[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by dl_

Let me start off by saying that I never liked historical leagues, because they are hard to keep track of with players I am not familiar of, and the fact I simply don't have a thing for them. However, you have done an amazing job so far and I will be reading and anxiously waiting for the next posts.

Thanks for the nice post!

I decided back in the beginning that I would go in a bit of a different direction with my dynasty. I wanted to make it more about the league itself, rather than about a particular team, or about me managing a team. I wanted the league and the idea and its evolution to be the star of the show. I would just establish the parameters, step back and let it happen, and then write about the results, for the most part.

I know that's not for everybody and a lot of people, perhaps most people, prefer following dynasties focusing on specific teams and OOTP players. But I was hoping I could get at least a few people in to follow my concept, even though it's a bit out of the box.

Originally Posted by dl_

Just a few questions though..

Prior to the Alliance transforming into the second division, how were their seasons played? Same with the Midland and Southern leagues you refer to; how do they operate now?

The Alliance before, and the Midlands League now, are played as minor leagues in the background. I'm using those as breeding grounds for the new teams I am introducing when its time, because I didn't want to just create new teams out of thin air (or any kind of air, for that matter). I wanted teams and players to come in with a bit of history already. Plus, I wanted to have a place to send teams that get voted out of the lowest division, rather than deleting the teams and then recreating them with new players out of some kind of air when they need to come back. It'll happen with a few teams down the road.

The leagues are actually playing games, but I'm not reporting on them because the thread is about the Baseball League, not about any of the minor leagues.

Originally Posted by dl_

What's these two baseballs you talk of? Did you just change the league factors to strengthen pitching and weaken hitting?

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did. Truthfully, I was concerned about the circumstance at the beginning in which hardly anyone was striking out. In 1888, lots of guys had over 300 at bats but single digit strikeouts. They can't all be Joe Sewell, so something had to change. Meantime, the Alliance had a more reasonable strikeout rate. So I adjusted the factors for the League to be closer to those of the Alliance going into 1891, and I created this story about the difference between the original League ball (flat seams, no movement on pitches) and the Alliance ball (higher seams, better movement on pitches). Do you think that works?

Originally Posted by dl_

How do the rosters look like for an average team? I assume that prior to this season every team had three starters only. How many relievers in the pen for most teams and how often were they used? Did starters often go all nine innings?

The League starts out with an 18-man limit, which works out to thirteen position players and five pitchers for most teams, although some teams gave themselves 14 and 4 (hey, they got free will, they can do what they want). There are lots of complete games as you would imagine: 67% of all games in 1891 were CG, up from 36% for the three years before that. I assume that's because of the new Alliance ball leading to decreased hitting.

Originally Posted by dl_

Thanks, and good luck as you continue!

Thank you, and I do need luck: I had the 1892 season all played out and the stories written, but I had a problem with Windows Explorer that caused me to hard shut down, and every time I tried to open up the game again I got an error message and the game would shut down, but only on the Baseball League game. Fortunately, I had Opening Day of 1892 saved as a backup, so I ended up just restoring that and replaying the season. Had I not done that, the error might have killed off the whole dynasty!