Fall 2014 Franchise Tournament – For Owners Who Love Research, History, and Team-Building Puzzles
I ran a franchise tournament last fall, that proved to be great fun. I am tweaking some of the parameters this time around, and am hoping that it will generate a lot of interest. It should make for some fascinating team-building strategies.
Concept:
This will be a 16-team, 5-season tournament, based on a franchise theme, with all 5 leagues running simultaneously. The leagues will be different caps: 60M, 80M, 90M, 100M, and 120M.
Each owner will enter 5 teams, one at each cap. Your rosters will be built from two historical franchises – one of which will be an “original 16 franchise” (the franchises that existed in MLB as of 1903), and the other of which will be either an expansion franchise or a now-defunct franchise.
Franchises will be selected in a two round draft. Once the league is full, I will ask a HOF owner who is not in the league to do a random drawing for us at random.org. This will generate the first round draft order, and the second round will be in reverse order.
There are two important rules affecting roster creation:
1.) Each “original 16 franchise” can be a selected by a maximum of one owner. Once an owner has selected the Yankees, they are off the table. Likewise each expansion/defunct franchise can only be selected once. So there will be only one version (max) of the Houston Astros/Colt 45s in this league. Please see below for more detail on what is meant by “franchises.”
2.) Your five teams can be built using any combination of players from either of your two franchises (no twisting – you must use seasons when they actually played for 1 of your 2 franchises.) But here’s the catch, you may not use any player more than once across your five teams. So each owner will be using 125 different players across your five teams. If you pick the Yankees as your “original” franchise, you can use one of the Babe’s Yankee seasons exactly once in your five teams. Up to you where you put him, but you only get him once. Of course, whoever picks the Red Sox can also use one version of Ruth (drawn from the 1915-19 seasons) and theoretically the Braves franchise could also use Ruth once, the 1935 version. Note that this restriction applies even if you have a player who happened to appear for both of your franchises. If you have the Braves and the Padres, you can still only use Greg Maddux once. 125 different players, no exceptions.
So this tournament will be a test not just of historical franchise quality, but of depth. It will reward owners who can do their research and manage effectively at five different caps. You’ll need to put together 5 different starting rotations, one for each cap, using completely different players each time. We should see some very interesting strategies here. If you’re using the Braves, do you burn Greg Maddux with his great 1994 or 1995 season at a higher cap, or use a lesser version of Maddux at 60M or 80M, where he might actually be more dominant? Choose wisely, because you only get to use him once. And of course the same thing goes for your position players.
The leagues will start shortly after the 2014 players are released by WIS (the new release usually happens within a couple of days of the end of the MLB regular season), to allow plenty of time for team-building, and 2014 players will be eligible for this tournament.
Other details:
DH: No
Park: You may use any park that either of your franchises used at any time in their history. You can use the same park for all 5 leagues, or 5 different parks, or any combination.
Trades: No
Waiver Wire: No
Injuries: On
AAA: No
Clones: No (duh)
Live: No
Realignment: Random. Each league will randomly realigned exactly once, letting the cards fall where they may.
League Format: Standard OL format
There will be no 200K exemptions. All 25 of your players on each roster must come from your franchises. Because there will be no AAA players, no trades, no waiver wire, and injuries will be on, please be sure to draft enough PA and IP to get through the season.
Standings and Prizes:
Last year WIS offered us $100 in prizes for this tournament. I am expecting a similar amount this season, but this has not been finalized yet.
Overall standings will be calculated exactly as they are in schwarze’s WIS Championship:
· 1 point for each game that your teams win (including regular season and playoffs)
· 5 points for making the playoffs
· 5 points for winning a post season series
So the World Series winner for each league will receive 23 bonus points on top of their regular season win total (5 bonus points for winning the division, 5 bonus point for winning the LCS, 5 bonus points for winning the World Series, plus 8 points for winning 8 postseason games).
The owner with the most overall points across the five leagues will collect 60% of the overall prize money. 2nd place owner will collect 25%. 3rd place owner will collect 15%.
Important note on franchises: "Franchise" in this theme refers to the entire history of a franchise as defined by www.baseball-reference.com. Many franchises moved cities or changed names - and even in some cases changed leagues - across their history. You can use any player from your franchise's history. Please do your homework to understand what team/seasons are included within each franchise. I will be diligently checking rosters, but on the slim chance that an error slips past me and you end up using an illegal player, that team will (a) be ineligible for the postseason in its league and (b) be counted as going 0-162 for the purposes of calculating the overall standings. In other words, the use of even a single ineligible player will basically eliminate any chances you have of winning the tournament.
The bible for franchise lineage is www.baseball-reference.com, and this thread has very detailed information. If you have any questions as to whether a player is eligible for your franchise, please ask.