Gauging Interest for New Fictional League Concept

[Seviien]

For the past three versions of OOTP, my brother and I have been looking for that "perfect" league that captured all the things we want in a fictional experience. We've had some great times being active owners in other leagues, but there were always a few things we thought would have been more fun if only they were done in a slightly different way.

That said, we've been kicking back and forth the idea of starting our own league. Given that we're both grown ups with wives and real jobs -- and in his case a baby -- this would be no small commitment. As such, I'm trying to gauge interest in our concept before committing to the 50+ hours of setup and 5-10 hours a week of maintenance that would be required.


Here's the pitch:

League Structure & Initial Setup
A: 1 league with 2 divisions of 8, supported by 3 layers of minors
B: top two teams in each division will make the playoffs
C: owners pick their own cities (USA only), supply their own team names, colors, & logos. no MLB teams, please.
D: owners pick the MLB stadium they want their team to use, but this will only matter for park factors as all will have the same seating capacity.
E: in the event an owner drops out, the new owner will be allowed to rebrand the team and pick a new stadium from the available population
F: universe will include 2 independent leagues, one located in the Caribbean and one in Asia. these leagues exist solely to supply free agents to the main league and will not have human owners or be allowed to sign FA from the main league
G: league will be simulated from 1930-1980 (with finances disbled) to supply history. all players will then be declared FA (as a result of the new labor agreement) and we will hold an inaugural draft.
H: game would use OOTP 10

League Settings
A: injuries will be set to "classic OOTP"
B: talent change randomness will be set to 75/200
C: scouts and coaches will be disabled
D: talent only, actual ratings will be disabled
E: talent scale will be either 1-5, 2-8, or 1-10... I'm not sure yet.
G: drug suspensions are disabled

League Rules & FA Settings
A: dh will be disabled to start but will be voted in or out by the owners in 5 year terms.
B: amateur draft will be ~10 rounds and will NOT use feeder leagues
C: schedule will be 150 games per year. i need to tinker with the schedule generator to find out how exactly it works, but with 16 teams, we want one "home & home" five game series against each of the other teams in the league each year.
D: sims would occur once per real-life week and would cover 1 month of in-game time. That way we go through one season about once every 2 months.
E: FA compensation is disabled. instead...
F: we will use an NFL-style “franchise tag” that will allow a team to protect one FA per year. Other teams are free to sign that player, but they must forfeit a first round draft and a prospect to the team that player departs. If the player remains unsigned, he will be given a one year contract equal to the average of either the top 10 position players or the top 10 pitchers. Note that with respect to the aforementioned prospect, teams will be allowed to protect 3-5 players not already on their 40 man roster.
G: softcap will be in place and teams will have equal finances/markets to start the league

There are a few other little odds and ends, but that's all the big stuff...

Would anyone else be interested in something like this?
We’ll get cranking right away if there’s enough interest; the goal would be to have the innagural draft in about two weeks.

[Seviien]

Forgot to mention... if you have a suggestion about how we can make it better, I'm happy to take feedback.

[Seviien]

We might end up going with two 15 day sims rather than one 30 day sim, depending on if people want to favor lineup control or focus on team building.

[satchel]

If you build it, they will come.

[rutri01]

I would be interested- I'm looking to join a brand new league from scratch.

[ingtar54]

Originally Posted by Seviien

Forgot to mention... if you have a suggestion about how we can make it better, I'm happy to take feedback.

Two things. First of all I think the 40 man would be enough protection and the 3-5 wouldn't be necessary. That way the franchise tags would play out like a rule 5 draft. Secondly, I've been looking to get involved in a league as a player agent, so that contracts in the game wouldn't go through the AI (which can be prety raw sometimes). I'd be willing to do that for this league if you would have any interest in that.

[Todorojo]

I would be in.

[bailey]

I'd prefer a speed that had as a goal 10-12 seasons per year. Also, with an 8 team league, the standard is 154 games, 11 home and 11 away for each team. Also, have you thought of 1 league with the top 4 making the playoffs?

[Safeathome]

New to this but that sounds like a lot of fun!

[KGrob]

I prefer fictional leagues so I might be in depending on a few other factors and another league.

I'd like to see a fairly stiff penalty for the soft cap though.

Sounds like fun.

I want to play in one Fictional online league so I'm shopping around and checking out what's available. I don't think I can handle more than one online league so I'm not going to even attempt it. This seems like a good league though.

[Seviien]

I spent the afternoon typing up a rules document in Word and reworking some of the ideas. The only big changes are that I'm thinking of using a hard cap, starting with only 14 teams, and I'm leaning towards actual ratings along with talent. Using a 2-8 scale should make it still imprecise enough that it's fun. Once I get all the rules typed up I'll post them here.

I'm also starting to look into hosting services for the site. Looks like I'll be going with Fidel's service as everyone seems to like it and it's a one-stop shop. I'm open to ideas, though.

Stay tuned...

[rjv3]

I'm looking for a fictional league to join and I think you've got some great ideas. I'm totally interested.

[AndrewG]

Being a grown up as well with a couple of kids... (One I coach in Baseball with the other assisiting me even..) this sounds PERFECT for me.

Im a graphics nut too.. so love the customizing aspect.

IN ME COUNT

[Seviien]

Rather than an independent international league, how would people feel if the independant FA feeder league was seeded with MLB players?

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Seviien

Rather than an independent international league, how would people feel if the independant FA feeder league was seeded with MLB players?

As long as the players arent rigners or better than the original proposed Independant league.

I personally dont want to use real players names as I am a still disgruntled Expos fan who turned his back on MLB when my team left town. I fill the empy part of my heart by drinking Hieneken and playing OOTP using old Expos players of the past *sniff*

IN THE END--> The league layout sounds great, and what you propose in this change is not a deal breaker for me... In fact you soudn like you know what your doing so please... proceed!

[rjv3]

I like the sound of only fictional players as well but I don't want to spoil what you're trying to do.

[Seviien]

just throwing ideas out there and seeing what sticks
We won't be using real players in the independent league, but there are no bad ideas when brain storming. I thought it would be interesting to set it up as a rival league to the MLB where we tried to sign away their players, etc. Ultimately, that felt too gimmickey...

I have the league concept down, and I finished codifying it in a word document last night. A 7 page word document. My brother is going to weigh in with his suggestions today while I try to get the hosting set up.

[Syxx34]

I am definitely interested....fightin83irish is my aim name. love to have a team.

[rutri01]

I'm in for whatever is decided- I prefer

Hard cap- I was in a league since the late 90s. We had a soft cap of 86 million. Plus if you got cash in a trade you could use it towards your cap. You had to be under the cap for free agent signings but during the season you could go over. I was in another league with a hard cap of 90 million and you had to be under the cap at all times. All teams should start with and equal fanbase and market size. The game will change it as the years go on. Although we may not be able to do this with existing history.

Fictional players - I prefer fictional players/No MLB players. I was in 1 league with no feeder leauge and just new players to draft in the ammys each season. I was in another league with college feeder leagues that went in the Ammy.

Scouts/Coaches - I prefer scouts and coaches off. 1 League that I was in these were off. A Second league scouts are on and coaches off. Since version 9 there are no longer a bunch of scouts and just 1 scouting dorector. This makes things a little more interesting with scouts. If we did play with scouts, I suggest that every starts with equal scouts are a point total that we can assign to whichever rating we prefer.

Teams- I prefer to be able to name your own teams and pick your own logos and jerseys.

Rating - I prefer 1-10 scale, 2-8 fine. I prefer to see actuals.

minor league - I like to have AAA,AA,A, and Rookie. No short season and only 1 of each level.

player editing- I don't prefer player editing. 1 league we never touched the players. In the other we got participation points for articles, logos, and various things done for the league. These points could be used to rename your team, change the stadium, or add points to a player (like increase defense or arm). I prefer not to mess with the players.

History- I prefer to start from scratch but simmed history is fine. I was in a league that did this. Makes for a better talent base in the inaugural draft.

DH- I prefer a DH. In real life I do not. But the AI doesn't handle this too well. Not sure if it is better in 10.

Please add me to your list- ski0625@yahoo.com

[rutri01]

I got a ton of logos- so when we create teams, I most likely have a bunch of logos we can use.

How would we handle the finance. In one league we figured out salaries of each player via excel and could offer the players a contract from 1-7 years. Every 3 years was arbitration. How that was figured out, I'm not sure. But every year the salary was calculated based on stats. In an other league we had a player agent that didn't own a team but acted as the players. You had to negotiate with the player agent. It was a interesting feature.

Rich