As we all know, there are good reasons for two-season progressive leagues (that is leagues in which two seasons' players are drafted and used on rosters, with the two seasons advancing one year at a time - say 1914/1964, then on to 1915/65 etc.): 

Until 1962 there are fewer than 24 teams and in WIS baseball leagues anything under 24 teams excludes a wildcard position. This means that at most 4 teams, and with 16 teams only 2 teams advance to the post season. 

So the dual-season structure enables a larger size league, more playoff spots and therefore more chances to make the postseason, which in turn makes the league more attractive to join.

There is, of course, a downside - drawing from 32 teams for a 24 team league means that about one full league's worth of players (8 full teams' worth of roster names) are not needed and so only the best 24 teams' worth are drafted, leading to the undesired-by-many of us effect of having "All Star Teams" (Henry Aaron in left, Babe Ruth in RF etc.). 

Dual season progs may not be ideal, but they do have the advantage of being "What if" leagues in the sense that one can find out how Tom Seaver does pitching against Ty Cobb, but outside of the baggage that comes with being in OLs. 

I think there are ways in which we can have dual season progs without the All-star effect. It requires deciding that the league would be a sort of hybrid, in which a preference for one era over the other would be an operating principle. In other words, we will play the 1910s and 1950s but we are more interested in the 1950s. 

So we will take all 16 teams from the 1950s but only 8 teams' players from the 1910s. In other words, 24 teams worth of players will end up in a league of 24 teams. 

This means we have several options on how to decide which players from the 1910s to use: 

1) Only one league - AL or NL excluding the other for the length of the progressive league's existence

2) Only one league at a time - this would enable a league to begin at an earlier date - say the 1930s instead of the 1950s, with the second time period being say the 1900s on, but using only the NL team rosters from 1900 to 1929, then, having begun the league in 1930, and playing through 1959, the league could play 1960 with the AL team rosters from 1900, so that by 1989 the second source of players were the AL rosters from 1929. In this way the league avoid having players repeat their existence (taking out the occasional individual player that played for a couple of decades). 

3) Using players from both the AL and NL teams from the second (earlier or later) time period but using only half of those rosters - either the bottom 8 teams in W-L record overall (for example teams 9-16 from 1904:http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1904-standings.shtml ) which would include some stars and even superstars but by definition not include above average overall rosters and players as a whole, making the All-star team effect even less likely) or the best 8 (if it were desired to have many of the best stars from that era play in the progressive league precisely to have the Willie Mays v. Walter Johnson what if? thing happen), or by any other criteria the league owners choose to use. Anyway, some ideas to consider. 

I've often only played single season or hybrid leagues to avoid the "all star team" issue you note italyprof. I think that the ideas you mention above would help to quell this effect, but leave some players on the table and balance issues could come into play if you leave off a player/team that has a true HOF who didn't meet criteria.

What about just using the WIS setup 1998-2000 or 2001-2008 league model shown below as an option for a dual year progressive. Yes, it's 30 teams and you would have 32 teams to draw from, but it should mitigate the "all star effect". Yes it's a strange format with the unbalanced divisions, and perhaps the biggest albatross (and the reason I've never tried to start something like this) getting 30 owners to fill a league...but this would cut down on the "all star effect" as only 2 teams of players (read around 50) would be left out of player pool, thus requiring teams to be more realistic.

League Format:
	Games: 162	NL: 5/5/6	Interleague Play: True
	Teams/Playoffs: 30/8	AL: 5/4/5	Balanced: True for '98-'00/False for '01-'08

That may be the best way around the issue without limiting players/teams from the equation. My 2 cents anyway. BTW, if you were to try to run a league like this, I'd be interested in playing (I can't run it...I'd get fired, divorced or both). I've never played in a league with more than 24 teams or a dual era progressive.

The other issue I read with your option 2 is that by 1989, you will have gone through MLB's expansion and would have WAY more that 32 teams to choose from at than point. in fact, once you get past 1960, you add 2 teams in '61, 2 more in '62, 4 more in '69 and 2 more in '77. You would have the same "all star" team issue at that point. I would think that any Dual Era Progressive would have to stop at 1960 or you'll have this issue as the number of teams climbs.

I would be cool to do a league where you regress from 1960 and progress from 1901. You would eventually overlap, but that would be a fun league to play for sure.

why not just impose a salary cap or utilize a draft formula that considers total salary x 2 + keeper salary - wins    or some such? Both might serve to somewhat mitigate the all-star rosters.

Those are reasonable solutions seamar_116. But I personally don't like salary caps in the progs - I find them very hard to manage, calculate, work with. And I downright can't stand the draft formulas. I am in leagues that use one or the other of these. But I am always on the lookout for slightly simpler solutions. And my interest is not in stopping one particular team from having an "all star" cast - that happens in real baseball sometimes. It is having all the teams seem to consist of way above average players all the time. A salary cap won't help there except inasmuch as if it were effective it would have to exclude pretty much all the best players. 

Posted by italyprof on 12/8/2013 5:49:00 PM (view original):
Those are reasonable solutions seamar_116. But I personally don't like salary caps in the progs - I find them very hard to manage, calculate, work with. And I downright can't stand the draft formulas. I am in leagues that use one or the other of these. But I am always on the lookout for slightly simpler solutions. And my interest is not in stopping one particular team from having an "all star" cast - that happens in real baseball sometimes. It is having all the teams seem to consist of way above average players all the time. A salary cap won't help there except inasmuch as if it were effective it would have to exclude pretty much all the best players. 

What it sounds like to me is that you are looking for realism...both in stats and in roster construction. I am playing in a single season replay progressive currently in 1935 (we've played since 1916) and I can attest that it is difficult to put together rosters as we run out of players each season in the draft (16 teams in the league just like real life). Currently, teams only draft to 23 players and we still run out of players to take. This means that every single player, including the guys with 2.00+ WHIPS and guys who hit less than .150 are used. It's challenging, but really fun and the stats are realistic.

With a dual season, or a modern league where you have more teams in real life compared to the number of teams in the league, it isn't a realistic roster construction as the lesser tier players are left out of the league completely. That leads to your "all star" rosters and it leads to skewed, unrealistic stats.

You would have to have the number of teams in the league match (or nearly match) the number of teams in real life to accomplish this. Salary caps won't do it, as all that does is spread around the players to other teams in the league. Again, maybe the 30 team league for a dual progressive is the way to (32 real life teams vs. 30 sim teams) or AL/NL only seasons (8 from each year would net you 16 real life teams and 16 sim teams), but I don't see that as simple as someone would have to track traded players breaking into the league instead of just rookies.

frazzman80, you have hit the nail on the head here. 

I think the AL or NL only alternative is not as difficult as all that because the DC has an option for just searching for any player in the AL or NL and for any season. 

So let's say you have a 24 team league with 16 teams from 1960 and 8 from 1901 and want only NL teams. You just search for all NL players (and pitchers) for 1901. You don't need to search for rookies per se, since an available players list for a progressive league will always start with all available players (in this case from 1960 and from NL players from 1901) and then cull all keepers from all 24 league team rosters. That will leave only 1) rookies from 1960 or  from 1901 NL teams, 2) players that were traded into the NL during 1901, and 3) any players cut from the rosters of league member teams when they put their keepers lists together. 

You will have 24 teams from 24 teams. If you are comfortable as a league with the dual season format, both NL 1901 players and all 1960 players progress into 1902/62, and the AL players never existed except in their NL iterations (or AL if you choose to use those instead). 

Or, if you want to be a single season prog but need those extra 8 teams worth of players, you can do either of two of things: just pick one season, say an average one  statstically, or one where there is no overlap with the era you are playing in (such as 1901, but many other seasons could do) and never let those players progress or be kept as keepers, returning to the overall draft pool each season to be drafted to fill roster holes from 1960 (as we do with the non-MLB league players in my Space Age League, but with great simplicity than our system has in selecting who those players are), or you do let them progress but still have them be re-drafted each season in their new player-season iteration. 

In other words, there are some creative possibilities out there for progressive leagues and some playing around with the options could yield a number of interesting league options for those who 1) want single season progs but also a shot at the playoffs before the sun burns out, or 2) like dual season progs but not the all-star effect, or 3) just need some spice in their prog life. 

What you propose makes sense italyprof aside from the fact that as you progress from '60 there is expansion and soon you will once again have more teams than 24. Aside from that, I think it would work and would accomplish 1-3 you have laid out.

Good point about expansion. Either such a league would need to start sooner to make it worth it or would in any case be only temporary as a dual season league, and can switch to being single season after 1962. 

That is our plan in Space Age - to leave the Secondary Players behind once expansion gets us to 1962. So 16 seasons with this odd system and then we are a single season prog with the same franchises intact from the start - no need for an expansion draft at that point for example.