The No Whining Progressive, Early Edition (NWPEE) is a new 16-team double-season progressive.  Building off many of the constructs used in the original (and still-running) No Whining Progressive, the NWPEE will have a number of additional twists that should make for a highly competitive league.

I have posted a complete set of league rules here:
www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx

I highly recommend that everyone read the rules prior to signing up, but here is a synopsis:

-- 16 teams
--  Inaugural draft will draw from the 1885/1950 seasons, and we will progress from there
--  Each season the draft order will be generated from a random, equally-weighted lottery in which each team has a 1/16 chance of drawing the #1 pick.  W-L record will play no role in determining the draft order.  Hence there is no advantage to tanking.
-- This is a contract-based progressive in which each team is limited to 75 contract points for each season.  1 contract point = 1 season that you can keep the player.  2 points means you can keep him for 2 seasons, etc.  Once a contract is up, a player becomes a free agent and will be included in the next season's draft.  Contracts may not extended.  Seasons on IR do count against your contract.  75 is obviously an arbitrary number; I played around with several different scenarios, and I like the way 75 seems to work, but if for any reason it turns out to be untenable we will consider raising/lowering it as needed.
-- No AAA.  We shouldn't need AAA to fill 16 teams from 2 seasons worth of players.  I have selected 8 players from the WIS database who can be used by any owner as part of the 25 man roster if you think you will be short of PA or IP in any season (see the above link for a list of these players, who are obviously not exclusive).
-- No trade vetoes.  I find the whole concept of trade vetoes in progressives to be silly and petty.  The league rules do allow for an owner to object to a trade if he thinks it is so lopsided as to be damaging to the league's integrity, but it puts the onus on the objecting owner to raise the issue, make his case, and convince enough other owners to override the trade.  The original NWP uses this rule and it has never once been invoked in 27 seasons.
-- Most other stuff is pretty straightforward.  Don't be scared off by the length of the constitution; I just believe in being thorough.  Everything in there is a result of issues that I have seen cause dispute in other leagues I have been a part of.

Come on in and give this a try.  Experienced prog owners are welcome.  Owners who have been on WIS for a while but who are new to progs are also welcome, but please do read the rules thoroughly and ask any questions before joining.  Owners who are brand new to WIS...well, I certainly won't turn you away, but this might not be the best place for you to get your feet wet.

Interested owners:

1.) contrarian23
2.) coachgreat1
3.) grayfoxx
4.) techmobo
5.) buddhagamer
6.) mcurio1
7.) eastvanmungo
8.) WavelandGuy
9.) toddcommish
10.) zizzo24
11.) bingo_long
12.) elduro25
13.) N4ser
14.) Pubs
15.) cjmitch93
16.) crazyamos

Sitemail list: contrarian23; coachgreat1; grayfoxx; techmobo;buddhagamer;mcurio1; eastvanmungo;WavelandGuy; toddcommish; zizzo24; bingo_long; elduro25; N4ser; Pubs; cjmitch93; crazyamos

Waitlist: kev780

Constitution looks good. I actually read the whole thing. Looking forward to the league.

Can players under contract be cut?

Do all 25 players get a contract?

If I have a player on a 5 year contract, does this drop to 4 years the next year?
 And I now have 1 year to give out to a new draftee?

And what happens if my new draftee is Babe Ruth?
Does it mean I can only give him a 1 year contract?

So, if we draft, say, Willie Mays in 1951, we would have to COMMIT a budget (diminishing one per year) of contract points.  At the end of that commitment, do we have to put him back into the draft pool?

Rules for contracts are fully explained in the league constitution (see first post in this thread for the link), but I have copied the relevant points here:

So, just to make sure this is clear:

Can players under contract be cut? YES

Do all 25 players get a contract? YES

If I have a player on a 5 year contract, does this drop to 4 years the next year? YES
 And I now have 1 year to give out to a new draftee? YES

And what happens if my new draftee is Babe Ruth? 
Does it mean I can only give him a 1 year contract? You can give Babe as long a contract as you like, provided your total contract points for your roster are within the 75 point maximum.

So, if we draft, say, Willie Mays in 1951, we would have to COMMIT a budget (diminishing one per year) of contract points.  At the end of that commitment, do we have to put him back into the draft pool? YES, at the end of the contract, he goes back into the draft pool.

This league will involve much much more strategy around building your roster than a typical progressive.  In most progs, once you draft a player, you can keep him for his entire career if you want.  You can't necessarily do that here, at least not for your whole roster.  You will have to decide who you are willing to commit a long term contract to, and who you are willing to sign to a shorter deal.

If it's 1915 and Babe Ruth (and Rogers Hornsby) are in the draft pool, do you take a chance and cut several players in order to free up contract points, so that you can sign Babe or Rogers to a long term contract, assuming you are lucky enough to draft them?  Or do you figure, hey, I've only got a 1/16 chance of drawing the #1 pick, so I'm going to keep my roster intact, and if that means I can only sign Babe to a 1-year deal, so be it?

Very interesting - I would like to sign up.

Excellent.  Welcome!

I've been very impressed with the NWP and how that league is run, so I'm definitely interested in this league.  I just have a few questions first before committing:

1.  Why can't I pick a stadium from 1885?  If I want to play at the Huntington Base Ball Grounds, where possibly one of my draftees played, I should be able to.

2.  At what point do we declare our points for the next season?  Before or after the draft (or both)?  
Are we sending the commissioner the contract list after the draft? 

3.  Can I shorten a player's deal or am I stuck with whatever point total I selected when I drafted the player?  Let's say I want to free up points by changing a player on my roster I originally gave a contract number of 7 to, and instead only keep him for 3.  Can I do that or would I be forced to trade him for a player with a contract number of 3 if I wanted to free up space? 

4. Speaking of freeing up contracts, let's say I have 70 points committed going into the draft and I get the first pick in a draft where Ty Cobb is the consensus #1 - can I trade a few of my current players prior to the draft for players with smaller contracts in order to free up more points to keep Cobb for longer?

1.  Why can't I pick a stadium from 1885?  If I want to play at the Huntington Base Ball Grounds, where possibly one of my draftees played, I should be able to. The decision to limit parks to those in use in 1950 is an admittedly arbitrary one, but one that I am sticking to.  I'll also point out that there is exactly 1 park available in WIS that was in use in 1885: the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia.  None of the other parks used by the NL or AA teams in 1885 are currently available.  The Huntington Grounds in Boston were not used until 1901.

2.  At what point do we declare our points for the next season?  Before or after the draft (or both)?  
Are we sending the commissioner the contract list after the draft?  After the inaugural draft, you will post in the league forum the number of contract points assigned to each player.  Then each season when we post our keepers, we will post the number of contract points remaining.  Each season after the draft, owners will update their keeper lists to reflect the number of contract points assigned to newly drafted players.

3.  Can I shorten a player's deal or am I stuck with whatever point total I selected when I drafted the player?  Let's say I want to free up points by changing a player on my roster I originally gave a contract number of 7 to, and instead only keep him for 3.  Can I do that or would I be forced to trade him for a player with a contract number of 3 if I wanted to free up space?  You would have to trade him or release him.  Contracts may may not be changed.

4. Speaking of freeing up contracts, let's say I have 70 points committed going into the draft and I get the first pick in a draft where Ty Cobb is the consensus #1 - can I trade a few of my current players prior to the draft for players with smaller contracts in order to free up more points to keep Cobb for longer? You can make trades during the draft, sure, if you want to free up contract points.

ok.  I was curious about the stadium situation - I'm not saying I would have picked a 19th century (wood) ballpark but that's fine.  Sounds like we will set our keepers in one forum along with the contract points (pre-draft) and then another post-draft with the contract points of the new members of the team.  That puts a lot of pressure on the drafter to figure out how much he/she wants to keep a player, not knowing who might be available in the future.  But I guess that's a lot like being a real GM.

One other small question - any reason why you don't go with the stock market closing as the basis of the random draft, a la NWP?  Both ways are random, so it's no big deal, but I'm wondering if it's because of any lack of faith in the other method.

Anyway, I'm in.  I was in a progressive a few years ago which started with the 1885 season (and that lasted 25 seasons) and had a lot of fun in that, so this should be interesting.

I've always wanted to try my hand at GM duties more than just drafting players, so sign me up!

Welcome to both of you...2 more great owners to help get this thing up and running.

techmobo, I was in that league with you as I recall (footballmm11's Genesis League) and like you, I really enjoyed learning about those 19th century players.

To answer your other question, I have no lack of faith in the other method, just decided to try something simpler this time around.