Ohiodevil's Independent Leagues Roster Set

[ohiodevil]

Wanted to start a new thread and give an update on my roster project for the Independent Leagues. As of right now I am working on the following eight leagues:

Golden Baseball League
American Association
Northern League
Frontier League
Canadian-American Association
Atlantic League
United Baseball League
Cape Cod League (yes I know this is a college "all-star" league)

I currently have all the League and Team logos (thanks to truthserum).

I have 4 of the 6 teams done in the GBL (didn't realize how many former major leaguers are playing in that league....Adam Pettyjohn, Bud Smith and Jose Canseco to name a few). Yes I will make the Canseco trade!

I have been running some test leagues and so far I am running into the problem where major league talent players are signing with the Independent League teams. Example: a 29 yr old pitcher that went 14-12 4.31 ERA in 34 starts in the Majors signed a 7 year $42,000 deal (yes....$6,000 per year) with the Indy League (which is the equilivant to a AA league)!! I also saw a 25 yr old SS that hit .301 5 HR 67 RBI 35 SB sign for 4 yrs 10,000 per year. Both these signing happened in December.

I am going to continue to play with the financials in the Indy Leagues and see if I can get it right, or close to it before I continue to

Please if anyone has any ideas on how to get these to work better PM me or post in this thread.

One last thing I will leave you all with. Since the Cape Cod League is essentially a college All-Star league, I was not going to input their real rosters in case some of those players were drafted IRL by major league teams. So I want to know, would you rather me leave them as fictional players or set up a new thread where you guys can post your real names and vital stats (height, weight, bat, throw, birth date, etc... and your position).

[DRaysGoRocco]

I think this is a great idea, but to keep it realistic, the Cape Cod league should not be included

A couple of questions, how are you rating them? AAA ratings, AA ratings, etc.

And, what are you setting the equivelencies at?

[ohiodevil]

Originally Posted by DRaysGoRocco

I think this is a great idea, but to keep it realistic, the Cape Cod league should not be included

A couple of questions, how are you rating them? AAA ratings, AA ratings, etc.

And, what are you setting the equivelencies at?

I currently have all the leagues rated as AA except I had the Cape League as a Rookie. I am using the default equivelencies but was going to try and lower them a little.

[ozziethesaint]

Originally Posted by ohiodevil

I currently have all the leagues rated as AA except I had the Cape League as a Rookie. I am using the default equivelencies but was going to try and lower them a little.

I wouldn't have put them all at AA
I'd just have done the Atlantic and Golden at AA
the rest at A
and Cape Cod at Rookie

[ohiodevil]

Originally Posted by ozziethesaint

I wouldn't have put them all at AA
I'd just have done the Atlantic and Golden at AA
the rest at A
and Cape Cod at Rookie

I will give that a shot and see if that helps. The biggest issue is the Major Leaguers signing with the Indy Leagues.

[ozziethesaint]

it might even be a stretch to call those 2 AA....
they do have some guys that could play AA or AAA but they might not be more than high A overall

[ohiodevil]

Originally Posted by ozziethesaint

it might even be a stretch to call those 2 AA....
they do have some guys that could play AA or AAA but they might not be more than high A overall

I tend to agree but this is what I am basing it off of:

The Independent Baseball Leagues exists so that professional baseball players who are not signed by a Major or Minor League organization could have another chance at playing at a higher level. Although the level of play can be categorized as between AA and AAA, players in independent baseball are usually not scouted heavily by Major League teams. Many Major League alumni have called Independent teams home in an effort get back to the Majors. The league also caters to players who are not quite talented enough to play at a higher level.

[spark240]

There are fourteen other collegiate wood-bat leagues, besides the Cape Cod. The Cape Cod, although a good league for that caliber of players, has the best rep because it plays in affluent and densely populated New England, and because a book and movie were made about it.

EDIT: Of the fifteen, nine are both "certified" by NCAA and "endorsed" by MLB.

[ricobrown]

Any updates on this roster set, we would love to include these roster in the universe we are creating when we release it in league format

[ohiodevil]

Originally Posted by ricobrown

Any updates on this roster set, we would love to include these roster in the universe we are creating when we release it in league format

I have completed the Golden Baseball League and the Northern League so far. I have had some family in from out of town the last 2 weeks and have not had much time to work on these lately.

I still plan on finishing these in the next couple of weeks.

[ricobrown]

any word on how far along this set is

[ihatenames]

Originally Posted by ozziethesaint

it might even be a stretch to call those 2 AA....
they do have some guys that could play AA or AAA but they might not be more than high A overall

The northern league considers itself a bit better than AA. Thats from their website, i have no idea how accurate it is.

[Zeyes]

I dunno if I would consider the GBL one of the better indy leagues...they've done well at generating publicity with the Canseco signing and some other stuff, but I really haven't seen anything to indicate that the level of play is at the level of the longer-running established indies or even above them.

From reputation, I'd say the Atlantic League and the Northern League are likely to have the best level of play among the indies, and I'd throw in the Can-Am League as well, given how its teams used to dominate the Northern League teams when the Can-Am was a division of the NoL earlier this decade. Currently, the AtL and the NoL are also known for pushing for better stadium facilities to use than the other leagues do, so that might also put them a step up on the indy landscape.

Of the other 4 indy leagues, I guess only the Frontier League intentionally considers itself a step down from the others, given that it uses much lower minimum salaries and salary caps. Their level of play has reportedly improved though...back in the 1990s the FL apparently looked like a pure rookie league, but nowadays they're apparently slightly below the NoL going by comments I've read by people who have visited games at both leagues.

The American Association is a break-away from the NoL of course, so their level of play might be roughly similar. Well, for the North Division at least...I'm not sure what the Texas/Louisiana-based South Division looks like. That South Division is presumably around the same level as the new United League, given that they were both born from the remnants of the old Central Baseball League.

FWIW, in my own indy universe I'm rating the AtL as AAA, the NoL/Can-Am/AmerAssoc as Double A, and FL/GBL/ULB as Single A. For the GBL and ULB that's mostly based on their status as fairly new leagues (not to mention that they only have 6 teams each), not any hard facts. The American Association is new as well, of course, but the league does include the arguably most well-known indy franchise (the St. Paul Saints) and is run by some of the same people who had been active in the Northern League for over a decade, so I've set the league at the middle rung despite being new. One could probably also argue that the AtL should be set at the same level (i.e. Double-A) as the middle three leagues...I've set it up as Triple-A mostly because my indy-based universe excludes organized ball, so I wouldn't be having an elite league otherwise.

Maybe putting all seven at the same level is the smartest thing to do, heh.

[ohiodevil]

Originally Posted by ricobrown

any word on how far along this set is

I have been pretty much running test league after test league to try and see if I can get it as close to real life as possible. I do have to go back in and re-rate some of the players because some are rated better then some of the real Major Leaguers.

I can release to you a beta version with all the real teams, logos and 2 1/2 of the leagues with all the real players, or I can wait until I get all the guys named and then release version 1.0 and then work on re-rating the players so a bunch of them dont go from Saint Paul Saints to some major league team's roster and take someone's starting job.

I had a 31 yr old LF from the San Diego Surf Dawgs go free agent, get signed by the Yankees to a 4 yr 8mil contract become their starting LF over Matsui. So I would say I need to do some editing.

But I have seen former high draft picks sign with an Indy League team when they finally were given up on. The best example was the #3 overall pick in the 2008 draft never seemed to make it past AA, so finally after 6 years, the Braves released him after he posted a 31-59 record and a 5.61 ERA in 261 Games 201 Starts. He finally signed with Long Beach of the GBL and became a MR and went 3-1 with a 2.81 ERA in 37 games. His 2nd season with them he moved back to a starter and went 10-3 with a 2.35 ERA in 17 starts. That got him a minor league contract with Seattle and he went right to AA and went 8-1 with a 2.01 ERA and was moved to AAA and went 3-2 with a 4.11 ERA and got a September callup and was 0-1 with a 11.56 ERA for them. He currently is in the bullpen at AAA and is doing well for Tacoma 1-2 1.93 ERA in 21 Games.

So as you can see it coming along, not a fast as I would have liked but I have a new found understanding and simpathy for what Cubby and Rolen are going through.....just mine is on a much smaller scale.

Just let me know what you want to do Rico!!