The Baseball Association - Promotion / Relegation League with a twist

[tarmer]

This is in the final stages of being prepared (rosters and financials are being finalized) and rules are being completed......




Here is the league premise and background rules to wet your appetite... This is a HUGE undertaking trying to fill 32 teams (especially with so many European Teams will be difficult)... As I noted I have started the site

The Baseball Association
(which currently is not very special but it is being updated as we speak)

I am looking to get this fully up and running with luck by next week - I am looking for 32 solid serious GM's

We will sim 3 days a week (7 days at a time) - If this is something you think you would like to get into - Let me know and I will get you on the list

League Rules

League Premise:

The League will consist of 32 teams spread over three divisions (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) - each division will have 8 teams randomly selected. The teams in the league will be made up from teams around the world, The makeup as is follows:

8 Teams from the USA
8 Teams from England
8 Teams from Europe
8 Teams from Carribean

This will be a Promotion / Relegation league played in the spirit of the World Baseball Classic, European and MLS Soccer


Team Rosters

Each team will consist of 25 players (no reserves)

The players will be fictional and created by OOTP

SPECIAL ROSTER RULES:

Each team roster will be made up ONLY of players from the teams nationality - No foreigners will be allowed. There will be an allowance of 5 roster spots for "Designated Players" - These 5 players may be of any nationality - The balance of the 25 player roster will be made up of players solely from the country of the teams origin - This means if you grab a Cuban team it will be Cuban, Danish (danes) etc - Bear this in mind during team selection.

There will be various free agents of each nationality for teams to sign if the need arrises.

Players may only be signed for a total of 5 years to any team - Once they reach season 6 - They become free agents that will be put on the open market (They may not be re-signed by their former team)

Free-Agency and Transfers

The league will not have an open trading policy - The league will follow the guidelines that soccer uses, which will allow for 'Transfer Windows' at certain times of the season.

The league will have 'Transfer Windows' noted during set points in the season. During open windows, teams may trade or sign free agents at will (within the roster rules) - If players are traded or signed, roster space must be made for the incoming player(s). All teams will have 1 sim to get roster in compliance once the transfer is completed. If after the grace period rosters are not back in order the commissioner will remove the player(s) from the team roster - There will be no warnings or discussions on this fact if it occurs.

Bidding / Signing Free Agents

This will all be done in-game, All bids shall be submitted thru OOTP. The player will then sign with the team he chooses.

Player Draft

There will be no player draft - As noted above - this league will be filled only by Free Agents

Promotion / Relegation:

All teams are trying to either gain promotion or avoid relegation - Very simple concept. In each of the 4 divisions you will have 8 teams - each team will play 126 games - This puts you at 18 games against the other 7 teams (7*18 = 126).

PROMOTION

In divisions 2-4: The top 2 teams will gain promotion to the next higher division (4 to 3, 3 to 2, 2 to 1)

RELEGATION

In all divisions the bottom 2 finishers will be relegated to the next lower division (1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4) - The bottom 2 in 4th division stay in 4th division there is no relegation out of the league

Each division will be set at a different level

Division 1 will be MLB Level
Division 2 will be AAA Level
Division 3 will be AA Level
Division 4 will be A Level

This will affect the financials of each level as tickets, gates, attendence etc will be different - Also players salaries and talent "May" be different among the levels - BUT ANY TEAM MAY SIGN ANY PLAYER REGARDLESS OF LEVEL if they have the available funds.

There will be no "Playoffs" - What we will have is "Cups" - The top 2 teams from each level (8 teams) will meet for the "Champions League Cup" - It will be a home / away elimination - with the run differential being the deciding factor moving on. Rather than doing a home / away aggregate - I will simplify to total run differential - You win game 1 (5 to 2) and lose game 2 ( 5 to 3) you move on by a combined 8 to 7 runs scored.

In the case of a tie - we will defer to road aggregate - Team scoring more runs on the road will move on

The second 2 teams in each level (teams 3 & 4) another 8 teams will meet for the " Baseball Association Cup" with the same guidelines as above

During the Pre-Season there will be yet to be named cup matches for all teams to compete in

[tarmer]

Let me address a couple of questions I have recieved...

This will be a full on-line league with reports and utilities, It will be up in the next week or so, So people will get a better feel - I wanted to advertise early to get feedback as well

THE TEAMS IN THE LEAGUE

Caribbean & European



In order of Apperance:

Caribbean
AC Bayamon (Puerto Rico), Camaguey (Cuba), Monterrey (Mexico), Habana (Cuba), Mexico City (Mexico), Panama City (Panama), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Santa Clara (Cuba)

European
Oslo Viking (Norway), Dresden 1250 (Germany), Lokomotiv Rostiv (Russia),
VV Copenhagen (Denmark), Leverkusen (Germany), Marsielle Union (France), AS Bucharest (Romania), AC Amsterdam (Holland)


United States and Engand



In order of Apperance:

United States
Losantville (USA - Illinois), Center City (USA - Philadelphia), Magnolia City (USA - Texas), Atlanta BC (USA), St Joe (USA - Indiana), Nouvelle Orleans (USA - New Orleans), Gateway Athletic (USA - Missouri), Harbor Athletic (Boston)

England
Swansea 1158 (England), Roman Outlane (Yorkshire - England), Ibrox (Newcastle - England), Metro (Liverpool-England), West Reading (England), Westminster (England), Plymouth Sound (England)

[EKomrska15]

I'm very interested....

[threesportgeek]

me, too. msg me

[greenrebellion]

I'd be in!

[Pilgrim381]

Interested. Sent you a pm. Thx.

[mrking81012]

Looks like a cool league. Sent a PM yesterday and got immediate response. Just replying to thread to make sure I don't get lost in the shuffle.

[tarmer]

Thanks to all that have responded - I am working on getting this up ASAP - we still have several spots to fill

[Syxx34]

like the concept as i have been making on myself but there alot of things that turn me off though.

1) No reserves or 1 minor league level? What if people get hurt or if you trade 1 player for 2 players?

2) Playoffs/cup....what if both teams are tied 4-3 then 3-4. Then you are 7-7 with both with 4 away goals...i think you missed that.

3) Each division will be set at a different level

Division 1 will be MLB Level
Division 2 will be AAA Level
Division 3 will be AA Level
Division 4 will be A Level


How would you do that...different leagues? just curious is all...

4) Can only have 5 international players to your team based on what nationality you take. One that be hard to do and not be fun to monitor either.

5) Trading....understand the transfer windows but if your trying to follow the soccer style. You pay the team "x" amount of money and then you got to come up with a contract for the player. As you do not inherit his current contract. Kinda curious how that was being handled?

[EKomrska15]

Originally Posted by Syxx34

4) Can only have 5 international players to your team based on what nationality you take. One that be hard to do and not be fun to monitor either.

I'm not sure this will truly stick because he said that free agency/transfer you could sign whatever nationality you want.

If it does stay then the USA will have a HUGE advantage over every other country

[tarmer]

Originally Posted by Syxx34

like the concept as i have been making on myself but there alot of things that turn me off though.

1) No reserves or 1 minor league level? What if people get hurt or if you trade 1 player for 2 players?

2) Playoffs/cup....what if both teams are tied 4-3 then 3-4. Then you are 7-7 with both with 4 away goals...i think you missed that.

3) Each division will be set at a different level

Division 1 will be MLB Level
Division 2 will be AAA Level
Division 3 will be AA Level
Division 4 will be A Level


How would you do that...different leagues? just curious is all...

4) Can only have 5 international players to your team based on what nationality you take. One that be hard to do and not be fun to monitor either.

5) Trading....understand the transfer windows but if your trying to follow the soccer style. You pay the team "x" amount of money and then you got to come up with a contract for the player. As you do not inherit his current contract. Kinda curious how that was being handled?

Syxx - Thanks for the thoughts - These rules are meant to be a guideline and are still subject to change if questions arrise and things need to get more hammered out. I do not like to re-write a whole set of rules as this usually only benefits a few people - But there are some I can address... 1.) The minor league rule - (25 players) - I can see this being a problem so I would modify to allow 15-20 reserve players

Playoffs - Yea I did miss that - but I would not chage it -
2.) I would just add another qualifier like team batting average or something along those lines to not have to change the format

3.) This is easy to do as you have noted - The reason for the difference in levels is hopefully obvious

4.) That is the intent of the league and one I am not sure is understood - As I noted this also follows the spirit of the World Baseball Classic - Which allows only players from their countries to be on the roster - I do not see it as a hard is to monitor at all but this may be open to discussion if people see it as a real deal breaker

5.) Have not nailed down financials yet as they are always the most painful - but will clarify when I do

I appreciate the input

[tarmer]

Also to add to the above rules - This will be a 1-10 rating league only no stars shown.

It will have scouting on

[tarmer]

Have completed all the work for Division 1 - We have currently about 8 people interested - This is a 32 team league so we have way farther to go to get it filled - I am working on D2 now

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by tarmer

Syxx - Thanks for the thoughts - These rules are meant to be a guideline and are still subject to change if questions arrise and things need to get more hammered out. I do not like to re-write a whole set of rules as this usually only benefits a few people - But there are some I can address... 1.) The minor league rule - (25 players) - I can see this being a problem so I would modify to allow 15-20 reserve players

Maybe one way to handle this would be, instead of having a dedicated minor league team requiring 25-ish reserve players, have a pool league in which each "major" team has 12-15 reserve players playing among several teams just to keep fresh and available for call-up on a day's notice. So here you have 32 "major" teams, your pool league would consist of 12-16 "minor" teams with rosters up to 30 just playing games to stay fresh.

Question about the relegation/promotion aspect: since this is not a setting in OOTP, is this a manual process after each season?

[tarmer]

Putting the finishing touches on this stuff - hope to unveil next week

[mrking81012]

Originally Posted by tarmer

Putting the finishing touches on this stuff - hope to unveil next week

Great news!