Before we get into round 2, a determination needs to be made on which 192 teams advance. Per the rules, exactly 12 teams from each franchise will advance (the four playoff teams and the teams with the next two best records from each half of the league). Also, per rules, no person can have more than 16 teams advance.

If anybody has more than 16 teams that are *qualified* to advance, the lowest ranking team(s) are dropped and the team with the next best record (in that same league) will advance. In no instance will a franchise get more than 12 teams to advance to round 2.

The 192 teams will be ranked by (1) W-L record over the 162 game regular season (2) Expected Winning% (3) Home field win%. Any teams that get "moved up" from non-qualifying to qualifying status due to somebody having to drop teams, those teams will rank behind the qualifying teams, regardless of their W-L record.

Once the 192 teams are determined, a draft order will be calculated. The order will be based on the Round 1 rankings defined above. The top 16 teams will get to pick which league they want to be in (and should select their team ahead of the regular draft). Once the "Top-16" selection process has been completed, the rest of the teams will be slotted into the open spots according to a predefined algorithm. Trading picks will be allowed before and during the draft.

Since there are 8 leagues in round 2, and 16 teams per person is the max, no person will be allowed to have more than 1 team per franchise. Also, for those with multiple teams, your teams must be split up into different leagues. For example, if you have 9 teams advance, that equates to one team per league for seven leagues and two teams in the eighth league, (opposite sides, of course). If you have between 2-8 teams, than you can not have more than one team per league.

These are how the eight leagues will be aligned. A total of 12 seasons from each franchise will be selected in the draft.

League 1: NL: Giants / AL: Yankees
League 2: NL: Dodgers / AL: Red Sox
League 3: NL: Cardinals / AL: Indians
League 4: NL: Pirates / AL: Athletics
League 5: NL: Cubs / AL: White Sox
League 6: NL: Braves / AL: Tigers
League 7: NL: Phillies / AL: Browns-Orioles
League 8: NL: Reds / AL: Senators-Twins

The rules for round 2 are exactly the same as round 1, except all the years selected in round 1 are blacklisted. For review...

Twist & Clone Rules
Upon sign-up, you will select a single season team (1901-2024 from the original sixteen franchises). Using baseball-reference.com as a guide, you can twist any player that appeared in at least one game for that single season team. And you get to clone any of your players one time (i.e., you can use up to two versions of any player from that roster). You aren't required to clone every player you use, but you cannot have three versions of a player.

Other Details
Player Seasons: 1901-2024 (you cannot clone or twist a player to a season prior to 1901)
Salary Cap: None
DH: Yes
WW, AAA, Injuries: No
Clones: Allowed (but no more than two versions of any player)
Multi-Team Seasons: You may use partial or combined season
Ballpark: Any ballpark from any franchise from any season will be allowed.
Division Alignment: Chronologically

Yikes. And we thought the pickings for the Twins and Phillies were tough already….

Posted by ronthegenius on 10/25/2024 4:10:00 PM (view original):
Yikes. And we thought the pickings for the Twins and Phillies were tough already….

The teams may not look great on paper, but it's still a zero sum game. Some teams will end up winning 90 games and some will lose 90.

I think you mean 12 teams per franchise will advance. 12x16=192

Fixed. Thanks

Posted by ronthegenius on 10/25/2024 4:10:00 PM (view original):
Yikes. And we thought the pickings for the Twins and Phillies were tough already….

What makes this round interesting is that the least favorable Ruth season or Maddux season (that didn't get drafted in round 1) might become the most popular choices in round 2.

Looks like I might get some teams qualifying in round 2....so

1. Since we have to combine two franchises, do we pick the two franchises all at once in the draft or one franchise at a time?

2. We need 12 players from each franchise....how do we get that extra player to make a 25 man roster?

We aren't combining franchises. Since we are only drafting 12 teams from each franchise, each league will consist of two franchises... but each will be in their separate half of the league.

Example: You might be drafting fifth in league 2. When your turn comes up, you will pick any available Dodgers or Red Sox season. And build your roster just like you did in round 1.

I had given up on this tourney but made some pitching changes and suddenly my Pirates are on a 17-3 run and back in the hunt for a spot. Here's hoping they get me in.

With one day left before the end of the regular season of round 1, I've finally finished going through every franchise, researching for potential round 2 teams. I've built between 5 and 10 rosters for each franchise. (I slowly started building rosters shortly after the round 1 games started).

Obviously, the quality of these teams are going to be noticeably worse than the round 1 teams, but everything is relative. There will be some teams that would lose 90 games if entered into round 1 that might win 90 games in round 2.

I am looking forward to this draft. As somebody who will have a couple of picks in the top 16, I am feeling the pressure of not screwing up one of these high picks.

Will the league assignments after the Top 16 be all based on Round 1 performance? In other words, you'll tell me what franchises I'll be drafting?

Yes, that's mostly correct. After the top 16 teams get selected, everybody else gets slotted into a league based on an algorithm. The higher your ranking, the higher you will draft within that league. Since there are 8 leagues, if you have a team ranked 33rd to 40th, you will have 5th pick in a league (since 8 x 4 = 32). However, since each league has one NL team and one AL team, you can still choose which of the two franchises (from that league) you want to use.

Trading will be allowed at any point during the draft. If you are picking 8th in league 5 and don't like your options when your pick comes up, maybe somebody will swap pick 12 in league 7 with you.

But remember that if you have 8 or fewer teams in round 2, you cannot have more than one team per league. And if you have 9 or more teams advance, you must have at least one team per league and no more than 2 teams per league (one from each franchise).

Posted by schwarze on 12/20/2024 10:20:00 AM (view original):
With one day left before the end of the regular season of round 1, I've finally finished going through every franchise, researching for potential round 2 teams. I've built between 5 and 10 rosters for each franchise. (I slowly started building rosters shortly after the round 1 games started).

Obviously, the quality of these teams are going to be noticeably worse than the round 1 teams, but everything is relative. There will be some teams that would lose 90 games if entered into round 1 that might win 90 games in round 2.

I am looking forward to this draft. As somebody who will have a couple of picks in the top 16, I am feeling the pressure of not screwing up one of these high picks.

I’ll have a few high picks but they worry me this time around. I think it’ll be a lot harder to pinpoint the range of years in your division. Obviously nothing was guaranteed in Round 1, but you could feel confident certain groupings of years would be selected. I suspect we’ll see more range in the years within each division in Round 2.

Also, since all the teams from a single franchise are in the same league (AL or NL), there is no "avoiding" certain players. If you want to play a modern team with some HR hitters, you will still have to face deadball teams a decent number of times. Of course, most of the *good* deadball teams were taken in round 1.