I will post the round 2 themes here, one per day this week.

Round 2 site-mail list
barracuda3; bighooze; bigmc; buddhagamer; crystalao; discodemo; doctorcc; duece_duece; fooolishfool; Fusion27s; glowguy; jbohrman; jfranco77; jschirn; justinlee_24; markeking; mildnhazy; ozomatli; rbow923; Relkcirts; schwarze; tjefferson; WaitNSee; Xjchessman

$65M, Big City, Small Payroll
The three biggest cities in the U.S. (based on metropolitan population) are New York, Los Angeles & Chicago. You must draft your entire roster with players who play for Chicago, Los Angeles, Anaheim, New York, Newark & Brooklyn. You must spend at least $20 million on players from Chicago teams, $20 million on players from Los Angeles/Anaheim* teams and $20 million on players from New York/Brooklyn/Newark teams. You must use a ballpark associated with a team that played in one of those cities as well. (*California Angels are included in the LA/Anaheim category)
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Q/A:

Question: For the $65 Million theme - It would be helpful to have a definitive list of teams that are included in the theme. For example, are Federal League teams in or out (the Chicago Whales and the Brooklyn Feds)? What about the Chicago Orphans (who have seasons within the time parameters)? Finally, although Newark, N.J. is generally considered part of the NYC greater geographic area, I'm assuming the Newark Peppers are excluded for purposes of this theme correct?

Answer: See below for list. Let me know if I missed any or have an error anywhere.

Chicago Teams
1901-2016 Chicago White Sox
1901-1902 Chicago Orphans
1903-2016 Chicago Cubs
1914-1915 Chicago Whales

Los Angeles Teams
1958-2016 Los Angeles Dodgers
1961-1964 Los Angeles Angels
1965-1996 California Angels
1997-2016 Anaheim Angels

New York Teams
1901-1957 New York Giants
1901-1910 Brooklyn Superbas
1903-1912 New York Highlanders
1911-1915 Brooklyn Dodgers
1913-2016 New York Yankees
1914-15 Brooklyn Feds
1915 Newark Peppers
1916-1930 Brooklyn Robins
1931-1957 Brooklyn Dodgers
1962-2016 New York Mets

$80M, Noodle Arm Catchers & Gopher Ball Pitchers
Two rules. 1. No offensive player on your roster with catcher eligibility (primary or secondary positions) can have a throwing arm rating better than D-. 2. Every pitcher on your roster must have HR/9 >= 0.75. Do you draft speed or power?
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Other Specifics

Q/A

$100M, Four Letter Words
You will select 4 letters of the alphabet. All players on your roster must have first and last names (official name based on sim search) that start with letters that you drafted. So if you select C, G, M, R, you can roster Greg Maddux, Christy Matthewson, Cupid Childs, Red Rolfe, but not George Herman (Babe) Ruth (since Babe is what comes up in the search). You will have 16 combinations of initials to use. All 25 of your players must meet this criteria (i.e., no 300K exception).
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Other Specifics

Q/A

$110M, Equally Distributed
Your 25 players must come from different seasons and those seasons must be equally distributed, with N = 2, 3, 4 or 5. For example, you can select your players such that you have one player from every other year (i.e., 1901, 1903, 1905, 1907, … 1947, 1949. Or you could have a player from every third year (i.e., 1943. 1946, 1949, … 2012, 2015). Every fourth year could look this (1885, 1889, 1893, … 1977, 1981). All seasons are eligible as long as you are equally distributed for all 25 players.
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Other Specifics

Q: Is N=1 allowed (i.e., can I pick 25 consecutive seasons)?
A: No.

$120M, 12x12 Draft
This theme is similar to the 16 x16 theme that I’ve run for years. In fact, I've run a few 12x12 leagues before. Here is a link. The rules vary a bit. The round 2 participants will be divided into two drafting groups based on round 1 final standings. Owners ranked 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc… will be in one drafting group #1. Owners ranked 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc… will be in drafting group #2. Division alignment will be based on rank (i.e., 1, 3, 5, 7 in NL East; 2, 4, 6, 8 in AL East). Each group will have its own separate draft.

Here are the 12x12 rules…
Each of the 24 owners will select one player who played 12-15 seasons (multi-team seasons count each team as a separate season). This player selection order will be determined randomly.

These 24 players will be unique so once a player has been selected, nobody else can select that same player, even if you are in a different group. However, you are allowed to change your pick, up to 24 hours after the last pick was made. (6 hitters and 6 pitchers will be selected within each group). Each person will site-mail me which season of your player you intend on using. Then, there will be an 11-round draft (for each group) where each person within the group will draft each of the other 11 players, selecting an un-drafted season for that player (in other words, a player with exactly 12 seasons will see each season get selected once). So including your nominated player, you will have 12 players on your roster. The other 13 players must be teammates of these 12 players, and you must have at least one teammate per player (which means one player gets to pull two teammates). Nominated players are NOT allowed to be teammates, regardless of drafting group. The draft order in each round is based on the lowest cumulative salary, so you have to weigh taking the best/expensive player available vs. how early in the round do you want to draft. When you draft a multi-team player, please specify which team/version of the player (i.e., 1984 Sutcliffe, Cubs partial. In this case, the Cubs full-version is also off the board, but the Indians full or partial is still available).
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Other Specifics

Q: If I understand this correctly, your drafted player/season is not necessarily exclusive, because someone else could take that player/season as a "teammate". So if schwarze drafts '27 Babe Ruth and I draft '27 Lou Gehrig, I can also take '27 Babe Ruth as a teammate. Correct?
A: Good question. I forgot to include that stipulation in the rules. Nominated players are not allowed to be teammates. I simply forgot to include that. This is why I allow people to change their minds on their nominated player. Sometimes, they have a key teammate they want to use and then later that teammate becomes somebody else's nominated player. Will clarify that in the rules.


Q: I don't quite understand the multi-team players as it relates to number of seasons and also drafting. Please give an example:
A: See Baby Doll Jacobson. When you do a search on Baby Doll Jacobson, he shows up with 21 matches. But change the "Season Type" to Full/Combined. This shows he has 15 matches. This is how you count the seasons for purposes of this theme. Once the draft starts, all seasons are available to draft, including partial seasons. But both the partial and combined season for a specific team and year cannot be drafted. So if somebody drafts the partial 1926 Red Sox season of Jacobson (464 PA), then the combined 1926 Red Sox season is also off the board (and you are not allowed to switch to combined after the fact.)

Q: For the 120M theme, I assume you also want the 6 hitters to cover 6 of the standard 8 fielding positions (i.e. you don't want 3 SS nominated).
A: Correct, but some leeway will be allowed on multi-positions players.

Q: I'm also assuming that your nominated player can not have more than 15 full/combined seasons? (i.e. must be at least 12 but can't be more than 15).
A: Correct.

$160M, Decreasing Salary Draft
Team rosters will be populated via a 25-round draft (order determined randomly). Players from 1901-2016 are available, although once a player is selected, all versions of that player are off the board. When you make your pick, you must announce which season/version of that player (and post his salary). Each successive player that you take must have a salary smaller than the salary of the player you just selected. Division alignment is based on draft order. A separate ballparks draft will commence after the player draft. The ballpark draft order will be based on lowest team salary. Each team will have a unique ballpark (parks with different names but the same dimensions are considered the same park).
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Other Specifics

Q/A

Keep in mind that we'll be using 2016 players. Also, there will be another salary update in early October.

Five themes posted