This is the same basic structure as the bad neighbor leagues started by Beernoser. The draft takes a couple of weeks, but that can be great if you love baseball stats! The regular season for #10 ends April 17, so I hope to start in May if we can add some new owners. We have a committed core of returning players but we are eager to return to 24 teams instead of going with 16.
Help us! You will have a BLAST.
$80 million budget, no DH, no AAA. Will start assuming 24 but may adjust if needed. League size determines the precise number of teams in the draft pool, but our target is to draft about 80% of all available teams.
The rest of this is modified from Beernoser's writing from past versions:
The league is NOT a progressive league. It's just a one time shot that can be repeated. The rules are pretty complicated so better for the hard core owner. We have had a few engaged beginners do well because we have a mentoring option.
So here are the complicated rules.
Your final roster will be constructed from combining the rosters of four real life teams from a pool of all major league teams that played in 1931, 41, 51, 61, 71, or 81. For instance, you could build your final roster from players from the 1981 Mets, 1971 Dodgers, 1931 A's and 1981 Reds. If final player count isn't 24, we might add or drop a season - we want about 80% of all teams to be drafted.
With 4 teams to pick from, you will have around 100 players, and will need to select 25. The rostering is not as simple as that. It is quite restrictive!
Once the season starts you can start a player at any position at which he has a WIS rating for that season. However on your final 25 man roster you must have exactly two players who have a primary position at catcher, plus 2x 1B, 2x 2B, 2x 3B, 2x SS, 5x OF and 10x pitchers. You can tell what position a player counts as by rostering in a team, say the 1971 Royals you see Ed Kirkpatrick as OF. That means if he makes your final roster he counts as one of your team's five OF. Once the season starts he can start at any position he has a WIS rating. Lucky you. Ed has a WIS rating at C in addition to the OF primary rating. He's a good C too, with an A+ arm rating. He might let you roster some cheap C's to save money for other positions. A guy with that flexibility is a very valuable guy in this league.
VERY IMPORTANT! We all have to be looking at the same information to make this league work. When you pick a team, you have to know who you get. Here's the only league approved way to do it. Look at a blank draft center page. See where it says 2015 Anaheim Angels? You can switch that to any team and any year. That's the only officially approved way to see who you get on your team. This is very important because there are two wrong ways to do it and people do it the wrong way every time and they make decisions thinking they have players they don't in fact have. One wrong way to do it is to go to baseball-reference.com and look at the 1981 Royals. That will give you a different set of players than the approved method. The other wrong way is to go to a blank WIS draft center page and click on a blank SP/RP spot and ask to see the 1981 Royals hitters. That will give you a wrong group of players also. Let's do an experiment. Ask WIS to call up the 1981 Royals the correct way by changing the 2015 Anaheim Angels to the 1981 Royals. Notice you get 13 hitters. Now let's do it the wrong way. Go to a blank screen, pick an empty batter spot and ask to see the 1981 Royals batters. Oops. There are 14 of them including two different versions of Jerry Grote - but you can only use the players that load with the full team roster. If you do this the wrong way you'll think you have cheap C Jerry Grote when you don't. That really sucks! Then you'll be frustrated when you finally puzzle your final roster together and I'll tell you it's not a legal roster.. This is very important to get this right as people do it wrong every time.
I will HELP you a bit here. Soon after the league fills, I will create a google sheet with EVERY legal player and the salary & stats associated with the legal version of that player. You can literally copy-paste from there to start figuring out your roster.
On your final roster you must have at least 6 players from each of your four teams, and a 7th player whichever team you want. You can't have two versions of the same player on your final roster. For instance if you are using the 1981 Royals and the 1971 Royals, you can't roster both versions of Amos Otis. You can use one or none. But a dagger (see below) against EITHER will take out BOTH. Sneaky!
As soon as all owners are signed up you will be randomly assigned a draft order and division. The draft order goes 1-24, 1-24, 24-1, 24-1. Having an early pick in this draft is no particular advantage. Here's how the draft works.
Round One- Once your draft spot comes up you can pick any team from the available teams from 1931, 41, 51, 61, 71 & 81. Once you pick a team, no one else can pick that same team. If you pick the 1971 Orioles, no one else can use the 1971 Orioles.
Round Two - One of your three division mates will be assigned the task of gifting you your second round team. He should look at your first round pick and find another team which meshes horribly with it. For instance let's say your first round pick was the 1981 Astros, good pitching but not great hitters. Maybe the 1951 White Sox would be a bad match since they have solid pitching, but again, not much hitting. Maybe an even better match would be the 1951 Browns who don't have a whole lot of pitching or hitting. They do have a couple of cheap backups that might help your budget. Maybe there is a team without cheap options or good options! Anyway, you get the idea, and six of those guys will be on the roster. Your second round pick will be awarded to you by a division mate who will try to screw you over the best he can.
Round Three - A second owner within your division will be assigned the task of gifting you the third round team that he expects will give you the most grief. The truly bad teams will be gone, but there are usually some terrible matchups.
Round Four - You get to choose your fourth round team that will make as much sense as you can out of the mess you have before you, knowing the dagger rounds are coming next. The best choice might not be the best remaining team, but the one which fills the most holes.
First Dagger - Another owner of your division gets to throw two daggers. He will look at your four teams and can throw a dagger at one player removing him from your player pool. Who to dagger? Your only leadoff batter? Your best power hitter? Your only cheap backup 1B? Your only shortstop with over 300 at bats? Your fourth starter who's a bargain at 2.1 million? The only guy who plays four different positions? The possibilities are a puzzle. You might end up daggering someone who he wasn't planning on using anyway. IF your opponent has the 1971 and 1981 Amos Otis, daggering either kills them both. The second dagger is to remove one of your four stadiums. They can use any other stadium actually used by one of their teams in the specific season. Once I ended up with 3 Reds teams, so the stadium dagger left me with just one stadium!
Final Dagger - The final team in your division gets to throw one final dagger. It doesn't hurt as much as the first one though. You get to name which one of your four teams the dagger must hit.
I know this is complicated but we've run it many times over the years and it results in a very enjoyable draft. Prepare to do the research though as you'll pull your hair out trying to analyze your division mates teams before picking another team for them or daggering them.
I know it's complicated. It's a league for those who like complicated. That's what makes the draft and team building so fun.
4/4/2026 2:11 PM (edited)