This is the same basic structure as the bad neighbor leagues started by Beernoser. The draft takes a couple of weeks, but that can be great if you love baseball stats! The regular season for #9 ends October 11, so I hope to start in late October. Experience says that starting early with sign ups is helpful.
$80 million budget, no DH, no AAA. Will start assuming 20 but if more sign up we can expand.
The rest of this is modified from Beernoser's writing from past versions:
The league is NOT a progressive league. It's just a one time shot that can be repeated. The rules are pretty complicated so it's probably not the right league for someone with a passing interest in WIS. It's better for the hard core owner. We have had a few engaged beginners do well because we have a mentoring program.
So here are the complicated rules.
Your final roster will be constructed from combining the rosters of four real life teams from a pool of all major league teams that played in 1930, 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80. For instance, you could build your final roster from players from the 1980 Mets, 1970 Dodgers, 1930 A's and 1980 Reds. If final player count isn't 20, we might add 1990 and/or drop 1930 - we want about 80% of all teams to be rostered. The rostering is not as simple as that. It is quite restrictive.
Once the season starts you can start a player at any position at which he has a WIS rating for that season. However on your final 25 man roster you must have exactly two players who have a primary position at catcher, 2x 1B, 2x 2B, 2x 3B, 2x shortstops, 5x outfielders and 10x pitchers. You can tell what position a player counts as by rostering in a team, say the 1980 Royals you see John Wathan as a catcher. That means if he makes your final roster he counts as one of your team's two catchers. Once the season starts he can start at any position he has a WIS rating. Lucky you. John has a WIS rating at 1B and OF in addition to the C primary rating. A guy with that flexibility is a very valuable guy in this league.
VERY IMPORTANT! We all have to be looking at the same information to make this league work. When you pick a team, you have to know who you get. Here's the only league approved way to do it. Look at a blank draft center page. See where it says 2015 Anaheim Angels? You can switch that to any team and any year. That's the only officially approved way to see who you get on your team. This is very important because there are two wrong ways to do it and people do it the wrong way every time and they make decisions thinking they have players they don't in fact have. One wrong way to do it is to go to baseball-reference.com and look at the 1980 Royals. That will give you a different set of players than the approved method. The other wrong way id to go to a blank WIS draft center page and click on a blank SP/RP spot and ask to see the 1980 Royals hitters. That will give you a wrong group of players also. Let's do an experiment. Ask WIS to call up the 1980 Royals the correct way by changing the 2015 Anaheim Angels to the 1980 Royals. Notice you get 14 hitters. Now let's do it the wrong way. Go to a blank screen, pick an empty batter spot and ask to see the 1969 Dodgers pitchers. Oops. There are 16 of them. There are 15 hitters and two different versions of Jose Cardenal - but you can only use the version that loads with the full team roster. If you do this the wrong way you'll think you have Jose Cardenal when you don't. That really sucks! Then you'll be frustrated when you finally puzzle your final roster together and I'll tell you it's not a legal roster.. This is very important to get this right as people do it wrong every time.
On your final roster you must have 7 players from one of your four teams, and six from each of the other three. You can't have two versions of the same player on your final roster. For instance if you are using the 1980 Royals and the 1970 Royals, you can't roster both versions of Amos Otis. You can use one or none. But a dagger (see below) against either will take out BOTH.
As soon as all owners are signed up you will be randomly assigned a draft order and division. The draft order goes 1-20, 1-20, 20-1, 20-1. Having an early pick in this draft is no particular advantage. Here's how the draft works.
Round One- Once your draft spot comes up you can pick any team from the available teams from 1930, 40, 50, 60, 60 & 80. Once you pick a team, no one else can pick that same team. If you pick the 1970 Orioles, no one else can use the 1970 Orioles.
Round Two - One of your three division mates will be assigned the task of gifting you your second round team. He should look at your first round pick and find another team which meshes horribly with it. For instance let's say your first round pick was the 1980 Giants, good pitching but not great hitters. Maybe the 1950 Browns would be a bad match since they have Garver but again, not much hitting. Maybe an even better match would be the 1940 Bees who don't have a whole lot of pitching or hitting. They don't have many cheap backups that might help your budget. Anyway, you get the idea, and six of these guys will be on your final roster. Your second round pick will be awarded to you by a division mate who will try to screw you over the best he can.
Round Three - A second owner within your division will be assigned the task of gifting you the third round team that he expects will give you the most grief. The truly bad teams will be gone, but there are usually some terrible matchups.
Round Four - You get to choose your fourth round team that will make as much sense as you can out of the mess you have before you, knowing the dagger rounds are coming next.
First Dagger - Another owner of your division gets to throw two daggers. He will look at your four teams and can throw a dagger at one player removing him from your player pool. Who to dagger? Your only leadoff batter? Your best power hitter? Your only cheap backup 1B? Your only shortstop with over 300 at bats? Your fourth starter who's a bargain at 2.1 million? The only guy who plays four different positions? The possibilities are a puzzle. You might end up daggering someone who he wasn't planning on using anyway. IF your opponent has the 1970 and 1980 Amos Otis, daggering either kills them both. The second dagger is to remove one of your four stadiums.
Final Dagger - The final team in your division gets to throw one final dagger. It doesn't hurt as much as the first one though. You get to name which one of your four teams the dagger must hit.
I know this is complicated but we've run it many times over the years and it results in a very enjoyable draft. Prepare to do the research though as you'll pull your hair out trying to analyze your division mates teams before picking another team for them or daggering them I know it's complicated. It's a league for those who like complicated.