Theme Concept
This league will begin with the earliest available seasons in the WIS database (1885-86) and will progress two years at a time through history (1887-88, 1889-90, etc). Any player in the database with a season in 1885 and/or 1886 is available. Players who have a season in both years can only be used once but the selecting owner has the option on which season to use.
League Rules
1. League Format - Alt Format D (162 games, 12 teams, 2 playoff teams, interleague play and balanced schedule are true). If we get enough interest to switch to a 16 team league, we will use Alt Format E.
2. Salary Cap - Max
3. Ballparks - Any park in the database that was in use pre-1900 (including WIS Park). There are 12 of these so that works out perfect. Ballparks will be exclusive (if we switch to 16 teams, we will add 4 add'l ballparks--based on earliest first season). Request your ballpark at signup, I will make my selection once we are full.
4. Draft Settings - Initial draft will be handled using the live player draft feature. Future drafts will be handled in the forums. Settings will be 10am - 10pm, 45 minute rounds, 1 pick per round all 25 rounds with forced time limits. Snake style for the draft order.
5. League Settings - DH, WW, and AAA will not be used. No live play. Transaction deadline and injuries will be in effect. Random alignment the first year and will stay the same thereafter. Trades will be allowed. 10 vetoes required to stop the trade.
Future Drafts/Off Season Rules
1. Owners may keep as many or as few players as they wish from season to season. They will post their keepers in the forums.
2. Players who don't have a season in either of the applicable years can be placed on the DL until they return to the database.
3. Future drafts will be held in the forums. Draft order will be worst to first (each round) based on record at the 120 game mark. Tiebreakers will be based on Expected Winning % (lowest goes first), then head to head (worst record goes first), then runs allowed (most goes first), then coin flip.
4. Changing ballparks. No ballparks will be changed prior to the 1901-02 season. After that time, in order for an owner to change parks, there must be one available for the appropriate time period within the same city and not already in use by another owner in the league. In cases where a ballpark is in the database twice (because 2 different teams used it), for our purposes this will be considered 2 ballparks.
Example - Shibe Park is listed in the database twice: Athletics 1909-52 and Phillies 1938-52. From 1909-37, Shibe can only be used by 1 owner. From 1938-52 it can be used by 2 owners.
Commissioner's Note: If owners' begin changing ballparks frequently, the commish reserves the right to block future ballpark changes and/or institute rules to limit how often a team can change parks.
Other Notes
1. Player Pool Data: The 1885-86 player pool has 229 position players and 91 pitchers (320 players). This will allow each team to fill a full 25 man roster. There should be over 8800 PA/2500 IP available so depth shouldn't be an issue. In the event we had a 16 team league, there would be 20 players per team and approx 6600 PA/1800 IP per team. In this case, we would have to use five 200K scrubs/team and either keep them on the roster or use AAA players to add depth. My vote would be to use AAA players (8/4 and below average)....however whatever the consensus view among the owners would be fine with me.