We are in season 2 of Every Player Ever. This season will utilize all the players who were born in January.
We have 16-18 returning owners so we need a few more. It's not a difficult roster build, because your pool of available players is pretty limited, but it does take some creativity to sort out what you'll do to cover the holes in your lineup.
Each owner is assigned a random birthday of varying quality. There will be a handful of stacked squads, but most will have holes [even gaping holes] -- the teams from December looked much like real big league clubs, with salary ranges from $70m to $110m.
There are four ways we attempt to even out the playing field a bit:
1. Once you have built a preliminary 25-man roster, each team will get three or four picks in our supplemental draft, from the pool of players born on January dates that were not assigned to any owner. This should provide you a couple of starting players to fill the holes in your lineup. [Teams in the bottom half of the salary range of their preliminary roster will get an extra pick.]
2. Each team gets 6/4 below-average pick-your-own AAA players, who should be re-named to represent Negro Leaguers and cup of coffee players born on your given day. You can pick up some good platoon players here, or a quality pitcher with limited innings.
3. Divisional alignment is based on the total salary of your 25-man roster . . . with the four richest teams duking it out in the NL East, and one of the four poorest teams guaranteed a playoff spot from the AL West. So there is always a route to the post-season, and we all know anything can happen there.
4. IF YOU GET A REALLY AWFUL DRAW, you will be allowed to throw them back for a re-pick, after all owners have been assigned a date. But you WILL be stuck with the team you re-draw, and I will add $10m to your team salary for purposes of division alignment and whether you qualify for a fourth pick in the supplemental draft. So you are encouraged to stick with the date you're assigned if you can.
Other rules:
No trading or waiver wire, you play with the guys you rostered [including the AAA guys].
Your stadium must have been the home park for one of your 25 players.
If you like the league, we hope to keep you aboard for future seasons, so that everyone has a chance to qualify for a Tournament of Champions in a few years that features the AL and NL champs for each month of the year. For December, that was schwarze's December 14 squad in the NL, and contrarian23's 5th of December squad in the AL.
If you have any questions, just ask me here, or by sitemail. I will draw you a January birth date as soon as I hear from you.
BELOW IS MY ROSTER FROM SEASON 1, to give you a sense of what a team looks like. I was one of the lowest-payroll clubs, and won 90 games in the AL West. A really fun team to manage every day. Behold, The Twelve Drummers, most of whom were born on December 12:
C. Clyde Kluttz .280 / 7 / 34, Tom Daly .276 / 1 / 22, AAA James Bray .208 / 6 / 27
1B Tino Martinez .286 / 32 / 124
2B Orlando Hudson .275 / 12 / 93
3B Garrett Atkins .317 / 17 / 101, AAA Julius Matos .343 / 2 / 6
SS Ryan Theriot .282 / 4 / 60
LF Ralph Garr .344 / 17 / 83
CF Gorman Thomas .212 / 32 / 84
RF Bill Howerton .295 / 7 / 48, D.J. Peters .212 / 8 / 29
DH Curtis Pride .293 / 5 / 35, Matt Walker .286 / 13 / 45, AAA Charlie Blackwell .281 / 5 / 25
SP Tully Sparks 35-9, 2.80
SP Ervin Santana 14-10, 3.63
SP Luis Castillo 12-12, 4.85
SP Cole Ragans 7-3, 2.54
SP AAA Sawyer Gipson-Long 0-3, 5.14
SW Christopher Sanchez 5-7, 6.50
SW Bob Carpenter 1-7, 6.12
RP Phenomenal Smith 6-1, 23 SV, 1.40
RP Steve Farr 6-5, 8 SV, 3.42
RP Steve Bedrosian 2-7, 7 SV, 3.70
RP Victor Cruz 0-1, 1 SV, 3.96
Returning owners: tdoak; jfranco77; cstrohmier; fatguyrd; redcped; thejuice6; BeAllEndAll; contrarian23; toysboys;, SteveIzzy; ledfoo;, laramiebob; eman7400; bottomlee; tensaver716; strubrosll; whalers10
3/19/2024 6:45 PM (edited)