We are heading into 1993 in the WhatIf Things Were Different (WITWD) Progessive League's 9th season, and we need 6 owners. This is a year unlike any other because we are expanding to 28 teams.

In any other year, we have unlimited keepers, but this year we are protecting 15 players per team (including those on injured reserve) in order to accommodate the expansion draft. After each team loses a player, they can pull back up to 2 more players, then may or may not lose a 2nd player to the expansion draft. When the expansion draft is finished, each established team then either keeps or discards each of its remaining players.

This will be the first year of the 3-division, wild-card format, one year earlier than MLB would've had it had the players' strike not canceled the 1994 season.

The 6 teams for which we need owners are:

Cleveland, Milwaukee, Texas, St. Louis, Florida, and Colorado. The first 4 have their keeper-eligibles listed below and the last 2 are expansion teams. First-come, first-served. 40 Live games minimum per team for the regular season, plus all postseason including any play-ins.

Also, those players on IR count towards the 15. If they are exposed, they can be selected.

AL has the DH, NL does not. Interleague play will not begin until 1997. Milwaukee will move to the NL in 1998 to accommodate Tampa Bay which will begin along with Arizona that year.

Cleveland Indians 1993 (AL Central) (Owner: 11kwyetman28)

C Dave Nilsson
1B Greg Colbrunn
2B Jeff Frye (IR)
2B Lenny Harris
OF Kevin Bass
OF Ivan Calderon
OF Steve Finley
OF Luis Gonzalez
OF Otis Nixon
OF Larry Walker
DH Julio Franco
P Jim Austin
P Chris Haney
P Mike Harkey
P Neal Heaton
P Pat Hentgen
P Randy Johnson
P Terry Mathews (IR)
P Kent Mercker
P Kevin Rogers
P John Smoltz
P Matt Whiteside
P Anthony Young

Milwaukee Brewers 1993 (AL Central) (Owner: triflex)

C Tom Pagnozzi
1B Mike Aldrete
1B Jim Leyritz
1B Carlos Quintana
1B Mo Vaughn
2B Robby Thompson
3B Matt Williams
SS Craig Shipley
OF Dan Gladden
OF Rickey Henderson
OF Brian McRae
OF Paul O'Neill
OF Randy Velarde
P Joe Ayrault
P Joe Boever
P Tommy Greene
P Roberto Hernandez
P Paul Kilgus
P Joe Klink
P Bill Krueger
P Greg Maddux
P Ramon Martinez
P Chuck McElroy
P Alan Mills
P Bob Ojeda
P Dan Plesac
P Kenny Rogers

Texas Rangers 1993 (AL West) (Owner: jflo65)

C Ivan Rodriguez
C Dan Walters
1B Brian R. Hunter
1B Paul Sorrento
1B Dale Sveum
2B Roberto Alomar
2B Jeff Kent
3B Leo Gomez
3B Alvaro Espinoza
SS Mike Gallego
OF Derek Bell
OF Chuck Carr
OF Chris James
OF Ryan Thompson
OF Jerome Walton (IR)
P Wilson Alvarez
P Bobby Ayala
P Jeff Ballard
P Jim Bullinger (IR)
P Kelly Downs
P Ramon Garcia (IR)
P Rich Gossage
P Jason Grimsley
P Scott Kamieniecki
P Mike Magnante
P Vicente Palacios (IR)
P Mike Stanton

St. Louis Cardinals 1993 (NL Central) (Owner: evetsirot)

C Geno Petralli
1B Sid Bream
1B Dan Pasqua
2B Bill Doran
3B Terry Pendleton
3B B.J. Surhoff
SS Craig Grebeck
SS Ozzie Smith
OF Vince Coleman
OF Thomas Howard
OF Willie McGee
OF Andy Van Slyke
P Paul Abbott (IR)
P Tim Belcher
P Rob Dibble
P Jim Gott
P Juan Guzman
P Greg A. Harris
P Bryan Harvey
P Xavier Hernandez
P Derek Lilliquist
P Scott Radinsky
P Nolan Ryan
P Pete Smith
P Randy Tomlin

The expansion teams will participate in the expansion draft, which will snake (one team picks 1st and 4th and the other picks 2nd and 3rd, etc.). Then the expansion teams pick 4th and 5th in each round until they end up with active 25-man rosters.

These teams may draft a player to trade him to an established team, as was done in real life with players such as Danny Jackson and Walt Weiss.

However, no trades are official until after the expansion draft has concluded.

Alignment will be:

Florida Marlins 1993 (NL East) (Owner: kneeneighbor)

Colorado Rockies 1993 (NL West) (Owner: riverratk)

Who is in?

Whats the overall draft order then?

Knee, since you were the first to claim an expansion team, you will call a virtual coin flip held by a neutral party via random.org. The winner of the coin flip will choose his position in his choice of either the expansion draft or the ensuing season draft, that is whether to pick 1st and 4th or 2nd and 3rd in the expansion draft, or whether to pick 4th overall in Round 1 of the season draft and 5th in Round 2 (33rd overall) or 5th overall in Round 1 and 4th in Round 2 (32nd overall).

The loser of the coin flip will then choose his position in the draft that was not chosen by the winner of the coin flip.

Of the teams that played the Live minimum of 40 games, the 3 worst will be in the lottery. I need to have the drawing done. I will immediately open the league forum to you. I pick 27th and 28th since both my Yankees and my Padres made the World Series!

I'll take Cleveland

Ill pick up Milwaukee

STL please

Thanks, all of you.

I'll take the Texas team