Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I have been trying for awhile to come up with a theme based on this premise: owning a team through multiple seasons, 1 season in each of the 4 Mystery Card sets, where the team plays in the same ballpark and the owner has "territorial" rights to the players from the franchise that plays in that ballpark. Here's what I have so far, although any suggestions for tweaking are welcome:

--- 12 team league (could conceivably do 24, or 2 12's, with a little fine-tuning)
--- $80 million salary cap for all seasons, for consistency's and simplicity's sake
--- 4 season commitment for each manager: 1 year each in 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
--- Waiver draft. Standard 5/10/20% waiver penalty. However, if enough people are interested in changing the waiver penalty, we could do that. My personal opinion is that a live draft would be too hard to do with this theme.

--- Your home ballpark must be the same for all 4 seasons. There are only 14 stadiums by my count that appear in all 4 mystery card sets, and 1 of those 14 presents a problem. The stadiums are:

Anaheim (Angels)
Astrodome (Houston)
Busch (Cardinals)
Candlestick (Giants)
Cleveland/Municipal (Indians)
Comiskey (White Sox)
Dodger
Fenway (Red Sox)
Memorial (Orioles)
Shea (Mets)
Tiger,
Wrigley (Cubs)
Yankee
The 14th stadium is County, which hosted the Braves until 1965, then hosted the Brewers starting in 1970. It would keep things simpler if no one used County, but technically it could be used if that manager used the Braves for the 60s, and then the Brewers for the other 3 seasons.

I would imagine that the most fair way to do this would be to do the old-fashioned lottery randomizer. When you sign up, you give me a state that runs a lottery. On the agreed-upon day, the state with the LOWEST 3 digit lottery number gets first pick from the stadiums/franchises. There will be 1 stadium/franchise left over (2 if County is used), which will hopefully ease any concerns someone might have about being "left" with an undesirable team to use. If there is any issue with this, I will gladly volunteer to go last and get last choice, just so there are no concerns about fairness. However, if you want to "request" maybe some top 3 choices when you sign up, as long as everyone can be satisfied by getting 1 of their top 3, I would be OK with that too.

--- The franchise associated with your stadium is your "territorial rights" franchise. This means that any player from any of the decade player sets who has all 5 cards for your team, you own the exclusive rights to. No one else can use that player in that decade only. Example: Ron Santo 5 seasons in the '60s set are all with the Cubs, therefore only the manager playing in Wrigley can use him. However, in the 70s set, Santo has a season with the White Sox; therefore (as will be explained shortly), the manager playing in Comiskey will have a shot at drafting him, and eventually any other manager could sign Santo. To keep things a little more simple, you may NOT trade the rights to an exclusive player. Obviously, this applies only to players from the 12 franchise/stadiums being used: for example, no one would own exclusive rights to Willie Stargell, because we are not using Pittsburgh's home ballpark(s). Anyone could sign Stargell.

-- You MUST have at least 10 players on your roster at all times who played for your "territory" franchise on at least 1 of the season on that decade's card. Example: Fred Lynn has 5 seasons with the Red Sox in the 70s set, but he has season with both the Red Sox and the Angels in the 80s. For the 70s season in our theme league, only the team playing at Fenway could own Lynn. However, in the 80s season, the team playing in Anaheim could count Lynn as 1 of their 10 "homegrown" players if he was on their team, and the team in Fenway could do the same.

-- You must draft only players who played at least 1 season for your "territory" franchise in that decade: in other words, all 25 players in your initial draft must have played for your home team. However, once the initial draft is complete and the waiver draft begins, the "10 player" rule applies, and you can drop and add players as you please as long as you comply with that 10-player rule. This is just to keep things a little more even and fair until free agency is underway... it also makes for a very fun waiver draft and lead-up to the beginning of the season.

--- There are no limits as far as pitchers and hitters being "homegrown" go. If you want to have 10 pitchers from your "home" team and no hitters, fine. Any combination is fine as long as it is at least 10.

So, that's the plan. This would not be a great league to sign up for if you are inexperienced in the mystery card games, but other than that, I welcome all interested parties. Once I start getting a few responses, I will post a sign-up sheet and create a league. If you are interested, please give me your top 3 choices from the list of stadiums/teams, in case we go that route... but understand that there are no guarantees that you get any of those choices. Also, please give me any questions or suggestions you might have.

Thanks for your interest.

--- 12 team league (could conceivably do 24, or 2 12's, with a little fine-tuning)

If there is some, but not enough interest, would you be willing to go with a six team league?

BTW, I am interested.

I'd be interested. I would prefer that each team can only field players with a carded year for their selected franchise; or at least more than 10 required players, or a salary restriction (for example, at least half the team's salary), or starting the season with only franchise players and then a 20% drop penalty at the start of the season. I think that 10 scrubby Mets plus Stargell, Sanguillen and Clemente isn't the Mets; it's the Pirates. But I'll play any way except I'm not interested in the 6 team format.

Interesting concept. I agree with Franky35 about increasing the number of homegrown players. Maybe something closer to 15. I'm not sure why you're limiting the choices to stadiums and not just using franchises. Seems limiting and if it's truly based on stadiums Cleveland and Baltimore use different ones in the 90s. I'm am interested

I'm interested. I agree with bigdinkent. Drop the one stadium concept and just use franchises that must play in that decade's home park for that team. Also I agree about raising the number of homegrown players to at least 15.

LMBombers wrote:I'm interested. I agree with bigdinkent. Drop the one stadium concept and just use franchises that must play in that decade's home park for that team. Also I agree about raising the number of homegrown players to at least 15.

Totally agree. In addition to the number of players (maybe 16, so that it would be 2/3rds of a 24 player team), I would suggest that 2/3rds of $80 million, somewhere around $50 M, be spent on players from that franchise.

Yeah, We wouldn't want one of your highest priced players to be from an unused team. You could at least limit the value of any non-franchise players to 3M or something. We haven't heard from The Conndor lately.

Maybe we need someone else to take the reins on this league???

First, this is Conndor's idea and if he wants to lead this league, then I'll gladly hand control to Conndor. If I take over commissioner, here are the rules I propose: 12 team, 80 mil, 4 season commitment (1 team in each of the 60s, 70s. 80s, and 90s); 20% waiver penalty. You pick a single franchise for all 4 decades and select the corresponding home stadium. Your opening day roster can only contain players that have at least one carded year for your franchise in that decade (for example, A-Rod can only start the season for Seattle because his carded 2001 season for TX falls outside the 90s). After the season starts, you can pick up any available free agent. That's basically it.

Here are more details: The season will start with a 2 round draft on the message board to sort out the most desirable players that are eligible for 2 or more teams. A rule to prevent teams loading up on .75 players to save cap space for free agents - if you have cap space you must open the season with any eligible, available player with a salary over 3 mil (for example, the 90s Orioles must start the season with Brady Anderson and Leo Gomez if they can afford them). If you pick the Senators they become the Rangers. If you take the Pilots, Padres, Expos, Mariners, or Blue Jays, then, after everyone else has selected a franchise, you pick one additional franchise for the 60s (Pilots, Expos, Padres) or for both the 60s and 70s (Mariners and Blue Jays). Rosters will be checked in the preseason and managers must make the appropriate moves to get their team in compliance with the rules. To the extent possible, divisions will be based on historical accuracy. You may pick a franchise when you sign up, or you can sign up and delay your decision.

Can somebody briefly explain the Mystery card concept?Never tried it.