24 Team 80's Franchise/Mystery League Full

Are all of your players available for the free agent draft? Or can you protect one or more before the draft? I'd like to protect at least one guy.

All your players that don't have any affiliation with the other clubs in our league are still automatically protected. So the Dodgers will never be at risk for losing; Orel, Valenzuela, Scioscia...also guys like Pedro Guerrero and Todd Worrell if the Cardinals aren't picked again.

For the record, I like the two new main changes: adding in eligibility of players who played for a team but weren't carded, and the FA concept.

A few questions, and I apologize if you're covering old ground again:
1. You stated that, "any Core5 or Core4 players dropped cannot be on your roster the next season." Can I assume it's the same as other years, where you can drop an underperforming Core player as long as you pick him back up and he's on your roster at the end of the season?

2. "Your Core5 and Core4 that you want (you don't have to have them all) should be at the bottom of your Autodraft list". But your Core 5 guys can't be picked up by any other team, so they don't even have to be on your list for you to retain them, right? You can pick them up when the Autodraft is over.

3. What about a Core5 player like Baltimore's Sammy Stewart, who also played for the Red Sox? I guess he would be an exception to how I perceive point 2 above, that if you don't Autodraft him then I could scoop him up? Or is that not right? And if not, at what point can I grab him?

For the record, I like the two new main changes: adding in eligibility of players who played for a team but weren't carded, and the FA concept.

A few questions, and I apologize if you're covering old ground again:
1. You stated that, "any Core5 or Core4 players dropped cannot be on your roster the next season." Can I assume it's the same as other years, where you can drop an underperforming Core player as long as you pick him back up and he's on your roster at the end of the season?

2. "Your Core5 and Core4 that you want (you don't have to have them all) should be at the bottom of your Autodraft list". But your Core 5 guys can't be picked up by any other team, so they don't even have to be on your list for you to retain them, right? You can pick them up when the Autodraft is over.

3. What about a Core5 player like Baltimore's Sammy Sosa, who also played for the Red Sox? I guess he would be an exception to how I perceive point 2 above, that if you don't Autodraft him then I could scoop him up? Or is that not right? And if not, at what point can I grab him?

1. Correct
2. Correct, but see #3 for the exception that you correctly called out. But technically any of your players that don't share a yr (carded or not as per the spreadsheet) with another club in our league don't have to be on your auto draft list and can be picked up at any time without risk of losing them. The FA rule does shrink this pool of auto protects however.
3. I think you mean Sammy Stewart. He is an exception as under our current 2 season per decade format he is actually a Core5 Core1 player since we now have included non carded yrs. The simpliest way to handle this scenario is to treat him like the old Core4's and he'd available to BOS after the auto draft.

Now, if we were to increase the 80s to say 3 or 4 seasons then the concept would be that Core5 and Core4 guys would NOT be available for the FA clause after the first season, regardless of their card or non-card affiliation. In essence we would treat the Core level as their 'contract' so guys would become eligible for free agency at different times.

Thanks for the reply Rosie, and for catching the Sammy Stewart / Sammy Sosa confusion. I'll call it a senior moment and leave it at that.

Would it be possible to get a recap list of the returning players with their franchises? Am I correct that we need 1 more player?

Just catching up again. I like the proposed changes!

Current franchise and manager list:

Red Sox - Falcon29
Dodgers - sphilipp8
Pirates - jjrecupero
Reds - franky35
Giants - fench33
Expos - gbrookes
Rangers - crustycrab
White Sox - ed2014
Yankees - davesodu
Brewers - Yountfan
Orioles - Rosie

I've asked SOM about some custom formats so I'm waiting for their response before I start the search for a new manager.

stay tuned
R

OK I heard back from SOM so I will pose this question to you.

How would you guys like to turn the format of our 80's decade into an AL and NL format or AL East/AL West and NL East/West where the schedules will be played within those leagues and the two champs meet in the World Series??

SOM can set this up for us but there is one catch. The leagues have to be set up for 12 or 24 teams. So there are two ways to make this happen.

1) find our 12th manager but only allow them to pick from a NL team as today we have 6 AL and 5 NL teams.
OR
and my much preferred direction...
2) find our 12th manager and then every manager picks another team in the opposite league. So I'd have say my Orioles and the Phillies. This is like Mystery set nirvana! Well at least to me, I'm hoping that everyone shares in my wonder and amazement.

Now I can hear you guys thinking...are there enough players to go around? Which teams would be left out?
Some details of my research:
1) There were 26 MLB teams in the 80's as they hadn't expanded into the NL yet. Those 26 teams are represented fairly well in the 80's set. I would suggest that either Seattle, Cleveland or Detroit be the 2 of the teams left out so we could create two 12 team leagues. I picked those 3 as they have the lightest $$ associated with their Core5 and 4's.
2) All the players on those teams have an affiliation to another team except Detroits Trammell and Whitaker. In a few places we need to stretch the 80's theme into the 90's or 70's but SOM does that across many cards already.
3) The 80's leagues have a reduced min roster size of 23 which helps
4) There are 380 Hitters and 267 Pitchers in the set, we need a min of 312 and 240

Drafting franchises would be in reverse order of this years finish...which is coming down to a big game 7 tonight Rangers v Dodgers! Jenkins v Messersmith!

I know this is an aggressive ask but I think it would be tremendous fun and would get us as close as we absolutely could get with SOM.

Bring on your thoughts!!
Cheers
Rosie

Leaning towards (2) but I have a question. With 24 teams would it be a 24 team league and we own 2 teams or would it be two 12 team leagues? I assume it would be one league so we can have an AL/NL Series but if I have the Yanks and take the Pads I can make sure which one of those teams has Winfield, either through the draft or making a trade at some point. I am sure there are many more examples but that is the one I know off the top of my head. Maybe a rule barring in season trades between your two teams?

It would be a 24 team league with a separate AL and NL, you own two.

Yes there are some of those details to talk through. One thought is that any trades among teams you own has to be approved by a majority of the owners. Or that since Winfield is a NYY3 SD2 he has to stay in NY? Or like you stated, no trades btw your two clubs. just a few top of mind thoughts but wanted to see if the 24 team league has legs before we start down that path.

Ultimately I will still enter and participate fully no matter how the group decides to go on this, but...

I much prefer the 12-team AL/NL league. If I'm managing two teams within the same league it'll only be natural that my first choice, (in this case Red Sox), will have my full attention while my NL team would clearly be secondary. Not much more than a filler really. And sticking with 12 teams would eliminate any conflicts over competing players ,as was already brought up.

Why don't we see which team our 12th member wants? If it's an NL team this works out better. Of course if it's an AL team we could always just move the Brewers around as needed, the way MLB does.

But as I stated, I'll play no matter what. You're not getting rid of me that easily!