Quote: Originally Posted By dannino on 1/24/2009
I've been thinking of this one for a while, and I'm looking for some feedback. It is based on the sim league I was in in my job years ago, using the old FullCount Baseball program.

I call it The 2009 Progressive.

There would be a draft of the 2009 players starting in late February-early March. This would be your team. You would then track your players all season long. You could also make trades throughout the season.

At the end of the regular season, there would be a three round supplemental draft, where you could drop players and pick up replacements. This would allow for players who were called up or otherwise had unexpectedly good seasons to be picked up. Of course, players would have to meet WIS minimums (25 IP or 50 AB).

When the 2009 players stats appear in the database, the teams would be filled and the sim season played. Each owner would then have so many keepers (say, 8 batters and 9 pitchers), and next February/March, there would be another draft, and the whole process would begin again.

This would be different, in that it would literally be a single season at a time, and research would be a lot different. Plus, owners would have to be alert to possibly being traded players who had suffered season ending injuries.

I've got 11 in so far. Please consider it. It should be a lot of fun.

In the real world, the Yankees, Redsox, Dodgers all spend alot of money to build a team (or should I say BUY a team) and the Tampa Bays and Kansas Citys of the league don't have their payroll and thus (usually) have losing seasons.

Every once in a while though a Tampa Bay breaks through (there stars will be on the Yankees by end of nxt season).

Wish we could have a league that mirrors that. It is not fair in the real world (unless you ask a Yankee or Redsox fan!), so not fair in SIM either.

What if we had 24 teams and had a lottery of sorts. Team 1 gets $180 million and team 24 gets $65 million? Suck to be team 24 for sure. but then you would know what a Royals fan feels.

maybe it doesn't have to be that wide a disparity...10-20 mil could be enough... but the yankees also have a 3mil minimum per player and a limited player pool (2000-2008 only or something)

Just to be "contrarian", lumping the Red Sox in with the Yankees is not particularly accurate...in any given year in the past 5-7, the Sox have had the 2nd or 3rd highest payroll in the AL, but their payrolls have been far removed from the Yankees.

Example (2008 data, from b-r.com)

NYY 208M
DET 138M
BOS 133M
CHW 121M
LAA 119M
SEA 118M

It's certainly true that many teams fall well short of 100M every year, but the idea that the Sox are in any way equivalent to the Yankees in terms of salary really doesn't hold up. Boston is better thought of as being in a cluster of teams that spend 120-140M. No one is close to the Yankees.

In the NL, the Mets, Dodgers, Cubs are in the same range as the other clubs listed above.

Here's a couple of progressive ideas I've had kicking around for a while. I would join either but haven't had the time to commit to running any more of them.

PCL Progressive

You know, like the Pacific Coast League? The league starts some time around 1946, or maybe 1977 or even 1993, but the idea would be to recreate the feel of the PCL in the 40s when it was almost another 'major league.'

It would be a 16 or a 24-team league. One half of the league is the "major leagues" and functions like a perfectly normal progressive. The other half is the PCL and functions entirely with AAA players. PCL teams would all use west-coast ballparks and major league teams would use east-coast ballparks.

Not sure what quality of AAA players would work best - initially I was thinking Way Above Average, but those teams would probably be a bit better than the progressive side. Unless we started later than 1946, and then the progressive side could have 12 teams and be pretty deep. Above average would definitely be worse. I hate Random, there would be way too much luck involved (but hey, other people can take this idea and go that way if they want).

The PCL teams would not participate in the progressive draft but they could trade for picks, players, whatever. In other words, Joe Dimaggio could go over to the PCL. And if you allow renaming your AAA guys, then you could give them the same names every year. Buzz Arlett could finally get his chance.

There's still a lot more thought that would have to go into the setup but I think it could be really fun.

The superstar progressive

This would be simpler. It's a standard progressive, you start in 1969 or 1977 or 1993 or whatever, and either have a draft or have people pick franchises and keep a few players. The usual ways to start a progressive.

The only catch is, everyone gets one superstar player from a bygone era, and that player progresses normally along with your team. So you might have Ty Cobb, and if the league started in 1977, he would start in 1905. When you went to 1978, he'd be in 1906. Obviously it would be better if you couldn't trade away your superstar. And maybe Ruth would have to be blacklisted. There could be a new superstar draft every 20 years, so if you pick someone with <20 years, you'd have a few years without a superstar.

Did you try the PCL thing a couple years ago? I remember talking about it.

I think I might have posted the classified, don't remember if there was not enough interest or what, but it never happened. Might have just been talking about it.

jfranco77: I remember your PCL idea, and I would love to get in on something like that if you want to pursue it.

I played in a random AAA league a few months back where everybody got 60/20 random AAA players ... it was a tight league with a good mix of players. All you'd have to do is make everyone limit their roster to 30 guys before the season starts, to prevent over-substitution.

What if you had a standard 24-team league and started with the base of a real season 1901-60 with sixteen teams? That would give the "major" league a bit stronger than RL rosters, and leave some veterans for the PCL clubs.

I just reposted 2 Theme League Ideas in the classifieds
1) The Rick Honeycutt dubious distinction league and the George Kell and other batting races league.

Hey, it just occurred to me that the idea I suggested to jfranco77 for the PCL would ALSO work for the Negro League idea I've tried to get off the ground a couple of times --

What if you had a league with 12 teams drafting RL franchise-exclusive players from 1920-45, and 12 teams using random AAA to generate Negro League clubs? You would have a bit of interleague play and then a terrific World Series.

Does anyone have any advice on how many random AAA players to give a club of entirely $200k players, so they would be approximately equally competitive with a regular $80m club? (Or in other words, does anyone know what the average value of a random AAA player is?) I'm thinking you'd have to give something like 36/20 random AAA in order to get a decent 25-man roster.

Masters of Mediocrity

What about a .500 League?

The teams that finish 81-81, or closest to that, go to the playoffs. If teams tie, a real possibility, then the loser of the play-in game(s) moves on.

Yes, such a league would force some owners to try to lose games. Players doing too well would get sent to the minors or the waiver wire. Some series matching a team with too many wins against a team with too few, would find both owners trying for a sweep in opposite directions.

Once the playoffs begin, though, then the teams must win to advance. This could create strategic dilemmas if you have to lose some games at the end of the season to make the playoffs but still have a strong enough roster to win during the playoffs.

How about a Plane Crash league?

Everyone drafts a $120 million roster, then when your team reaches 70 wins, the team plane crashes and you have to jettison 8 position players and 5 pitchers because they were killed or maimed. They cannot be used again and must be waived and replaced with players from the waiver wire within 24 hours. [The rules could require that the list of the crash victims must include the team leader in HR and in pitching wins.]

As you approach 70 wins, there is no strategy that can save you from the catastrophe, because if you start throwing games, you just lose while (probably) only delaying the inevitable.

Some teams would likely be bad enough to never suffer the plane crash; on the other hand, as others crashed, their teams might start faring better and they might start catching up...

P.S.--Please note the time I posted this. Do I win the award for losing sleep while thinking about theme ideas?

I had actually thought of something like a backwards plane crash league ... The Natural league, where after a certain number of losses (50?) you get to call up one or two WAA AAA players, who you could name after Kerry Dineen or some other hot prospect who never made it to the sim.

How poor a player would you dare take at one or two positions for the first half of the season, in anticipation of your farm-system callups?

Quote: Originally Posted By doubletruck on 5/06/2009How about a Plane Crash league?

Everyone drafts a $120 million roster, then when your team reaches 70 wins, the team plane crashes and you have to jettison 8 position players and 5 pitchers because they were killed or maimed. They cannot be used again and must be waived and replaced with players from the waiver wire within 24 hours. [The rules could require that the list of the crash victims must include the team leader in HR and in pitching wins.]

As you approach 70 wins, there is no strategy that can save you from the catastrophe, because if you start throwing games, you just lose while (probably) only delaying the inevitable.

Some teams would likely be bad enough to never suffer the plane crash; on the other hand, as others crashed, their teams might start faring better and they might start catching up...

P.S.--Please note the time I posted this. Do I win the award for losing sleep while thinking about theme ideas

I like this idea

Same Record League - all your SPs have the same W-L record (or the same win total) and all your RPs have the same W-L record or win total.

Gold Glove League - all your players must have won a gold glove in the season you use them. maybe allow 6 or 8 bench players <500k. not sure how relievers would be handled... maybe just all your SPs and your starting 8