchise combos and inventive strategies.

Use the Find Players tool to test out different franchise combinations and identify players you want to draft. We will use the same rules as BB-Ref's Find Players tool, so the Brooklyn Dodgers and the LA Dodgers are considered one franchise. Likewise, the Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Oakland Athletics are all the same franchise, as are the Twins-Senators, the Orioles-Browns, etc. If you have questions about franchise continuity, please see this very helpful forum post that articulates the lineages of various franchises.

You must choose a ballpark where one of your two franchises played.

Each unique combination of franchises is EXCLUSIVE, so once it is off the board, it's gone. However, there is no limit on the number of times any given team can be used in different combinations.

The rest of the details:

• $90M
• No clones
• No AAA
• No waiver wire
• No trades
• No DH
• No injuries

If you are an owner playing in Season One, let me know if you would like to sign up for Season Two (and whether you would like to keep your existing franchise combo). If you would like to play again but plan to switch your franchise combo to something new, please DO NOT POST YOUR NEW COMBO YET. Thanks!