The Yearly Franchise Theme League

I definitely won't be throwing any series then!

Where online are the rosters and player cards found for these teams?

The easiest way is to go at the player set browser, and select a team within the appropriate period. For the 1975 Reds, for example, you select CIN-EXP. All 1975 Reds players will be there.

1-Montreal Expos 1994 (Marc Pelletier)
2-New York Yankees 1961 (Musial6)
3-1929 Philadelphia A's (andycummings)
4-1919 Chicago White Sox (Rosie2167) Let's right the wrong!
5-1927 Yankees (nymets99)
6-1975 Reds (Garyt)
7-1968 Detroit Tigers (FALCON29)
8. 1939 Yankees (FrankM)

FrankM, your roster will include the 1940's Atley Donald instead of the 1939 card. This will allow your team to have 2 pure relievers. So your roster will look like this before game 1:

1939 Russo, Marius L S8/R5 7.43
1939 Ruffing, Red R S8+ 6.67
1939 Gomez, Lefty L S8+ 6.16
1939 Hildebrand, O R S7/R5 5.69
1939 Sundra, Steve R S7/R5 4.58
1939 Hadley, Bump R S7/R5 3.17
1939 Pearson, Monte R S7/R5 2.65
1939 Murphy, Johnny R R2 1.12
1940 Donald, Atley R R5 0.92
Another pure reliever (among the sub 1M)

1939 Dimaggio, Joe R cf-1(0)e5 2L 10.01
1939 Selkirk, George L lf-2(0)e3 rf-2e3 cf-3e3 1R 6.76
1939 Rolfe, Red L 3b-2e16 1R 6.64
1939 Keller, Charlie L rf-4(+1)e8 lf-2e8 cf-4e8 E 6.63
1939 Gordon, Joe R 2b-1e19 E 6.43
1939 Dickey, Bill L c-1(-1)e4,T-5(pb-2) E 6.29
1939 Henrich, Tommy L rf-1(0)e9 lf-3e9 cf-3e9 1b-4e13 1R 2.72
1939 Crosetti, Frankie R ss-1e18 E 2.39
1939 Dahlgren, Babe R 1b-1e13 E 0.91
1939 Rosar, Buddy R c-4(+2)e7,T-8(pb-3) 1L 0.90
1939 Powell, Jake R cf-2(+1)e9 rf-2e9 lf-2e9 2L 0.57
3 other sub 1M players

Also, take note that the cap will be set precisely at 91M. So you won't be able to get in the draft with your final roster. You will have to draft a cheaper DiMaggio or Red Rolfe card, complete your draft with 4 offensive sub 1M players, and cut one of these bench player and your cheaper DiMaggio (or Rolfe) to get back the 1939 DiMaggio (or 1939 Red Rolfe) card. As a consequence, your roster will be set at 24 players (10 pitchers and 14 players). This lack of flexibility is a small price to pay for having the highest value roster in the set!!

Edit: Actually, you could also set your final roster with 11 pitchers and 13 players.

Second edit: I wrote in another post that the cap would be 93M, but I counted Donald's 1939 card, so it really was 91M that I had in mind. Sorry for the confusion.

I hope everything is clear!

1-Montreal Expos 1994 (Marc Pelletier)
2-New York Yankees 1961 (Musial6)
3-1929 Philadelphia A's (andycummings)
4-1919 Chicago White Sox (Rosie2167) Let's right the wrong!
5-1927 Yankees (nymets99)
6-1975 Reds (Garyt)
7-1968 Detroit Tigers (FALCON29)
8. 1939 Yankees (FrankM)
9. 1962 San Francisco Giants (ycbill)

1-Montreal Expos 1994 (Marc Pelletier)
2-New York Yankees 1961 (Musial6)
3-1929 Philadelphia A's (andycummings)
4-1919 Chicago White Sox (Rosie2167) Let's right the wrong!
5-1927 Yankees (nymets99)
6-1975 Reds (Garyt)
7-1968 Detroit Tigers (FALCON29)
8. 1939 Yankees (FrankM)
9. 1962 San Francisco Giants (ycbill)

10.1954 Cleveland Indians Ed2014

Revised team to 1954 Cleveland Indians

1-Montreal Expos 1994 (Marc Pelletier)
2-New York Yankees 1961 (Musial6)
3-1929 Philadelphia A's (andycummings)
4-1919 Chicago White Sox (Rosie2167) Let's right the wrong!
5-1927 Yankees (nymets99)
6-1975 Reds (Garyt)
7-1968 Detroit Tigers (FALCON29)
8. 1939 Yankees (FrankM)
9. 1962 San Francisco Giants (ycbill)
10.1954 Cleveland Indians (Ed2014)

Revised team to 1954 Cleveland Indians

A few more things...

1) At the speed we're filling this, do we set us a deadline by, say, sunday night, and take the chance to get up to 24 teams? Or are we happy with 12 teams? (in other words, we could set it up so that, if we don't have 24 teams by sunday night, we start with 12 teams).

2) How do we set the divisions? Simplest would be by randomisation, but I thought of this formula

East: Two highest payroll + 2 teams randomised among the 3rd-4th-5th-6th highest payroll

Central: Two lowest payroll + 2 teams randomised among the 3rd-4th-5th-6th lowest payroll

West: The 4 teams that were not picked by the randomisation.

(If we go with 24 teams, we could semi-randomize the teams in a similar way),

In case you wonder what are the highest and lowest payrolls, I'll give it below, but I must before correct a mistake on the first page: The 1929 Philadelphia As have 23 players available in the set, not 24, and the payroll is at 75.66M, not approximately 83M. I think that the Diamond file I downloaded had Lefty O'Doul as an As, rather than as a Philly. It might be the best occasion to write that all numbers and information I provide come from the DiamondDope file, and not the official Strat file, so let's hope that there were not too many mistakes on that file.

So with this correction done, and unless other mistakes are present that I haven't seen, the two highest payrolls so far are the 1939 Yankees (88.64M) and the 1927 Yankees (76.70M with a roster of 22 players, so payroll will be minimally at 77.70M, which is above the 1954 Indians that stands at 76.73M assuming they don't lose any player). If I'm not mistaken, neither of the Yankee teams are at risk of losing a player.

The two lowest payrolls so far are the 1975 Cincinnati Reds (65.09M) and the 1919 Chicago White Sox (62.22)--although, we must say, in the case of the White Sox, you might need to spend some more cash on the side if they ever make the playoffs.

The 1961 Yankees are just above the Reds at 65.21M, but they are not at risk of losing a player. Only Elston Howard is listed with another available team (1967 Red Sox), but by rules, he will remain a Yankee (Elster has a sub 1M card with the Red Sox).

So to summarize:
1) 12 or 24 teams?
2) Divisions: pure randomisation or semi-randomised?

I'll go with 24 teams and semi-randomisation.

Thanks for putting this together.

1. 24 Teams if possible
2. Semi-randomized to give lower value teams a better post season chance and encourage more participants.

24 teams if feasible.

Still unsure of what the cap is and what the guidelines are for filling your roster up to the 25?

I'm going to have to reneg my pick on the 75 Reds and go with the 53 Dodgers.

Strat's methods for normalization do not seem to favor the 75 Reds team.