Cooperstown Historical Replay 1987 - full Topic

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.
4/17/2018 5:30 PM
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.
4/17/2018 5:31 PM













1987 Lottery Seed Owner 1986 Team RL W RL L RL PCT WIS W WIS L WIS PCT Pct +/- Rank 1986 Draft Pick Rank Improvement
—— ———————
———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ——— ————— ————
1 jfranco77 St. Louis Cardinals 79 82 0.491 99 63 0.611 24.4 1 8 7
2 gelfost Toronto Blue Jays 86 76 0.531 106 56 0.654 23.2 2 9 7
3 burningcouch Los Angeles Dodgers 73 89 0.451 86 76 0.531 17.7 3 17 14
4 tywebb3 New York Yankees 90 72 0.556 105 57 0.648 16.5 4 4 0
5 ff09 Oakland Athletics 76 86 0.469 86 76 0.531 13.2 5 12 7
6 eddiedzen Kansas City Royals 76 86 0.469 85 77 0.525 11.9 6 13 7
7 schwarze Montreal Expos 78 83 0.484 85 77 0.525 8.5 7 11 4
8 Cicero San Francisco Giants 83 79 0.512 87 75 0.537 4.9 8 10 2
9 loyalcanuck Seattle Mariners 67 95 0.414 70 92 0.432 4.3 9 22 13
10 redcped Cincinnati Reds 86 76 0.531 89 73 0.549 3.4 10 14 4
11 mfumar Minnesota Twins 71 91 0.438 72 90 0.444 1.4 11 19 8
12 matt121888 Baltimore Orioles 73 89 0.451 73 89 0.451 0 12 16 4
13 dh0220 Detroit Tigers 87 75 0.537 86 76 0.531 -1.1 13 6 -7
14 dippedncrack Chicago White Sox 72 90 0.444 70 92 0.432 -2.7 14 25 11
15 ceez California Angels 92 70 0.568 89 73 0.549 -3.3 15 5 -10
16 specsman Atlanta Braves 72 89 0.447 70 92 0.432 -3.4 16 23 7
17 flippen Chicago Cubs 70 90 0.438 68 94 0.42 -4.1 17 24 7
18 Chisock Houston Astros 96 66 0.593 92 70 0.568 -4.2 18 1 -17
19 lenbo1212 Milwaukee Brewers 77 84 0.478 73 89 0.451 -5.6 19 20 1
20 jlvjr11 New York Mets 108 54 0.667 101 61 0.623 -6.6 20 2 -18
21 cstrohmier Philadelphia Phillies 86 75 0.534 80 82 0.494 -7.5 21 15 -6
22 llcoach Boston Red Sox 95 66 0.59 87 75 0.537 -9 22 3 -19
23 jkorn Texas Rangers 87 75 0.537 76 86 0.469 -12.7 23 21 -2
24 ShackAttack Pittsburgh Pirates 64 98 0.395 54 108 0.333 -15.7 24 7 -17
25 ace1430 San Diego Padres 74 88 0.457 61 101 0.377 -17.5 25 26 1
26 northof49 Cleveland Indians 84 78 0.519 56 106 0.346 -33.3 26 18 -8
4/17/2018 5:32 PM
Returning Owners:

1

jfranco77

2

gelfost

3

burningcouch

4

tywebb3

5

ff09

6

eddiedzen

7

schwarze

8

Cicero

9

loyalcanuck

10

redcped

11

mfumar

12

matt121888

13

dh0220

14

dippedncrack

15

ceez

16

specsman

17

flippen

18

Chisock

19

lenbo1212

20

jlvjr11

21

cstrohmier

22

llcoach

23

jkorn

24

ShackAttack

25

ace1430

26

northof49


new owner:
jpeterso
4/18/2018 11:28 AM (edited)
Need one brave owner to assume the final pick in the draft. Note: I had the second to last pick last season and moved up 12 spots in the lottery order. My White Sox finished 2 games BELOW their RL total and that still moved me up into the middle of the draft and a fair shot at a top 3 pick.
4/17/2018 5:35 PM
alright. i'll do it. why not.
4/17/2018 6:12 PM
you wont be sorry - I'm in the league!
4/17/2018 6:29 PM
Posted by ceez on 4/17/2018 6:29:00 PM (view original):
you wont be sorry - I'm in the league!
The reigning champion even after that stirring WS comeback!
4/17/2018 7:10 PM
Posted by jpeterso on 4/17/2018 6:12:00 PM (view original):
alright. i'll do it. why not.
You're in!!! Thanks - lottery should be set up by tomorrow and the draft immediately after.
4/18/2018 11:27 AM
Cooperstown Historical Replay 1987 - full Topic

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