Well, I finally feel ready and motivated to start a new Progressive League and this one is based on an idea that has been rollin' roun' my head for many years: what happens in baseball without superstars?

We will be a one-year Progressive League, and will use only players listed in the Draft Center for each season when we set the "Awards" function to "No Awards".

This excludes ALL Hall of Fame members (we will exclude Derek Jeter and Larry Walker who will be inducted but have not yet been after their elections in January), all Cy Young Award winners, all MVPs, all All-Stars.

While HOFers are gone for their whole careers, some players who were All-Stars some years but not others, or were MVPs, Cy Young winners, etc. will have seasons where they appear and others where they do not. The seasons in which they do not appear because they were on the All-Star team or won another award will be treated as though they are on the DL/IR. They can remain on the keepers roster of the team that drafted them or has obtained them in a trade until they return to play.

Example: Bernie Williams plays from 1991 to 1996; he then does not play 1997-2001; he returns in 2002 and plays until 2006 . Barry Bonds plays from 1986-1989; he is gone until 1999; gone again from 2000 to 2005; plays in 2006.

We will start in 1901. For early seasons, war era seasons or any others in which there is a shortfall to reach 25 players per team or the risk of insufficient PA or IP, we will use any player or pitcher from 2020 with a salary of $2 million or less, and the 2020 pitchers in addition must have a WHIP of 1.30 or higher. The use of such players shall be on a year by year basis and not a permanent nor a perennial characteristic of the league. It is only to enable us to achieve 25 players and a minimum of 10 pitchers and 15 position players per team with sufficient PA and IP for every team to be competitive.

The players from 2020 will be used only in two cases:

1. We do not have enough players in the annual draft to fill 25 players on a roster or to have at least 10 pitchers for each team;
2. Some owners petition showing that they were unable to reach 1300 minimum IP for the season, or have a position where they were unable to reach 650 PA because there were not enough players with PA at that position available in the draft.

Under those conditions, the Commissioner will allow all teams under situation 1, or those specifc teams under situation 2. to draft any 2020 position player that has a salary of no higher than $2 million or any 2020 pitcher that has a salary of no more thatn $2 million AND has a WHIP of 1.30 or higher to achieve the required 25 player roster and/or the sufficient PA or IP so as to be competitive. When these problems do not exist, no 2020 players will be used.

We will start as a 12-team league and will likely remain so until 1962 when MLB expanded to 20 teams. We will then expand to 16 teams. We will expand to 20 in 1969, and so on, remaining always 4 teams smaller than MLB.

Draft order for rounds 1-3 will be random. I will ask a non-league member HOF owner here to generate a random table from random.org to detemine draft order for the first two rounds, after which we will draft starting in round 4 with the teams with the most losses in the previous season drafting first and going in order to that with the fewest losses.

For the inaugural draft, we will have a random order for all 26 rounds including one for drafting ballparks. For the first 5 rounds a non league member HOF owner will provide us with a random order from random.org. for the other rounds I will generate the random order using the same site.

There will be no: clones, AAA, WW, DH. We will leave injuries on to keep it interesting and incentivize depth.

We will use ALL BALLPARKS to keep this interesting. Team names MUST begin with the name of the city, state or geographical region the ball park used is in, followed by a team nickname.

UPDATE:I was hoping to use as a league format a single league, 3-division format with a wildcard so that we have four playoff teams. But admin. wrote me back that unfortunately it is not possible.

So, we will use a two-league, no division format, with only pennant winners in the playoffs, that is 6/0/0 with interleague play, WIS Alternate Format D. It means two 6-team leagues with only division winners in the playoffs.

This is baseball history completely re-written: No Cobb, Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera. Roger Clemens is a good pitcher with a good career.

Who will emerge as the stars? Who will set the records?

Join, help re-write history and find out !

1. italyprof
2.fatguyrd
3.eastvanmungo
4. Disco Dogs
5. Tammyk
6.Petroff
7.doubletruck
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

1. Are you going to draft ballparks, to avoid 2 teams ( or more) from playing in the same park?

2. In your Bernie Williams example, would you be able to keep him on IR, or does he have to be cut until he is eligible again?

Either way sign me up.

Hi fatguyrd,

1. Yes, exactly.

2. yes, if you draft a player or trade for one, and they have no seasons because they were on the All-Star team or won the Cy Young Award or whatever that year, you get to keep them on the roster.

Great to have you in the league. Welcome.

Interesting premise... I'll give it a whirl.

Wonderful EVM, very happy to have you in the league !

Just to whet everyone's whistle, I have posted the Inaugural 1901 Draft Pool, including noting which players have been excluded, in the Theme Leagues Forum.

So you can look there to see how our first draft pool looks and get an idea of how this will work. Looking ahead, to get an idea of when and whether a particular player will be excluded, just turn the search engine on Awards when doing a player search to "At least 1 Award". If that player year shows up for any particular season, they are out for that year. Hall of Famers of course are out altogether, which means that at least some seasons of would-be HOFers like Rose, Barry Bonds, Clemens, Joe Jackson, will show up, but not any in which they were All-Stars, Gold Glove, Cy Young, ROY winners, etc.

To see what the draft pool will look like in any given season, just go to the Draft Center, put PA or IP to zero, go to a non-position specific player search link, put the number of players to be shown to 500, put Awards to "No Awards" and do the search. Again, to see who then has been or will be exluded, just change the Awards setting to "At least 1 Award".

Until 1931 only HOFers are excluded. At that point we begin to exclude MVPs. In 1933, we start excluding All-Stars. All-after that, Rookies of the Year from 1947 on (pretty sure it will be Satchel Paige in 1948 that breaks the color barrier). From 1956 Cy Young Award Winners get excluded. Gold Glove winners begin to be kept out the following year. And in 1960 Reliever of the Year (originally called Fireman of the Year) is a basis for exclusion.

Since I was born in 1960, this means that once we arrive at my lifetime, all Award winners of all kinds will be excluded, so baseball history as I have experienced it, and as many of you have, will be utterly transformed. Who will be the best players and pitchers? What records will be set? Who will break them? What dynasties with what new legendary players will arise?

Join, find out and help make it happen.

Satch is in the HOF (1971) so it won’t be him that breaks the color barrier :)

Im up for this, love using lesser players

I'll take a spot.

Disco Dogs and Tammyk, welcome. We are up to 5, and almost halfway there.

contrarian23, I don't know how I could have forgotten. We were actually supposed to go to the Hall of Fame the day Satchel Paige was inducted, but my father decided after a while that the drive from northern NJ was too long, turned around and we headed to the Delaware Water Gap instead.

Doby is in the Hall. So is Monte Irvin. Don Newcombe was an All-Star in his first season in '49.

So it will be Hank Thompson and Willard Brown, who both played for the St. Louis Browns, who will break the racial barrier in 1947. So it still happens in the same year.

Dan Bankhead, who pitched for the Dodgers in 1947 would also be there, but he does not show up in the WIS database until 1950. He only pitched 10 innings in '47.

this sounds cool
I'll get in

O.K.Never drafted like this, so I’ll bite.

Welcome Petroff and doubletruck. We are up to 7 already !

Appears to me that most rosters will have 8-9 pitchers (high IP totals) and 17 position players.

Yes, we will use the 2020 players as described above to fill the rosters if needed. Once we have drafted, owners can use any $2 mil or less position player or $2 mil or less pitcher with a WHIP of 1.30 or higher to complete their rosters and have enough PA and IP.

But if your calculations are correct doubletruck, we may not need to use them. We'll play it by ear as the draft develops.

Thanks !