Some friends and I were talking and in the course of B.S., beer drinking, tall tales, and other things to pull down worker productivity, the conversation went to borderline Hall of Famers and what they were missing to get in. The common themes were MVP's, Cy Young's, and Post Season success. Now it could have been the beer making me feel smarter, but I thought what a good idea for a theme league.

Here's the deal:

1. Pick a borderline HOF player. Your pick is exclusive. This must be somebody retired long enough for the HOF. Sorry Albert Pujols Frank Thomas, Griffey Jr. and A-Rod, this is not for you. We'll determine borderline HOFers by using Baseball-Reference's Similar Players or if they have at least 10 years on the HOF ballot. If a real HOFer appears as a Similar Player, he's eligible, otherwise, no go. Again, anybody retired more than 5 years not in the HOF that can be compared to at least 1 current HOFer.

2. The goal is to have your guy win either the MVP or Cy Young award all while making and advancing in the playoffs.

3. You can draft anybody in baseball history (outside of everybody else's exclusive guy"to complement your guy. Give him what he needed. Did Don Mattingly need a great pitching staff for him to show his skills in the playoffs? Did Bobby Murcer need to stay in Old Yankee Stadium where he could have been a 400 HR guy? Can you keep Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry off drugs? Or maybe keep them on drugs, they seemed to be better then. The idea here is to build a team around your guy's strengths without over overshadowing him.

The Prize: The owner who's player finishes highest in the MVP or Cy Young voting and their team makes the playoffs wins a free team. Tie breakers are as follows:
1. Team that goes farthest in the playoffs
2. Division winner over wild card team
3. Most regular season team wins (1 game playoffs do not count)
4. Head to head record
5. Playing in the division with the highest winning percentage


The set up:

100 MM cap
No clones
No AAA
No DH
Yes to the WW- but you cannot claim anybody's exclusive player.
60 games live

I have my guy in mind when I got the idea for the league during the beer drinking, but I won't pick until there are 10 signed up.

Simple enough?

Sign ups:

1. Topgun11
2. Toddleduc - Roberto Alomar
3. Soxyanks12 - Pete Rose
4. Eman7400 - Tip O'neil
5. Joshkvt - Cy Williams
6.

What stadiums can we choose from?

All stadiums. Stadiums are not exclusive. You want to maximize your guys skills. (Murcer was a 25-30 HR guy, left Yankee Stadium and became a 10-15 HR guy) Or minimize their weaknesses. What if Jack Morris (who's ERA is hurt by all those HR's he gave up) pitched in the Astrodome?

You really haven't done a good enough job defining who wins the prize.  You could have, say, 2 of the "borderline HOFers" win awards and then their teams both lose in the first round of the playoffs.  That blows all the tie-breakers you listed.

Roberto Alomar !  sign me up...

Posted by dahsdebater on 9/16/2010 10:10:00 AM (view original):
You really haven't done a good enough job defining who wins the prize.  You could have, say, 2 of the "borderline HOFers" win awards and then their teams both lose in the first round of the playoffs.  That blows all the tie-breakers you listed.

Noted and fixed in the description. If it's still tied after that, I guess a coin toss is next. Did I mention the beer factor?

Posted by toddleduc on 9/16/2010 7:33:00 PM (view original):
Roberto Alomar !  sign me up...

Alomar is yours, and no other team can have an Alomar on it. Well, they can have Sandys Jr and Sr, but not Roberto.

I'm picturing .343 33 HR 125 R 155 RBI and 68 SB

ok ill take Pete Rose

Im in with Tip Oneill

Alomar?  He has over half of his similar players as Hall of Famers.  I thought you said he couldn't have any hall of famers on it to qualify?

I think lloyd it was you had to have atleast one hall of famer to qulifey to be used but it seems that its a very flaud way of choosing as people like Ron Santo Dick Allen Ken Boyer Gill Hodges all wouldnt be able to be used

Bobby Murcer and some other top players wouldn't qualify either. topgun, I like the concept, but think the player pool should be broadened, maybe to include any player not in the Hall who played at least, say, 10 seasons? Or the player must have stayed on the HOF ballot for at least 5 seasons? Since the free team requires an MVP or Cy Young season, the chosen player will have to be someone good. I looked at 4-5 other players I considered and none had a Hall of Famer as one of the 10 similar players.

I agree with eman's list that those guys should all be eligible for this league. I'm surprised none had a similar HOFer. I wanted a finite way of whom could be used, and I didn't want guys that were 1 year wonders like Norm Cash and his corked bat. I thought about the HOF ballot, but David Cone was one of the guys we were discussing. People figure Schilling is a lock when he becomes eligible. Cone's numbers are almost dead on Schilling's, but Cone got less than 5% of the vote his first year and will never appear on the ballot again. Hodges might be the poster boy for this league though. Let's expand it to 1 similar HOFer or 10 years on the HOF ballot.

Posted by soxyanks12 on 9/16/2010 9:32:00 PM (view original):
ok ill take Pete Rose

I bet you do well with him. ;)