Circle of Life League - Full

I'm sending everyone who has signed up so far a link to a spreadsheet showing all RP's eligible for the $5-7MM RP-only rule, sorted by year of birth.

On the one hand there are nearly thirty different qualifying years, but on the other hand about one-third of them (around 1970-forward) are recent enough to make their selection at least somewhat unattractive due to a lack of low priced players.

So I'm thinking that we tweak the rules to add another round to the beginning of the draft, in which we each select a qualifying reliever regardless of birth/death year. This will take the RP-only rule out of consideration when choosing your birth/death years. Any RP not selected in round one would still go to an owner who selects his birth/death year, but those selected in round one would not.

Let me hear what you think!

I agree a separate RP draft round may work best for the reason(s) you describe. Makes the evaluation of the eligible years a bit "cleaner" instead of trying to qualify the correct RP preferentially at the expense of the other positions. I might suggest two random draft orders. One serpentine for the RP and stadium and the other for birth and death years. I would also suggest drafting the RP, first. Then the birth and death years (serpentine) and then back for the stadiums (reverse order from the RPs).

Quick add that both draft orders known before the RPs are drafted....

Regards,
Steve

An ATG9 league concept inspired by the passing of so many all-time greats this year.

$85MM Cap, 5% Drops, DH

This will be a 12 team league.

Once our list is full we have a random draw to determine draft order.

The draft is 3 rounds serpentine.

In round one, each team owner will select a single calendar year, 1900 or later. Each team will have exclusive rights to every MLB player born in their specific year.

In round two, each team owner will select a single calendar year, 1950 or later. Each team will have exclusive rights to every MLB player who died in their specified year, UNLESS he was born in a year selected by another team in round one, in which case he will have no rights to that player.

In round three, owners will select their stadium.
Select any stadium for which the combined value of the L/R differences is <= 10.

For instance, the following stadiums are eligible:
Anaheim ‘77: 6/6 2/12 - combined difference is 10
Camden Yards ‘05: 4/7 8/11 - combined difference is 6
Connie Mack ‘57: 11/6 1/12 - combined difference is 6

And the following stadiums are ineligible:
Minute Maid ‘05: 3/11 3/16 - combined difference is 16
Olympic Stadium ‘96: 14,9 10/4 - combined difference is 11

For the auto draft, build a 26-man exclusively with players you own.
Every team should get every player on their draft list!
Any errors must be fixed immediately after the auto draft.

Roster Rules
Rosters must be 26 players at all times, and every team must roster at least one pure reliever at a price between $5MM and $7MM. This rule specifically disqualifies 4 RP cards: ‘77 Sutter, ‘74 Murray, ‘87 Burke and ‘57 Wilhelm, and makes it critical that you acquire the rights to at least one qualifying pure RP.

Trades will be permitted.

Baseball Reference allows one to easily see lists of hitters/pitchers born/died in any year.

Filling in some of the blanks in the rules here...

NEL players ARE eligible. A sweetener for some of the early years!

Divisional assignments will be as follows, corresponding with the randomizer order:

East: 1,6,7,12
Central: 2,5,8,11
West: 3,4,9,10

As always, the devil is in the details.

"each team owner will select a single calendar year, 1900 or later (for their birth year)."
"each team owner will select a single calendar year, 1950 or later (for their death year)."
"Each team will have exclusive rights to every MLB player who died in their specified year, UNLESS he was born in a year selected by another team in round one, in which case he will have no rights to that player."

Players like Babe Ruth are not available under these rules.


Also, the exclusivity is a key clause! When looking at potential death years, you have to be able to exclude all those players born in the other 11 managers' birth years. I have NOT figured out a programmatic way to merge data sets to arrive at this 'master' eligible list of carded players after round 1 is complete and I am looking at death years.

"Rosters must be 26 players at all times."

I am going to presume there will be disparity in preparation unless everyone's data analysis skills are sufficient to address the birth year precedence when selecting their death year. Because of the way the exclusivity clause of the birth years works, there is a potential for conflicts. But, since I don't think everyone's data analysis skills are sufficient, I DO think there will be mistakes and discontent.

I am not 100% certain I can figure out how to create a xls sort-filter thing that will let me exclude 11 birth years when I am looking at death years. I am not even sure I can get a download of all players from baseball-reference that includes their birth and death years. I think I will give it a couple hours or so, today. If I can't figure it out, I will most likely drop from the league.

As a final thought, being the week of Thanksgiving may make anything we try to do, this week, a bit more complicated for some people.

Denorien, I definitely have been thinking similarly and agree this will most likely require a lot of manual research and some trial and error like many other concepts we've played with...however even so, I'm willing to give it a go since Glenn has always been able to provide us with some interesting mental challenges and if needed his ideas have evolved and he has several other successful concepts that many of us have enjoyed. I definitely like your idea about 2 separate draft orders and in another conversation, we've talked out loud about which draft should go first (RP or the Birth year), but I'm confident it'll all work out. If anything this just furthers my theory that Glenn gets a cut out of the 8 bucks I pay Stathead.
Jay

Denorien, I definitely have been thinking similarly and agree this will most likely require a lot of manual research and some trial and error like many other concepts we've played with...however even so, I'm willing to give it a go since Glenn has always been able to provide us with some interesting mental challenges and if needed his ideas have evolved and he has several other successful concepts that many of us have enjoyed. I definitely like your idea about 2 separate draft orders and in another conversation, we've talked out loud about which draft should go first (RP or the Birth year), but I'm confident it'll all work out. If anything this just furthers my theory that Glenn gets a cut out of the 8 bucks I pay Stathead.
Jay

I've liked Glenn's (?) themes before, as well. Though, I struggled in them for similar reasons (unable to do the heavy research). I'm not sure I've done many of his leagues as I mis-remember commissioners. But, one I think I recall was particularly annoying as I didn't have time to do the necessary research and then got 1st pick from the random draw. Suffice to say, I blew it.

I looked over what stathead can generate and it gets a long way there. I think I can merge the carded player xls with some youTube tutorials on command syntax. But..., I don't have the time. Between work, travel for work, and the holiday (travel for holiday - can't fly - 80 year old parents - we're all diligent with the PPE - but, it isn't worth it to any of us to skip seeing each other for holidays when next year isn't assured - I am almost 60). Plus, I am not willing to pay the monthly Stathead for what appears to be my only use case.

Apologies. I signed up rapidly because 11 were in and I liked the concept. But, too difficult and the stumbling blocks for conflict impact too significant.

One alternative, which I am not proposing, would be to use two birth years. One between 1900 and 1945 (or whatever) and the 2nd between 1946 - and the present. Solves the conflicts...

Still looking for 1

1. ggyuppie
2. drtripleb
3. Davesodu
4. thetallguy747
5. bmilner
6. Jmtosi
7. Mr Baseball World
8. drlanglo
9. pollyglace
10. jabuending
11. Doyerwear
12.

I'm in for the last spot.

Ok gang, Chris is on board and we are full, once again.

This concept is research-intensive, no question. By design. And given that we’ve all waited this long to come to our participation in this thing, I do not think we need to rush headlong through the draft once we get started. In other words, everyone still has a little time to come up with their birth year choice and when that round is done, should have at least a couple days to research their death year choices. That said, hopefully guys who have already signed up either have or are starting their preliminary research to identify their favorite birth years.

Haven’t received too much feedback on the RP-only drafting idea, but what I have received has been in favor of drafting them apart from the birth/death year constraints. Whether we draft RP’s in Rd 1 or Rd 3, I’m ambivalent. But I do like Jay’s thought - that putting the RP draft round after the birth/death year selections rewards those that select years with qualifying RP’s. If we go that way, the draft order will be determined by one randomizer as follows:

Round 1: Birth Year (1-12)
Round 2: Death Year (12-1)
Round 3: Qualifying RP * [from un-drafted qualified RP’s] (12-1)
Round 4: Stadiums (1-12)

* even if you gained control of one or more qualifying RP’s during rounds 1 and 2, you will want to take another RP in that round for trading possibilities.

As for the challenge of determining which death year players are already taken, and the potential for conflict and disappointment:

The rules are unambiguous when it comes to player control.

For most if not all teams, the birth year will be the core of your team.

Most death years are more limited; you most likely only have to “cross-reference” 6-10 players when looking at any year.

I didn’t try it till today, but on Stathead there is a pretty quick way to build a list of either batters or pitchers who died in a given year, sorted by birth year. That enables you to quickly see the birth years for all the deaths that year, which when the time comes you can compare with the list of 12 selected birth years to identify the players that died that year that are controlled by other teams.

Here’s the results of one Stathead search I did to see that.

https://stathead.com/tiny/cYKa4

The procedure:

Select either Batting or Pitching
Select “Find Totals for Combined Seasons or Career”
In the Search Criteria Section, Statistical Filters, select “Year of Death” and set = (equal to) and choose the year you want to look at. Then add a 2nd filter “Wins Above Replacement” and choose >= 1 (or any other value you want to use)
Above that, in “Sort By” select year of birth.

Like your 1-4 round draft as you put in your last message. I will have to check stathead. Never been there before. And please let me have a high draft spot.

Here’s the list we’ll reference for the random string. The numbers in the string will refer to your numbers on the list. In other words, if the first three numbers in the string are 9, 3, 12, the first three picks in round one would go to Pollyglace, Davesodu and cwitkowski.

1. ggyuppie
2. drtripleb
3. Davesodu
4. thetallguy747
5. bmilner
6. Jmtosi
7. Mr Baseball World
8. drlanglo
9. pollyglace
10. jabuending
11. Doyerwear
12. cwitkowski970

After reading some of the pros and cons of this concept I realize why I never even get a sniff in these leagues...I've been researching which birth years will yield me my most favorite Blue Jays from the mid-late 80's