Amateur Baseball League

[mattynokes]

Amateur Baseball League

No, this is not another suggestion to change the FCM file.

With that said, I think it’s obvious that I want to be involved in some way, I just need to find something interesting to me and interesting to others. I think I finally have it. My draft file was going to consist of 4 High School teams and 4 College teams. Undrafted High School players would move on to College. Undrafted college seniors would retire and their careers are over. What if GMs ran each team?

High School

1. Teams would play a 36 game schedule. The schedule would be set up in 3-game series (on the weekend) and 1-game series (during the week).

2. Teams would draft from the actual Mogul Amateur draft. The draft talent would be edited so that the skill and age fit the high school freshmen mold.

3. Rosters would consist of a max of 35 players.

College

1. Teams would play a 48 game schedule. The schedule would be set up in 3-game series (on the weekend) and 2-game series (during the week).

2. Teams would draft from the graduating High School seniors. If a High School senior is not drafted, he goes into the FA Pool where he can be drafted in future seasons. However, there will be no actual Free Agency.

3. If a Team wants to redshirt a player, they must do it prior to the start of the season (will have a thread for that). Teams lose a draft pick (starting with the 3rd round) for every redshirt handed out the previous year. Players with a redshirt will have a " *R* " after their name.

4. Medical redshirts are also possible and would be following the actual college guidelines:
A) Players must not have played in more than 30% of the regular season.
B) Players must not have played in the second half of the regular season or post-season.
C) You may still apply (there will be a thread) for a medical redshirt even if the player doesn't meet these guidelines, but the chances are very slim.

Teams do NOT lose a draft pick for medical redshirts being handed out. Players with a redshirt will have a " *M* " after their name.

5. Rosters would consist of a max of 35 players, including redshirted players.

The league rules would be simple and straight forward. It would basically be a plug and play league.

1. I’m thinking 2 sims a week for 1 week per sim. Minor League and Spring Training stats will be erased after every sim.

2. Submit your Team Files, like we do on FCM.

3. Make adjustments for injury or poor play. Wash, rinse, repeat.

4. The off-season would be for adjusting graduating players and drafting in new players to fill out teams.

Trading

This is a dilemma. On one hand, it could help generate interest. On the other hand, it’s not realistic. However, neither is drafting players. If we would allow trading, it would be limited. 5 trades or 5 players (whichever comes first) would be allowed for the year The year is defined as the off-season prior and “summer break” (mid-season) period.
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Lastly, maybe, just maybe if this idea gets going, with no signability tied to them, just good old fashioned pure American family fun, Andy would allow some of these players to show up in FCM draft classes ;) I’m only half serious.

But what’s the interest in getting this going? Any other ideas to make this fun?

[hickoxb2]

I like this idea, but only if this runs independent from the FCM. A couple suggestions though:

1) HS players should be like 30-40% underclassmen and be mixed in with sophomores, juniors, and seniors. A league full of the same exact rosters for every team for 4 years would get boring real quick.
2) No trading. If this is supposed to be on our spare/free time, it needs to be simple. I mean I could go either way on it to be perfectly honest, but I think it would help keep people who are minimally interested as "active" participants. But I could be wrong on that.

[AndyP]

I wouldn't be totally opposed to moving those guys into the draft but I think total independence is better. Is this happening concurrently to the FCM schedule and who would be interested might be important questions to answer.

[mattynokes]

1) HS players should be like 30-40% underclassmen and be mixed in with sophomores, juniors, and seniors. A league full of the same exact rosters for every team for 4 years would get boring real quick.

I want to clear this up. There will definitely be SR, JR, SO, and FR. I think I'll start the rosters out with 35 players and at least 8 players per class. This will keep graduating rates about the same every year.

[mattynokes]

I wouldn't be totally opposed to moving those guys into the draft but I think total independence is better. Is this happening concurrently to the FCM schedule and who would be interested might be important questions to answer.

Haha, I hope you didn't think, "oh crap another suggestion and this time he didn't run it by me first." Anyways, I'm not sure when the sims would be. My schedule fluctuates from week-to-week, so a plan might be:

Monday: Likely afternoon sim. Have all team files turned in by 9 AM ET to guarantee they get added for the sim.

Thursday: Likely night sim. Have all files turned in by 5 PM ET to guarantee they get added for the sim.

And there's the possibility that I don't get to the Monday sim until Tuesday afternoon. Same goes for Thursday. And that's simply because of how my schedule works. Even if the sim would run into FCM sims, there's plenty of days in between to get changes in.

So far, Mike, Rocky, and obviously Hick have expressed interest. I would only need 8 to start up the file. I have to generate teams from scratch, so I do not want any more than that. If interest booms, I can look to expand in the future. Hick has also offered up assistance. So if my schedule is too time consuming in a given week, he could take over for a sim here and there.

And if it's alright with you, I could keep all of the ABL stuff here and create a new sub-forum for it and set it up how I would like. It would probably make things easier than running it on another site.

[AndyP]

I'm fine with a sub forum and side league independent of this one, just was suggesting you make sure the interest is there first.

[mattynokes]

I'm fine with a sub forum and side league independent of this one, just was suggesting you make sure the interest is there first.

Oh, definitely. I've had the skeleton of the file ready for years. Once I get the additional 5 people needed, I'll start putting together the rosters. The beauty of the file is that once it's set, it won't take much effort to keep it going.

[mattynokes]

I've added a few things in order to give the GMs a little bit of strategy and to keep things interesting. I feel like the College League would be more interesting since you'll have stats to look at when drafting high school players and have the ability to redshirt and recoup additional years of control over the player. So, the High School league needs something. Any ideas on something that would be High School specific?

[hickoxb2]

A few ideas for HS challenges:
I know it happens in college too, but ineligibility, maybe? Guys could be deemed behaviorally or academically ineligible for certain periods of time based on die rolls or some kind of added "Discipline" measure for each player. This could also be used in smaller increments like suspensions or something, and it could be entered as an injury in BBM. So that way teams might not draft a kid with a "bad track record", kind of like in real life.

Also if there was a way to have two separate players for each HS student - one as a pitcher, one as a batter -then once one of the two was drafted, the other would be deleted, or designated "undraftable" for the rest of that draft. Then based on performance or team needs, the player could be re-designated as the other (pitcher if they were a batter, or vice versa).

I can brainstorm more on these later, but these would be two HS specific ideas to chew on/tweak.

[JRWorcester]

id be interested