Bringing baseball to Yaquina [OOTP21 + Cities Skylines]

[darkcloud4579]

It's been years since I successfully managed a dynasty, but in all of my years of dynasty writing, I've never written a dynasty during a virtual quarantine, so I figured this is a first!

I'm currently building in a bay city that I've named Yaquina, after a defunct town in Oregon. The Yaquina MSA is comprised of Shoreline & Yaquina and right now is nearly 3 million people, making it the new largest city in the state.

Yaquina Bay is 134 miles from Portland, but doesn't have any major sports teams for obvious reasons -- Portland already has them. Think of Yaquina like San Bernardino/Riverside in California, except in this case, Yaquina is bigger than the former big city.

The storyline is going to involve bringing professional baseball to Yaquina in some way. I think that's going to involve an expansion team in an independent league. It'll give me a chance to get immersed into my existing league in a really low-key way.

I'll show different parts of the city and profile talented high school or college recruits who come from here too, as time goes on.

We'll see how this goes.

[Eugene Church]

Interesting concept... good luck... hope you have lots of fun creating your dynasty.

[Dark Horse]

i like the concept as well. i've thought about buying City Skylines and using it with OOTP. Good luck!

[Sizeman21]

I love the idea. Cities Skylines is such a cool game. And so is OOTP! I will be following your story!

[eck.nicholas]

Love the Yaquina Bay area of Oregon. Newport is one of my favorite destinations to get away from Portland for the day.

[darkcloud4579]

UNITED SHORE PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE MOVES TO YAQUINA
Yaquina City -- Local car dealer and former semi-professional baseball player Max Waters has announced his acquisition of an entire independent baseball league. He plans to move the league to the Yaquina Bay for the 2041 season. For years, Yaquina has gone without professional level baseball despite growing in population.

Waters, 41, says he resisted overtures by the major league Portland Beavers to move a minor league farm team to town, saying that it'll "never get us a chance to have our own major league club," which remains a distance aspiration of the region and a small consortium of area businessmen.

The league is comprised of four teams. While in the Detroit area, they played at the same stadium. Upon the move to Yaquina, the league will expand to six teams and will play at three stadiums across the city.

Shoreline Park in Shoreline.
PGE Ballpark in downtown Yaquina
Griffey Park in Sableville.

The teams are likely to only be known by nicknames rather than neighborhoods and plans are to keep the league as a development league primarily for draftees who went unsigned and other early washouts under the age of 25. The hope is that the league can develop talent for minor league systems and that in time, "there will be a raft of talented players who rebuilt their careers in Yaquina Bay on their way to the big leagues."

No word yet on whether the league will change its name for the new season.

[darkcloud4579]

The USPBL will be renamed the Oregon Bay League (OBL) and all six of its clubs will serve as farm teams for the Pacific Association, another minor league.

The PA was down to four teams after a team folded and another left for the Pecos League. Replacing them were the California City Whiptails from the Pecos League and an expansion club, the Yaquina Bay Seals.

We're going to mostly write about the Seals. Normally dynasties focus on the star players and major league clubs, it's rare for me to focus entirely on a small team looking to win but signing players who are on the fringes of professional baseball. Note that in addition to several independent leagues in the US, there are dozens of international leagues also active that have more money to spend on players.

So we're really going to need to look far and wide for the types of players who'll fit on our roster and that'll help us win. For a while, I'm just going to report back on what happens rather than do a lot of storyline stuff.

One of the benefits of a major market like Yaquina joining the Pacific Association, is we've injected a great deal of cash into the league to keep it going. Last year, the league was among the lowest paid in the world averaging payrolls around $17k per team. This year, we're going to work to increase that number so clubs are able to compete with higher level minor league associations. Our near-term goal is to be a rival to the Atlantic League, whose payrolls are in the $300k range across clubs, but we'll likely take a phased-in approach so clubs aren't left behind and things stay competitive.

For this first season, we're switching the league to a split season format, giving fans a more interesting experience across an entire season, rather than being out of it early and having no chance to get back into the race.

Understanding the landscape of our universe is important. There are still 30 teams in MLB, but some of them have moved to other places. Also active are a number of international leagues with vibrant leagues where players will go play including Japan, of course, but also Australia, India, Finland, South Africa, and a bevy of smaller baseball nations that are far more prominent in this universe, than in real life.

Because of this vast landscape of player discovery around the world, there are surely all types of players who might be able to help a team win, provided we can sign them and construct the right club around them.

So I'm putting on my scouting hat and we're gonna go scour the world for talent of all types, then we'll report back on our season.

For now, we'll just do recaps of each season with some highlights of standout players, interesting stories I've discovered and anything else from the universe I can think to share. We'll also be seeing different parts of the Yaquina Bay metropolitan area, so you can see how much it's grown and what makes it a great place to live, work, and play!

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The Pacific Association is comprised of:

Martinez Clippers
Vallejo Admirals
Sonoma Stompers
Napa Silverados
California City Whiptails
Yaquina Bay Seals

All of the teams are in California except the Yaquina club. Rosters are 24-man. I'll assemble the first edition of the Seals and report back after the season.

The latest update of Cities Skylines killed my city, so I had to start over with a different one. Doesn't mean I can't still do the baseball part, but it might have ended it before I got really far, which is a bummer. I did sim a bit and start playing before that'd happened, but not sure I'll be able to sustain this concept like I wanted to.

[Sizeman21]

I hope this didn't crash and burn so soon. I was really looking forward to this one!

No way you can redo this league or City? It is a very cool idea.