[majormet]

This is a new thread for my league which was under Tate Redinger. I feel invigorated by the league which is in it's sixth season but the thread that I created has been schizophrenic to say the least. It started as a "follow the player" thread, then went to capturing an ever expanding league, to following the team that Tate played for... Bottom line, I got more proficient with the uniforms, screenshots and the like, and the concept of the thread morphed.

I will start this thread at end of the June 2024 season and recap the league standings, players of the month and it will stay more focused

League Backstory - This started as a 40 team league and expanded each year and will go from 120 teams to 144 teams for 2025. The league has teams throughout North America. The original 30 major league teams are in the league and they are mixed with the expansion teams. There are a lot of teams in Canada and Mexico as well as their being teams in Bahamas, Aruba, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican and Japan.

The original 30 teams did the initial draft and the first 10 teams were filled in with fictional players, which create the concept of "Famous Fictional" Famous Fictional are known people such as singers, actors, movie and TV characters, etc... each year I take pre-1965 players that had one good year and are usually made good by the sim when they were nobodies and rename them, so in 2025 draft Matt Gaetz will get drafted but he will be a renaming of an older player that was "nobody". It gets me to use the FaceGen to create the players. I will have an open thread for the 2024 draft for 2025 season if people want to request a player in the league, if it is a famous fictional I can create from web photos, but if they want to be in the league, they can email photo and whatever.

The 2020 expansion draft had the new teams filled up with some fictional players that were pure fictional, they are the only ones that ever entered the league.

The league is composed of 6 divisions in the AL and 6 in the NL, with 10 teams expanding to 11 in each division. Each Division champ and 2 wild cards make the 16 team playoff and they play a sweet sixteen type of playoff format.

The league plays like NCAA basketball a little bit, with this many teams and that many teams per division. I will be making the next 12 teams international with teams going to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Dublin, Barcelona, Moscow, Beijing, Melbourne, Bora Bora, Lagos and Tel Aviv. Since this already has science fiction elements to it with teams in places like Foxwoods, Key West, Branson, and Wall Street.. these teams will be added randomly into the existing divisions so Bora Bora could end up in the AL East.

I find with a 132 expansion league, every player gets optimized to have a career, and the fictional famous players that are added at 20-25 players per year are a needle in the haystack. With 66 teams in each league, with the 132 team format, teams only play each other for one series per year and 12 teams just don't meet at all. Also random

Rules of the league are DH in both league, no extra inning baserunner rule, no batter min for relievers.

I have controlled the Utah Saints which won the 2023 World Series, but the thread is not about them or anything more than the league

Since I started this league and posting this is what fascinates me and these are the things I will cover besides the monthly reports of standings, league leaders and players of the month, as well as the playoff coverage

1. Trades - I love trades and analyzing them and putting their baseball cards on the thread. I love the randomness of the trade and being creative to write the story and have player interviews.

2. Drafts - Unlike the MLB draft in real life, these drafts are fun when you know the outcome of players and mix in some fictional famous and it is even more fun in some way. Like Indianapolis in 2020 inexplicably drafted Deacon Phillippe first overall and how someone like Nolan Ryan slips to the 3rd round with 120 teams drafting. Or how with 120 teams in the league Ross Geller and Joey Tribbiani got drafted by the Detroit Tigers.

3. Managers/Coaches - something I always find fun is the hiring and firing of managers/coaches and GM's, and really love the aspect of retired players reincarnation randomly as field personnel. Mel Gibson is the GM of the Wichita team. Larry Andersen is the manager of the Dodgers. These kinds of moves make the league fun

4. Brawls - I usually will pick a brawl that has some kind of interesting player in it and make a story around it

5. Achievements - to me one of the things I got lost in was recapping every 5 hit game, every 3 homer game, every 6 hit shutout, to me I have found recapping special games like no hitters, 6 hits or more, 4 homers or more, 18 K's or more is fun. It makes me focus on teams for that moment and building stories around those games

6. Milestones - always something newsworthy, especially when guys who could have been special are getting second chances like Jose Fernandez, Lyman Bostock, Ken Hubbs.....

7. Retirements - also fun as you can memorialize a player and sum up their career.

8. Free Agent signings/Contract Extensions - love it when teams overpay for a guy. Paulie Walnuts got 81 million from the Giants over 5 years and has not had more than 13 wins in a season.

9. League History - always like to create a registry of all the award winners and champions at the end of each season to appreciate the history.


Bottom line, it took a schizo thread to find my voice and what I really like, call it regression to a time when life was innocent and tame. This thread will be more cohesive and have single focus.