Arena The Baseball Draft Four - (Literally) Out of the Park

Do you like playing games that literally take an entire year? If so, proceed. If not, you might want to either back out now or just join the peanut gallery ...

Now, if you still think this game is for you ...

Have you ever dreamed of managing a baseball team where you could have Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron back-to-back in your lineup? Or maybe you want Ernie Banks turning two, while playing two alongside Mike Schmidt? Maybe you dream of a battery with Pedro Martinez and Chris Hoiles, or an outfield roamed by Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial? Have you dreamed of a game seven, with Walter Johnson facing Alex Rodriguez, with the game on the line? Imagined a team full of Roiders against a team featuring a guy with a serious case of Hemorrhoids? Maybe you want to reunite post season legends like Joe Carter and Orel Hershiser, or imagine post game press conferences with Ty Cobb and Curt Schilling? Perhaps what you really hunger for is Phil Neikro taking the mound and being relieved by John Wetteland? Or, Maybe you just want to see how good Bob Gibson can be ...

If any of those (or something similar) describes you ... good news. This is the year-long game for you.

This is our 10th Sports draft, and the first where we are not using WhatIf Sports, but instead using Out of the Park Baseball.

But, just like the last few baseball drafts you are invited to build the best fake baseball team in history. But, good luck beating this ultra fake team:



If you're somewhat new to this, I'd encourage you to go back and read the previous sports draft. While we are changing the simulator, you'll get a feel for the flow and the concept.

The First NBA Draft, won by @EmpireForever (Able to draft any player any time)
The Second NBA Draft, won by @tom (Limited to only players from the 2012-13 NBA Season)
The Third NBA Draft, won by @tom (Back to any player, any time)
The Fourth NBA Draft, won by @PRENNTACULAR (auction style Franchise Acquisition)
The Fifth NBA Draft, won by @Point Given (all GMs must draft from the same franchise every round)
The First College Football Draft, won by @LloydChristmas (any player from the modern era)
The First Baseball Draft, won by @Point Given (All GMS must draft from the same franchise every round)
The Second Baseball Draft, won by @Point Given (All GMS must draft from the same franchise every round)
The Third Baseball Draft, won by @LloydChristmas (Free-for-all on drafting, mechanisms to carry players through to the next draft)

The Participants:

1) The Commish - That's me. I'm going to keep the draft going by moving along the selection process (see below), posting games, posting results, and generally keeping the game moving forward.
2) The GMs - that's you. The twelve of you ... so far. New parties interested can express so in this thread until we announce we've reached the point you cannot. From there, each GM will assemble your team, put together lineups, and rotations, set strategies, and respond to the ebbs and flows in your attempts to win. You're really the owner, GM, and Manager of your team all in one. Or sometimes Shaq cosplays as you filling all those roles.

The Phases of the Game;

ASSEMBLING YOUR ROSTER

At the start of the game, every team is given the following assets:

• 40 Draft Picks
• $75 in Intybucks
• 3 Keeper Slots

These assets are all tradeable, and can be used in each phase outline below as appropriate.

There are Four methods for roster assembly:

1) The Carryover from Previous Draft

GMs who played last year and chose to carry-through were able to use mechanisms to carry over a number of players into this season. These are the foundation of the rosters. If you are new to this season, since you can't carry over players, you'll get additional draft picks. Which brings us to ...

2) The Draft

We will be doing forty rounds of drafting in a snake-style draft. Each player in Major League Baseball History (American League, National League, Negro Leagues, The American Association, the Union Association, the Players League, and the Federal League) and Minor League Baseball is eligible to be drafted and/or rostered once.(as an homage to the Jedi and Starfighter drafts, and their Anakin/Vader dynamic, we will allow two Babe Ruths - One Pitcher, One Outfielder. No other exceptions)

If you would like to get a scouting reports on player(s) you are considering drafting, requests can be placed in thread or via PM to the commissioner. They will be sent via PM, and each scouting report will cost $1 in Intybucks.

Important Notes

1) Due to the nature of record keeping with the Negro Leagues, not all players will successfully import into OOTP. Generally speaking, the more info is on B-R, the better, but a bio and stats on B-R does not guarantee they will be able to be imported. Obviously, if I produce a scouting report, the player can be imported, but if you have a question about someone, you can simply ask if they can be and I'll check, no scouting report needed. I've had to refund a couple of scouting report requests on account of this.

2) Since a number of folks have asked ... typically speaking, the magic number you want to look for in a shortened season is 150 at-bats. Higher than that, and the system will start to pro-rate (but possibly not give durability); lower and the system will weaken, no matter how good those at-bats were. For pitchers, 15 IP for relief / 60 IP for starters. However, I will warn that typically pitchers who don't reach the threshold of 100+ IP lack serious durability.


Unlike previous drafts there are no restrictions and requirements on which positions must be filled. However, you cannot play pitchers as position players (and vise versa), so you really should draft both pitchers and position players.

When drafting a player, please use the following to make things easy on me:

Name - Position (year)

The year is important as the OOTP simulator will look at the current year and two previous years (if possible) as well as player ratings in the database to determine performance level.

3) Free Agency

Once the draft is finished, we will open free agency.

For the first 48 hours of free agency, we will use a waiver wire system, with the standard order from even numbered rounds being the waiver wire order for each claim. Once we are beyond that, it will be declared in the thread, and we will go to a first-come, first-serve claim basis for free agency.

To sign a free agent will cost $5 in Intybucks.

You must have a total number of at least 40 players on your roster; 25 on the active roster and at least 15 on the inactive roster. There is a link at the bottom of this post with the roster information.

If you are unable to get to a total of 40 players when this phase comes to an end ...

4) Inty Assignment

I will assign players to your roster. Most of them will be on the level of terrible players I thought were good in my naive innocence growing up as a Cleveland fan, or perhaps worse and much worse. So, if you want to avoid Pat Tabler or something on your roster, you should avoid this being necessary. Though, I hope you don't.

Once everyone is at 40 (or more) players on the roster, we are ready to move forward with the next phase

SETTING OF BASE STRATEGIES

There are both mandatory and optional strategies:

Mandatory Strategies

• Choosing a home ballpark. You can choose any ballpark that has been used in the AL/NL (current or historical) or design your own, provided it meets MLB guidelines for new ballparks.
• Choosing a location. You can pick pretty much any city on the planet.
• Choosing a nickname.
• Choosing a manager. You can use a historical manager, or you can create your own - see this post in the last thread to see the guidelines and options.
• Setting a standard lineup vs. RHP and a standard lineup vs. LHP
  • Please note, there is no designated hitter, but unlike with WIS, you can bat the pitcher in any slot in the order.
• Setting a standard rotation - you can pick a rotation of any size between a one-man rotation and a six-man rotation. You must also decide whether your rotation is strict order, strict with flexibility to allow higher rested, or to simply always start the highest rested pitcher in the rotation. You must also decide if you want to allow starting pitchers to pitch in relief.

Optional Strategies

• Setting a logo and/or brand colors for your team.
• Setting a capacity and/or ticket prices for your stadium (if custom - historical parks will get their historical capacity, but you can still set ticket prices)
• Assigning Depth Charts for each position (up to two backups, plus a defense-only sub). You can also set the depth-usage strategy, with options of Never, If Starter Tired, or every nth game, with n from 1-10, 12, 15, or 20.
• Assigning a preference order for pinch hitters and pinch runners (in general, or vs LHP/RHP)
• Assigning primary role (Closer, Stopper, Setup, Specialist, Middle Relief, Long Relief, and Emergency SP) and secondary role for any pitcher that can come out of the bullpen.
• Set strategy for the following for general, and for close/late games (if you are interested in this, we'll talk about it, rather than make this post even longer):
  • Stealing Bases, Base-Running, Hit and Run, Sac Bunt, Squeeze play
  • Pitch around, Intentional Play, Use of Infield in, Use of Infield Shifts
  • Hook starters, Hook relievers, Favor L/R, pinch hit for pitchers, setting of max pitch counts, use of the "opener" strategy
  • Situations where you would use defensive substitutions and response to an opponent using an opener.
  • Note: Instead of hand-picking each of these, you can choose an over-arching strategy - traditional, balanced, small ball, moderate small ball, sabermetric, moderate sabermetric, tactician, moderate tactician and completely unorthodox.

For all Optional Strategies, you can simply not do it. In this case, we'll use the sim defaults and that's 100% okay.

PLAYING THE SEASON

I will be posting a week at a time (a week in the game, not IRL - will be both slower and quicker depending on things). You can make adjustments or just let it fly with your standard lineups and pitching rotations. I will then post results and do some key recaps (and some happy helpers might chime in as well).

We will play a 162-game season (plus All-Star festivities), with the league divided into two divisions.

A note about this sim: I can't control every individual game. I will do my best to ensure that your specific choices for specific games happen, but there is a non-zero chance that the sim/manager will overrule my inputs and go with something else. Unlike with WIS, I can't go back and "re-sim". Please, just accept this as part of the game, and hopefully it doesn't have an impact to change overall standings. But, we aware of it, and do your best to not bust my chops when/if it happens.

At the end of the season .. the best teams will make ...

THE PLAYOFFS

The winners of each division, plus the two teams with the best records will make the playoffs. Each series is best-of-seven in a 2-3-2 format for home/away, and you will be allowed to set strategy, lineup, and pitcher for each game.

The winner of the playoffs gets a prize given out by the mods - colors for I don't want to guarantee an amount of time, plus title. Bragging rights for-ev-er. And their name - okay, Star Wars Boards username - etched in the history books.

THE CARRYOVER TO NEXT SEASON

That's right. We're playing for keeps! Again.

Everyone playing in this draft and continuing to the next season gets three keepers. Any three players on your team you want to bring through and make sure you have them next season – they are yours to take. But, you can keep more … if you want to, that is.

Keeping a fourth player will cost you your first-round draft pick in the next draft. Keeping a fifth player will cost you your second- and third-round picks. Want a sixth? You’ll forfeit your picks in rounds 4-6. A seventh? Pony up all five picks from round seven thru eleven. Picks from round 12-17 can net you an eighth, and rounds 18-25 can net you a ninth.And, giving up rounds 26-40 can get you a tenth.

So, if desired, you could keep an entire starting team – all eight position players and two pitchers (or any combination of ten players – four starters, a closer, your outfield, your shortstop, and your catcher, for instance).

You can also keep fewer carryover players. If you want to keep only two, you’ll net an additional pick at the end of the third round in the next draft. Only want to keep one? You’ll net additional picks at the end of the second and third round, and if you don’t want to keep any, you get additional picks at the end of each of the first three rounds.

Keepers is also a tradeable asset. You can trade another team your right to carry a player (or two or three) as part of a trade. So are future draft picks. You can go to the trade deadline and offer up your first round pick next year to get that ace pitcher at the deadline! (Of course, if you trade away a future pick, you can’t use it to keep additional players … so plan your strategy wisely. Once your keeper train derails, you can’t get it back on the tracks).

You also carryover any unused Allocation Money to next season.

Anyone who plays and wants to play again in the fifth draft will be allowed to carry-through, and we will always allow Expansion Teams to join.

And, with that long post out of the way ...

Let's ...


If you want to join the league as an expansion team, just post so in this thread. I'll post some additional information in the forthcoming posts.

Helpful Links (mods will add more later):

Rosters Spreadsheet
Fodeuss Blog
Fodeuss Wiki
OneDrive w/recaps and box scores
Master stat sheet
Batting Stats by Team
Pitching Stats by Team

 

baaaaaseballl!

 

In the words of my favorite dumb baseball slogan.

 

Come on @Juliet316 play with us

 

How long will each draft round take?

 

people have 24 hours to make their picks so a round can take anywhere from minutes to 12 days. usually each round takes a day or two, but if everyone gets on around the same time it can sometimes go faster.

 

Still can't believe you attached Jocko to the anthem/theme, but couldn't find a keeper slot for him.

Speaking of keeper slots ...

 

We’re just banking on him lasting until... *checks draft order* ...nevermind

 

ANNOUNCEMENT

To complete the trade between @LloydChristmas and @DarthTunick, $55 in Intybucks have been removed from Tunes to pay for the keeper slot utilized by Lloyd.

The spreadsheet has been updated to reflect this, as well as as assets given for the start of the new season. It has not been updated to reflect any ordered scouting reports (I will adjust for those once I deliver them)

CORRECTION

There was an error when we posted the draft order for Round 8. A Shaq of Their Own should have lost their lower pick in the round, not their higher pick, as a result of acquiring extra keepers. Here is the actual order

Round 8

1) A Shaq of Their Own
2) pilots
3) Tormentors
4) Enhancers
5) Motherboys
6) LPT
7) Bandwagoners
8) GoT
9) Demonbags
10) Amazings
11) Gales of November

ANNOUNCEMENT / CONTEST

We need a a name for the league. I want something a little better than JC Baseball League. I put in a placeholder of "Twittle League Baseball", but I'm sure we can come up with something better.

 

i suggest "fodeuss". it's pronounced "fuh-doose" and it stands for the "field of dreams expanded universe, starring shaq".

 

This might be my best effort, will circle back.

Second Annual Neverending Dynasty League Of Twits. The SANDLOT.

It's also only good for this year.

Amazing.

 

Or maybe Sorta Annual, since it's not exactly.

Amazing.

 

We've gone full Jedi Draft

 

TBDINAGAIUTB League

 

heels, pointy, or Cubbie - wanna make a temporary poll in the OP with these two options and we'll leave it open a week or so?

Getting ready to start the draft, let's lay out a few things

1) While you don't need to have your manager/strategy/stadium set until the game actually starts, if you know what it's going to be and can get it to me / posted sooner, it helps so that I'm not trying to do all the data entry stuff as we're trying to start real games.

2) It really, really, really helps when you draft someone if you use the

Name - Position (year)

format. Also, please tag whoever is next.

3) I won't be enforcing any kind of clock or bumping picks until January the 4th, at the earliest. We've all got stuff going on with the holidays

4) I'll be updating the spreadsheet with rosters as often as possible, but please call out errors as early as possible. even the non-narcs can do this one.

 

Welcome to the Fourth Sorta Annual JC Baseball Draft



Our sole expansion team - North Shores Gales of November, helmed by @mnjedi - are on the clock with the first pick of the Out of the Park Era.

Round 1

1) mnjedi - The North Shore Gales of November - On The Clock
2) AmazingB - Amazings
3) Wang Chi - San Francisco Demon Bags of China Town
4) RX_Sith - Game of Throws
5) heels1785 - Every City Bandwagoners
6) cubman987 - Let's Play Two
7) Point Given - Performance Enhancers
8) tom - stone temple seattle pilots
9) Gales of November

Round 2

1) pilots
2) dp4m - Planescape Tormentors
3) Enhancers
4) a star war - Virginia Beach Motherboys
5) LPT
6) Bandagoners
7) GoT
8) Demonbags
9) Amazings
10) Gales of November
11) Gales of November

Round 3

1) Gales of November
2) Amazings
3) Demonbags
4) GoT
5) Bandagoners
6) LPT
7) Motherboys
8) Enhancers
9) Tormentors
10) pilots
11) Gales of November

Round 4

1) pilots
2) Tormentors
3) Enhancers
4) Motherboys
5) LPT
6) Bandwagoners
7) GoT
8) Demonbags
9) Amazings
10) Gales of November

Keepers by Position

Starting Pitchers

Addie Joss
Doc White
Ed Walsh
Pedro Martinez
Walter Johnson
Christy Mathewson
Clayton Kershaw
Old Hoss Radbourn
Roger Clemens
Ron Guidry
Bob Gibson
Greg Maddux
Sandy Koufax
Lefty Grove

Relief Pitchers

Dennis Eckersly
Sean Doolittle

Regional Managers

Mike Scott

Outfielders

Joe Dimaggio
Carl Yastzremski
Stan Musial
Babe Ruth
Barry Bonds
Mike Trout
Willie Mays
Ted Williams
Shoeless Joe Jackson
Tris Speaker
Kenny Lofton
Mickey Mantle
Ken Griffey Jr.

Infielders
George Sisler
Arky Vaughan
John McGraw
Nap Lajoie
Honus Wagner
George Brett
Alex Rodriguez
Lou Gehrig
Hughie Jennings
Rogers Hornsby
Frank Thomas
Ernie Banks
Jackie Robinson
Robin Yount

Catchers
Mike Piazza
Gary Carter
Ivan Rodriguez
King Kelly

 

omg it's happening!!!!

 

It's a great pleasure to kick off the 4th Baseball draft. So without further ado.

With the first overall pick, The North Shore Gales of November will take



Josh Gibson - Catcher (1943)

@AmazingB

 

Oh, B's gonna love that.

And as much as I love SANDLOT, I have to go with fuh-doose. Just more fun to say.

Come on, B. At least take one of them off my list. Don't make me choose between three.

 

great first pick, this is already awesome.

 

Would that make inty the fuh-doose-iary?