Before we get into round 4, a determination needs to be made on which teams advance. Per the rules, exactly 6 teams from each franchise will advance (the four playoff teams and the teams with the next two best records). Also, per rules, no person can have more than 4 teams advance.

If anybody has more than 4 teams that are *qualified* to advance, the lowest ranking team(s) are dropped and the team with the next best record (in that same league) will advance. In no instance will a franchise get more than 6 teams to advance to round 4.

The 48 teams will be ranked by (1) W-L record over the 162 game regular season (2) Expected Winning% (3) Home field win%. Any teams that get "moved up" from non-qualifying to qualifying status due to somebody having to drop teams, those teams will rank behind the qualifying teams, regardless of their W-L record.

Once the 48 teams are determined, a draft order will be calculated. The order will be based on the Round 3 rankings defined above. The top 4 teams will get to pick which league they want to be in (and should select their team ahead of the regular draft). Once the "Top-4" selection process has been completed, the rest of the teams will be slotted into the open spots according to a predefined algorithm. Trading picks will be allowed before and during the draft.

Since there are 2 leagues in round 4, and 4 teams per person is the max, no person will be allowed to have more than 2 teams per league (opposite side).

League 1: NL: Mets, Astros, Padres, Expos
League 1: AL: Angels, Rangers, Brewers, Royals
League 2: NL: Diamondbacks, Rockies, Marlins
League 2: AL: Blue Jays, Mariners, Rays

The rules for round 4 are exactly the same as round 3, except the seasons used in round 3 are blacklisted. Also, the newer expansion teams are now included. Note that the list above is not a division alignment. There is no minimum or maximum number of teams per franchises required to be selected. There could be six Blue Jays seasons and two Rays seasons selected.

Twist & Clone Rules
Upon sign-up, you will select a single season team (1961-2024) from one of the expansion franchises. Using baseball-reference.com as a guide, you can twist any player that appeared in at least one game for that single season team. And you get to clone any of your players one time (i.e., you can use up to two versions of any player from that roster). You aren't required to clone every player you use, but you cannot have three versions of a player.

Other Details
Player Seasons: Any (You are allowed to twist or clone a player to a season prior to 1961)
Salary Cap: None
DH: Yes
WW, AAA, Injuries: No
Clones: Allowed (but no more than two versions of any player)
Multi-Team Seasons: You may use partial or combined season
Ballpark: Any ballpark from any franchise from any season will be allowed.
Division Alignment: Chronologically (if same year, then alphabetically by nickname).

FOR THOSE WITH TWO TEAM IN A LEAGUE
With your second team in a league, you must pick a season that would ensure you will be in the opposite league as your first season.

Schwarze, this may be a “we’ll figure it out when we get there” question but I was doing some research while this draft was still fresh:

for the 2-team rule, how will that be enforced? If someone has two picks in the top half of the league, I don’t think any pick they make would guarantee they’d be in the opposite league. Even after pick 12, it may still be tough (if your first pick was in the middle chronologically you wouldn’t know which league you’d end up in, if you picked an early season you’d probably be able to pick a sufficiently late enough season but that would be pretty restricting).

Anyway just curious if you’d thought about that yet

Let me think about this a bit. I may have an idea to resolve this.

Ok, here's how I'm going to tweak round 4. I think there are still enough decent seasons of the early expansion teams to make this viable.

League 1
NL will consist of seasons from the Mets, Padres, Astros, Expos
AL will consist of seasons from the Diamondbacks, Rockies, Marlins

League 2
NL will consist of seasons from the Angels, Rangers, Brewers, Royals
AL will consist of seasons from the Blue Jays, Mariners, Rays


That should resolve the issue for those with two teams.

Thanks!

Just spitballing here, but does this potentially create a bit of a disadvantage for some owners now?

I haven't extensively researched every team, but what if there were going to be 14 Jays/Mariners/Rays teams taken? Now those final two owners will instead have to choose - potentially - weaker teams from the Round 3 leftovers. Just a thought.

Honestly, I have no idea which league has more usable teams. The original expansion franchises have twice as many seasons as the new expansion teams.

But this seemed like the simplest and fairest solution.

Mets - 63 teams - 12 = 51 teams
Padres - 56 teams - 12 = 44 teams
Astros - 63 teams - 12 = 51 teams
Expos - 56 teams - 12 = 44 teams
Diamondbacks - 27 teams
Rockies - 31 teams
Marlins - 31 Teams
LG1 total = 279 teams

Angels - 64 teams - 12 = 52 teams
Rangers - 64 teams - 12 = 52 teams
Brewers - 56 teams - 12 = 44 teams
Royals - 56 teams - 12 = 44 teams
Blue Jays - 48 teams
Mariners - 48 teams
Rays - 27 Teams
LG2 Total = 315 teams

I think the Blue Jays or Mariners should be swapped into LG1 with either the Rockies or Marlins. If it was up to me, I'd say swap Mariners with Rockies. Mariners will be in high demand and the leftover teams in LG1 are better than the leftover teams in LG2. If you leave the Mariners in LG2, they would dominate. If you put the Mariners in LG1, you'll see a more equal amount of Mariner/Diamondback teams due to Randy Johnson. I haven't done the research either, so this is just a fast take.

If the leftover League 1 teams are better, wouldn't it make sense to have the Mariners in the opposite league to balance out available good teams? Stacking them in League 1 doesn't make a ton of sense from that perspective.

Since exactly 6 teams from each half of each league will advance to the next round, I am not going to worry about relative strength of each half league.

Also, round 5 (the final round) will have the smallest correlation between draft pick and record, since all teams are eligible and there is a salary cap, which should even the playing field. The ultra-high salaries of guys like Ruth, Maddux, Bonds, Lajoie will make those players less desirable to roster. The goal in round 4 should be to just advance, then anybody can win it all.

What if League 1 is all the teams we used in R3, and League 2 has only the 6 more recent teams?

I'm not quite clear on "opposite league". Do you mean LG1 vs LG2? Or AL vs NL within the same league? I think the Mariners would dominate the Angels/Brewers/Rangers/Royals if they were in LG2. So I think they should be in LG1 because the Mets/Astros/Expos/Padres are better.

But maybe all of the original expansion franchises should be in LG1 and the newer ones in LG2.

It could be:

LG1 NL: Mets/Expos/Padres/Astros
LG1 AL: Angels/Brewers/Rangers/Royals

LG2 NL: Rockies/Marlins/Diamondbacks
LG2 AL: Blue Jays/Mariners/Rays

Anyways, I see how schwarze organized the leagues because of real-life NL/AL alignment and this would keep more true to that intention.

Dear schwarze: these are suggestions, it's your league, do what you want

I like recdped & toysboys' league alignment suggestion. It's more logical to keep the AL vs NL split. I'm a bit mad that I didn't think of this myself. Thanks

Modified.

Schwarze you have the dbacks, etc listed twice in the initial post, just need to remove them from league 1