Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

UPDATE: League is filled. Opening day is Monday, March 2.

Here are the protected players. Be sure to check and double-check your draft against this; there is at least one new player who hasn't been on the list before. I'll put the league alignment in the next post.

Reminder: List your protected players last on your draft card. Failure to do so will put you at an extreme disadvantage!

Protected Players
Alomar, Roberto
Bagwell, Jeff #
Baines, Harold #
Belle, Albert
Biggio, Craig
Boggs, Wade #
Bonds, Barry
Brown, Kevin (P)
Butler, Brett
Canseco, Jose
Castilla, Vinnie
Clemens, Roger (P)
Edmonds, Jim
Garciaparra, Nomar
Giles, Brian
Gonzalez, Juan #
Gonzalez, Luis #
Griffey Jr., Ken
Henderson, Rickey
Jeter, Derek
Johnson, Randy (P)
Jones, Chipper
Larkin, Barry
Lofton, Kenny #
Maddux, Greg (P)
Martinez, Dennis (P)
Martinez, Edgar #
Martinez, Pedro (P)
McGriff, Fred
McGwire, Mark
Mitchell, Kevin
Mussina, Mike (P) #
Piazza, Mike
Puckett, Kirby
Ramirez, Manny
Rijo, Jose (P)
Ripken Jr., Cal
Rodriguez, Alex
Rodriguez, Ivan
Sandberg, Ryne
Sheffield, Gary
Sosa, Sammy #
Tettleton, Mickey #
Thomas, Frank
Thome, Jim #
Walker, Larry
Williams, Bernie

# = supplemental draft pick

Password has been sent via PM to all managers.

East
Devils (Kauffman).............fatdaddy054 - IN
Wolfblitz (Yankee).............exwallman - IN
Teehawks (Qualcomm)........Icterus Galbuli - IN
Mermen (Oakland).............franky35 - IN

Central
Way of OF$28 (Kingdome)........jayhawk81 - IN
Stratzillas (Wrigley).............Jimmy_C - IN
Fishheads (Three Rivers).......nol15736 - IN
Mayhem (Tiger Stadium)........Ducky - IN

West
Mockingjays (Metrodome)......coyote303 - IN
Monsters (Coors)................BigAMcInroy - IN
Flying Finns (Anaheim).........sphilipp8 - IN
Bums (Bank One)................joeedrott - IN

EDIT: Updated U.B.A.'s new nickname.
EDIT: Updated Icterus Galbuli's new team name.
EDIT: Updated Jayhawk's team name. EDIT: and again!

Just a reminder, it's important we load as soon as possible. So, East managers please load today. Everyone else have your teams ready to load when it's your division's turn to load.

If anyone is going to have trouble loading their team in the next few days, please let me know so we can execute Plan B (whatever that is!).

Here are the advantages of getting loaded on each day:

Monday - Our waivers will be completed before the 2014 season is even released.
Tuesday or Wednesday - Our waivers will be completed before the first 2014 season waivers run on Saturday.
Thursday or Friday - Our opening day will not conflict with the Mystery Tournament's opening day. This is the most important goal, although the others would be a nice bonus for our managers who do plan to play 2014.

I don't think Monday is a realistic goal, but you guys have surprised me before! Also, my apologies to our Season 12 finalists for pushing so hard. I know it's a pain to prepare for next season when you would like to just savor (and concentrate on) being in the championship series. Last time it was the holidays; hopefully, the start of Season 14 will be conflict free!

Passwords have been sent via PM to East managers.

East
Devils (Kauffman).............fatdaddy054 - IN
Wolfblitz (Yankee).............exwallman
Iggy's (Qualcomm).............Icterus Galbuli -
Mermen (Oakland).............franky35 - IN

Central
Jayhawk's Team (Kingdome)....jayhawk81
Stratzillas (Wrigley).............Jimmy_C
Fishheads (Three Rivers).......nol15736
Mayhem (Tiger Stadium)........Ducky

West
Mockingjays (Metrodome)......coyote303
Monsters (Coors)................BigAMcInroy
Flying Finns (Anaheim).........sphilipp8
Bums (Bank One)................joeedrott

If anyone has exwallman in another league, please send him an in-league message to load his team. I didn't expect we would be loaded by Monday, but I'll be disappointed if we don't get loaded by the end of the week. I hope Rob is okay.

Meanwhile, back to Season 12, BigAMcInroy's Mile High Monsters need to win their next two games on the road to salvage the championship. That won't be easy since they are facing the league's most dominant team, sphilipp8's Flying Finns who won 94 games in the regular season and had a league best +145 run differential.

It's interesting that there was one homerun hit in the first two games at the Skydome, which isn't exactly pitcher friendly. At Coors Field in games 3, 4, and 5 there were a total of 19 homeruns. We'll see if the bats cool back off for both teams as they head back to the Skydome.

Certainly has been an interesting series. My gut tells me the Finns finish it off tonight, but I love a good underdog story. From wildcard to champions. Go Monsters! (No offense Finns)

Waiting sucks.

Congratulations to sphilipp8's Flying Finns for winning the championship 4 games to 2. Every once in a while, the best team actually wins!

If exwallman does not load in the next couple of days, I will need to get a replacement. Unfortunately, this means our opening day will either conflict with the Mystery League Tournament or we push our start back yet another week. Comments are welcome, especially from those participating in the tournament.

Of course, I'm hoping whatever is preventing exwallman from loading is resolved and we can still get loaded by this Friday 10 p.m. EST. I know I'm tired of checking the new league's status every couple of hours, but please keep checking back to see if we are moving forward.

can we move wallman to the west?