Thank You Contrarian23 for the great idea!
all the following was copied and pasted from contrarian's thread

Historical Replay League

I’ve always been interested in using WIS to complete a long-term historical replay. See this thread for a discussion I started over a year ago to explore the possibility.

The Cooperstown Historical Replay League is intended to fulfill that ambition. Rules will be explained in more detail in the next post, but first I want to provide some context.

WIS provides us with a database full of players going back to 1885. Every team that has appeared in the major leagues since then is here, including teams and players from three now-defunct leagues: the American Association (in the database from 1885-1891), the Player’s League (from its sole iteration in 1890), and the Federal League (from its two year stint in 1914-1915.)

So I’ve always been surprised that there aren’t more historical replay leagues. In fact, I’ve never seen one at all. I’m not talking about progressives, or twist themes, but a league where the idea is to replay each season in MLB history with the same rosters as the actual teams had that season.

The most important thing to know about this league:

There are a number of challenges with doing this, but foremost among them is probably this: every season there are a handful of teams that are doomed to be lousy and have no chance of competing. I have in mind a couple of ways of dealing with that, butthe first and most important thing to understand about this league is that some teams are not going to have any chance of winning in any given season. And you may end up with one of those teams.

Please read that previous paragraph as often as necessary, and make sure you are OK with this before signing up to join this league. This is a founding premise of this league: our primary purpose is to create an alternative historical narrative, to explore how things might have been, rather than to ensure that each owner has a decent chance to win in any given season. So we will not be giving lesser teams AAA, or twists, or free agents, or doing anything else to enhance competitive balance, and whining about this will not be tolerated at all.

Again, please fully understand this before signing up, as this fundamental principle is not subject to change. We will run the league as long as we have enough interested owners, but we will not alter this basic concept.

League Rules*

*some rules differ from the 1901 version and 1980 version.

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 2003 Tigers.
Here’s how we we’re going to do this:

1. The league will start with the 1980 MLB season and progress forward one season at a time.
2. In season 1, once we have 26 owners, we will have a draft of the 26 MLB teams from 1980. Randomized draft order usingwww.random.org.
3. For the 1980 season, we will use the 1977-1992 Format (7/7/6/6), which entails:
   1. 162 games
   2. 26 teams divided into 2 leagues and a total of 4 divisions
   3. 4 playoff teams (the 4 division winners; there is no wildcard in this format)
   4. No interleague play
4. This is the way MLB was organized in 1980.
5. The divisions will be arranged as they were in 1980.
6. Subsequent seasons will use different formats, to reflect the way baseball changed over the years.
7. 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:
   1. 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.
   2. All players who played for your team in real life, and are in the WIS database, must be on your roster.
   3. 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 1980 season on) to fill out your roster, but these players MUST:
      1. Be manually set to rest at all times
      2. Be manually removed from your player rest, defensive replacement, and PH hierarchies.
   4. 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.
   5. It is quite likely that some teams will be short of PA or IP, perhaps even very short. So be it.
8. We will use “draft your own” AAA with the following parameters
   1. 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.
   2. 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.
   3. 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.
   4. 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.
9. 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…
10. …This is NOT a keeper league. Each season we will redraft from the pool of available teams. However, unlike with season 1, and unlike the 1900 and 1950 versions, these drafts will be weighted random (think NBA lottery). Instead, owners whose teams most overachieve in the current season will receive a greater likelihood of getting 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.)
11. 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?
12. Obviously we are not allowing trades or waiver wire here. We will use the DH in the AL; if you rabidly hate the DH, please don’t let that dissuade you from joining.

Returning Owners:
1. 84Champs
2. northof49
3. jkorn
4. bigfatjew
5. tywebb3
6. burningcouch
7. rickysdad44
8. dippedncrack
9. gelfost
10. eddiedzen
11. Chisock
12. redcped
13. jfranco77
14. happyhours
15. mfumar
16. sevenfifty5
17. ff09
18. schwarze
19. lenbo1212
20. flippen
21. jlvjr11
22. loyalcanuck
23. matt121888
24. llcoach
25. specsman
26. Cicero - new owner

84Champs;northof49;jkorn;bigfatjew;tywebb3;burningcouch;rickysdad44;dippedncrack;gelfost;eddiedzen;Chisock;redcped;jfranco77;happyhours;mfumar;sevenfifty5;ff09;schwarze;lenbo1212;flippen;jlvjr11;loyalcanuck;matt121888;llcoach;specsman

res

res

res

Amazing 25 owners returning. Need one new owner, willing to take the last pick in the draft. We've seen the last pick make some serious movement up the draft board...

I'm always up for a challenge. Sign me up.

Posted by Cicero on 6/18/2017 10:19:00 PM (view original):
I'm always up for a challenge. Sign me up.

Thanks Cicero - draft lottery should be ready tomorrow evening. You will bravely receive the final pick.

We have had an owner go awol toward the end of the draft. Need one brace owner to join and take the last team.

what team would I get IF I came in

We won't know until the draft is finished. A few owners left still.

I don't think I will come in

o what the hell, if FF09, Specsman, Eddiedzen & Happyhours are a part of the league, it must be a good one - if you still need a sacrificial lamb, I'll give it a whirl, I don;t care if my team has suckball seasons every now and then, I'm used to it by now

Posted by ceez on 7/6/2017 1:20:00 PM (view original):
o what the hell, if FF09, Specsman, Eddiedzen & Happyhours are a part of the league, it must be a good one - if you still need a sacrificial lamb, I'll give it a whirl, I don;t care if my team has suckball seasons every now and then, I'm used to it by now

ceez- you're a godsend. I'll add you to the private forum so you can follow the draft.