Arena The FODEUSS Baseball Draft Classic

Do you enjoy the normal Baseball Draft, but wish it had a slightly uncomfortable tint of nationalistic jingoism to it?

Do you want to play the normal Baseball Draft, aka FODEUSS, but get slightly scared off by all the complex rules, the length of the game, and some of the inside jokes?

Do you really love baseball?

Do you enjoy having a competitive atmosphere interrupted with another similar but substantially different competitive atmosphere on a regular basis?

Well, then, my friend. This is the game for you.



Welcome to the First ever FODEUSS Baseball Draft Classic

I asked AI to generate a logo for this, but AI kinda sucks. Still, these two aren't completely terrible:



This particular game owes its legacy to a number of our "classic" sports (and non-sports) drafts, but will have slightly new mechanics and a streamlined strategy that should make it a quicker and easier game to jump into.

But, if you've never played a Sports Draft on these boards before, it might be worth your time to go review some of them, just to get a feel. I would especially recommend reviewing at least part of the Fourth NBA Draft, as the "auction" mechanism used there will be used here as well.

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 Fourth Baseball Draft, won by @LloydChristmas (Free-for-all on drafting, mechanisms to carry players from previous draft and into next draft, first use of OOTP, expansion into the Negro Leagues)
The Fifth Baseball Draft, won by @dp4m (free-for-all on drafting, mechanisms to carry players from previous draft into next draft, expanded uses of OOTP, actual import of Negro Leagues Players, limited international players available)
The Sixth Baseball Draft, won by @heels1785 (not a typo)

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. However many of you sign up. You're kind of the amalgamation of the owner, GM, head scout, musical composition specialist, pizza party thrower, and Manager of your team all in one. Or sometimes Shaq cosplays as you filling all those roles.
3) The Peanut Gallery - that's people like @Juliet316. Vital to the game. You do things like make fun of dp (which had better continue even if he doesn't play), be the only people who actually get all of the professional wrestling references, and generally enhance my life by letting me know people care about the stuff I'm spending my free time on and reinforcing positive images in my head and helping me to fight off Imposter Syndrome.

(although, Jules - for real - you should play!)

To help new players, returning players, or anyone who struggles with all the strategies and option in the normal game, we have simplified the draft for this version. These changes include a streamlined player acquisition mechanism (called out below in "Assembling your roster"), a shortened season (called out below in "Playing the Tournament"), removed any strategy setting beyond lineups/depth charts/rotation beyond simply hiring a manager, and removed the need to select a home stadium.

For this Simplified Version of the Baseball Draft, we will only have Three phases of the game:

1) Assembling Your Roster
2) Playing the Tournament
3) The Championship Parade

ASSEMBLING YOUR ROSTER

Ultimately, you need to have a thirty-person roster for the tournament stage. To get there, you will be given !00 IntyCredits (which cannot under any circumstances be exchanged for IntyBucks or Stanley Nickels). You will use credits for one thing and one thing only: to bid on the exclusive rights to players based on their place of birth (I told you there was some slightly uncomfortable tint of nationalistic jingoism here).

Please note, due to the vast number of players from the United States of America, players born in the US will be split up into fourteen categories based upon years. With one exception, each player will be uniquely available during the time period where they made their Major League Debut, as listed on baseball-reference on pages such as this one. For the USA, we will divide up into decades, starting at the 0 and ending on the 9, with the bookends having a few extra years. So that means, the USA Option are 1889 and earlier, 1890-1899, 1900-1909, 1910-1919, and so on until you get to 2000-2009, 2010-Current Day.

The one exception to the unique availability is, of course, Babe Ruth, thanks to the Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader Rule. For Ruth, he will be available in the 1910's for his Major League Debut in 1914, and also in the 1920's for his debut with the New York Yankees. This makes sense even beyond the Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader Rule, as Yankees fans tend to think their team is the only one that exists in the universe, and therefore 1920 is the true debut of the Bambino.

Now, I mentioned those IntyCredits and it's taken me a long time to get around to why you need them and how you actually use them. Sorry. I get on longwinded tangents and never pass up an opportunity to hotlink to a page that highlights the greatness of our Lord and Saviour, Steven Kwan. Anyways, once sign-ups have finished, I will randomize the order of players, and we will begin the auction phase. There are five parts to the auction phase.

1) The player who is "up" puts forward a country for which players will be available.
2) Any player interested in that country as a means to stock their roster will send me a Private Message indicating how many of their IntyCredits they would like to bid on that country.
3) After approximately 24 hours have passed (or when all players have indicated a bid/pass on the round), I will announce in this thread the current "high bid" and player who made it. At that time, the next player up will announce the next country up for bid.
4) Any player who wants to increase their bid on the first country can do so via PM. At the same time, any player interested in the next country can submit a bid on the new country.
5) After approximately 24 hours have passed (or when all players have indicated a bid/pass on the round), I will announce in this thread the player who successfully acquired the exclusive rights to the players up, and the current high bid/player in the next round. At that point in time, the next player up will announce the next country up for bid.

and we will repeat that until we're done acquiring players. You don't need to spend all your money. But it isn't good for anything else. And we'll likely shorten/speed up near the end when only a few players have money left to spend.

A few notes before I get to examples:

1) You can only bid in whole amounts. Don't try to submit decimals or fractions. Unless you're @Ramza. But then they have to be expressed as a limit or a power sequence or something.
2) If you have an active bid for both franchises at the same time, that's ok and the total bid can exceed your total credits available. If you happen to win the first, and don't have enough to cover your bid on the second, I'll just consider it an invalid bid and remove it from the list.
3) If after the two days of possible bids nobody places a bid, the offering will go to the player who put it on the table for 1 Credit
4) If there are multiple bids that are submitted in the exact same amount at the end of the second day of bidding, the tiebreaker will be as follows: If the player who submitted the bid is among the tied players, they get the country. If the players who are tied with the high bid are all not the player who submitted, I will send each of them an identical PM containing Jose Ramirez and/or Steven Kwan and/or David Fry trivia questions. Best performance on the three questions wins. If a tie, I'll flip a coin or something else random.

Example: Let's say we have four players: LMTShawn, mnjedi, tom, and heels

After randomizing, the order is mnjedi, tom, LMTShawn, heels

mnjedi announces that the first bid is going to be for USA 1970-1979 because he really wants to be able to claim that Bert Blyleven was the first overall pick in one of these games.
The next day, I announce that LMTShawn is the top bid at 33 Credits. tom then puts Japan up as the next country.
The following day, I announce that heels has won USA 1970-1979, including the coveted rights to Blyleven, for 36 Credits. I also announce that tom is leading the way for Japan at 40 Credits. LMTShawn then announces that USA 1889 and earlier is now up for bid.

Some resources that might help you:

Baseball-Reference page on Players by Birthplace
An Example Baseball-Reference Page on Players who Debuted in a given year. You can click forward and back and/or edit the navigation address to get to any years you want to research.
(please note that for Negro Leagues players, the database cites their Major League debut which is in the Negro Leagues and not their AL/NL debut. This is the year I will be using as well).
(please also note that that list is inclusive of all players, so if you use that for scouting the "best" decades to buy, be mindful of players born outside of the fifty states and DC that are listed that will not be included)
A YARN clip of Watto saying Credits are no good

Once you have all your players, your roster be finalized when you submit the thirty-person roster, along with the year of that player's career you want them to be imported from. For your reference, we will be playing this game set in 2006, the year of the first World Baseball Classic. If you have any questions about what any of this means, let me know and we'll talk about it, but i don't want to make this opening post any longer by trying to preemptively explain or answer questions.

The only other thing you will need to in addition to the thirty players is to select a manager for the team, who will do all in-game moves based upon their own strategies. For the Baseball Draft Classic, you must use a historical manager and provide a year for them as well (so, for example, you might pick Eric Wedge and want him from 2009).

At some point in this process you should also give your team a name, primary/secondary colours, and talk Lloyd into making you a logo.

Also, just to emphasize. There are no other mechanisms for acquiring players. No trades. No free agent signings.

Once all players have their finalized roster and their manager, we move on to the next phase of the game ...

PLAYING THE TOURNAMENT

Once we have our rosters, the game will play out in two phases. A group stage phase and a knockout tournament phase.

Group Stage

The Teams will be divided up into groups (TBD based on number of players, but somewhere between 2-4 groups). From there, we will play a quadruple round-robin (playing each other team in your group 2x "home" and 2x "away". After each set of games, you'll be afforded the opportunity adjust your lineups, depth charts, rotation, and bullpen roles. I'll highlight a few games in written recap, highlight some other stuff in a video recap, maybe have a pool reporter for each group add in some additional stuff, and post all the box scores and game logs to a Google Drive Folder.

Please Note: Injuries will be turned off, but player fatigue will be on.

Once we go through that four times, we will have the final standings for the Group Stage. From there the top teams (I would like this to be top 8 teams if we have enough players, but I can adjust down if we have a small playing pool) will advance to the ...

Knockout Stage

The teams that advance will be seeded for the knockout stage, which will advance in a double-elimination fixed bracket, until the finals which will be a best-of-three series. After each game in the knockout stage, every player will have the opportunity to change lineups, depth chart, starters, and bullpen roles.

In both the Group Stage and the Knockout Stage, all games will be played at neutral venue. I'll announce which venues early in the process of player selection just in case that influences your selections, but the exact number we need will depend on how many groups we have and how many players we have. Designated Hitter rule will be in effect.

Once we get to a winner of that best-of-three series, we move on to the final phase of the game

THE CHAMPIONSHIP PARADE

So, what do you get for winning this thing?

Title, colors and VIP for status for however long Cubbie/heels give it to you (they'll say a week, probably, and then "forget" to remove it for a good while after that).

Immortality. Your name will forever be etched into the annals as a Sports Draft Winner. And not just a winner, but the inaugural winner.

You'll also get some in-universe stuff to help you in the 7th Baseball Draft when that starts. 20 Intybucks + Extra 8th round Draft pick + 5 Free Scouting Reports + 1 Chance in the Draft Lottery + 50% off a single DeLorean Trip. The Runner-up will get their pick of two of those things, and the third place team will get their pick of one of the three things the second place player didn't take.

So, now we get into the Pre-Phase of the game: The Sign-ups.

To sign up, simply copy this list, add your name, and post it to the thread.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

USEFUL LINKS:
FBC Rosters (added 3.15.24)
Player Stats (added 4.30.24)

 

Gonna win this, hang a banner like the Lakers, and then miss the playoffs again.

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.

 

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.

 

Ah, screw it

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4.
5.
6.
7. AutumnLight91
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.

 

Pizza parties are prepped. Let's do this.

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4.
5.
6.
7. AutumnLight91
8.
9.
10.
11. Wang
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.

 

Pretty fun grid today. Got the younger twit's second favorite player, a member of the Delahanty family, and a 2 in rarity.

Spoiler

Feel the need for a personal challenge to see how many Delahantys I can get onto a single grid ...

 

Replaced in logo creation by AI, wow.

Well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

 

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4. DLOTE
5.
6.
7. AutumnLight91
8.
9.
10.
11. Wang
12.
13. PG
14.
15.

 

I guess I'll try this out? I'll probably finish dead last (mostly because 80% of my historical baseball knowledge deals in the Negro Leagues) but I'm willing to take a chance,

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4. DLOTE
5. SithOverlord101
6.
7. AutumnLight91
8.
9.
10.
11. Wang
12.
13. PG
14.
15.

 

I’ve got some good news for you.

 

Yeah, seriously. You might clean up in this game (and especially in the "regular" version of this game).

Who we missing? @LMTShawn @AmazingB @RX_Sith @A Chorus of Disapproval @anakinfansince1983 @DarthTunick (we've shortened and simplified it, Amigo!) @Ahsoka's Tano @PointGivensCousin get in here y'all.

 

Same energy...

 

I feel somewhat insulted that my name was not listed by default.

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4. DLOTE
5. SithOverlord101
6. AmazingB
7. AutumnLight91
8.
9.
10.
11. Wang
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.

Amazing.

 

Agree with B. This should be automatic.

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4. DLOTE
5. SithOverlord101
6. AmazingB
7. AutumnLight91
8. LMTShawn
9.
10.
11. Wang
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.

 

Thank you for not putting the word "Cub" next to (20)16.

I appreciate it

 

1. heels
2. mnjedi
3. tom
4. DLOTE
5. SithOverlord101
6. AmazingB
7. AutumnLight91
8. LMTShawn
9. Yak
10.
11. Wang
12.
13. PG
14.
15.
16.
17. cubman987

Decided to go with 9. Which is also the answer to if I have a clue what I'm doing.

Some lady told me to join. Ruth. Baby Ruth.

 

"Only" a 19 for rarity today, but pretty proud of that Orioles line

Spoiler

Yes, it hurts that the pick that pushed my rarity score into double digits for being a gold glove winner also made the infamous error in game 7 in 1997. If you need me, I'll be crying

How long do you all want to leave signups open? Through Sunday, to give it a full week? Earlier than that?

 

not a great rarity, but a couple fun pulls

Spoiler

leaving signups open through sunday sounds good to me.