Schwarze, there was a league you invented and ran a couple times years ago that I think could be brought out of mothballs for use with 2012 players

The league used a single season as the player pool. (one year we used 1994, the other was 1983) Each owner has the same amount of cash to spend (I think$100, but the figure doesn't matter) Each owner submits a list each of the 25 roster spots and ballpark with a bid for each spot. The bids are compared and a draft is set up for each spot, with the order determined by the bids, highest to lowest. Then hold the drafts.I don't remember having a cap, but 90m would probably work.

It was an awesome concept. I think it got dropped because schwarze went to on a WISC and never picked it back up.If schwarze makes the 2nd round, I'd be willing to run this league.

Posted by thejuice6 on 8/19/2012 5:15:00 PM (view original):
For the $110M Theme - one that's been done many times before but I'm not sure if it's ever been done in the WISC...

For your roster, you get:
1 player worth between 13,000,001 and 14,000,000
1 player worth between 12,000,001 and 13,000,000
1 player worth between 11,000,001 and 12,000.000

and so on - you get the picture.

I'll let someone smarter than me sort out the final $5M once you get past the $1M player.

If you really want this to be crazy, make it a draft league. Everyone has to end up with

1 hitter and 1 pitcher 9-10mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 8-9mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 7-8mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 6-7mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 5-6mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 4-5mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 3-4mil
1 hitter and 1 pitcher 2-3mil
3 hitters and 3 pitchers <1mil

The max value for each of those slots is 110mil, for 24 players. So you could have a 25th round, the reverse of round 1, where everyone can pick whoever they want. The min value is around 90mil so if you wanted to go really nuts you could save enough cash to draft Ruth or something. Or you could make the last slot anyone you want under 10mil... whatever.

I don't know if there are enough usable pitchers between 4-5mil to make 24 of them worth drafting, but it would be a hell of a puzzle.

A lot of people had floated the idea for a draft league. I for one hate this idea. I don't always the greatest amount of time to devote to WIS. You can really gain a competitive advantage in a draft league by thoroughly analyzing the player pool to get those hidden gems. Those who didn't have the time to make a great draft board will be disadvantaged. I also feel like knowledge of the SIM would be overly rewarded.

I realize you could also say this is true of non-draft heavy research leagues, like the single team twist league. But there at least you're off the clock. And with such a broad range of choices you probably had a pretty good idea of a few starting places. I dunno, just my two cents. And everyone has the same opportunities from the start. I like that.

I think schwarze always has two draft leagues in Round 2.

Yes, one short draft and one longer draft. 

But I always give a head start for the draft schedule so people can draft off the clock for the first few rounds.  It usually ends up being a few days before we catch up to the clock.  And even then, it's one pick per person, per day.  So you have a day to research players between picks.

Part of the skill in this competition is being able to know the WIS player pool in order to find just the right type of player for any specific occasion.

Fair enough. It is fun researching players when you have the time. It is painful working hard to dig up all the obscure, great picks only to see every last one of them fly off the draft board ahead of you. But such is the way of things.

90M - 2012 and twists

Salary Cap: 90 Million (but see below)
Eligible players: Anyone WIS eligible in 2012, twisted to any year of their career.
No AAA, Trades, WW, DH or Clones.
No 300K exemption.

Special rule: For every player you twist, the cap is reduced by 1 Million. So there's a big premium on using 2012 players. This could also be run as a draft league with an 80M cap.

There's some possibility that the teams would look too similar at this cap - everyone drafting the 2012 MVPs for example, so it might be only really playable at 80M or lower. To avoid that, and add some complications, you could start with a 3 round draft - rounds 2 and 3 in reverse order of round 1 - drafting one player each round, and then let people put the rest of their team together around the three stars they get in the draft.

110M - Reverse Draft

Salary Cap: 110 M
Eligible Players: Everyone in database.
Draft league, with no clones and exclusive players. For example, once 1908 Addie Joss is taken, no one may draft any other Joss year.

Draft rule: Every player you draft must have as least as high a salary as the previous drafted player. (Or could make it required to be strictly higher, but I think it's better to allow for multiple 200K players.)

Draft order: First round random. Subsequent rounds, highest salary to lowest salary.
The reason for this is that drafting high(er) salary players in early rounds restricts what you can do in later rounds. Giving those owners a higher draft pick in compensation adds to the strategy.

This could obviously be run at any cap, but I think it works well at 110M, when people are itching to get to the really good players.

Position Draft

Salary Cap: Any would work, though 90M would be fun (too high a salary cap and there's too much advantage in drafting high in round one).

Eligible Players: Everyone in database

8 round snake draft. First round random.
In each round, an owner drafts a position (i.e., C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, SP or RP) and a franchise. All players who have that *primary* position in WIS database in your team must come from that franchise. So if you draft Giants SP, you can use anyone from Mathewson to Lincecum, and no one else can get any Giants SP on their roster.

Otherwise standard. No AAA, WW, DH, Trades or Clones. Ballpark used by one of the eight franchises you draft.

I like all of those ideas from brianjw. 

Posted by brianjw on 8/27/2012 1:15:00 PM (view original):
Position Draft

Salary Cap: Any would work, though 90M would be fun (too high a salary cap and there's too much advantage in drafting high in round one).

Eligible Players: Everyone in database

8 round snake draft. First round random.
In each round, an owner drafts a position (i.e., C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, SP or RP) and a franchise. All players who have that *primary* position in WIS database in your team must come from that franchise. So if you draft Giants SP, you can use anyone from Mathewson to Lincecum, and no one else can get any Giants SP on their roster.

Otherwise standard. No AAA, WW, DH, Trades or Clones. Ballpark used by one of the eight franchises you draft.

This please!

Some really great ideas.  Believe it or not, some of the ideas were very similar to themes I already chose to use. I'll be pretty busy with multiple fantasy football drafts over the next week and a half.  Once that's over, I will post the 6 themes.

So I am trying to sleep, I came up with this idea that for a draft that I am really excited for.  Think of it as a league where each owner gets to decide one rule for the league by a mad libs type rule fill in the blank.  The mad lib could go something like : 

Your player modifier position must have more/less than number stat.

Each category would have 24 choices.  Some possible examples might be

player modifier     position      more/less    number    stat
                                                                           
All-Star                   C                 12  mores    5                 HR
Cy Young              1B                12 lesses   10                SB
Gold Glove            2B                                     15               Triple
HOF                       SS                                      20               Wins
MVP                       3B                                      ...                 SB/SBA
ROY                      OF #1                                 80               AVG +
Last year             OF #2                                  90
Right Handed    OF #3                                  100
Left Handed       SP #1                                   ....
Switch Hitting     RP #1                                  140
                             Bench #1

The draft would be 5 rounds and finish with everyone having one choice of each category.  So if I drafted HOF in the 1st, SS in the 2nd, more in the 3rd, the number 5 in the 4th and triples in the 5th my rule to add to the league would be :

Your HOF SS must have more than 5 triples.

That would be an example of a pretty standard rule.  A concern might be that you could end up with rules being near impossible or impossible :

Your LH 2B must have more than a 140 AVG+

Schwarze could hold the power at the end of the draft to tweak any rule he finds too restrictive.  Some details would have to be worked out, choices for each category selected, but the foundation would be there.

Miscellaneous
(starting numbers?)

Each position (C, 1B, ...) would have more than 500PA
Each Bench would have less than 250 PA
Each SP would have more than 175 IP
Each RP would have less than 80 IP

You would end up with 24 players, your 25th could be 300K exception?

Or a BIRTHDAY draft! Everyone drafts birthdays, and once you own them you can use any player from that day.

It could be 3 rounds, 5 rounds, 10 rounds, whatever. 

I'm going to go over these ideas again, and hopefully wil post the six themes today.