***5 SEASON FRANCHISE Blend***

**1 free team. It will go to the owner that does the most with the least, ie. whoever's wins/initial team payroll is the highest (must reach the min)**

Summerfield is busy this winter so he has graciously allowed me to run this for one season while he returns to it in the spring. My favorite theme of all time. I've decided to bring it out of retirement and add some tweaks. It truely is, I believe, the most realistic theme. It gives owners a team with a couple of studs, several good & average players, platoons, trade options, and a few holes you'll need to fill. Not just drafting 8 all-star position players, 9 sub-1.00 WHIP pitchers and letem' play without thinking. Also, if you enjoy researching & drafting, this is your league.

I've randomly (using random.org) created 24 teams listed in the next post. The only tweaking I did was to ensure the each team was made up of 5 different franchises. Owners can pick the team that they want.

Each team will be made up of 5 "components" (INFIELD, OUTFIELD, BATTERY (SP+C), PEN and WILDCARD). The wildcard player is a single player from one of the years. You will use the 5 different franchises and years assigned randomly by admin to draft your team. The following decades will be used and matched with your team;

1. 2000-2009

2. 1990-1999

3. 1980-1989

4. 1970-1979

5. 1960-1969

Random.org will supply us with 2 random sequences. The first will be from 1 through 5 and will be matched with the 5 franchises of your team. So if you have TEAM 1, and the sequence from random.org is "3,1,5,4,2" your team will be made up of SF (1980-89), CHC (2000-09), OAK (1960-69), SD (1970-79) and PIT (1990-99). Random.org then will give us a number from 0-9 that will correspond to the SINGLE season of each decade that all users will use. So if random.org gives us "6" we'll be using the 6th season of each decade. So your team would be made up from the following 5 seasons; SF 1986, CHC 2006, OAK 1966, SD 1976 & PIT 1996. There's another example in the 4th post.

Each Franchise can only be used for a SINGLE component.

- $120m cap. I'm guessing most teams will be between $80m and $100m, but the cap and your team payroll doesn't mean alot. One of my previous blend seasons was won by the team with the LOWEST payroll.

- Must use the stadium from your Battery season

- YES to trades, AAA (6/2 AVG). NO to WW, CLONES, DH.

- For franchises that don't date back to 1960, I've paired them with the expansion franchises (see the bottom of the second post)

- Owners must use a 4 or 5 man rotation. No starter can start more than 5 more times than their real life starts. Any pitcher can have up to 20 starts. I'm asking owners to please try to keep things realistic. Don't reach the start limit for a pitcher and then throw him into the pen for another 5-10 relief appearances. Any starting pitcher that breaks the maximum start rule will forfeit one game vs. each division rival for EACH illegal start.

- 60 games live to reach the playoffs which MUST be played live

DRAFTING RULES:

- ANY OFer with an IF defensive rating can be drafted with your IF, and vice-versa. For instance, Foster '75 was an OFer but has an IF rating. So you could draft him with the Reds '75 IF. In your draft center if you click on one of the utility positions, set your search to "all" for positions and "0" for games you'll find all eligible players. I always double check the rosters to ensure that owners don't miss any eligible players.

- AL DH players without a defensive rating can be drafted as either IFers or OFers as long as they were rated there at some point during their career.

- The season you use as your BATTERY you'll draft both the SPs and the catchers from that season. So if you went with the '63 Dodgers rotation you'd draft the '63 Roseboro and Camilli. Any reliever with 5 or more starts can be drafted with your starters and any starter with 5 or more relief appearances can be drafted with your relievers.

- TWISTS - you can twist ONE eligible pitcher and ONE elibible position player to the season before OR after the season you pick, even if they weren't with your franchise during those seasons.


- NEW- WHEN YOU SIGN UP, NAME THE 5 TEAMS IN THE EXACT ORDER THAT YOU WANT YOUR YEARS TO BE SELECTED FROM. ONCE YOU HAVE POSTED IT IS FINAL. THIS WILL BE USED TO HAVE YOUR TEAMS YEARS NEXT TO IT FOR YOU TO MAKE UP YOUR TEAM.

(FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOU WANTED YOUR 5 TEAMS TO BE BOS, NYY, PIT, HOU,LA. YOU WOULD POST THAT IN HOWEVER ORDER YOU WANTED. THEN WHEN THE SEQUENCE IS GENERATED, THE YEARS WILL BE PLACED FROM FIRST TO LAST THAT YOU HAD THEM)