General Managers League?

[Brutus]

OK listen, I might be the only one obsessed enough to do this. But it's worth asking.

I don't want to step on the toes of the Redszone Dynasty League. So please don't think I'm poaching anyone. However, I'm interested in putting together a very, very highly realistic GM league. Let me warn you, however, this would not be for the faint of heart. It would be a much more time-consuming league than your average roto league. So it might require more time for many of you than you have to give, which I would understand.

However, for those that want to hear me out and then contact me if you're interested, here's the concept:

* 24-teams (it would start out as a 12-team NL-only and 12-team AL-only)
* 3 divisions in each league
* 23-week season, head-to-head with 7 "games" each week
homefield advantage built-in
* 3 weeks of playoffs with 3 division winners and a wild-card for each league
* 1st week (wildcard of each league vs. best record and No. 2 & 3 winners)
* 2nd week LCS (first round winners of each league square off)
* 3rd and final week (final week of MLB regular season) is the "World Series."

* You would select a team from each division to manage as your dynasty (no more than four teams can be selected from each division, though). We'll probably allow teams to start off with a certain number of frozen players and then fill-in rosters and organizations with an offseason 'free agency' period. Salaries and contracts of frozen players would be determined by a ratio of their real existing contracts, shrunk to a ratio that is equal to the size of the real team's payroll versus what our salary cap will be.

* Format based on Runs Created (using BaseRuns for hitters) and Runs Allowed (BaseRuns for pitchers as well as a percentage of each "error committed" by your offensive players). It would use the pythagorean formula to create an expected win percentage (plus or minus your home or away field advantage that week) and compare that to the results of your opponent. It would then give a final pythag for that week and multiply by 7 games, giving you the number of "wins" you had that week - which is then added to the standings.

* 23-man active roster / 40-man roster with DL spots that allow additional roster flexibility until a player is removed.
* Organizational rosters consisting of abbreviated AAA, AA and A teams
* Guaranteed contracts for your active roster
* 1, 2 & 3-year contracts with extensions available
* Actual "service time" accrued for younger players
* A miniature "arbitration" process using a stats criteria for players meeting the arbitration limit
* A designated salary cap for your rosters, which will go up incrementally as the season goes on to allow owners some flexibility
* Free-agency period in the offseason using an auction over a designated period of time (that way way we have time to 'draft' over a period of several weeks and bid in increments)
* Free agency bids of any kind awarded in total salary offered (Dollars x Years). For instance... if I offer a player $10 mil for 3 years but another owner offers $11 mil for 2... the owner offering only a 2-year deal wins the player.
* Trade deadline with realistic waivers and DFA.
* A real "Rule 5" draft each year for 'minor leaguers' that are not added to a 40-man roster in the stipulated amount of time (TBD).
* A "Rule 4" or "first year" player draft each season after free agency to add prospects that were not added the previous year or guys drafted in the real MLB draft.
* A minor league budget with minor league free agency (on a small scale.. working out the logistics of that)
* Compensatory Type-A and Type-B free agent pick compensation if arbitration is offered to a player and the player's salary would increase by a certain ratio. There would be a limit to how many Type-A and Type-B picks a team could lose/sign.

I could go on. But point is, it's basically a realistic league. I am just interested in first finding out if there's interest. I have a friend or two that wants to do it... so we'd need to find 20-21 owners. You'd pick a ML team and start off by getting to keep a set number of players & prospects from that team (as I said, the initial salaries of the active players would be scaled to ratio).

The first season would be based on league. So it would start off as filling out teams from only the league your team is in. Now... we can decide if we want to keep it that way or let it open up to an MLB player pool after that. But I just want to see if there's enough interest.

So... let me know. You can also let me know what team you might want to start with. The Reds can only go to one team, so list a team other than Cincinnati and we can sort that out if the league is a go (ha ha).

[Joseph]

Sounds complicated. I like complicated.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by Joseph

Sounds complicated. I like complicated.

I've been dying to do a league modeled after the real mccoy. This will have almost every sort of realistic touch to it imaginable right down to the same waiver system, organizations, contract structure and even arbitration and service time. The main difference, of course, is that we will actually have meaningful salary thresholds, unlike real baseball.

For interested folks, I will have a rules outline typed up in a few days. I have two people interested. I figure even if we don't get all 24 teams filled from here, we can explore some other team boards to find enough owners. The good news is that we will never actually need a "draft day" so coordinating such an event would not be necessary.

[AtomicDumpling]

Sounds like a neat concept. I am interested to see how it works out. I imagine it would be a lot of work for the commissioner to keep all the records and tabulate the scoring.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

Sounds like a neat concept. I am interested to see how it works out. I imagine it would be a lot of work for the commissioner to keep all the records and tabulate the scoring.

Yes it would definitely be a lot of work. My thinking is either A) find someone to design a website for teams to input the necessary items or B) we collect a nominal franchise fee each season to go toward a stat service and the leftover could be a payout.

I could probably easily design a spreadsheet to keep track of the roster information and send it out in a converted PDF file to league owners every week. I imagine, though, it would be necessary to have each AL and NL league both have oversight commissioners to help see to it transactions and rosters are legal.

[nate]

Have you considered just doing an OOTP league?

It's pretty complex.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by nate

Have you considered just doing an OOTP league?

It's pretty complex.

I have not looked at that extensively. I'm only vaguely familiar with them. However, what I know about them, it does not seem the salary/structure is as realistic as I was going for (perhaps I am misinformed or don't know enough about some of them).

[nate]

Originally Posted by Brutus the Pimp

I have not looked at that extensively. I'm only vaguely familiar with them. However, what I know about them, it does not seem the salary/structure is as realistic as I was going for (perhaps I am misinformed or don't know enough about some of them).

It might very well be customizable.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by nate

It might very well be customizable.

I'll keep that in my back pocket if this looks like it might not be real feasible.

I do think I have the resources to make this work, though. But thanks for the suggestion!

[*BaseClogger*]

I'm interested but I want to read your full outline...

[Patrick Bateman]

I'd be interested too/

[Brutus]

FYI,

I am going to have a PDF outline at some point later this weekend.

[*BaseClogger*]

bump

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by *BaseClogger*

bump

Good time for an update.

I'm still working on the outline. However, I do have some news on the feasibility.

After doing some research on the capabilities of some sites that host fantasy baseball, it seems that CBS will be able to accomplish most of what we need to incorporate such a task. It will require some offline documents for detailed information, but CBS will be able to track in-season payrolls, 40-man rosters, as well as active and full minor league rosters (in aggregate). So this is good news.

The only downside is that the scoring is not quite fully customizable to the point we need it to be. We would be able to track live scoring as far as statistics, but will have to come up with a method of release of the actual results (I can easily make up a spreadsheet that people can calculate that on the fly by simply inputting the stats copied from a CBS report.

The outline is coming, I promise. I'm trying to devise some ways to most accurately account for the player dynamic in things like arbitration, contracts, free agency, etc. I think I've got some things to make that work.

[MJA]

I'd be game, but I'd first need to know time commitment. I'm going to be a freshman in college, the whole college thing is new for me so I don't want to commit to something I couldn't put the necessary man hours in.