One of us is a mind reader. I was contemplating this very thing this morning! You've obviously given it more thought. Italyprof's Jubilee League is closest to this idea, but the teams spin off from the original roster over 7 years before resetting.

The challenge would be holding onto owners with the losing teams. Perhaps each owner takes an NL and an AL team, in reverse order of choice in each league, so everyone has a shot at a winner?

Another issue: You will have huge PA/IP issues in the early years with pitchers/hitters that did both but the SIM won't actually allow to play both. Even if you avoid the PA/IP issues, you definitely have issues with the realism of the replay pre-1901 because of this.

Also how you would handle stuff like the Federal League and some of the extra leagues in the 1800s comes to mind... there definitely isn't a "3 leagues" format or a "1800s" format (likely because the 1800s was crazy and unregulated) -- you partially mention this, but the issue in those years is imho even deeper than it looks. As for 1900, your best bet might be a "double replay" -- 8 team AL, 8 team NL, identical teams, different owners, and don't really care about the WS result...

I'm honestly also not sure of the point of replays. While they won't replay the same, they'll replay in a similar enough manner as to not be hugely relevant -- as you said, a 60-win team isn't going to suddenly win the league. So I'd have to say it's not interesting. I don't need to see <random 100 win team> crush <random 60 win team from the same year>.

Your best bet might be to do a replay that invokes "time travel" players to balance out the competitiveness of the team -- possibly with a number of players coming in based on the original winning percentage, or a salary limit applying just to it based on that... something along these lines... thejuice6 has run several leagues doing free agent ideas this sort of way, but not with all of a single season's rosters being played... on the other hand this does spoil it being a true replay. But you might actually sell the league.

The biggest issue I see is competitive balance. For most of baseball history, 50% of the teams have been awful. How do you keep interest in a league that will obviously be very unbalanced most years. Also, do franchises stay with owners year to year? If so, the owners of the detain franchises (e.g. Yankees 1920-60) will have huge, in some cases insurmountable, advantages over a long period.

This idea is very intriguing however there are some players that are cookies, playing above and beyond and some that the sim just totally screws over, cookie opposites, so you will have enough players that won't play the same in WIS as they did in real life.

I'd be interested to see how they play, however I wouldn't be interested in taking a sub .500 team if there wasn't some sort of incentive for reward.

I think this is a fascinating idea. I personally would love to replay history to see how many of the questions you raised pan out. As long as the team selections were randomized year over year I think it would be fair. A reward system for over achieving teams would be interesting. Maybe every owner put up a nominal sum of money to begin the league...say $5 so there can be payouts each season for the team that has exceeded it's historical win % by the most percentage points...pay the winner the value of a free team and carry over the balance to the next season...when the money runs out everybody has to reload another $5

Perhaps the simplest way to get around the competitive balance issue is to play two (or four, or six, etc.) seasons at a time, with a randomized draft order (snake-style).  So let's say you're playing 1901-1906: your six picks might yield you one great team, one very good team, a couple of so-so teams, and a couple of also-rans.  This way all the owners are in the same boat, and no one's lucky/screwed out of the starting gate.

The competitive-balance issue could be solved by giving the playoff spots to the teams whose Sim win % exceeds the franchise's RL win % by the greatest amount. The '27 Yankees might be a lot of fun to have, but with 1100 above-average IP the Tigers might be a good bet to beat them in comparison to each team's RL record. The con is that you would not have the "best" teams in the playoffs, and you'd eliminate the likelihood that the Sim playoff teams match that season's RL playoff teams. Alternatively, you could allow limited twisting and prorate it by the standings. Again using the 1927 AL, for example, the Red Sox could twist 8 players, Browns 7, Indians 7, etc., and the AL-champion Yankees 1. Again you lose some realism, but it could be enough to get such a concept off the ground. It's going to be hard to find enough owners to stick with a format that largely predetermines the winners and losers. How many people would keep playing if in half the seasons they started knowing they have virtually no chance of winning?

The only way to make true replay work would be to come up with an additional prize for the also-rans who have no shot, so there's at least some incentive for those owners to do more than wait for the next season when they might get a competitive team.

Should you incorporate a $5 fee the money would last 7 seasons. 16 teams x $5 would yield $80 in the payoff pool. Buy a six pack for $60 and a single team for $13 and there is the payouts for 7 seasons with a little left over. Anybody that joins no doubt will be a long term owner so the nominal start up fee would amount to less than $1 per season. When the money runs out we all pony up another $5.

Maybe there will be  more interest if you tone down your ambitions a bit.

Most of your post addresses replaying World Series, whether it was a big upset or wasn't played at all.

So say for 1904 6 or 12  owners take the red sox  in one league and the other half take the Giants.   This way you can replay the WS and have a competitive league at the same time.

Just reading through these posts, it sounds like an interesting idea.  One thing, though, that will always come into play when you're trying to figure out the best season or the best of anything is the owners themselves.  I've always said that if anyone can take the 1927 Yankees and make them a third-place team, it's myself.  Some owners lose interest in a losing team faster than others.  If a team starts out at a 5-19 clip, some guys just give up and let it play on out by itself without making any changes to their rotation or line-up and end up with a 120-loss team.  Other owners will have their nose in it every day, trying to do as well as possible - regardless of any losing streaks that may occur.

Of course, this is just a minor point as the main reason for doing anything like this is for the enjoyment of playing the game.  It' just that one or two possible owners like what I've described above could skew any realistic results you may be looking for.

JMHO...

Sounds like a great idea to me and I have some thoughts on keeping owners interested in winning games and ensuring no one owner has the same winning franchise each season.

Start the first season with a random distribution of teams. Then play the season out, keeping track of how many wins above/below real life each owner had in-season and rank the owners 1-12(16/20/24/etc) based on their in-season performance (you could use actual salaries of the teams as a tiebreaker, thus rewarding the lower salaried teams a bit). Then hold a 1-round draft for franchises before the start of the next season. That would reward owners who try to win as many games as possible and would keep the franchises rotating through your ownership group year-over-year. That way, you keep every team fighting to win as many games as possible in order to draft a stronger franchise the following year.

If you go the prize pool route, offer small rewards to the owners whose players win MVPs, Cy Youngs, Fireman, Rookie of the Year and such. That way, even if you have a team that only wins 75, but have a player who is great, you still have something to play for.

As for split player seasons, I would allow each team to use only the portion of the PAs or IPs that player compiled for that team, but allowing both teams to own him. Just a couple of thoughts.,,sounds like a fun idea to me.

I'd be interested in being a part of this. I really like the idea of some kind of bonus/advantage for teams that finish much better in the SIM than they did in real life. It's probably one of the best anti-taking incentives out there.

I would think that a rewards program for increasing the number of wins would make owners more inclined to taking the 70win teams over the 100wins teams.

This is a great idea contrarian23. 

I would think that the best combination would be:

either random or a random-ordered draft before each season to determine which owner had which team.

Then a playoff format in which the playoff teams at least up to 1969 are: the two pennant winners PLUS the two teams that in each league won the most games beyond their RL/RW historical W-L record. This means that technically any team could make the playoffs regardless of where it ended up in the standings, while keeping an incentive to win the pennant as well. If pennant winners are also the ones with the most "surplus" wins, then the teams with the next most wins versus real life make the playoffs. So four-team playoffs.  We all know what a crap-shoot playoff series are at WIS, so even the worst teams might win 3 games out of 5 and make it to the WS and get their owner a free team !

Of course once divisional play starts, this needs to be rethought, but that is a long way off if we start at 1885 or 1901 or whatever, and in any case the principle could still work with the division winners plus the 4 teams that more over-performed their RL W-L historical record in the playoffs and an extra round of postseason play. 

I think the WIS existence of partial seasons solves the traded player issue already as you suggest, so in the case of Piazza that you cite, the Dodgers and Mets each get him as a partial season and can use him as the owner judges best (leaving a little room for creative managing - you could hold him back for a late run or use him as a platoon player all season etc.). 

I think this would be a great idea. Much of the game playing I do on OOTP is some version of replaying baseball history, though I allow trades, which creates a "what if" wrinkle (and allows me to run, say, the 1962 Mets and see if I can make them a contender before 1969, or the 1960 Cleveland Indians and see if I can get them into contention). 

So we await your setting the league up. Let us know.

contrarian - I think the idea is a great one.  I don't have paragraphs of good ideas....but you could count me in