We recently had a request from a team owner to make available the almanacs automatically generated by the game. The links below should enable you to download the zipped files. Each year’s almanac is between 35 and 60 MBs, so beware of that.

Here are the links:

2005 Almanac
2006 Almanac
2007 Almanac

Assuming for the moment that I actually managed to get the links to work correctly, you have to put the files in the right place in your game folder to get them to work. In your copy of the league folder, the unzipped folder needs to be in the following location:

OELv9.lg/news/almanac_200X

where X is either 5, 6, or 7 depending on the year at issue. Within that folder should be the contents of the zipped files (folders titled box_scores, coaches, game_logs, etc.) Be careful that you don’t inadvertently end up with an extra folder in the way while unzipping.

If it works correctly, then you should be able to access the almanacs in the Game / Almanacs menu. I think.

Brooklyn (AP) – The era of the marsupial has begun in Brooklyn.  With the signing of Perry ‘The Platypus’ Hodgin people all across Brooklyn were yelling “he has feet like a duck but he’s furry.”

The Bombers have announced new egg promotion (did you know that the Platypus is the only mammal that lays eggs) and have introduced a new venom dog that ‘packs a bite’ (did you know that the Platypus is venomous).  They are also creating a creating a authentic Tasmanian stream in the OF bleachers of the Drop Zone stadium so that the Platypus can feel right at home (OK I think you get the point right now).

The Bombers were surprised that Hodgin was available on the FA market.  “He is one of the best all around players in the game,” commented GM Jeremy Goldman.  “The opportunity to get a player of his magnitude to complement the rest of the lineup, well, you can’t put a price on that.”  There are the skeptics out there that believe that Brooklyn overpaid for Hodgin’s services, but his agent Scott Boras is not one of them.  “He is one of the top 10 players in the game, and has two World Series championships under his belt, and is hungry for more.”  Boras made that comment as he was stuffing his cut of the contract into his suitcase and getting on a plane to the Bahamas.

The Lifetime .292 hitter who has 160 career HR and 623 RBI in his 7 year career for Sylva and Pittsburgh, will take his place in the middle of the Bomber lineup to compliment newcomer to the league 1B Gary Moeller and new acquisitions RF David White and LF Carroll Pinon.  This new look lineup should have more pop than last season, and with the pitching that is returning from last season.  Could the Bombers win 100 games for the first time in franchise history?  It would seem automatic, but only this season will tell.

Eric Simon, owner/GM of the Ramapough Mountain franchise, has had to give up his spot in the league. It’s a bummer to lose someone as knowledgeable about baseball as he is. So, with regret but also with thanks, we offer a tip of the cap to Eric for his solid stewardship of a what was a somewhat disheveled franchise when he took it over and now is a much more promising organization.

Fortunately, a new owner has already been identified and secured for the team, David Locke (who some of you may know as the owner of the Ohio franchise in the SDMB OOTP League). We’ll get him set up as the team in the next sim. I’ve hopefully added him to the OEL email list already, and we’ll get his contact information otherwise circulated in due course.

To get David going, we may have to slow down the sim schedule a little bit. Tomorrow’s sim is still on tap, but the schedule beyond that is undecided. We’ll update you as we figure it out.

So, welcome aboard, David.

A sex tape of Cary Buteau was unleshed on the internet today. The strange thing is the girl did not seem real. When Buteau’s agent was approached by the situation his only comment was, “Everyone has had silicon at one point in time.”

The sex tape which shows a 4 1/2 inch long Buteau is with the brand new $7,000 sex doll as discussed on CNN.com ( http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/01/sex.robot/index.html?hpt=T2 ) Bad timing considering the Purple Porpoises were shopping him around earlier today. Looks like his value has take a drastic hit, but his “4 inch + bat” is not getting any hits at all.

Gainesville was all a buzz this weekend with the aquisition of Japanesse star Yoshii. GM Justin Katz had this to say, “We overpaid, we realize that but if it gets us to a championship can you fault us? We felt like we needed to protect Rushing a bit more this year so we had to make a deal. Losing a pitcher like Fredrickson is tough but it is time for Guy Little to step up and make a name for himself.”

Guy Little, the star prospect has not quite finished his development at the minor league level but that does not mean he is not ready. In a late season call up last year he had 2 quality starts against his disasterous opening start. It seems likely that veteran Mazza will fill out the 5th spot in the rotation and Little will work his way in.

“That is the plan, with a veteran guy like Mazza we dont have to rush ‘Chicken’, but we did not want him in the minors one more year. When you are a man you are man…and Guy is ready.”

Gving up a slate of talent to get a player like Yoshii was a tough sell but with a combined .320 BA, 70+ HRs and 220+ RBIs between him and Rushing it gives the Purpoises a feared middle of the lineup. They will need it as the other teams in the Hegel Division are making their own moves.

For those of you wondering what to do with your extra funds, remember that you can always remodel your stadium. From the ever-present league rules page, here are the fees:

Moving Outfield Walls: $2MM
Adding 1000 seats: $1MM
Adding or Removing Dome: $15MM
Changing Surface: $2MM

If you want to make changes, just email Nate and Mack.

There’s an issue that Nate and I would like to solicit league input on, the cash cap setting. When we started the league, Nate and I agreed that, at a minimum, we did not want a very restrictive cash cap. For whatever reason, now lost to the mists of history, we set the cash cap at $100 million. I don’t recall if we did that because we figured nobody would ever hit it, or what. But, that’s the current setting in the league.

Now, for the first time, we have teams actually approaching that level of cash. A couple teams could easily end 2008 with more than $100 million in cash, depending of course on moves made between now and then, free agent signings, etc. But, Nate and I thought this would be a good time to solicit input on what we should do with the cash cap.

Basics of how it works right now with our settings is that if a team ends the season with more than the $100 million maximum cash allowed, then the excess cash is removed from the team. Because we have revenue sharing turned off, the money is just lost. (If we had revenue sharing turned on, it would be distributed to other teams.) See the game manual here for an explanation.

So, what should the league do? We can do almost anything – keep the cap, raise it higher, lower it, turn on revenue sharing, etc.

One side effect of the cash cap that may or may not matter is that it affects salary demands. On some undefined level, the game uses the amount of funds available to sign free agents as a guidepost to determining what players’ demands are. So, the more cash that is available to sign players, the higher the demands are likely to be. And, available cash is one factor that can drive up the amount of funds available to sign free agents.

Now, taking my deputy commissioner’s hat off for a second, my basic thinking on the issue is that the purpose of the game is to win, not make a profit on baseball operations. (I’m sure there’s other games that one can play where the goal is to make profits.) One way to win is to save money when the team is struggling, set it aside, and then use it later to make the team better (resign young players before they walk in free agency, splurge on free agents, etc.). So, I think it’s good to have teams able to build up some cash. But, I’m not sure it’s good to allow teams to accrue cash without limit and I don’t know what the appropriate maximum cash level should be.

I’m sure Nate has his own thoughts on the issue, which are different than mine, and he’ll probably share them. But, we both are really interested in hearing other viewpoints on this issue because, at least to me, there’s no clearly right answer on what the “right” settings are.

Please add your thoughts on the issue as comments to this blog entry or, if you wish privacy, email them to Nate and me. Thanks.

Based on my review of all of the available free agents in the league, here are the players eligible for free agent compensation and their former teams. The rules for free agent compensation are here on the league rules page.

Type A Free Agents
SP James Fortner (MPD) (signed by RAM on 3/3/08)
SP Bricio Loera (SEA)
SP Stephen Pacheco (SEA) (signed by Miami on 12/11/07)
MR Thomas Fleenor (BRK)
MR Stephen Hawn (JCY) (signed by RAM on 3/3/08)
MR William Mejorado (PIT) (signed by Ramapough on 2/16/08)
CL Ariel Santos (CAI) (signed by NY on 2/1/08)
2B Edward Redding (GAI) (signed by Maryland on 2/15/08)
3B Constantino Martinez (MIA) (signed by Stockholm on 2/15/08)
3B Alfonso Reyes (NYK)
SS Charles Fordyce (CAI) (signed by Seattle on 2/5/08)
OF Gonzalo Fernandez (JCY) (signed by Ramapough on 2/15/08)
OF Perry Hodgin (PIT) (signed by BRK on 2/5/08)
OF Brandon Townsend (JCY) (signed by New York on 2/15/08)
OF Oscar Woodworth (PIT) (signed by Marietta on 2/26/08)

Type B Free Agent
None

Note: Per our rules, no compensation will be awarded for OF Brady Morris, whose prior team declined a team option for 2008.

Because I’m bored watching blowouts in the NFL playoffs, here are the individual records set this year, according to the game’s leaderboards:

At Bats: David White, 658 (650, Ted Masson, 2006)
Runs: Gary Croce, 146 (139, Gary Croce, 2005)
Total Bases: Richard Vuong, 380 (379, Reinaldo Salerno, 2003)
RBI: Danilo Henriquez, 155 (152, George Pullum, 2002)
Walks: Amador Zaragoza, 164 (156, Amador Zaragoza, 2004)

ERA: Tyler Conn, 1.46 (2.16, Tyler Conn, 2006)
Wins: Tsukijirou Tashiro, 23 (22, Tyler Conn 2005 and Richard Ro 2005)
Losses: Emery Stalter, 22 (20, Bryan Im, 2003)
Saves: Steve Corner, 48 (47, Edward Adams, 2003)
Complete Games: Robert Mullen, 5 (4, several)
Innings Pitched: Tyler Conn, 258.0 (250.0, Tyler Conn, 2006)
Home Runs Allowed: Robert Mullen, 33 (3, several)
Strikeouts: Tyler Conn, 286 (266, Tyler Conn, 2006)
Walks: James Pilla, 127 (120, Thomas Wilkerson, 2006)
Hits/9 innings: Tyler Conn, 5.81 (6.50, Tyler Conn, 2004)
VORP: Tyler Conn, 114.9 (89.4, Richard Ro, 2005)
WHIP: Tyler Conn, 0.83 (0.90, Richard Ro, 2005)
Opponent OPS: Tyler Conn, 0.485 (0.549, Richard Ro, 2005)

Yeah, that Tyler Conn guy was pretty good this year.

There is no official word coming out of the Porpoise club house but many insiders have said GM Justin Katz is ready to move ace SP Hernando Desalvo. The news comes on the heels of a disappointing season for the Porpoises who were looking to make a run after last year’s WC birth.

Desalvo is easily a top 5 starter and given the right team he will most certainly challenge 20 wins and sub 2.5 ERA. With Desalvo entering into the final year of his contract it is almost certain he will ask for $20 million + over 5 years. This is something the Porpoises may not be able to handle, especially if they want to resign MVP candidate Daniel Rushing in the near future.

The Porpoises have resisted the constant front to acquire Desalvo by other owners but now may be the time to rethink their strategy. When approached by reporters GM Katz had this to say, “We are constantly evaluating our talent to put the best product on the baseball field. We have made deals in the past which were thought to improve the betterment of the ball club. Desalvo is one of our finest players and certainly one of the best in the league. His future is bright with us and we look forward to Desalvo finishing out his current contract.”

Desalvo did not have any clear picture either when asked about his playing days. “I am happy to be a Porpoise. We have a good thing going here. Two years in a row with a winning record, a playoff appearance, and a lot of upside. I am excited about the upcoming season. About the contract? Well I let me agent deal with that. I come to work and do my job and have fun while doing it.”

If the rumors are true about the Porpoises trying to move Desalvo it will certainly be a blockbuster one since getting future is where the Porpoises have the most to gain.