League # MLB119499

I've got some time at home to get things started, so it’s time once again for the toughest draft in the SIM … my Twelve Random Pages league. Inspired by the random page generator from www.baseball-reference.com, this league starts with each owner being assigned 12 random pages. For each assigned page, you must choose two players for your roster.

Your 25th man for this edition shall be AN EXCLUSIVE NEGRO LEAGUE PLAYER, for whom you'll use an AAA stand-in. You may choose your Negro League player when you sign up, or after you've built your team [as long as he's still available]. AAA stand-ins must hit from the same side as the real player and play the same positions in the field, so for example if you want Josh Gibson on your team, you've got to take a right-handed hitting Catcher to fill his shoes.

Your stadium has to be home to one of your players in his chosen season. The salary cap is $70 million so that a "bad" draw doesn't handicap you badly, and so that even the scrubs will play a role on their clubs. Standard 24-team, six-division format with the wild card. Yes to trades; no to waiver wire, and no to the DH.

This season will be different, because baseball-reference.com has changed its random function to include ALL box scores going back to 1913 in its database. Box scores used to come up only occasionally; now, more than half the pages appear to be box scores. But it's completely random, so these are the ground rules:

When you draw a player page, you may select any sim-eligible season of that player’s career, plus one of his teammates from the SAME season you select.

For a team page, you may select any two sim-eligible players for that season of their career ONLY.

For a box score, you must select two players who played in the game, in that season ONLY. Note that sometimes this includes players who didn't have the minimum number of AB or IP to be in the sim, but you may substitute pick-your-own average AAA players for those guys, so they will be a key to populating your bench.

The fun part is the random page generator is completely random, so sometimes you may get odd pages like “1914 Federal League Third Base” or “Players Who Died in Mississippi” or “University of Southern Mississippi”. Most of these have obvious ramifications, but in any less obvious cases I’ll make it clear what the ground rules are when you receive your 12 pages.

Last but NOT least, owners sometimes draw a player page for a player who never had a sim-eligible season. My take on this is that the baseball gods want this player to finally get his chance to shine, so the rules for non-sim players are as follows:

a) You draft a 200k player to hold a spot on your 25-man roster for the random player assigned.

b) You may choose any teammate of this player from any season they were his teammate for your second player assigned to this page.

c) When you enter your roster, you will be allowed to claim an average, pick-your-own AAA player who will replace the 200k player. The AAA player must bat from the same side as your random player, and play the same positions and ONLY the same positions as your random player. Otherwise, there are no limitations on your choice.

d) Note that an average AAA player is going to be much more valuable than the 200k roster slot he's taking up, so you should use these guys to your advantage!

e) Before Opening Day, swap out your AAA player for the 200k player holding his roster spot, and then re-name your AAA player for the player you were assigned by the randomizer. The AAA player should stay on your roster for the entire season … this rule is not supposed to give certain teams more than 25 players they can use on the season.

f) I will leave four batters' slots and four pitchers' slots for the pick-your own AAA, so in theory you can use eight players via this rule if you want to.

On the next post, I’ll show a sample roster so you can see what they look like - and what an urnuly roster-building exercise this can be! For that very reason, when you do come up with your 25-man roster, you should post it here so everyone can verify it's legal.

Who wants their 12 random pages? First person to jump in may also randomize 12 pages for me.

Owner list: tdoak,

Owner list and exclusive Negro League player:

1. tdoak - OF Turkey Stearnes
2. reddtrain - RHP Cannonball Dick Redding
3. belsea - OF-1B Oscar Charleston
4. houseofbayne - 3B Ray Dandridge
5. Rattlers - OF-1B Mule Suttles
6. mars2010 - P / C Double Duty Radcliffe
7. evil_twin - OF Cool Papa Bell
8. dlchow - 2B George "Tubby" Scales
9. midknight - P Satchel Paige
10. razorclams - 3B Judy Johnson
11. eman7400 - C Louis Santop
12. daddyzander - TBD
13. kentol - LHP Andy Cooper
14. sjh0825 - OF Fats Jenkins
15. newarkwilder - TBD
16. burningcouch - P Leroy "Toots" Ferrell
17. frazzman80 - RHP-OF Wilbur "Bullet" Rogan
18. matt121888 - LHP Nip Winters
19. reddtrain (2nd team) - 2B Bingo DeMoss
20. midknight (2nd team) - OF Jelly Gardner
21. halo23 - LHP Slim Jones
22. mars2010 (2nd team) - OF Cristobal Torriente
23. combalt - TBD
24. ArlenWilliam - LHP Bill Foster
alt.
alt. tdoak (2nd team) - C Biz Mackey

A sample draw:

1. Mets @ Reds 5/14/1980
2. P Al Piechota 1940-41
3. Yankees @ Kansas City Athletics 8/7/1960
4. 2003 Kansas City Royals uniform numbers

5. Royals @ Indians 5/5/1986
6. P Cody Eppley 2011-13
7. Yankees @ Indians 9/22/1973
8. Cardinals @ Pirates 5/11/1947 (2nd game of doubleheader)

9. Browns @ Red Sox 6/17/1915 [NOTE: Babe Ruth pitched for the Sox]
10. P Elmer Brown 1911-15
11. Astros @ Cubs 8/30/1967
12. Cubs @ Pirates 4/28/1953

I will post my team as soon as feasible after the draw, in the next spot reserved here, so you can get a better sense of how the draft works.

OK, here's my squad, and here is how everyone should list their teams for verification:

1) STL @ PIT 10/3/1972
P Bob Moose and OF Roberto Clemente

2) 1934 St Louis Browns Batting Statistics
OF Bruce Campbell and INF Ollie Bejma

3) 1939 Detroit Tigers Roster
C Rudy York and P Harry Eisenstat

4) Chris Schwinden (2011-12 NYM - unlisted player)
*P Chris Schwinden 2012 and P Tim Byrdak

5) MIL @ DET 8/10/1977
P Jack Morris and P Bob McClure (game was Morris' first career victory)

6) CWS @ DET 9/29/1929
1B Dale Alexander and P Whit Wyatt

7) Jurickson Profar (2011-16 TEX)
2B Jurickson Profar 2013 and C Geovany Soto

8) Progressive Leaders and Records for Total Bases (https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/TB_progress.shtml)
SS Honus Wagner 1911 (active leader) and *OF-C-1B Cal McVey 1875 (season leader)

9) TEX @ HOU 4/2/2013 (I watched this game. Yu had a perfect game for 8 2/3 innings...until Marwin Gonzalez broke it up)
P Yu Darvish and P Jose Veras

10) NYG @ CHC 6/10/1913
3B Tillie Shafer and P Rube Marquard

11) Frank Fuller (1915-23 DET/BOS - unlisted player)
*2B Frank Fuller 1916 and 2B Marty Kavanagh

12) BAL @ TOR 8/2/1986
P Don Aase and P Mark Eichhorn

WILD CARD - OF Norman "Turkey" Stearnes - Detroit Stars

hold

I'm in with "Cannonball" Dick Redding.

reddtrain: Welcome back! And here are your twelve random pages to go with Cannonball Dick !

1. Washington Senators Team History & Encyclopedia [this is the 1891-99 Senators - the default rule is that you may choose any player who shows up on that page, which in this case is limited to the top player by WAR in each season, and the All-Time Top 12 Players pictured, in any season with the franchise]
2. New York Giants @ Boston Bees, 9/22/1940, 1st game of doubleheader
3. New York Yankees @ Chicago White Sox, 5/29/2002
4. 1927 New York Yankees Batting Orders [that's a good draw, there!]

5. P Dennis Tankersley 2002-04
6. Milwaukee Brewers @ Minnesota Twins, 7/12/1972
7. California Angels @ Toronto Blue Jays, 6/2/1981
8. 3B-2B Randy Asadoor 1986

9. Detroit Tigers @ St. Louis Browns 9/2/1933
10. San Diego Padres @ Atlanta Braves 4/23/1989
11. 2011 St. Louis Cardinals Lineups and Defense
12. Detroit Tigers @ Kansas City Royals 8/1/1988

Seemed like a very good draw -- I saw Roger Clemens and Carl Hubbell and Tom Glavine in the box scores, though I'm not sure if you drew really good years for them! If you want, you can draw 12 pages for me.

Your draw, tdoak:

1) STL @ PIT 10/3/1972
2) 1934 St Louis Browns Batting Statistics
3) 1939 Detroit Tigers Roster
4) Chris Schwinden (2011-12 NYM - unlisted player)
5) MIL @ DET 8/10/1977
6) CWS @ DET 9/29/1929
7) Jurickson Profar (2011-16 TEX)
8) Progressive Leaders and Records for Total Bases (https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/TB_progress.shtml)
9) TEX @ HOU 4/2/2013 (I watched this game. Yu had a perfect game for 8 2/3 innings...until Marwin Gonzalez broke it up)
10) NYG @ CHC 6/10/1913
11) Frank Fuller (1915-23 DET/BOS - unlisted player)
12) BAL @ TOR 8/2/1986

Whee! That's what this league is all about ... I have no idea what sort of club I can make out of that. Off to research!

Count me in! I loved this theme last winter. I'll pick my Negro League player after I get a feel for what type of team I drew. Oh man, research induced sleep deprivation is on the horizon.

12 random pages theme is back? Yes please! I will choose my Negro League player after constructing my team.

Belsea: Welcome! Here are your twelve random pages:

1. St. Louis Cardinals @ Cincinnati Reds 4/30/1935
2. Montreal Expos @ San Francisco Giants 8/20/1990
3. Chicago Cubs @ Cincinnati Reds 5/17/1998
4. P Win Noyes 1913-19

5. 1901 Pittsburgh Pirates pitching statistics
6. Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Diego Padres 9/14/1993
7. OF-1B Harry Heilmann 1914-32
8. Texas Rangers @ Houston Astros 6/29/2003

9. 1B-3B Frank Brazill 1921-22
10. *P Wilking Rodriguez 2014 [had no sim-eligible season, so he will have to be one of your AAA players]
11. Washington Senators @ Detroit Tigers 7/23/1946
12. Chicago White Sox @ Minnesota Twins 7/30/1972

Have to admit I'd never heard of Frank Brazill ... but I have heard of Harry Heilmann.

houseofbayne: Welcome back! Here are your twelve random pages:

1. Houston Colt .45s @ San Francisco Giants 9/4/1963
2. Boston Red Sox @ Texas Rangers 8/4/1987
3. Chicago White Sox @ Oakland Athletics 4/12/1992
4. Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago Cubs 6/1/1975

5. Cleveland Indians @ Philadelphia Athletics 6/5/1948
6. Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Diego Padres 9/13/1993
7. Philadelphia Phillies @ Pittsburgh Pirates 6/20/1949
8. P Rube Foster 1913-17

9. Cincinnati Reds @ New York Mets 7/1/1990
10. Boston Braves @ New York Giants 6/26/1943
11. St. Louis Browns @ Boston Red Sox 5/31/1943, second game of doubleheader
12. 1B-3B Ed Goodson 1970-77

That's a lot of box scores! The Rube Foster draw was crucial, that should get you two really good pitchers if you need them, which is the main concern with box scores limiting you to a particular season of the players' careers. In fact, if you wanted, you could pair him with the Negro Leagues' great Rube Foster, a pitcher and the mastermind of the Chicago American Giants.

I will join

There's a whole lotta fugly here...

1. Washington Senators Team History & Encyclopedia [this is the 1891-99 Senators - the default rule is that you may choose any player who shows up on that page, which in this case is limited to the top player by WAR in each season, and the All-Time Top 12 Players pictured, in any season with the franchise]
>>> 1896 Kip Selbach and 1898 Duke Farrell
2. New York Giants @ Boston Bees, 9/22/1940, 1st game of doubleheader
>>> Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott
3. New York Yankees @ Chicago White Sox, 5/29/2002
>>> Robin Ventura and Damaso Marte
4. 1927 New York Yankees Batting Orders [that's a good draw, there!]
(This doesn't count against my salary cap, right? Ruth and Gehrig cost almost $36M combined)
>>> Pat Collins and Herb Pennock

5. P Dennis Tankersley 2002-04
>>> 2002 Tankersley and Ryan Klesko
6. Milwaukee Brewers @ Minnesota Twins, 7/12/1972
>>>Jerry Bell and Bill Voss
7. California Angels @ Toronto Blue Jays, 6/2/1981
>>> Brian Downing and Ken Macha
8. 3B-2B Randy Asadoor 1986
>>> Asadoor and Lance McCullers

9. Detroit Tigers @ St. Louis Browns 9/2/1933
>>> Bump Hadley and Billy Rogell
10. San Diego Padres @ Atlanta Braves 4/23/1989
>>> John Kruk and Dave Leiper
11. 2011 St. Louis Cardinals Lineups and Defense
>>> Kyle Lohse and Tyler Greene
12. Detroit Tigers @ Kansas City Royals 8/1/1988
>>> Lou Whitaker and Jerry Don Gleaton

"Cannonball" Phil Redding stand-in: 1996 LaTroy Hawkins