The International Baseball Association

[sbrylski]

The International Baseball Association - A Quick-Start League

The "International Baseball Association" is a fictional league set in the near future, in which club teams from the best baseball leagues around the world are organized geographically into dynamic, hierarchical divisions. While division titles are revered (especially at the Premier level) and a progression towards the top of the gamut is the long-term goal of all teams, the most sought after award is the "(name pending)", which is awarded annually to the champion of the International Club Tournament in autumn.

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HIGHER RESOLUTION LINK

The globe is broken into two conferences, the American Conference and Asian Conference. Three divisions from each conference play in the International Circuit, although during the regular season there is no inter-conference play.

The lowest two American divisions play in the American Circuit. This circuit is not necessarily less in stature than the foreign divisions, however these "bottom sixteen" American teams are not eligible to qualify for the International Club Tournament. Instead, these clubs participate in a separate, post-season domestic tournament.

ALTERNATIVE: All five divisions in the American Conference play in the same circuit. Advantages: Increased simplicity. Drawbacks: Crowded schedule, loss of the domestic postseason.

International Club Tournament

Qualification: The top four (of six) teams of both the American and Asian Premier divisions form the top eight seeds of the ICT as designated on the chart above. The top two teams of the non-premier divisions (American, Caribe, Nippon, Korean) round out the bottom eight seeds, again as designated on the chart above.

Structure: The seeding is designed such that the first round of the tournament will consist of intra-conference matchups, and all quarterfinals matchups will be inter-conference matchups. The aforementioned series will be best-of-five, while the semifinals and title series will be best-of-seven.

American Club Tournament

The winners of the Eastern and Western division are awarded the first and second seed in the tournament. The next six wildcard teams will fill out the eight team field. The first round of the ACT will be a best-of-five series, and the semifinals and title series will be best-of-seven.

Promotion/Relegation

There are four regions of teams: American, Caribe, Nippon, and Korean. Each team can only be promoted or relegated to either their conference's Premier Division, or to a lower division of their team's region. This means that some divisions will fluctuate in numbers each season by one or two.

Regular season standings from the prior season will determine which teams are promoted to a higher division and which teams are relegated to a lower division.

• Premier Divisions - Bottom two teams are relegated to the division of their region.
• Caribe, Nippon, and Korean Divisions - Top team is promoted to the Premier Division.
• American Division - Top team is promoted to the Premier Division. Bottom two teams are automatically relegated to the American Circuit. The third-to-last team is relegated if a third team in the American Circuit earns a promotion. Teams in the Eastern Time Zone are automatically placed in the Eastern Division, teams in the Pacific Time Zone are automatically place in the Western Division, and other teams are placed to best balance out the two divisions.
• American Circuit - The regular season winner of both the Eastern and Western Divisions earns a promotion. The winner of the American Club Tournament also earns a promotion, if that team did not also win one in the regular season.

Finances

Media contracts are even amongst the following groups:

Level 4: $X*4 - American Premier Teams
Level 3: $X*3 - Nippon Premier Teams, American Division Teams
Level 2: $X*2 - Caribe Premier Teams, Korean Premier Teams, Nippon Division Teams, American Circuit Teams
Level 1: $X - Caribe Division Team, Korean Division Teams

NOTE: The value of $X will be determined once I can play around with the league after OOTP 12 is launched. Also, these levels were awarded based on the difficulty of a team in each region of winning the ICT. American teams face the most number of teams in their own region, as well as an extra level of hierarchy, so all those teams climbed two levels in media dollars. Nippon teams face the second most number of teams in their own region, so they climbed one level of media dollars. Lastly, Caribe and Korean teams have the least competition and stayed in the baseline media contract levels. As a result, tournament teams from the American region should have an advantage in the ICT over tournament teams from the other regions.

Rules

League rules and financials will be almost identical to current MLB rules, with each player earning three years at minimum salary followed by three years of arbitration before hitting free agency, etc.

There will be either four or five levels of minors, which each minor league team named after their parent club.

...more pending?

[sbrylski]

Suggestions welcome at this point regarding any phase of the setup! I'll be creating this once OOTP 12 launches.

[Chicagofan76]

Originally Posted by sbrylski

Suggestions welcome at this point regarding any phase of the setup! I'll be creating this once OOTP 12 launches.

Are the White Soix is the upper half or the Lower half? I may have mislooked/misread but since the Sox have the better record since 1901 they shouldnt be less then the Cubs.

I thought relgation rules didnt work in ootp? either way I will check it out when its ready.

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

Are the White Soix is the upper half or the Lower half? I may have mislooked/misread but since the Sox have the better record since 1901 they shouldnt be less then the Cubs.

I thought relgation rules didnt work in ootp? either way I will check it out when its ready.

I semi-randomly assigned teams to different divisions for the graphic. What I'll do is start the league with no divisions and just sim 10 years, then put teams into divisions based on how they did that 10th season. Then I'll play another 10 under the proper format. Then completely wipe the history and that will be the initial file. That way there shouldn't be any players from the initial draft class left and everything will be at equilibrium.

You'll have to manually promote and relegate teams, but it works just fine, especially just between division.

[AstrosFan409]

looks interesting, How long do you think after the release will the league be able to start?

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by AstrosFan409

looks interesting, How long do you think after the release will the league be able to start?

I hope within the week. I have Wednesday off, so that's a good bet on a day I can put time into it.

[STL10WC]

Is this going to be a multi-player league? If not, are you thinking of running one with each team being owned?

[Pineywoods OOTPer]

This is simply a mind-blowing concept. I love it.

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by STL10WC

Is this going to be a multi-player league? If not, are you thinking of running one with each team being owned?

Too much of a hassle and I'm too flaky to be a commish. I agree that it would be awesome though.

[mp33]

This is sooo cool! Thanks =)

[mavericktango]

How do you actually set up the International Club Tournement? I'm looking at something similar for my solo European League with a Champions League style tournement but I can't figure out how to swap the teams from their countries league to the Champions League and back to the countries afterwards. Have you any ideas on that?


*Edit* Having re-read the OP I realise that you're doing it all in one league so I suppose the International Club Tournement would just be the play-offs of the regular league. I'm trying to do the ICT as a stand alone league, run after the main seasons, with six seperate leagues feeding into it manually but it's my problem above that's holding me back at the moment - I might have to do it your way

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by mavericktango

How do you actually set up the International Club Tournement? I'm looking at something similar for my solo European League with a Champions League style tournement but I can't figure out how to swap the teams from their countries league to the Champions League and back to the countries afterwards. Have you any ideas on that?


*Edit* Having re-read the OP I realise that you're doing it all in one league so I suppose the International Club Tournement would just be the play-offs of the regular league. I'm trying to do the ICT as a stand alone league, run after the main seasons, with six seperate leagues feeding into it manually but it's my problem above that's holding me back at the moment - I might have to do it your way

Yeah, its pretty much not possible to move teams between leagues during the season.

I once had a solo league for a while that had a Champions League that ran every four years. I had four leagues, and teams would get something like 3 points for winning their league and 1 point for coming in second (or something like that). After three years, the top two teams in points from each league formed an 8-team Champions League for one season, then went back to their old leagues for another cycle. That was my work-around to the problem. Note that team histories ended up looking funny after moving teams around, but everything worked for the most part.

[cavebutter]

I love this idea, and it's something that I've been trying to figure out how to do. I'm still a little fuzzy on how to ensure that, say, your Havana team is populated by mostly Cubans while your Mexico City team is populated mostly by Mexicans. I have a feeling that this is a basic game concept that I've forgotten about, but for some reason it's in my head that the league's nation defines the players' nationalities rather than the individual teams.

[reds1869]

I love this idea. I can't wait to see where you go with it!

[DCHepler25]

Originally Posted by cavebutter

I love this idea, and it's something that I've been trying to figure out how to do. I'm still a little fuzzy on how to ensure that, say, your Havana team is populated by mostly Cubans while your Mexico City team is populated mostly by Mexicans. I have a feeling that this is a basic game concept that I've forgotten about, but for some reason it's in my head that the league's nation defines the players' nationalities rather than the individual teams.

I believe you are correct in your thinking - it is the LEAGUE nation, not the TEAM nation.

EDIT - I just checked this in v12 and you are able to choose to base the limit on League or Team nationality, but you have to set a limit other than "No Limit."

[cavebutter]

Originally Posted by DCHepler25

EDIT - I just checked this in v12 and you are able to choose to base the limit on League or Team nationality, but you have to set a limit other than "No Limit."

That's great! Where do I find this option?

**EDIT**
Found it. For those following along, it's easiest if you don't use the wizard. When you're creating a fictional league, the option can be found in the rules section, but the choice on how to base the foreigner limit only pops up when you select a limit other than, No Limit, as DCHelper says. That is it's not immediately apparent and could cause someone like me to look, not see the option and give up.