Looking for something a little different? The BTTF may be for you. We started in 1985, just finishing up our 5th season and we need one owner for 1990.

BTTF was started as an homage to the Michael J Fox movie, and we incorporate the following tweaks on a normal progressive.
-- We're a 20 team league in which each owner started with an existing 1985 franchise (the team you would be taking over is based on Cleveland).
-- Each season, any rookies who come up with your team are YOURS.
-- We drafted free agents from the 6 teams not chosen (Milwaukee, Toronto, Seattle, KC, Montreal, San Diego). Each season we draft rookies from those 6 teams, along with any free agents.
-- Then it gets really interesting. 2 members of the existing 1985 roster could be twisted...in your case those were Bert Blyleven (twisted to 1971) and draft pick Dan Quisenberry (twisted to 1980)
-- Then we jumped back to 1970, grabbed two players from your franchise, and twisted THEM. In your case those were Dean Chance (twisted to 1963) and Sam McDowell (twisted to 1965)
-- And to put the cherry on top of this sundae we jumped forward to 2000, grabbed another two players from your franchise, and twisted them as well. For Cleveland, this gave you Kenny Lofton (twisted to 1993) and Manny Ramirez (twisted to 1995).

All players advance one season at a time, so as we head into 1990 your roster will be mostly 1990 players plus:
1976 Blyleven
1985 Quiz
1968 Chance
1970 McDowell
1998 Lofton
2000 ManRam

Oh...one problem with time travel...you can encounter yourself...for example when we hit the 1993 season, your Manny Ramirez meet his rookie self...no, the world doesn't end, but the rookie takes precedence; no clones. So you will use 1993 Manny starting in 1993. This rule only applies when a player meets himself on the same team. So Lofton will not have this problem. He is a rookie in 1991 with Houston, so the Houston franchise will get rookie Lofton, and "twisted from the future" Lofton will remain with you.

Let's see, what else...we draft 4 AAA to fill out our rosters, DH for everyone, reverse order of finish (must win 40 games to qualify for a top 3 pick, otherwise drop to 4th.)

Youngstown Goombahs (play in Cleveland Stadium)

You currently have 34 players for potential keepers. You will need to cut at least 9 of these guys - more if you want to participate in the regular draft. You'll get one draft pick for each player needed to get back to 25. Youngstown has not traded or acquired any draft picks; they will draft somewhere between 12th-16th.

C Sandy Alomar Jr, Rick Cerone, Tony Pena
1B Todd Benzinger, Jeff Manto
2B Bill Doran, Julio Franco
3B Carlos Baerga, Brook Jacoby, Edgar Martinez
SS Jay Bell, Felix Fermin
OF Jay Buhner, Brett Butler, Joe Carter, Alex Cole, Kenny Lofton (1998), Manny Ramirez (2000)
P Bert Blyleven (1976), Dean Chance (1968), Mark Eichhorn, John Farrell, Doug Jones, Ramon Martinez, Sam McDowell (1970), Charles Nagy, Alejandro Pena, Dan Quisenberry (1985), Bret Saberhagen, Rudy Seanez, Jeff Shaw, Greg Swindell, Mike Walker, Colby Ward

You also have Carl Willis on IR (returns 1991)

Folks, most of the rosters in this league are pretty deep, but this is a GOOD team. You have the stars of the late 80s Indians (Butler, Carter, Franco, Swindell)...you're about to start picking up the stars of the 90s (e.g. Thome) and you already have Sandy Alomar, Baerga, Lofton, Ramirez. You've got a young Edgar Martinez and a young Jay Buhner. Solid infield, GREAT outfield. You've got quite a rotation there in Blyleven, Chance, Martinez, McDowell, Swindell. Jones, Pena, and Quiz give you a pretty good bullpen.

Frankly, your hardest decision here is going to be who to cut.

Post here or sitemail me if interested. And just FYI, I am not the commish of this league. Disco Dogs is, but he is working insane hours right now as an essential employee in a critical industry, so I am pitching in to help out as we get ready for the draft.

Seriously - really good team here. Most of the time when you take over a progressive team, you have a rebuilding job ahead of you. Not so here. I certainly won't promise a playoff berth for these guys, but you ought to be able to have them in contention right away.

I'll give it a shot :)

Great - I'll ask Disco Dogs to add you to our league forum (this may take him a day or so, please be patient.) In the meantime, start thinking about which of those guys you want to keep or cut.