Now that the expansion draft has been worked out, Nate and I have started discussing the other issues tied up in expansion. First on the block is realignment. Since not all of the new owners have been added to the blog, we’ll probably discuss this one mostly by email. (Although, I am posting this to the blog too, so you can comment there as well if you like.) Everyone is invited to chime in, whether you’re currently running a team or just eagerly anticipating one.

So, we’ll have a 16-team league for the 2010 campaign. The two leading options are a 4×4 alignment, that is, four divisions of four teams each and a 2×8 alignment, two leagues of eight teams each. I suppose some sort of three division mess similar to the current NL is a possibility, but that’s too awful in my opinion. Some notes about each alignment:

4×4

1. Game-generated schedule has 16/17 games against each team within the division, 10 games against each team in the same league but other division, and 9 games against each team in the other league. We obviously could also come up with a different schedule, but this is the easiest option.

2. Playoff options include only division winners (4 teams in playoffs) or division winners plus two wild cards per league (8 teams advance). It doesn’t look like one wild card team per league (6 teams advance) is an option.

2×8

1. Game generated schedule has 16/17 games against each team within the division and six games against each team in the other league. Again, a custom schedule is also an option.

2. Playoff options include only division winners (2 teams in playoffs) or division winner plus one wild card per league (4 teams advance).

So, what are people’s thoughts about the alignment? Nate and I are leaning toward 4×4, but don’t have a strong opinion on the number of playoff teams.

So, with a lot of help from Michael (thanks Michael), here is the current plan for the expansion draft, when we go from 12 teams to 16 this offseason. I’ve done some testing, and this seems like it will work. I’m posting it for comments, questions, and hopefully for some kind of approval by the league. Nate, Michael, and I are on board with it. But, this is obviously a big deal and we want to make sure this is acceptable, or at least won’t cause any riots.

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1. The expansion draft will occur as soon as the offseason starts (i.e., after the 2009 playoffs finish and budgets are set, but before arbitration and free agency). We will use the game’s built-in expansion draft feature.

2. The expansion draft pool will consist of all players in the existing teams’ organizations. This includes players on the major league squad, on any minor league team, players on the disabled list, players on waivers or DFA lists, players drafted this year, etc. No player will be automatically protected from the expansion draft.

3. Each existing team will be allowed to protect 20 players in their organization. This includes all major leaguers, minor leaguers, players on the disabled list, etc.

4. The four new teams will each select 24 players, using a “snake” draft order (1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1, etc.).

5. With 96 players being drafted, each existing team will lose eight players on average. In the draft, existing teams will not be allowed to lose no more than eleven players each. After 11 players are picked from one organization, their remaining players are all protected from the draft.

6. There are no other “pullbacks”. In other words, after a player is selected from an existing team, the existing team does not get to protect any additional players.

7. Because the game’s expansion draft seems to be set automatically at 35 rounds long, we need to have 11 more players drafted by each new team just to finish out the draft. Therefore, each existing team will also submit a list of four players with minor league contracts that they don’t care about losing and the commissioners will use this pool of 48 players to finish out the draft.

8. After the draft is finished, the new teams will have their minor league affiliates’ rosters automatically filled with newly created players.

9. Because popular players lost in the expansion draft cause a loss of fan interest, we will use SuperCommissioner (TM) powers to restore all existing teams to their pre-draft fan interest levels. The new teams will, however, keep any fan interest bump they get.

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A couple words of explanation.

FYI, Michael and I came to 20 as the number to protect after concluding that it would be fair to protect 12-13 in a major league draft and 7-8 in a minor league draft. To give owners maximum flexibility, we combined the two portions into one draft. Based on our review of the various teams, 20 is a number where deep teams will lose good players, but less talented teams will be able to protect their really key guys. The expansion teams will get at least some quality talent, but won’t be raiding all of the existing teams’ rosters. (We also came up with the number of 24 players to be drafted per new team because we first came up with 15 major leaguers and 9 minor leaguers.)

Also FYI, the game’s expansion draft feature doesn’t allow pullbacks, which is one reason we’re not proposing them. The game’s draft doesn’t allow a limit on the maximum number of players to be drafted, so it will have to be imposed from on high using SuperCommissioner(TM) powers.

A big part of the problem is that auto-filling the new teams’ minor league rosters proved to be a TERRIBLE way to get them some talent. Also, if you auto-fill the major league rosters, there are all kinds of different problems, starting with the fact that none of the newly created players have contracts. It’s a mess.

So, thoughts, concerns, questions, complaints, quibbles?

P.S. Before people complain that their roster will be unfairly pillaged in this form of draft, keep in mind that my Pittsburgh Pisces will lose as much or more talent than anyone else. And Nate won’t be too far behind. If you still think it’s unfair, go ahead and say so. But we didn’t arrive at these numbers to be punitive. We just want the new teams to at least start out with some talent and have a fighting chance of not sucking for five years.

OK, so this isn’t really breaking news to any of you. But, I just realized I screwed something up.

I assumed that the league’s schedule would carry over and be fine in the new version. I didn’t check it because I’d hassled with it in prior years and just didn’t want to screw with it again. It looked ok on the surface. Plus, I was on vacation during the critical pre-season sims.

Anyway, enough excuses. The good news is that everyone still has 162 games, 81 home and 81 away. No doubleheaders (at least that I’m aware of). We still play five teams 18 times and six teams 12 times.

The problem is that the five teams we play 18 times are not necessarily the ones in our division. It’s not even the teams in our old divisions. It somehow got randomized. Which creates some disparity. Which sucks. And I should have caught it and didn’t. Sorry.

So, here are the groups of teams that play each other 18 times (or an extra six times compared to the other group):

Group 1: STO, JCY, BRK, CAI, TST, NY

Group 2: MPD, PIT, GAI, MIA, SEA, MAR

So, in summary, I suck and the schedule is unbalanced.

About a month ago, we posted a blog entry to take a temperature check on expansion from 12 teams to 16 teams. Three owners said they were in favor (Stockholm, New York, Brooklyn) and one was opposed (Miami). Given the fact that Nate and I also are both interested, that made the current count 5-1 in favor. Accordingly, we have started looking into how it would work.

The first thing we tested was whether there was a way to fill expansion teams’ rosters with newly created players and put them somewhere near a uniform playing field. What I found was that while the new teams had comparable levels of top talent (5* and 4.5* players), there was a significant shortfall in the good to solid range (4* to 2.5*). More importantly, filling out the new teams’ minor league rosters resulted in a total lack of acceptable prospects (in one example, only two new prospects were created that qualified for the top 100 list). In addition, creating new players results in the new players all having minor league contracts (even 41-year-olds) and there are no good solutions for that problem.

As a result, we’re going to be looking at an expansion draft. Since we will be growing 33% (adding four teams to the existing 12), we will all feel the bite. I’m posting this in the hopes that there are some clever ideas out there about how to do this to give the expansion teams a fair start, but not totally destroying our existing franchises.

FYI, the game has an expansion draft feature that allows existing franchises to protect a customizable number of players (0 to 30, I believe). However, there is no way to protect additional players once one is chosen (for example, letting teams pull back two more players after one is chosen). There also is no cap on the number of players that can be chosen from any one team. At least on the OOTP message boards, this is portrayed as a bad thing. This may mean that we have to do the expansion draft outside the game’s features.

So, what ideas do you have? How many players should existing teams be able to protect? Should teams be able to pull back more players once one is selected? Should there be a limit on the number of players any one team can lose? Etc., etc.

I ran a test this morning to see how the free agent compensation rules in OOTP 11 work. Since they work pretty well, we are going to be using the game’s system starting with this off-season. This email/blog post is intended to advise everyone of the new rules going forward.

Here are the rules we will use, based on the way the manual and forums describe how the game works and the results of my test:

1. We will abide by the league rules as much as possible.

2. The game will assign free agents one of three ratings – Type A, Type B, or no compensation. We have no plans to adjust those ratings.

3. If a Type A free agent from Team 1 is signed by another team (Team 2), then Team 1 gets a protected first-round pick from Team 2 and also a supplemental “sandwich” pick after the first round. The pick from Team 2 is a first-round pick if it’s in the bottom half of the draft (7-12), or the second-round pick if that team is picking in the top half of the draft (1-6).

4. If a Type B free agent from Team 1 is signed by Team 2, then Team 1 gets a supplemental sandwich pick after the first round and after all of the Type A supplemental picks, but before the second round. (Note, this is not how the manual describes Type B compensation.) Team 2 under these rules gives up nothing for signing the Type B free agent.

5. According to the forums, the supplemental sandwich picks are assigned by the game in order of reverse record, even if a team receives multiple supplemental picks. So, for instance, if Team A receives two supplemental picks and Team B receives two supplemental picks, and Team A has a worse record, then Team A picks twice before Team B. In other words, the draft order of the supplemental round goes A-A-B-B. This is different than the real MLB, where it would go A-B-A-B. (I didn’t test this though.)

6. If Team 1 signs two Type A free agents of the same type (whether A or B), then the compensation picks will be signed in chronological order. For example, the team that lost the player first signed by Team 1 would get the first round pick and the team that lost the player signed second would get the second round pick. Even if the player signed second is obviously better.

7. Free agent draft pick compensation ends as of Opening Day.

8. Draft picks are mobile and may be traded. Picks traded away belong to the new team for purposes of compensation. So, for instance, if Team 1 gets Team 2’s first round pick through trade, then Team 2’s first round pick can be assigned for the purposes of compensation as a result of Team 1’s free agent signings.

9. Supplemental “sandwich” picks received as compensation for losing a Type A or Type B free agent cannot be traded.

So, here were the results of my testing:

1. The Top 6 protection works. When I had Cairo sign Type A free agent Pastrana, Gainesville got a supplemental pick and Cairo’s second round pick, not their first.

2. If a team’s first round pick has been traded away, the game assigns the signing teams’ next-highest pick to the team that lost the player. So, when I had Pittsburgh trade away it’s #1 draft pick and then sign Brady Morris, Miami got a supplemental pick and Pittsburgh’s second round pick.

3. If a team signs two Type A free agents, the team that lost the second free agent gets the signing team’s highest remaining pick. So, when I had Miami sign Constantino Martinez and then Vincent Furness, Pittsburgh (Furness’s former team) got a supplemental pick and its own second round pick back (which was the highest pick remaining to Miami).

4. When a team signs a Type B free agent, the team that lost the player gets a supplemental pick after the first round, not the second. But, their pick comes after all the Type A picks. The game seems to do a good job of keeping track of this.

5. Supplemental “sandwich” picks cannot be traded in the game, not even at the time of the draft.

6. No compensation was awarded for players signed after the start of the regular season year, whether a Type A or Type B free agent was signed.

7. I found one thing I thought was a bug. Bricio Loera, formerly of Seattle, is designated as Type A, but no picks were given to Seattle when I had Miami sign him. That was the first signing I had Miami do. Loera is a crappy pitcher, but that shouldn’t matter. When I went back and looked at the current league file though, I saw he has already been released and is already a free agent. So, that may not be a bug at all.

So, that’s the system we plan to use this off-season. Let Nate and I know either in comments or separate emails if you have any questions and we’ll try to answer them.

Thanks.

The date is now November 12, 2008 and the OEL has gone through its first arbitration hearings in OOTP 11. Lots of transaction news before the hearings were held. Here’s a summary of the signings, which involved some major stars in the league:

Pittsburgh Pisces: Signed LF Gary Croce to a 2-year contract extension worth a total of $20,000,000.
New York Knights: Signed C William Byrd to a 4-year contract extension worth a total of $51,920,000.
Miami Masters of Their Domain: Signed LF Richard Vuong to a 2-year contract extension worth a total of $22,580,000.
Miami Masters of Their Domain: Signed SP Martin Hernandez to a 3-year contract extension worth a total of $2,700,000.
Pittsburgh Pisces: Signed SS Danilo Henriquez to a 3-year contract extension worth a total of $31,500,000.
Miami Masters of Their Domain: Signed 3B Agustin Moreno to a 3-year contract extension worth a total of $5,190,000.
Seattle Pilots: Signed SP Claude Carruthers to a 4-year contract extension worth a total of $17,820,000.
Miami Masters of Their Domain: Signed SP Cruz Alonso to a 2-year contract extension worth a total of $18,800,000.

Then, the hearings were held. Lots of awards. Some players were awarded more than $10 million for next year. I updated the reports, so you can see the results here.

I wonder if players won more hearings than they lost. For the three Pittsburgh players who went through arbitration, the arbitrator selected the team’s offer in two cases and the player’s demand in one.

Anyway, the league file is also posted. Either Nate or I will run the next sim, on Friday, which will take us into free agency.

Obviously, there are a million details that would need to be sorted out and those details could change people’s opinions on expansion. But, Nate and I just wanted to get people’s general opinions. Are you interested in the possibility of expanding the league to 16 teams, with each league having two divisions of four teams?

Please chime in in the comments field. Thanks.

The new version of the OEL league file for version 11 is here. Who knows, it might even work! The link has been emailed to everyone. If you need it again, let me know.

I believe it’s all set to go, but there’s no way to tell until we try it out. Nate and I didn’t have a good chance to test everything out.

No days have been simmed, so we’re still a day away from the start of the offseason, but you will note a couple of changes. At Mike’s request, his team acronym has been changed from SP to SEA. Another change is that the Ramapough Mountain franchise has gotten a complete change. New team names, new colors, from Rookie ball to MLB level. So, welcome to the Tupper Street Redlegs.

Realignment can only be done in the offseason, so I’ll take care of that the next sim or two.

Having collected and collated the owners’ sentiment, we are now able to provide some specific plans for the upcoming offseason:

1. Upgrading to OOTP 11. Yes, we will be upgrading to OOTP 11. There were substantially more owners were in favor of upgrading than those opposed.

2. Realignment. Probably more properly called reshuffling, we will be realigning the existing divisions at the start of this offseason. Again, there were substantially more owners in favor than opposed. So, here will be the new division alignments, determined with Nate’s 12-sided die. I’ve added last season’s records for everyone’s information.

Platonic League (491-481)
Pittsburgh 103-59
Brooklyn 90-72
Jersey City 80-82
Stockholm 78-84
Gainesville 74-88
Maryland 66-96

Socratic League (481-491)
Miami 106-56
Seattle 102-60
New York 81-81
Marietta 77-85
Ramapough 62-100
Cairo 53-109

3. Future Plans. As we have indicated in some emails and blog posts, Nate and I would like to expand the league to 16 teams. There would be four divisions, two per league, with four teams in each division. We’ll be starting a discussion soon to see whether other owners are in favor of expansion and, if so, starting to work out the details.

4. Schedule. Given all of this, the following is our planned schedule for the coming offseason sims, with the specific dates in November to be filled in depending on the announced offseason schedule in the game. This will give everyone time to look at what happens after the rollover and make offseason plans accordingly.

6/18 (F) – Mack – Rollover to OOTP 11
6/25 (F) – Mack – Sim to 11/__/08 (Major awards announced / eve of arbitration)
6/28 (M) – Nate – Sim to 11/__/08 (Arbitration awards announced / eve of free agency)
6/30 (W) – Mack – Sim to 11/__/08 (free agency begins)
7/2 (F) – Nate – Sim to 12/1/08 (free agency)
7/5 (M) – Mack – Sim to 12/16/08 (free agency, winter meetings come and go)
7/7 (W) – Nate – Sim to 12/31/08 (free agency)
7/9 (F) – Mack – Sim to 1/15/09 (free agency, almanac created)
7/12 (M) – Nate – Sim to 1/31/09 (free agency)
7/14 (W) – Mack – Sim to 2/10/09 (preseason starts, free agent demands drop)
7/16 (F) – Nate – Sim to 2/20/09 (preseason, free agency)
7/19 (M) – Mack – Sim to 3/2/09 (start of spring training, free agent demands drop again)
7/21 (W) – Nate – Sim to 3/9/09 (spring training)
7/23 (F) – Mack – Sim to 3/16/09 (spring training)
7/26 (M) – Nate – Sim to 3/23/09 (spring training)
7/28 (W) – Mack – Sim to 3/30/09 (end of spring training, demote players to avoid ML service time)
7/30 (F) – Nate – Sim to 4/6/08 (first regular season sim)

The Florida Marlins are blatantly stealing the intellectual property of the Pittsburgh Pisces. The Marlins plan to include aquariums in the backstop of their new ballpark, set to open in 2012. They clearly purloined this concept from the Aquarium, the Pisces’ home park, which includes a giant aquarium in right field.

The Marlins organization is full of cheaters, thieves, swindlers, and no-good-dirty scoundrels.