MLB Promotion League

[Matt Uk]

I'm just going to start a new league and I've decided to use the 30 MLB teams but put them into five divisions of six teams each and use a two up, two down promotion/relegation each season. I'm going to assign them from most wins since 1998 (seeing as that's when the expansion to 30 happened) So the top 6 teams with the most wins in that time will be in Division 1 and so on down. What I'd like to add though is a seventh division consisting of 'up and coming' teams. So I'm thinking bigger cities that could host a MLB team. Then I think I'll take one of these teams on and see if I can make it to the top.

Any suggestions for the 6 new teams?

[bwburke94]

Sixth-division markets should be roughly Milwaukee-sized in population.

Vancouver, Portland, two of Nashville/Memphis/Louisville, one of Montreal/Ottawa, and some random team I don't know where.

[Elektranaut]

San Antonio maybe

[dunningrb]

Charlotte. They nearly grabbed the Twins back in the 90s.

[Dogzilla]

1. Austin or San Antonio
2. Charlotte
3. Nashville or Memphis
4. Portland OR
5. Vancouver or Montreal
6. San Juan PR

Honorable mention to Las Vegas, Sacramento, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Orlando...

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Make it real relegation/promotion. The six best AAA teams over that period get promoted.

[ludosc]

I've done a MLB promotion league that worked pretty well, or at least as well as promotion/relegation can work with the options and ai settings.

My setup

Level 1 (bottom 3 relegated)

Top 20 MLB teams over the past 10 seasons

Level 2 (top 3 promoted/bottom 3 relegated)

Bottom 10 MLB teams/Top 10 AAA teams over the past 10 seasons

Level 3 (top 3 promoted/bottom 4 relegated)

Bottom 20 AAA teams over the past 10 seasons

Level 4 (top 4 promoted/bottom 4 relegated)

All 3 AA leagues split the same way they are in real life (Eastern League, Southern League, Texas League)

Level 5 (top 4 promoted)

All Class A and Short Season A Leagues plus the Appalachian League and the Pioneer League.


All rookie level leagues went away. I also got rid of minor leagues all together and went with reserve rosters instead. I kept the financials the same at the MLB level but adjusted them accordingly with the lower levels.

For level 4, I setup a league association between the 3 leagues and took the top 4 teams from each league into the association playoffs (12 total). The 3 champions of each league and the last remaining "other team" were promoted.

For level 5, I setup a league association between all 9 leagues and sent the top 2 teams to the playoffs. The "final four" teams were promoted.

[Matt Uk]

Originally Posted by ThatSeventiesGuy

Make it real relegation/promotion. The six best AAA teams over that period get promoted.

That's a good idea.

[Matt Uk]

Originally Posted by ludosc

I've done a MLB promotion league that worked pretty well, or at least as well as promotion/relegation can work with the options and ai settings.

My setup

Level 1 (bottom 3 relegated)

Top 20 MLB teams over the past 10 seasons

Level 2 (top 3 promoted/bottom 3 relegated)

Bottom 10 MLB teams/Top 10 AAA teams over the past 10 seasons

Level 3 (top 3 promoted/bottom 4 relegated)

Bottom 20 AAA teams over the past 10 seasons

Level 4 (top 4 promoted/bottom 4 relegated)

All 3 AA leagues split the same way they are in real life (Eastern League, Southern League, Texas League)

Level 5 (top 4 promoted)

All Class A and Short Season A Leagues plus the Appalachian League and the Pioneer League.


All rookie level leagues went away. I also got rid of minor leagues all together and went with reserve rosters instead. I kept the financials the same at the MLB level but adjusted them accordingly with the lower levels.

For level 4, I setup a league association between the 3 leagues and took the top 4 teams from each league into the association playoffs (12 total). The 3 champions of each league and the last remaining "other team" were promoted.

For level 5, I setup a league association between all 9 leagues and sent the top 2 teams to the playoffs. The "final four" teams were promoted.

That sounds great. How did you work out the schedules as that's something I'm just coming up against at the moment while I'm playing around with setting it up.

If I do automatic schedule then all leagues will play against each other won't they? (as they will be set up as not being minors)

I'll have 6 leagues of 6 teams each but I only want them to play teams in their own league. I'm thinking perhaps 12 games against each so a 60 game season. Now that's easy enough to do a schedule for each league but setting it up each season would be a pain, because of the promotion/relegation and teams changing.

I've never done a schedule before but played around with it yesterday and it seemed easy enough to input



I've just exported the part schedule I did and opened it with notepad and I see it saves it with team number, so that would be fine to import each season then and just change the team number of the two relegated teams with the team number of the promoted teams.

I suppose to make it easier I could let the game generate a schedule for a 60 game season then just change the team numbers around for the first season, rather than manually input one. But what I really wanted to do was have a three game series, two days off, three game series, two days off (and repeat) order to the schedule which is what I part entered to test things. I think I'll just have to manually enter one divisions schedule, save it and then add in extra games for each day for the other leagues that might be quickest.

Any advice re the scheduling would be great if you can make sense of what turned into a ramble


Thanks for all the team suggestions guys, I'll have a think over them all and decide. I think I might pick my favourite three from them and then perhaps pick out the other three at random from the remaining suggestions. Or add a seventh division as well perhaps.

[wildcatrevival]

The team numbers in the schedule are relative to your league setup. Create your schedule and save it as something you can remember. Import that same schedule after you make your promotions and demotions each year. As long as you import after the structure changes it will work fine.

[ludosc]

Originally Posted by Matt Uk

That sounds great. How did you work out the schedules as that's something I'm just coming up against at the moment while I'm playing around with setting it up.

If I do automatic schedule then all leagues will play against each other won't they? (as they will be set up as not being minors)

I'll have 6 leagues of 6 teams each but I only want them to play teams in their own league. I'm thinking perhaps 12 games against each so a 60 game season. Now that's easy enough to do a schedule for each league but setting it up each season would be a pain, because of the promotion/relegation and teams changing.

I've never done a schedule before but played around with it yesterday and it seemed easy enough to input



I've just exported the part schedule I did and opened it with notepad and I see it saves it with team number, so that would be fine to import each season then and just change the team number of the two relegated teams with the team number of the promoted teams.

I suppose to make it easier I could let the game generate a schedule for a 60 game season then just change the team numbers around for the first season, rather than manually input one. But what I really wanted to do was have a three game series, two days off, three game series, two days off (and repeat) order to the schedule which is what I part entered to test things. I think I'll just have to manually enter one divisions schedule, save it and then add in extra games for each day for the other leagues that might be quickest.

Any advice re the scheduling would be great if you can make sense of what turned into a ramble


Thanks for all the team suggestions guys, I'll have a think over them all and decide. I think I might pick my favourite three from them and then perhaps pick out the other three at random from the remaining suggestions. Or add a seventh division as well perhaps.

If you set them up as separate leagues they won't play each other.

[baseballfanmas]

Looking forward to seeing this when you get it started. I am always giddy when I see somebody trying a promotion/relegation league. As a guy who used to play Football Manager all the time (until you had to start buying it through Steam, which I won't do because I hate Steam with a passion), I rather enjoyed starting at a low Euro team and trying to work my way up the ladder.

[ezpkns34]

The issue with promotion/relegation & using AAA teams to promote, is that the AAA teams are made up of players who are contracted to another MLB team

If you really want a promotion/relegation system and keep the current MLB/MiLB system in place, then you've essentially got to do promotion/relegation by divisions in the Majors

You could manually alter team budgets or fan interest or such stuff for each team when they're in lower or higher divisions or maybe give a playoff advantage to the highest division(s) such as the wildcard can only come from the top division and the winner of the top division gets a 1st round bye?

Never tried to edit the draft order, but I know when you go to the draft order screen it gives you the option to export the draft order. If you can import an edited draft order, you could try giving an advantage in the early rounds to the teams in the better divisions as well


Edit: Saw the reserve roster suggestion & yes that's the only way I can think of to go about typical promotion/relegation if you're okay with ridding the typical minor league system

[ludosc]

Originally Posted by ezpkns34

The issue with promotion/relegation & using AAA teams to promote, is that the AAA teams are made up of players who are contracted to another MLB team

If you really want a promotion/relegation system and keep the current MLB/MiLB system in place, then you've essentially got to do promotion/relegation by divisions in the Majors

You could manually alter team budgets or fan interest or such stuff for each team when they're in lower or higher divisions or maybe give a playoff advantage to the highest division(s) such as the wildcard can only come from the top division and the winner of the top division gets a 1st round bye?

Never tried to edit the draft order, but I know when you go to the draft order screen it gives you the option to export the draft order. If you can import an edited draft order, you could try giving an advantage in the early rounds to the teams in the better divisions as well


Edit: Saw the reserve roster suggestion & yes that's the only way I can think of to go about typical promotion/relegation if you're okay with ridding the typical minor league system

The way I do it, is I go through each MLB minor league system and pick 15 players that the team gets to keep (top 15 prospects with scouting at 100%). That only applies in the mlb level. Everybody else becomes a free agent and is available to be drafted in the inaugural drafts for each league. I also do the inaugural drafts in order from top to bottom (level 2 down to the bottom level).

[Padreman]

Nashville
Virginia Beach
buffalo
Indianapolis
Orlando
Charlotte
jackssonville
Salt Lake City
San Jose
Sacramento
Portland
Las Vegas
Columbus
Oklahoma City
San Antonio
Austin
Memphis
Albuquerque
Birmingham

[SwedishChef]

i'm going to need someone to do a quickstart for this because no way am i going to be able to figure out the setup on my own.

[ludosc]

Originally Posted by SwedishChef

i'm going to need someone to do a quickstart for this because no way am i going to be able to figure out the setup on my own.

Well I created it but something is jacked up within the league and I can't get past the first amateur draft without the game crashing. I have an idea how to get around it so i'll redo it and post one. Give me a week or so to put it all together and I'll make it happen. Note that the financial & player creation setting are all just the way I do it and may need to be altered to fit the way you want to play it.

[Padreman]

So who makes the playoffs? Only division 1 teams? I don't get that

[ludosc]

Originally Posted by Padreman

So who makes the playoffs? Only division 1 teams? I don't get that

In my setup, here's how I do it.

MLB (Level 1)

These are the top 20 MLB teams over the last 10 years.

Top six teams make the playoffs. #1 & #2 seeds get a first round bye. There are no divisions at this level so it's just the top 6. Bottom 3 teams get relegated.

League One (Level 2)

Bottom 10 MLB teams and Top 10 AAA over the last 10 years (5 years for AAA)

Same playoffs as MLB. The league champion and the top 2 remaining teams are promoted to MLB. Bottom 3 teams get relegated.

League Two (Level 3)

Remaining AAA teams

Exact same setup as League One except bottom 4 teams get relegated.

League Three (Level 4)

All of the AA teams kept in their current league setup (Eastern League, Southern League, and Texas League). I renamed the Texas League to the Western League to help with regional stuff.

Each league has it's own playoffs, with 4 teams in each league. The final 2 go to the association playoffs (6 total) and each league champion plus the last remaining "wild card" in the association playoffs is promoted. The bottom team in each league is relegated plus one more that I choose based on the location of the teams coming in.

American Baseball Association (Level 5)

This is all of the Single A, Short Season, and the Pioneer/Appalachian Leagues (9 leagues). They all keep their same league setup and just like Level 4, they have their own playoffs with the top 4 teams. The final 2 teams in each playoffs go to the Association Playoffs (18 teams) and the final four teams standing get promoted.



Schedules

MLB, League One, and League Two play 152 games setup in 4 game series. This does make the schedule very non-MLB like with off days completely at random but that's not something I'm really concerned about. Each team plays every other team four times at home and four on the road.

The rest of the leagues play 142 in three game series.

All leagues start on April 1st.

[ludosc]

Originally Posted by ludosc

The way I do it, is I go through each MLB minor league system and pick 15 players that the team gets to keep (top 15 prospects with scouting at 100%). That only applies in the mlb level. Everybody else becomes a free agent and is available to be drafted in the inaugural drafts for each league. I also do the inaugural drafts in order from top to bottom (level 2 down to the bottom level).

One other thing I forgot to mention, before I do any inaugural drafts but after all players have been released from the non-top flight teams, I do a free agent draft of 4 rounds at the top level so the best players that were on those teams go to the top level.