Looking to fill 5 slots for the 1903 season.
League Rules
OK, if you’ve come this far, then hopefully you’re comfortable with the premise that if you join this league there will be seasons where your team is just going to suck, and there will not be much that you can do about it. Hey, someone’s going to end up managing the
1916 Athletics.
Here’s how we we’re going to do this:
- The league will start with the 1901 MLB season and progress forward one season at a time. I do have a plan to incorporate the 19th century at some point, but right now there are a few too many logistical challenges with that era.
- In season 1, once we have 16 owners, we will have a draft of the 16 MLB teams from 1901. Randomized draft order usingwww.random.org.
- For the 1901 season, we will use Alternate WIS Format B, which entails:
- 162 games
- 16 teams divided into 2 leagues and a total of 4 divisions
- 4 playoff teams (the 4 division winners; there is no wildcard in this format)
- No interleague play
- All teams must use their actual ballpark
- All teams should be entered with the exact name they used during the actual season, with no other information included in the name (such as year, your initials, etc)
- This is different from the way MLB was organized in 1901, but it will allow us to have 4 postseason teams rather than 2…and will lead to some real drafting strategy as discussed below.
- The 8 NL teams will be in NL, aligned geographically (4 easternmost teams in the NL East, etc.) The 8 AL teams will be in the AL, also aligned geographically.
- Subsequent seasons will use different formats, to reflect the way baseball changed over the years. These are summarized in the next post, with additional notes to explain things like how we’re dealing with the Federal League in 1914-15.
- Once you have chosen your team, you will go into the draft center and enter your actual players from that season. You can use the “load historical team” feature if you want…this is often the easiest and cleanest way to build your roster, but it’s not infallible. Occasionally players are missed when you load a team that way. If you prefer to draft your players individually, keep in mind that:
- For players who were traded or otherwise appeared for multiple teams in a single season, you MUST use the partial-season version of that player. If the player did not get enough PA or IP with your team to warrant a partial-season version then you cannot use him. NO COMBINED VERSIONS OF PLAYERS MAY BE USED.
- All players who played for your team in real life, and are in the WIS database, must be on your roster.
- Only players who played for your team in real life may be used in games. This is important, because many teams, especially from the early years, do not have 25 players in the database. In such cases, you will draft additional $200,000 players from the database (from any 19th century season) to fill out your roster, but these players MUST:
- Be manually set to rest at all times
- Be manually removed from your player rest, defensive replacement, and PH hierarchies.
- In other words, these non-roster players may not be used in games, unless WIS slots them in because of some sort of emergency, and owners should take every possible step to ensure that doesn’t happen.
- It is quite likely that some teams will be short of PA or IP, perhaps even very short. So be it.
- EDIT: there are no $200K pitchers from the 19th century. You can roster any $200K pitcher from the database, under the same rules as above.
- For seasons in which any of the teams in the league had more than 25 eligible players, we will use “draft your own” AAA with the following parameters
- Each season, the theme rules will be set for a number of AAA players sufficient to allow the team with the largest real-life roster enough slots to incorporate all of their players.
- Teams that have more than 25 players in the WIS database will draft these additional players into AAA slots. These players MAY be used in games, and the transaction deadline will be set as late as possible to allow for roster moves throughout the season.
- Teams with unfilled AAA slots can either draft your own $200K players to fill the AAA slots, or just let WIS fill those slots with random AAA players, but in either case, those players MAY NOT be used in games. They should remain in AAA the entire season.
- Again, the purpose of AAA is to include as many real-life players as possible; no SIM-generated AAA players should ever be used in games in this league.
- By all means, do your best to win as many games as you can with the players you have! This is important for several reasons, including…
- …This is NOT a keeper league. Each season we will redraft from the pool of available teams. However, unlike with season 1, these drafts will not be random. Instead, owners whose teams most overachieve in the current season will receive the highest draft picks for the next season. “Overachievement” will be defined as “greatest relative improvement in winning percentage.” Or for those who prefer a formula: (WIS winning percentage – MLB winning percentage)/MLB winning percentage. So, if you get stuck with a terrible team in year 1, fear not. If you can win a few more games than they did in real life, you’re probably in great shape to draw a better team in season 2. If, because of owner turnover, we have new owners in the league, they will draft last in their first season (we will use random.org to generate the order for new owners if there are more than one in any given season.)
- There will be real drafting strategy here. Do you pick the best remaining team available when it’s your turn? Or the team with the greatest possibility of improving on their real-life record? Or, since we’re using 4-team divisions, you may prefer to take a team with less talent, but a better divisional draw.
- Obviously we are not allowing trades or waiver wire here. We will use the DH in the AL starting in 1973….but that’s something like 15 calendar years in the future and who knows how many of us, or WIS, will be around at that point, so if you rabidly hate the DH, please don’t let that dissuade you from joining.
A special note about "out of season" $200K players and any SIM-generated AAA.
As the rules above hopefully make clear, the ONLY players who should ever appear in games in this league are the players who actually are in the database for your team for the given season. No out-of-season $200K players, or SIM-generated AAA, or anyone else - should ever appear in a game for any team.
To manage this, here is how owners should adjust their settings for any such players who end up on the major league roster:
1.) Set all of your ineligible position players to REST against both LHP and RHP.
2.) Manually go into your rest, defensive replacement, and pinch hitting hierarchies and REMOVE the ineligible players.
3.) Set all ineligible pitchers to rest.
4.) In the advance pitcher settings, uncheck the relief box for your ineligible pitchers. Set their inning available to 9, and set their TPC and MPC to 5. Set their pull setting to 5.
Under these conditions, WIS should never use an ineligible player in a game. If there is a roster emergency due to injuries, WIS may use these players as an emergency replacement, but these are the ONLY circumstances in which ineligible player usage will be allowed. If a player ever appears in a game for other than that reason, the game will be forfeited.
If it appears an owner is repeatedly violating these rules, I reserve the right to remove him from participating in future seasons of this league.
As all communications about this league have hopefully made clear, while owners are encouraged to do the best they can with their teams, the PRIMARY purpose of this league is to replay MLB history with historical accuracy. Using ineligible players is in direct contrast to that purpose, and will not be tolerated.