Despite the fun of alternative baseball history, sometimes what is missing from a progressive league is a sense that you are managing something that feels like that team in the historical period you are playing in. But going with the actual rosters takes any creativity out of it.

The Core-4 Progressive League addresses both of these sides of enjoying managing a historical team under alternative conditions.

We take our name of course from the common usage of "Core Four" to describe the late 1990s-early 2000s New York Yankees, with the Core Four being Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte. The team made many changes during these players' careeers, but so long as they were on the team, it was identifiable as the Yankees that had started out together winning in 1996.

In this league we will play with the historical teams and our inaugural draft will begin with a draft of the teams/franchises from 1934. The draft order for the inaugural draft's initial phase of drafting teams/franchises will be random, using a random table generated by a non-league HOF owner at WIS from the website random.org.

Each owner will identify FOUR players from their team each season before we begin the inaugural draft and later on before we begin the first year player drafts. ONLY PLAYERS WHO PLAYED THE ENTIRE SEASON FOR THAT TEAM AND DID NOT PLAY ANY PART OF THE SEASON FOR ANOTHER FRANCHISE WILL BE ELIGIBLE TO BE AMONG THE CORE FOUR.

Those four will automatically be on the team for the year, without having to be drafted. New, first-year players can be listed as part of the Core 4 for the team they played their first season with, again so long as they played the entire season for that team.

Since this system will allow the strongest teams from each Real Life season to keep their four best players, our draft system will compensate: draft order will go in reverse order to historical W-L records for that season by the real teams. This included the inaugural draft for 1934, once owners have drafted their teams/franchises and chosen their Core 4. In the event of a tie, the team that finished further down in the standings in their league that year will pick before the other team with the same W-L record, first using standings (a 7th place team that went 70-84 will get priority over a 6th place team with the same record in the other league), then by games behind the league leader - the one that finished further out will get the earlier pick.


Each team will pick TWO players in each round of our drafts, further compensating the teams whose Core 4 are from a losing team compared with those of the league powerhouses.

KEEPERS LISTS WILL BE LIMITED TO 10 PLAYERS PLUS THE CORE 4 - A TOTAL OF 14. This will circulate useful players widely, without burdening us with long drafts, since with 2 picks each team each round, and most teams needing 11 players or so, we should have drafts that go only 6-7 rounds most of the time.

This also prevents tanking, since it is the real world outcome, not the outcome in our league, that determines draft position. The drafts will be straightforward (or gayforward) NOT serpentine.


PLEASE NOTE: Core 4 players are not considered to be drafted, and CORE 4 players cannot be listed as keepers. They can remain Core 4 and protected for as long as the owner desires AND they played historically for that team the entire season. But once they are no longer listed as Core 4, they return to the general draft pool.

Example 1: The New York Yankees owner lists Joe Dimaggio as a Core 4 player before the 1936 draft takes place, in which Dimaggio would otherwise be a rookie. Dimaggio continues to be listed by that owner as a Yankees Core 4 player through 1942. In 1943 through 1945 Dimaggio due to duty in the War, does not appear in WIS. He, UNLIKE ANY YANKEES DRAFTED PLAYER THAT WOULD BE ON THE DL/IR FOR THAT PERIOD, (which does not count against the 10 keepers), cannot be so listed. The Yankees owner CAN reclaim Dimaggio or any other Yankee player in 1946 that played all season only for the Yankees in '46, and so protect him from the draft. But if he does not list him as Core-4 Dimaggio returns to the draft pool.

Example 2: Tommie Agee, 1966 - the New York Mets owner (when we have expanded etc. by that time) must decide whether to:
1. list Tommie Agee as a Core 4 player, in which case they can continue to do so through his good seasons like 1969-1971, or else, if they do not also continue to list him as Core 4 for 1967 or for 1968, when Agee hit .234 and .217 respectively, Agee returns to the draft pool and cannot be kept as a keeper as a drafted player could.
or
2. to try to take their chances on getting Agee in the draft to have him as a keeper.

Teams will play in the historical parks of their team in that year.

We will begin in 1934 because in my view it is when statistically normal baseball began, no deadball era, no jackrabbit ball HR era like the 20s, no steroids. By the team we reach the present day, assuming we play 5 seasons a year, we will have played 105 seasons of baseball and I will be 81 years old. Plenty of baseball for everybody.

We will provide 6/6 below-average AAA to each team to ensure enough PA and IP at every position to further ensure competitiveness in the league.

Join the new league, pick your team/franchise, choose your Core 4 and let's get started. Sign up here:

1. italyprof
2.rebel23 (joined by sitemail)
3. jeff4 noles
4.dannino
5. fatguyrd
6. eman7400
7.Brian1648
8.tridentric
9.coyote522
10.strubrosll
11.maddove117
12.vilefileman
13.N4ser
14.sigblend
15.lastinspace2
16.danidon

The Draft Order for 1934, once owners have first selected their teams and chosen their Core-4 in the first part of our inaugural draft will be as follows:

1. Cincinnati Reds
2. Chicago White Sox
3. Philadelphia Phillies
4. Washington Senators
5. St. Louis Browns
6. Philadelphia Athletics
7. Brooklyn Dodgers
8. Pittsburgh Pirates
9. Boston Red Sox
10. Boston Braves
11. Cleveland Indians
12. Chicago Cubs
13. New York Giants
14. New York Yankees
15. St. Louis Cardinals
16. Detroit Tigers

Pick a franchise, use their RL stadium, I assume?

Also, when a Core Four player retires, he can be replaced? What about if he's traded in subsequent seasons?

I like this concept a lot more than the complicated ideas in the other thread about league concepts.

Yes, I know I said I'm trying to keep myself to six leagues, but this is an era that I haven't used much, except when we passed through in Ace's Deadball/Steroid Progressive.

"Gayforward???"

Sign me up.

i will join

Posted by dannino on 5/18/2021 7:25:00 PM (view original):
Pick a franchise, use their RL stadium, I assume?

Also, when a Core Four player retires, he can be replaced? What about if he's traded in subsequent seasons?

I like this concept a lot more than the complicated ideas in the other thread about league concepts.

Yes, I know I said I'm trying to keep myself to six leagues, but this is an era that I haven't used much, except when we passed through in Ace's Deadball/Steroid Progressive.

"Gayforward???"

Sign me up.

As to the last word you quote, just tryin' to be inclusive.

So, when a Core Four player retires, assuming you haven't already decided to drop him from your Core 4 list and send him to the draft pool before, yes, you always have Four Core players, never more nor fewer (thank you Stannis Baratheon).

And yes, you use the franchise's RL stadium from that time.

Yeah, me too, as you know better than some, most of my prog ideas have been very complex and convoluted. This time, I wanted something that was easy to understand, relatively modest maintenance (no prog is low maintenance, but this one should move along pretty smoothly).

Anyway, dannino, as you can imagine I am delighted to have you join.

Welcome jeff4noles, nice to see you here again.

Posted by italyprof on 5/18/2021 7:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dannino on 5/18/2021 7:25:00 PM (view original):
Pick a franchise, use their RL stadium, I assume?

Also, when a Core Four player retires, he can be replaced? What about if he's traded in subsequent seasons?

I like this concept a lot more than the complicated ideas in the other thread about league concepts.

Yes, I know I said I'm trying to keep myself to six leagues, but this is an era that I haven't used much, except when we passed through in Ace's Deadball/Steroid Progressive.

"Gayforward???"

Sign me up.

As to the last word you quote, just tryin' to be inclusive.

So, when a Core Four player retires, assuming you haven't already decided to drop him from your Core 4 list and send him to the draft pool before, yes, you always have Four Core players, never more nor fewer (thank you Stannis Baratheon).

And yes, you use the franchise's RL stadium from that time.

Yeah, me too, as you know better than some, most of my prog ideas have been very complex and convoluted. This time, I wanted something that was easy to understand, relatively modest maintenance (no prog is low maintenance, but this one should move along pretty smoothly).

Anyway, dannino, as you can imagine I am delighted to have you join.

Other than starting the Space Age as a 24-team league using lists of supplemental players, the most administratively complex one would have been the Mirror Universe progressive (two of each player!). But nothing like bidding for 1st Round picks and random seasons for each division!

Please enroll me

Welcome fatguyrd, great to have you join !

Posted by dannino on 5/18/2021 8:04:00 PM (view original):

Posted by italyprof on 5/18/2021 7:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dannino on 5/18/2021 7:25:00 PM (view original):
Pick a franchise, use their RL stadium, I assume?

Also, when a Core Four player retires, he can be replaced? What about if he's traded in subsequent seasons?

I like this concept a lot more than the complicated ideas in the other thread about league concepts.

Yes, I know I said I'm trying to keep myself to six leagues, but this is an era that I haven't used much, except when we passed through in Ace's Deadball/Steroid Progressive.

"Gayforward???"

Sign me up.

As to the last word you quote, just tryin' to be inclusive.

So, when a Core Four player retires, assuming you haven't already decided to drop him from your Core 4 list and send him to the draft pool before, yes, you always have Four Core players, never more nor fewer (thank you Stannis Baratheon).

And yes, you use the franchise's RL stadium from that time.

Yeah, me too, as you know better than some, most of my prog ideas have been very complex and convoluted. This time, I wanted something that was easy to understand, relatively modest maintenance (no prog is low maintenance, but this one should move along pretty smoothly).

Anyway, dannino, as you can imagine I am delighted to have you join.

Other than starting the Space Age as a 24-team league using lists of supplemental players, the most administratively complex one would have been the Mirror Universe progressive (two of each player!). But nothing like bidding for 1st Round picks and random seasons for each division!

Well, the Supplementals, using the Players League and Federal League etc. to enable playing 24 teams in a 16-team era seemed like a fun idea at the time, but we found that there were all kinds of unanticipated consequences. Space Age works much better now in its current form under its current Commissioner.

But, yeah, my head rolled over some of the suggestions on the thread, I was hoping to find all sorts of fun creative stuff, and it WAS creative, but I don't think auctions for stuff is fun. Too much freakanomics or whatever brought into the baseball world. Moneyball on steroids (pun intended). Too complex for me. In fact I dropped a league with people I really like on this site recently because I couldn't do the math required to stay in it. I am glad people for whom that is a fun challenge have those leagues, but (and they are welcome here as well) it is beyond my reckoning.

Prof I thought you were an economics teacher based on some of your writings. I have a masters degree and you’ve written some things I had no clue. . I would have needed a translator.

I'm in

Just to clarify starting 2nd year you can use anyone who played with your franchise in the whole 1935 season as a core 4?
but I'll use Dolph Calmini as my example he played for 2 teams the first year so he can't be used as a core 4 so say I drafted him in the regular draft and would want to keep him would Philly also draft him as a core 4 ?

Posted by eman7400 on 5/18/2021 10:57:00 PM (view original):
I'm in

Just to clarify starting 2nd year you can use anyone who played with your franchise in the whole 1935 season as a core 4?
but I'll use Dolph Calmini as my example he played for 2 teams the first year so he can't be used as a core 4 so say I drafted him in the regular draft and would want to keep him would Philly also draft him as a core 4 ?

Core 4 can't be drafted. If a player spent the whole season on your team, they can be one of the Core 4 players you simply state is in your roster before the annual draft.

This is already true for 1934. First we will, using a random order, draft which teams/franchises we want. Then, before the inaugural 1934 draft starts, we will each name four players that were on that team the entire season , and played for no other team. Those will be on that team and taken out of the draft pool. Then we will draft our other 21 players.

At the end of the 1934 season, each team will name its Core 4 players for 1935, again, only players that played the whole year for them in real life.

of course, these might be 4 entirely different players than the year before, though in most cases there will be some continuity. Some of these players might have been drafted by another team the previous season, but Core 4 gets priority. That is why keepers, who can only be drafted players, are submitted after each team's Core 4 have been announced for the following season.

Then each team prprovides a 10-player keeper list and I take those also out of the draft pool, and the we each h draft another 11 players or a few more if a team did not have 10 players it wanted to keep.

In your examlle, neither you nor Philadelphia could have Camilli as a Core 4 player, because he didn't play the entire 1935 season for either team in real life.

This means that he would be in the draft pool unless he is a keeper for a team that drafted him in 1934. Any team can draft him and list him as one of their keepers (10 total), like in any other progressive league.

So in my example if I draft Camilli in the first round in the 34 draftexpecting him to be a keeper for long time that I might only get to keep him for a year before philly takes him as a core 4 for 35 correct ?

That is correct. So the drafting strategy is somewhat different. You want to hang on to your own Core players, draft good players who may or may not be subject to being Core 4 for another team, to build a competitive team in a competitive league.

Look the Yankees at some point are going to hang on to Dimaggio, Gehrig, Dickey and maybe Ruffing or Gomez. But that means that they can't keep Crossetti, or the other pitchers, or later maybe Dimag, Dickey or later Yogi, Rizzutto, a pitcher, but the rest are fair game.