Daylight Fading: A solo fast-sim dynasty
 

So I created a FOOL variant for my personal use called FOOL-Daylight which essentially is my own fiefdom of baseball clubs in a solo league universe I control.

I run teams for a period of time, sim into the future and rinse, wash, repeat the process again.

I started it in the 1800s so I could simulate a ton of history, but effectively it's played out like it's modern times, with financials using current dollars. Salary cap is at $75 million.

I started my career with the Victoria Cougars from 1800-1812 and won three league titles in 1803, '09 and '10. After that, I took off 36 years and came back in 1848 to take over the Washington Maroons from 1848-1850 and then again in 1852. During that time, we made the playoffs each year, but didn't win the title.

After a four year break in 1866, I took over the Rio Grande Roadrunners, leading them to a 112-win season and a loss in the Daylight Series (a best of nine series) to the Manchester Elephants.

Well, in '67 the landscape has changed a bit. The Roadrunners folded just two months before the season was to begin. Replacing them was an expansion team - the Los Angeles Seraphs.

The Seraphs inherited the Roadrunners organization and players, but not their records.

Thus '67 is the first season for the league's first expansion franchise in 27 years.

My format for this dynasty is season recaps. Because FOOL is fast-sim in nature, I run my dynasty the same way. One straight shot, no second chances. I don't tinker or anything with the lineups or anything else during the season and the AI doesn't either. Or the postseason.

Then we do the off-season, then go back into it.

I'm the GM of the Seraphs this year and we're wanting to be the first expansion club to capture a title in its first year. The Eau Claire Paws won a title in their second season (after going 81-81 and using a playoff system that's since been changed to squeak in and then run the table) but no other team has done it that fast.

So we'll see if the recaps themselves work and if I can maintain this dynasty over time, in this new format.

1867 LOS ANGELES SERAPHS (117-45)

After a 117-win season -- a league record -- the Seraphs road the backs of their three aces (Gunner Carter, Earl Smith and Nelson Mares) to the post-season to face off against the 83-win Eau Claire Paws. The playoff format is 2 teams from each division makes the post-season and then the seeding is based on records. So the Paws were the 2nd place team in the Central Division, but the #8 seed.

Despite that, they dispatched the Seraphs in seven games to advance to the Division Championship Series against Jacksonville who sent them home in five games. In the Daylight Series, the Washington Maroons beat Jacksonville in seven games to claim their third title in five years.

The Seraphs were the highest salary team in the league that year, bringing in perennial all-stars such as Kurt Born and Nelson Mares to compliment a team of future Hall of Famers including ageless wonder Lars-Erik Johansen who is our version of Babe Ruth - only better - with over 200 career wins and 600 career home runs.

In the end, though, our first year was a success during the regular season and a huge disappointment in the post-season. So we retooled, came back and tried again for the '68 season.

1868 LOS ANGELES SERAPHS (117-45)
Same old, same old in LA. Year two, we tried not to tinker too much with the lineup. We used some younger guys like Michael Clayton and 21-year old rookie phenom Michael Bowles to propel us to the promised land. We replaced Johansen who went back to Washington with 40-year old David Sullivan who won 20 games.

The results? Another 117-win season for the Seraphs. You just can't make this sorta stuff up. But in the end? The result was the same in the post-season. Facing the #8 seeded 86-win Eau Claire Paws, the Seraphs couldn't bring it together and as a result, lost to the Paws in six games and were dispatched from the post-season for the second straight year.

The team rumored to be considering firing Dark Cloud after the season, because it was just so frustrating, but team officials recognized they hadn't made significant improvements to the team and considered one more year to bring it all together.

1869 LOS ANGELES SERAPHS (117-45)
Another year. Same old Seraphs. The team was retooled and aided by a $10 million salary cap increase, the team was able to make some moves. Players were dealt, new guys were brought in and well...for the third straight year, the team won 117 games.

But this time, it wasn't a record, because the New York Gothams, a team that has never won a championship since being founded in 1840, decided to put it all together, winning a league record 123 games during the regular season.

After trading up to get the first pick in the draft, they did it to get 3B phenom Mat Johansen, the son of -- you guessed it -- Lars-Erik Johansen who said he'd keep playing (he's now 47 for those of you counting at home) until his son made the majors.

Well, lucky for Lars that his son didn't give him long to wait, as he did it during his rookie campaign as a 20-year old.

The Angels tried their best, armed with another rotation led by Gunner Carter, Nelson Mares and Paul Castle -- all 20-game winners -- the ballclub again had the best pitching staff in the league and was 1st or 2nd in most batting categories, as well.

This year's playoffs were a bit kinder to the boys from Hollywood, as they faced off against Colorado City, the #7 seed in the playoffs and swept them to advance to their first-ever Division Championship Series takng on the Triplets of Evansville, who won the Central Division title at 98-64. It took six games, but they knocked them off setting up the battle EVERYONE wanted to see -- New York v. Los Angeles. When the league approved a new team in LA after the demise of Rio Grande, literally this was the sort of series that folks were hoping for.

The Seraphs were not favored against the Gothams, who had been rollng on all cylinders for most of the year. Rookie Mat Johansen led the team with 34 home runs, his father led the team with 22-wins, despite his age and a balanced rotation of Jim Miller (19 wins, 234 K), Van Anderson (16 wins, 230 K) and Jeff O'Rorke (21 wins) thwarted the Seraphs in their bid to claim a Daylight Series title, giving the Gothams their first EVER Union League championship winning the series 5 games to 1.

So where do the Seraphs go from here? No decision has been made on the future of Dark Cloud or many of the players. The core is still intact and with a few modest moves, the team would be easily back in contention again. Maybe it'll take some creativity to ensure the team has its horses in places for a long postseason run, but...in the end, Los Angeles is learning is that it's not just about regular season wins, but stringing together 13 wins in October to claim the league's ultimate prize.

1869-70 OFFSEASON
MOVE, REALIGNMENT
Sioux Falls will move to Buffalo, New York for the 1870 season after 39 years in South Dakota. They'll retain the Blue Wings name.

Buffalo will transfer to the Eastern Division, Washington to the Central from the East and Shreveport to the West from the Central.

PLAYOFF/TITLE DROUGHTS (as of 1869)
----
BANTAM (1865) (1833)
BOULDER (1868) (1828)
BROOKLYN (1847) (1846)
BUFFALO (1867) (1845)
CAROLINA (1866) (1841)
CHICAGO (1862) (1862)
COLORADO CITY (1869) (1868)
EAU CLAIRE (1868) (1844)
ENDERBY (1860) (1827)
EVANSVILLE (1869) (1829)
HOUSTON (1869) (1850)
JACKSONVILLE (1867) (1861)
LOS ANGELES (1869) (NONE, founded in 1867)
MANCHESTER (1868) (1866)
MINNEAPOLIS (1853) (NONE, founded in 1840)
NEW YORK (1869) (1869)
PITTSBURGH (1865) (1857)
SAN DIEGO (1868) (1865)
SANTA ROSA (1864) (1854)
SHREVEPORT (1866) (1839)
ST. LOUIS (1869) (NONE, founded in 1812)
ST. PETERSBURG (1867) (NONE, founded in 1840)
VICTORIA (1867) (1860)
WASHINGTON (1869) (1867)

1870 OFF-SEASON RECAP
Bottom line, this is the last shot ownership will give me to right the ship here. I considered resigning during the offseason, not sure if I could really get this team where it needed to be, knowing we couldn't really spend a lot of money to get ourselves where should be.

Playoffs? That doesn't worry me that much. It's more about whether we have the horses in the post-season to really get it done.

Because this is a fast-sim dynasty, I make NO moves after the off-season. Once I set the team, that's what we have all season long and through the post-season, because I've added the degree of difficulty of not allowing myself a chance to tinker with the roster between the regular season and post-season, which if I didn't, I probably would've won a title just because of being able to set my rotation from 5 to 4. But that's the price of playing this way...

So what moves did we make? Well, I thought you'd never ask. Here's what I did:

I acquired Chance Madole from Bantam for three players. (Here. They. Are.)

The logic? We needed to cut payroll and yet, we needed more pop and I think he's the sort of guy that could deliver that, even though it's the tail end of his career. And yes, he's an LA native and I love human interest stories. Sue me.

I traded one of our dependable ace types - Nelson Mares - in a straight up salary dump for Danny Wheeler. The deal here? We saved about $8.5 million by getting rid of Mares. He's getting old (38) and despite three straight 20 win seasons for us since coming over as a free agent from Colorado City (where he spent his whole career) I decided to sell high here. No doubt the absolute riskiest move of the offseason, but...Wheeler can play all four infield positions AND left field. We need that kind of depth come playoff time.

Speaking of, then feeling like the middle infield wasn't really where it needed to be, we called up the Bantam squad again to pick up Jeff Wilder for another stud kid pitcher in Tom Allen and a veteran infielder. Allen and some of the others we've dealt would've ensured this team was good for years beyond this one, but honestly, the financial constraints were such that we'd either have to kick up the kickstand on this season and try to compete in a few years or compile all of our assets and try to make some magic happen this season. That was the job I was tasked with and so, that's precisely what I did. We've still got a good number of solid prospects anyway. Plus Allen's control worried me.

Finally, I made a few more deals to pick up some veteran relievers in Brown, Higgs and Lee.

Bob Bradford was our only free agent signing this offseason, another bullpen guy.

In the past, we were riding with too many half-piece guys who I don't think were getting the job done with it mattered. I think we've fixed that problem now and as a result, we're in a pretty good place heading into this season.

You'd think it'd be easy to play Cashman, to be the guy who has to run the squad that isn't supposed to lose, that spends tons of money and goes out there and dominates, but...remaking a 117-win team is just not as easy a task as you'd think.

Payroll right now for the top 5 teams in the league ($75m cap) are:

Colorado City: $73,979,640
Boston: $73,708,500
Los Angeles: $73,437,000
New York: $73,052,000
Memphis: $67,818,500

Boston is just like Los Angeles, in that, it's an expansion team created in the demise of an established club (Brooklyn) going under. So they're in their 1st season. Memphis moved from Manchester, as the two England clubs relocated (Enderby went to Philadelphia) and so, we'll see some different cities this season.

This is my last season playing for a while, I'm going to sim into the 1900s after this season regardless of the outcome, so...it's important for us to finish strong, though naturally the playoffs always worry me because they're so flaky.

Anyway, here goes nothing.

Well, as expected the regular season was something of a formality. We did, however, end our streak of 117 games in three straight years. This year, we won 120.



1870 Final Standings



FOOL-D News: Playoffs begin
Thursday, September 22nd, 1870: Some clubs have coasted to make the playoffs -- others have scrapped tooth and nail to get here. After a long, sometimes seemingly endless regular season, it gets down to who can win a short series -- by hook or crook, talent or luck. That's what it takes to capture the FOOL-Daylight championship. The top teams will vie in the Daylight Series starting today:

Eau Claire Paws versus New York Gothams, Philadelphia Baseball Club versus Houston Buffalos, Washington Maroons versus Colorado City Gold Sox and Boston Yanks versus Los Angeles Seraphs.

So we get to face off against a team with a payroll almost as big as ours, despite them being the #7 seed. They're better than our usual nemesis in Eau Claire, but...they're a troublesome team to face off against.

OPENING ROUND SERIES RESULTS (BEST OF SEVEN)
-----------
New York def. Eau Claire 4-2
Philadelphia def. Houston 4-2
Colorado City def. Washington 4-3
Los Angeles def. Boston 4-0

(Note: LA went 3-0 against Boston during the regular season, so it seems we just had their number all year. I'm okay with this. After finishing 20 games ahead of Colorado City during the regular season, I hope this one pays off.)

DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES (BEST OF SEVEN)
-------------
Philadelphia v. New York
Los Angeles v. Colorado City

DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES RESULTS (BEST OF SEVEN)
-----
New York def. Philadelphia 4-2
Los Angeles def. Colorado City 4-1

Well, it's a rematch of last year's Daylight Series with the defending champion Gothams taking on the Seraphs from the left coast.

We went 2-1 against them in the regular season for whatever that's worth. Their lineup is pretty potent featuring Mat Johansen, the 21-year old phenom and umm..his 48-year old (yes, I unretired him) father Lars-Erik Johansen who is pretty much the Babe Ruth of this league, except better. After pitching last year for the Gothams, it seems he's been batting 3rd in the New York order this year to end his career as a hitter, rather than a pitcher.

It's important to note that Johansen played for Rio Grande for a year and a season in LA before retiring and then unretiring to finish his career in Washington (where he spent the bulk of it) but then left there, went to Bantam half a season and then after that, came back when New York moved up in the draft to pick up his son, so they could play together.

How's that for fatherly love?

In any case, I have no idea what to predict for this season, so let's just end the suspense.

New York wins the 1870 Daylight Series 5 games to 3.

Which sucks. A lot. I'm half tempted to come back for another year just to see if we can't put it all together, because I've become pretty attached to this squad. But too many guys are leaving and it's going to be a lot more frustration than I want to put up with right now.

So I'm going to sim forward into the 1900s and start tinkering more with history and such alike, find a new team to adopt and see if we can't find some success there. Maybe I'll come up with a different approach with a squad like that, I dunno yet.

Also:

If you're interested in participating in this dynasty by having me create a player for you, do let me know, as we're so far into the past, that it'd be interesting to have some guys throughout history that we could follow with special interest.

Just post it and lemme know.

I've decided to come back for another season in Los Angeles. The core will stay intact, we have some young guys who might be able to contribute coming up (or who can be dealt) and I think that we can unload a few of those crap deals and move on with building a ballclub that might be able to compete for a title against next year.

If not, oh well. But I'm not quite ready to give the club up yet.

Hey DC use my alter ego

Jay "money" Muns

lol make me a speedy RF........

Dola

I like that you still use Rio and the Road Runners. Good Call.

Ill be following this. Good reads so far

Yeah, count me in too.

Perhaps a pitcher? David Bowman.

Both of you are in the draft and should MLB ready prospects who could contribute early on. I'll keep you posted.

Well, I have to say this was one of the more trying offseasons I've had since coming to LA. We just didn't have a lot of room to work with. So we had to make some moves to free up salary. That meant moving Chance Madole to Colorado City in a mega-deal that involved a third team. But it managed to give us the freedom we needed to get the roster shored up for the regular season.


I have no idea what to expect from this team. I think we're still playoff caliber, but we might not win 100+ games and from there, who knows? But maybe that's better for us...after all, history has proven that it's not about how many games you win in the regular season, but instead, whether you can produce and advance in the postseason.

Santa Rosa Peanuts select SP David Bowman with the first pick in the 1st Round of the 1871 Draft.

Eau Claire Paws select RF Jay Muns with the 17th pick in the 1st Round of the 1871 Draft.

Let's Go Nuts!

DC, I'll join.

William Omark. 3B

Here are the player cards for the human players:

William Omark, IF, Jacksonville
Red Caps (Minors)
The AI must've decided to make you a second baseman for now. But you've got ability at third and that's where you began. Stupid computer. He looks a few years away from the majors still.

Jay Muns, LF, Eau Claire Paws
Finished 2nd in the UL Rookie of the Year balloting last year.

David Bowman, SP, Santa Rosa Peanuts
Looks like he'll be a shining star for a while. Just 18 and already the #2 starter in Santa Rosa, he's surely looking forward to what'll amount to a pretty substantial payday once he's able to become a free agent.

A look at some team names:


EAU CLAIRE PAWS

The Eau Claire Bears were a minor league team from 1933-1942 and again from 1946-1962. I loved their logo and decided immediately I had to have a team there, but wanted to deviate from the Bears name since it was so generic, so I called them the Paws.


SANTA ROSA PEANUTS

Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts cartoons hails from Santa Rosa. Peanuts are a name of great historical value in the FOOL universe and so, it was a match made in heaven.


PITTSBURGH GRAYS
Based in Providence until the 1867 season, the Grays are an homage to the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues who shared time between Homestead, PA & Washington, D.C.


VICTORIA COUGARS
The Cougars are named after the 1925 Stanley Cup Champion Victoria Cougars who eventually disbanded, but had most of their players relocate to Detroit to a franchise named the Detroit Cougars (an homage to their defunct club) and who eventually became the Detroit Red Wings.

We're just scratching the surface, with these. There are others. Half the fun of a league like this is coming up with and researching names for squads.

Remember, we're operating in modern times, despite the way the years look. I just didn't want to start in the 2000s and sim into the 2100s, because that's jarring to me, so I decided to sim from an earlier time to generate history instead.

Sweet. All 3 guys that were created either look good or look like they will be really good. Following them should be fun.

The league set up look cool with the names DC

1872 LOS ANGELES SERAPHS
TEAM PREVIEW

Incoming:
2B Justin Cripps (FA)
3B/SS Mat Johansen (FA)
CF Mark Wilkinson (Trade)

We decided if you can't beat them, steal them. I don't keep up with upcoming free agents on other teams, so much to my delight, Mat Johansen was a free agent and I was hellbent on doing whatever I had to, in order to bring him here. Not just as a trump card to New York (though, that helped) but more because he's precisely what we needed. So I was delighted when he signed with us. Joining him from New York is infielder Justin Cripps. He wasn't a key member of the title team, but I felt like he was a nice upgrade for us anyway.

Wilkinson is on the tail end of his career, but spent the entire bulk of it with the Baseball Club whether in Pacific, WA or Enderby, England or most recently in Philadelphia...he's been the constant on that franchise. But a falling out with management resulted in him being put on the block and we snapped him up in exchange for SP Haden Perris

PROSPECT TO WATCH FOR:
SP Jaime Juarez
We're in LA. And this guy has been generating buzz since the day we drafted him three years ago. I brought him up last year to get some experience and now he's poised to head into the rotation for real. He's got some pretty outstanding measurables and like I said, it's not often a rookie sells jerseys like this before he even gets his first MLB start, but this kid has the whole city eating out of his hand.

LF Ramon Escarceja
We acquired him in the deal back in '67 that sent Lars-Erik Johansen to Bantam (I was confused, we dealt him to BAN, then he went back to WAS before signing with New York to win three titles with his son and then retire again.) and the only reason I could feel comfortable with that deal was knowing this guy would be the real deal. Again, it's straight up pandering to the Hispanic community in LA, but the team is still new here and we've been successful, but I wanted guys on the club that people could identify with and well, he's one that will accomplish that for 'em.

In any case, I think after last season, I feel like this year's club is better no question. And I feel like we're more poised for the playoffs, too. It's hard to say, such a crapshoot and such. But, if we were ever going to do it, I guess this is the year it'd happen.

Or at least, for the future of my job I hope so. Because no title this year and I will be fired.
=========================
The soup de jour in this league is parity. Good teams win early if they draft and sign well, but once that ends, they end up having to pay the guys who play for them, they're usually not able to afford the big ticket guys and have to jettison them and start again. New York experienced this after their three-peat, as many of the core members of that squad went away.

The league is designed this way on purpose. Parity is no accident, but teams can still reel off playoff runs and title defenses, yet, it's not the sort of league where teams can stockpile cheap talent and hold onto it for years on end.

By design.

ON FIRINGS...

I took a cue from this thread about firings in multi-player to create a formula for myself to determine how I keep my job from year to year.

It's developed from the start of my career, though if I wanted to, I could start from scratch after each gig too. I'm not yet, but could in the future since I've had such a long career.

In any case, the formula starts like this:

(Season Wins + 50) - (Previous Season Wins + 75)

After that first season, it's like this:

(Season Wins + Playoff Bonus + Previous Yr Score) - (Previous Season Wins + 75)

If a team wins over 100 games, the bonus you get for making the 1st round of the playoffs is negated. The playoff bonuses are:

1st round: 50
2nd round: 100
League Finalist: 150
Champion: 300

So over my fairly long career, I've won 3 titles and made the finals six times. Still, at present I only have 157 points.

The reason? I've been on a team that's won a lot, so if you can't maintain that standard in the post-season, then your numbers dwindle quickly and you're in jeopardy of losing your job. Once you're in the negative, you lose your job.

For instance, if I managed to win 92 games this year and miss the playoffs (unlikely, but go with it) and won 87 games next year and did the same thing, I'd get fired.

But that's really because I've built up quite a bit of credit over the years. I wasn't using this formula until now, but had I been using it earlier in my career, I'd have been canned twice. In 1802 after seasons of 73 wins, 71 wins and 70 wins in Victoria and again in 1808 after seasons of 75, 68, 64 and 77 wins in Victoria (and mind you, during that time I had a title and a finals appearance the following year. So I'd have been fired four years after making the title series.)

So the formula is neat, a nice solo twist and I'm going to start using it now. If you want the excel spreadsheet I made, lemme know and I'll upload it.

This is surely the last year in LA for me. We've got too many holes really to try to rig this hitch for another few years, at least at the level we've been at and I'm going to retire my current GM guy and create a new one, since having a guy exist for over 100 years would be strange.

I think we'll be fine qualifying for the playoffs, the real story is going to be whether I've arranged the team appropriately to outlast everyone else in a playoff run. It's a crapshoot, but...I'd like to go out on top.

Here's the 1872 Regular Season Final Standings

Here the Opening Round Series matchups:

Los Angeles v. Santa Rosa
Buffalo v. New York
Memphis v. Carolina
Boulder v. Washington

Here are the results from the ORS:

Los Angeles def. Santa Rosa 4 games to 0
Buffalo def. New York 4 games to 1
Carolina def. Memphis 4 games to 2
Washington def. Boulder 4 games to 3

DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES MATCHUPS

Los Angeles v. Boulder
Washington v. Carolina

Los Angeles def. Buffalo 4 games to 1
Washington def. Carolina 4 games to 3

Los Angeles 1872 Daylight Series Champions
Friday, October 25th, 1872: At Angel City Stadium today Los Angeles outclassed the Washington Maroons 7-3 and won the FOOL-Daylight Daylight Series for the 1st time in its club history.

The Seraphs rounded out the 1872 season with a 112-50 mark and wound up in first place in the Union League Western Division pennant chase.

We won the Series 5 games to 4, after being up 4 games to 1 in the series.

Player Updates

David Bowman, Santa Rosa

Jay Muns, Eau Claire

William Omark, Jacksonville

Someone at OOTP Forums asked for me to post the spreadsheet for whether to keep or fire the manager, so I'm going to post it here too.

So feel free to check it out if you like.

I've retired my human manager, will sim into the 1900s and then start with a new guy. What's nice about fast-sim solo is you can go as fast as you want to.

Just so you know, there will be another expansion sometime in the 1900s too that will expand the league from 24 teams to 30 teams. We'll go from 3 divisions to 5 divisions and the playoffs will go from Top 2 teams in each division + 2 wild cards to division champs only and 3 wild cards.

That should be probably 50 years away, but...just an FYI.

I've simmed to 1890 so far and we're at the tail end (or the end) of our created players careers. Two of the three seem like Hall of Fame locks.

David Bowman

He's spent his entire career in Santa Rosa, racking up 379 wins and 4th all time on the strikeout list with 6398 (the record is Nelson Mares 6704) and he's within striking (hehe) distance of that depending on how the next few years ago for the 37-year old hurler. He was pitcher of the year in 1878 too.

Jay "Money" Muns
He's indeed been money. He became the 14th player in UL history to rack 4000 hits this past season. After spending the first 3 years of his career in Eau Claire, he signed with Carolina as a free agent and has spent the rest of his career thus far as a Wren. Most impressive, he's a two-time MVP ('77, '84) of the league as well. At 40 years old, his career is winding down, but there is no doubt he'll be remembered among the greats in the history of this league.

William Omark

His career ended five years ago in 1885. He bounced around a bit, 3 years in Pittsburgh, a year in Chicago, three in Santa Rosa and splitting the last three years of his career in Washington, Victoria and San Rafael respectively. He 1277 career hits and a .251 career batting average. Not bad for a 9th round pick.

For those of you scoring at home, at the end of the 1890 season, a few changes happened in the league.

The San Rafael Keepers folded and were replaced by the Santa Ana Oranges. The Keepers players went to Santa Ana.

The Boulder Profs merged with the Colorado City Gold Sox. But only some of their players went over. Basically their best prospects and major leaguers who weren't FA to be went to Colorado City, the minor leaguers who weren't stayed in the minors to be shifted to a new club and the rest of the major leaguers were all released.

The team that replaced the Profs are the Salt Lake City Elders.

Playoffs format has also been changed slightly. Instead of there being 3 wild cards and 1st and 2nd place teams from each division qualifying for the playoffs, it's now division champs from the 3 divisions and 5 wild cards. Meaning that tougher divisions could qualify more teams, squeezing out fluke teams from weak divisions that advance as a result of that.

And I had nothing to do with this, but David Bowman signed a 2-year deal worth $14.585 million with the Carolina Wrens after the '90 season and for at least two years, the only two active created guys we've got in the league will spend their years on the same team. How fun is that?

David Bowman got his 400th victory in 1891, too.

Mat Johansen's son and Lars-Erik Johansen's grandson Thom Johansen was drafted in the 1st round (9th overall pick) by the Los Angeles Seraphs in the 1892 draft. He's a pitcher like his grandfather was and I doubt he'll be as dominating, but..I thought it was neat that was good enough to go in the 1st round like his dad and that he fell to the 9th pick to the same team that both of those guys played for. Again, wish I could've orchestrated it, but I didn't...it was just the magic of the game.

All the better, really. And yes, I do intend to keep the Johansen family saga going for pretty much the entire dynasty, because it's kinda fun. I've even edited their player cards to indicate they relations. I just edited a guy who was already in the draft to be Thom Johansen and had him born in Houston (since Mat played there for the bulk of his career)

There will be another son who'll show up when this iteration of sim stops in 1900, too. Probably an infielder, but I haven't decided yet...maybe a full-time outfielder. Not sure, though.

Alou brothers eat your heart out.

Also, I'm going to at some point in the first part of the 1900s, create a second league and move some of the teams from the UL over to this new one. I just think it looks a little better and better to do it now than to wait 50 years, I figure. There might be an expansion team or two as a result, but we'll just see.

12 teams from the Union League have split and created their own league called the Presidents League starting with the 1897 season.

As a result, the UL went and added two more teams for that season. The new schedule will include interleague play and for the first-time ever, an All-Star Game between the leagues.

The new playoff format is 3 division champions and 1 wild card from each league.

Union League
East
New York Gothams
Boston Yanks
Philadelphia Baseball Club
Wilmington Quicksteps (EXPANSION)

Central
Minneapolis Millers
Chicago Blue Collars
Pittsburgh Grays
St. Louis Perfectos
Eau Claire Paws

West
Fresno Haymakers (Expansion)
Santa Rosa Peauts
Victoria Cougars
Salt Lake City Elders
Los Angeles Seraphs

PRESIDENTS LEAGUE
East
Carolina Wrens
Buffalo Blue Wings
Bantam Originals
Cleveland Broncs (formerly Evansville Triplets)

Southern Division
St. Petersburg Pelicans
Memphis Elephants
Washington Maroons
Jacksonville Red Caps

Western Division
Santa Ana Oranges
Colorado City Gold Sox
Houston Buffalos
Shreveport Gassers

David Bowman is age 43 and pretty much a dead shell of his former self. Yet, he stands 9 wins away from tying the all-time wins record at 471 career wins. I discovered this after coming back to sim and see how things were going and noticed he was the last standing among the three.

Carolina exposed him in the expansion draft and he was taken by Wilmington and then traded to Memphis where he'll be the 4th starter.

I guess we'll see if history can be made!

BOWMANWATCH
5-1-1897

0-4, 6.60 ERA, 23 BB, 11 K

(Last year, he went 6-8 with a 6.35 ERA in 20 starts for Carolina with 92 walks and 58 strikeouts.)

9 wins on a bad team just simply might not be possible, sadly.

BOWMANWATCH
6-1-1897

0-8, 8.33 ERA, 43 walks, 16 K in 12 starts

(He's the 5th starter in Memphis, having been demoted at the start of the season it seems.)

Ugh. This isn't getting better at all.

BOWMANWATCH
7-01-1897

2-10, 8.08 ERA, 30 K, 62 BB in 17 starts

(464 career wins, 7 away from tying the record.)

BOWMANWATCH
8-01-1897

3-14, 8.02 ERA (48 K, 76 BB) in 22 starts so far this year.

(6 wins away from the record.)

Oh, the other thing about David Bowman is he's the career strikeout leader. He's got 7362 career strikeouts. That's over 600 more K's in his career than the #2 guy (Nelson Mares)

BOWMANWATCH
8-29-1897

(4-16, 8.06 ERA, 57 K, 103 BB, 28 starts)

Oh, the other thing about David Bowman is he's the career strikeout leader. He's got 7362 career strikeouts. That's over 600 more K's in his career than the #2 guy (Nelson Mares)

BOWMANWATCH
9-13-1897

(5-18, 63 K, 7.95 ERA in 31 starts)

467 career wins (4 away from the record)

It doesn't look like he'll get the record this year. Bowman is signed to a contract extension for next year, so he could come back, but one wonders if he'll actually do it and whether it's a good idea or not.

Anyone?

David Bowman ended his career in 1898. He was released by Memphis and signed a deal with the Salt Lake City Elders and actually rebounded nicely. He went 13-13 with a 4.73 ERA and even pitched decent in the playoffs for the team.

He ended his career with the all-time wins record at 460. He's also the all-time loss leader at 334. 500 wins seemed pretty improbable, though I was tempted to unretire him so he could make a run for it, even if it took him 6 years to do it, but...we'll just leave well enough alone, as he's had a pretty impressive career.

Here's Jay Muns career card.

Ended his career with 4414 hits, good for 3rd all-time. His 663 HRs are 14th all-time and his 1209 stolen bases are 6th on the all-time list. What a career!

The Pitcher of the Year award is named after Nelson Mares. While he may no longer be the all-time wins leader, this guy's career was insane.

Considering he spent most of his years playing on a below average Colorado City team, he has SIX seasons of ERAs under 2.00 during his career. He had thirteen 20+ win seasons.

The MVP is named after Lars-Erik Johansen, given his performance as both a starting pitcher AND a hitter during his illustrious career, as the only guy to win pitcher of the year AND an MVP during his career. (No one has ever done it the same year.)

The Jacksonville Red Caps moved to the South Side of Chicago, IL for the 1899 season and are now known as the Chicago Red Caps.

Mat Johansen's second son Pete Johansen is entering the draft this year, too. He's a second baseman and project a bit better than his brother who save for a cup of coffee a few years ago has been hiding out in the minors in LA for the past few years.

New York signed him as a minor league free agent and he's slated to be a reliever there, he's only 24 (Thom Johansen) so he can still have a productive career, but that Swedish magic isn't on him like his forebears, maybe his baby brother can pick up the luster.

That is damn cool!! Thanks for adding us DC.

Who you starting over with DC? You decide yet?

I like the Fresno Haymakers as a name

Yeah, I use ballcap.com and baseball-reference.com a lot these days to come up with names because honestly I've run out of good names over the years. And I saw a minor league team called the Troy (NY) Haymakers and loved it and thought, "that's sweet. I gotta use that." So I wanted to find an agricultural place and it needed to be a California team and there you go.

I haven't figure out where I'm gonna start over yet. I'm currently in 1918 in the sim (I haven't updated the HTML since 1898) and the league now has 30 teams (3 divisions of 5 teams in each league) but the playoffs are the same size.

Anyway, I dunno. I'm still debating it, but I need to figure out when I wanna come back. Soon, though.

DC,

I'm using your Manager Firing tool and loving it so far.

However, I've come across something odd. I'm most likely doing something wrong here...

So, I took over a team from Chicago. They were in dead last the year before. We have a terrible 39 win season in my first year. It gives me a score of 89. My next year, I won 50 games. That have me a score of 25.

Now, I'm in my 3rd year, and I'm typing in scores to figure out how many wins I need to keep the job. When I get to 100, it gives me a score of 0. But when I type in 101, it goes to -49.

What am I doing wrong here?

dola

It might make a difference that I have two 8-team leagues with no divisions and no playoffs. Winners of each league play in the series.

Edit: Nevermind. I get it now. You don't get the playoff +50 bonus because you SHOULD be there. Any further and you still get a bonus. Am I on the right track?

I think what I'll do is give out a bonus for coming in 2nd and 3rd place or something like that.

Yeah, precisely. It's setup for leagues with playoffs, so if you don't have them, you'll want to edit it to reward you for finishing in second or third or whatever.

It probably needs to be edited for a scenario like yours, too, because I wasn't developing it thinking about people taking over crap teams and making them average or above, I was thinking about taking over good teams and if they're not better, firing said manager.

I'll make some tweaks and upload a new one later.

Here's a tweaked version of the Manager Firing tool (I've dubbed it FireMe)

It's been updated to award points if you win 20 games more than the previous season, so if you go from 30 wins to 50 wins and so forth, you get 25 points. And I've edited the instructions so you should give 50 points to 3rd place teams in non-playoff leagues and 100 points to 2nd place teams in non-playoff leagues, though people can do whatever they want with those bonuses if they think they're too high or something.

Awesome, DC.

I restared my UBA solo league and am doing basically the same thing you are here...FOOL concept. Makes things so much fun and adding in the firing aspect of it is great.

The one thing I'm trying to figure out is this: What team should I be allowed to take over? I've been playing for 10 or so seasons and have taken over lowly teams each team and I've yet to have a winning record. So, I don't think I should be able to take over anyone I want. But maybe I can take over a middle of the road team.

I'd love to come up with a system to determine who I can take over. Might have to work on something like that later.

I tend to think that you should takeover whatever you want. I mean, playing solo fast-sim is hard when you take over bad teams. But I tend to think you ought to give yourself more time than you would normally, because it takes longer to be better in fast-sim than it does in slowcook.

Like, if you're fast-simming like I do (pretty much the FOOL schedule but several seasons in a day, as opposed to per week) then you only start to get to know the players around the league after a few years. I don't really restrict myself a ton, other than on trading (I turn trading up to hard) and I only give myself two opportunities to make bids throughout the entire off-season.

If you come up with a system though, lemme know. I tend to do it based on the jerseys I like. ;) That's why I move teams and create new ones. New opportunities to make new duds or to make use of jerseys I find that I like.

Another idea is to take over a good team or build one for a while and then after you've won for a decade, start doing rebuilding jobs. Because that might make it easier because on a good team, I find I tend to know all of the guys in the league that way and start to notice guys I want on my ballclub, etc., and while I don't get them, start to see other teams that have a core of talent and start to think I can make them better. That's where trading a lot helps me, because I start to notice how other teams are composed and I generally spend less time on the player development aspects of things (aka, I almost never worry about drafting when I play solo fast-sim...because it takes too much time and I like the randomness of it.)

Another thing I tried when I first started this dynasty was to hire staff (Mgr/Coaches) and only allow them to make all of my moves on the field and I didn't control lineups or anything. I stopped eventually because they just create more manager cards to upload and I got tired of hiring staff, but...it's another idea.

Well, the last time I checked in it was 1898. It's over 20 years later and things have changed in the league somewhat. Let's recap and get you familiar with 20th century baseball, shall we?

First, there are now two leagues instead of just one. The Presidents League was created in 1897, from 12 teams in the UL. There are now 15 teams in each league, after a series of expansions led to a total of now 30 teams.

Inevitably, some teams have left the stage since we last met up and some new ones have joined the scene.

SAY GOODBYE TO (last season)
Memphis Elephants (1909)
Shreveport Gassers (1917)

SAY HELLO TO (first season)
Albuquerque Dukes (1910)
Augusta Tigercats (1910)
Dallas Steers (1916)
New York Knights (1910)
Newark Terriers (1916)
South Bend Greens (1918)

FROM HERE TO THERE
Buffalo Blue Wings became the Baltimore Blue Wings in 1910.

Santa Rosa Peanuts became the San Francisco Peanuts in 1918.

Wilmington Quicksteps became the Miami Amigos in 1920.

Santa Ana Oranges became the Hawaii Islanders in 1918.

WHERE YOU GOIN'?
I'm still debating where I'll go, but I think I'm going to take over a team starting this off-season. So many of the older franchises are having a devil of a time winning titles (which is kinda what I wanted when I started, this push of old v. new franchises, etc., history and all that) and it'd be interesting to help some of them end their droughts. Los Angeles's drought isn't all that long, but it's notable is that they made the playoffs 14 of the first 17 years of the franchise existence and won 3 titles during that stretch, but haven't won another since. (1874)

Here are a few notables: (last title)

Bantam (1833)
Cleveland (1829 in Evansville)
Philadelphia (1827 in Pacific)
San Francisco (1854 in Santa Rosa)
Victoria (1860)


So it'd be interesting here, as three of these franchises are in new cities (or in the case of Philadelphia, their 3rd city and haven't won it since their first) and it'd be cool to see if they could manage to win one.

I'm still debating my next move, but I should know soon what I'm going to do. It'll probably be Bantam, since that's my FOBL team.

As I mentioned earlier, I've created an entirely new GM to start my career with and I'm going to use GMEXcel to determine how long I get to keep my job, based on my performance.

Since it's a new guy I'm creating he has no pedigree and therefore, won't be able to shoot for the top. Instead, we'll get a team that's down on their luck.

Just for readers of this dynasty, here's an updated version of GMEXcel already. I've added a section that helps you figure out what sort of team you can go to after you've decided you wanna move.

So say you want to GM a 85-win team? Well, you input that figure into the column and based on your performance that past year, you'll be told whether you can go to that team or not. It factors in your owner confidence score and how well your team did that year to come up with a decision as to whether you can go.

Check it out, as I'll be using it going forward in this dynasty.

I'm already about to make another tweak to it. I'm thinking about what team I should pick and the question is "if you take over a 100-win team, shouldn't a 75-win season get you fired?" Probably not, because you could be in rebuilding mode. But the owner might not care about that. So I'm thinking of a formula that could can you after the first year if you fall too fast or something.

I've updated the link above to reflect my most recent changes. Now, take whoever you who want. If you say, take over a 100-win team and somehow managed to end up in a rebuilding job and only won 49 games, you'd be fired after your first year. If you won 80 games, you'd be skating on thin ice and would need a playoff appearance the second season in order to keep your job. I like the tweaks because it really does keep you on the proverbial hot seat as you play solo.

So check that out.

Hey, just out of curiosity, are you using any custom modifiers or just default modern-day?

Default, modern day. Early on, I had pitcher endurance at normal and I've lowered it since then to Low. But I only did that because I intentionally wanted guys in these generations to have a harder go of breaking records set by the earlier guys.

This is a real good read. Ive been away for a few days and just got caught up. Looking forward to Bantam team

I still cant force myself to try a solo league again, but maybe if i nab ootp X here soon ill want to try your GMEXCEL

I have indeed taken over the Bantam Originals for the 1922 season. The O's won the PL East last year with 85-77 and lost in the PLCS in six games to eventual Daylight Series champion St. Petersburg.

I made some pretty large wholesale improvements to the roster. Or at least what I perceive to be improvements, whether they'll work out or not, is anyone's guess.

What's interesting is, I've increased salaries over the years, not just as a house rule, but as a way to ensure that good teams can't stockpile a ton of great talent cheaply. If they want star players, they're gonna have to pay.

The cash max is $15m and the salary structure is (in order) 8m/4m/2m/1.275m/1m/775k/500k/325k Min sal: 125k

So anyway, we'll run the year, see how it goes and then break down the team after that happens.

1922 BANTAM ORIGINALS

REGULAR SEASON FINISH: (76-86) 4th, PL East

Well, it looks like I completely misread the market. I picked the wrong guys, put them in the wrong spots and picked the wrong division and team in which to be competitive. Now, I'm on the hot seat. If we don't make the playoffs next year, I'm out of a job already.

I spent $10.4 million on 36-year old infielder Alvin LaBrie and he did pretty much what he does, gave us decent production, yet it was really a bad signing in retrospect. He had a career high in home runs (20) and tied his RBI production last year (89) and was the team leader in both categories, but...we needed a lot more and we just didn't get it.

9th in the PL in batting average, 10th in ERA and it just didn't get it done. I think I might have thought the division was weak, but I didn't take a look at the other teams in the division like I should have -- one of the peril situations of playing fast-sim fast, you just wanna go and don't assess the lay of the land as well as you should -- and well, I paid for it pretty badly and now it might cost me my job.

The good news is that the team can improve and I can make some tactical moves that might benefit us next season, but really...this situation might be completely unsalvagable and as it stands right now I have NO idea how I'll fix it.

That said, this is a ton of fun for solo play and the most immersed I've been in years.

OWNER CONFIDENCE SCORE YEAR 1: The team had 85 wins last year, we had 76 this year, leaving me with an owner confidence score of 41.

That means, that in order to keep my job next year we need to:

1. Make the playoffs and/or
2. Win 97 games

Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me. Time to get to work.

1922 PLAYOFF RESULTS
-----
Philadelphia def. San Francisco 4-3
Cleveland def. Miami 4-1
Chicago def. Augusta 4-3
Baltimore def. Houston 4-1

ULCS
Philadelphia def. Cleveland 4-3

PLCS
Chicago def. Baltimore 4-1

122ND DAYLIGHT SERIES
Philadelphia def. Chicago 5-4

1923 BANTAM ORIGINALS OFFSEASON

I'm pretty much dead set on eating Alvin LaBrie's contract. Because he's a high star player, someone would take him off of our hands , especially since he's an expiring contract. I'd just as well release him all together, though and that might be what I do. He'll make $11.15 million next year and I could allocate that a lot better I think understanding the league a bit better.

The goal is to build through pitching right now. I'm going to make offers on guys specifically who can do just that...and try to retool the roster a bit otherwise.

I'll also update the HTML tonight, so when I link to player cards, they're not from a bunch of years ago.

I don't think I'll steamroll through the off-season tonight, mostly because I want to take a bit of time, see what's out there and then make offers that really make us better or at least, try...and then go ahead and sim the season after that and see where we land.

Should be an interesting off-season though in Bantam, for sure. Stay tuned.

I deleted that Detroit move, because it didn't happen. Instead, the two relocated franchises in the PL are:

Albuquerque Dukes ---> Portland Roadrunners
South Bend Greens ---> Toronto Blueshirts

And yes, I intentionally have both Canadian teams as former Stanley Cup winning hockey clubs. I wanted to name them the Maple Leafs since that name was a baseball team name, not a hockey club name first, but...when I saw those guys were the Blueshirts in a past life, it was an easy choice.

Thanks to some beta testing and suggestions by dynasty readers, I've updated GMExcel again, still just tweaking FireMGR to version 2.0

Here's the link to the newest version.

Here are the changes:

- Reformulated Owner confidence.
- Adapted criteria for GM's to be able to go to new teams.

I tested it a bit and I think it works more realistically than it did before, but if you see anything else, feel free to keep letting me know.

Getting an error.

Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

Try it again. I was updating the link when you clicked on it.

I didn't manage to get the HTML updated (I was tired and forgot, along with forgetting to run FOOL-H) but...I'm going to go ahead and do the off-season anyway.

Yet another update to GMExcel (And the last one I'm going to do, so I can start playing for a while) puts my owner confidence at 53 and again in jeopardy of being fired if we don't do something next year. I like that better, honestly. My goal was to create a proverbial hot seat and this does that from the outset.

You know your solo dynasty is starting to take things over when you start to confuse guys on your solo team with one of your online clubs. But that's precisely what I did today.

I kept trying to figure out why Bill Bishop wasn't on my roster on my FOOL team. That's because he was in THIS league. Oops.

In any case, the priority for us this off-season will be acquiring pitching. I think our failing last year was securing major arms. Offensively, we're still slouches, but there might not be a whole lot I can do about that and in fast-sim, pitching really is the premium weapon of choice. You can slug your way to a title, but..it's just not something that's common or easy to do, especially with fiscal restraints that make that a pretty tough cookie.

On the same token, there might not be a lot of free agent talent we can acquire and we do have a budget. So we're just going to have to see, I guess, what we can do.

Now that I look at the squad a bit more closely, maybe I'm wrong. We just need some players who rake.

Our rotation had a 16-game winner in Guillaume Adam and a solid closer in Pablo Tovar.

Hmm...I've got some thinking to do here.

Clearly, the Houston Astros aren't using GMExcel: Former Washington Nationals manager Manny Acta to interview with Houston Astros - ESPN

1923 BANTAM ORIGINALS

SAY HELLO TO:

SAY GOODBYE TO:

The Originals, two years removed from a division title and with a new GM at the helm in youngster D.C. Daly backslid a bit last season. With a year under his belt, Daly went and remade the ballclub in his own image, taking some risks along the way that he hopes pays off in the form of a much improved team or Bantam's notoriously trigger-happy ownership might decide they've had enough.

He signed 16-game winner Eric Baker to a deal in the off-season to help anchor a rotation with returnees Ronald McAuliffe (9-12, 153 K, 4.27 ERA last season) and surprise 16-game winner Guillaume Adam

Rounding out the rotation are free agent pickups Bobby Arnold (9-13, 132 K, 4.35 ERA with St. Louis last year) and closer turned starter Carl Tait (4-6, 31 SV, 2.99 ERA with the Chicago Blue Collars last season)

Offensively, adding three 100+ RBI guys is surely a step in the right direction. CF Julian Ayala hit 33 HR and 123 RBI last year in Hawaii, the 28-year old was 2nd in the league in RBI and inked a six year deal this off-season.

Joining him is hard hitter Silas Barnes who spent the last three years in Cleveland and hit 35 HR/118 RBI and has 12 triples while hitting at a .255 clip. He should add some much needed punch to the O's offense. Rounding out the 100+ club is 25-year old free agent signee Mike Strickland who hit .278 with 29 HR and 115 RBI in Philadelphia last year.

If nothing else, the new middle of the order (Barnes-Strickland-Ayala) should take immense pressure off guys who remain from last season like 2B Ben Day who is two years removed from a 100 RBI season before faltering last year, his first in the Nutmeg State (.268/12 HR/ 75 RBI)

All in all, the Originals are a remade ballclub. Whether they're better or not, is subject to debate. But one could probably say they're going to have to be a better ballclub than last year's. Whether this installment of club is enough to get them to the postseason is another guess.

PREDICTION: 88-74, 3rd place PL East

Here are the standings at the all-star break

STANDINGS AS OF JUNE 26, 1923

If you're wondering what our problem is, it's a pretty easy answer. We are 1st in the league in batting average, OBP, hits, runs scored, 3rd in home runs and 2nd in walks.

Pitching? 14th in ERA, 15th in hits allowed, 14th in strikeouts.

If we don't turn it around, I'm basically done. And it looks like we've got quite a hole to dig out from.

We were 6-2 in March, 11-15 in April, 13-16 in May and 8-14 in June. Let's hope they can score runs and offset our pitchers not being good.

Well, I guess that's why they play the games out.

After sputtering through June at 10-15, the Originals went 16-11 in July, 18-10 in August and 13-6 in September to finish 87-75. (Just a game behind my prediction!) But that was good enough for 2nd place in the PL East and strangely enough, 3 games better than the Carolina Wrens (84-78) for us to claim the PL Wild Card for 1923. We face Pittsburgh in the first round, but before we get to that, let's just recap.

Julian Ayala led the league in home runs with 44. Darby Mason who hit .195 last year for us, really had a hell of a year, hitting .306 with 17 HR and 66 RBI, all career highs. Pushing him down in the lineup was precisely what the doctor ordered it seems.

As for the pitching staff? The leader for wins were Eric Baker and Carl Tait[/b] who both won 12 games. It was a decidedly average below average year as only one (Bobby Arnold) had an ERA under 4.00 (3.93) and that points to a notion that this ballclub basically had to slug its way to victories this year.

Ultimately, I'm fine with this because it means that we did what we came to do and I wasn't ready to be done with this team yet, because I felt like another year with them and we could really put it all together. Well I looked at the Run Support per game for our starters and for all of them, it was about 3.5 runs per game for each of them.

That kinda makes sense then.

1923 FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS

DIVISION SERIES
Pittsburgh Grays (94-68) v. Bantam Originals (87-75)

We were 6-15 against Pittsburgh in the regular season, but we only need four wins to advance against them in the LDS.

It'll be a tough test. They had the #1 pitching staff in the PL this year and were 5th in hitting. So basically, they're the opposite of us, as we hit well and don't pitch much. They hit some and are lights out on the mound.

They're led by 24-game winner Brad Blanchard and 16-game winner Rob Crocombe. Offensively, they have LF Matt Lloyd (.271/20 HR/104 RBI) and another guy who scored a lot of runs, but couldn't hit much in CF John Crawford (.236/28 HR/99 RBI)

I think we could beat them offensively, but I don't know if our pitching will hold up.

I made some tweaks to the rotation, installing Phiippe Maillet into the rotation and putting Carl Tait in the closer role. It might work, it might not, but I'm debating the idea that a fresh harm might be just what we need to make this deal work out for us, along with a 4-man rotation rather than the 5-man for the playoffs.

So we're gonna run the post-season now and see how it all flops out for us, I guess. I have no real expectations, just getting here saved my job and so, I can't really set the bar much higher than that at this point, to be honest. But it'd be fun to go on a ride for a bit throughout the post-season if the boys can put it together.

Here goes nothing.

1923 ULDS RESULTS
----------
Minneapolis def. Los Angeles 4-2
Cleveland def. Newark 4-3

1923 PLDS RESULTS
-------------
Pittsburgh def. Bantam 4-3
Toronto def. Houston 4-3

1923 ULCS RESULTS
----------
Cleveland def. Minneapolis 4-1

1923 PLCS RESULTS
------------
Pittsburgh def. Toronto 4-1

123rd DAYLIGHT SERIES (1923)
-----------
Pittsburgh def. Cleveland 5-2

1923 AWARDS
---------
Union League (UL) Johansen Award: Damien Savary, St. Louis

Presidents League (PL) Johansen Award: Juan Cabrera, Baltimore

UL Mares Award: Sergio Sanchez, Cleveland
PL Mares Award: Brad Blanchard, Pittsburgh

UL Rookie of the Year: Alphonse Ritchie, New York Gothams

PL Rookie of the Year: Michael Carroll, New York Knights

1923 BANTAM ORIGINALS
Season Recap

Well, the good news is, I live to see another day. My owner confidence score went down one point to a 52., but still, the team did what it had to do in order to survive and I appreciate that, because it looked pretty bad at mid-season.

We have about $22 million in salary coming off the books after this season, which means we can go out and try to shore up the team's offense. We lose Silas Barnes, Guillaume Adam and some other marginal players, but our core come backs from this year, which means that we have an opportunity to really be better if we make the right sorts of moves -- which we know revolve strong around hurlers, though there are some batters that we're going to want to take a look at including 5-time MVP RF Damien Savary.

We'll just have to see what's out there and who we can afford. But I anticipate we'll be back and better than ever.

Just for some perspective as to how parity is working for this league. Since 1897, the year that we went to the two-league format, only one team - the St. Louis Perfectos of 1897-98 have won back to back titles.

Since 1910, 13 different teams have claimed titles including the past 11 champions. So it's really a pretty fair system that's probably got a lot to do with the overall decline in talent over the past 75 years (I went to default creation modifiers about 65 or so years ago, maybe more) and things are far more open now.

Philadelphia ended their 95-year championship drought in 1922, claiming the title that year over the Chicago Red Caps.

That leaves Cleveland with the longest drought now, that franchise's last title came in 1829 as the Evansville Triplets. Next in line? The Bantam Originals, whose last title came in 1833.

Are we any closer this year? We're about to find out.

1924 BANTAM ORIGINALS TEAM PREVIEW
Well, so fed with the pitching staff's performance last year was Originals GM D.C. Daly that he ditched the entire staff. All of them were shipped out this past off-season in exchange for a mix of free agents and trade refugees that he's hoping will work better with the potent offense he's put together.

The notable addition is 19-game winner Adrian Davenport who came over as a free agent from St. Louis. The others are guys who underachieved in other places last season but the hope is that with a better offense and defense behind them can really put something together. These include Dan White, a 27-year old righthander who came over in a trade from Victoria (10-13, 3.19 ERA, 210 K, 60 BB in 33 starts) who is three years removed from a 17-win season. He's a strikeout artist though, lacks the control issues that befell this club last year. Another standout hope is 29-year old Queens native Eddie Garrett who went 14-11 last year in St. Petersburg, the team where he spent his entire career until now. He signed a 7-year deal worth over $32 million this off-season, so O's fans should get used to his face around here.

Philippe Maillet is back in the bullpen as the one pitcher last year who delivered. He went 4-6 with 37 saves in his first year in Bantam, striking out 95 in 67 innings.

Offensively, the team is more balanced and should be potent -- perhaps more so -- than year's team, if that's possible. Julian Ayala and his league leading 44 home runs are back, as is 2B Ben Day who chipped in 105 RBI last year. New additions to the offense include 1B Scott Taylor who came over in a trade with Miami and outfielders John Trahan (.243/26 HR/87 RBI with Eau Claire) and Paramjit Thukral (.290 with St. Louis last year)

After sliding into the finish last year to make the playoffs, the bar is set higher this year. Nothing short of a playoff berth will save D.C. Daly's job this year and fans are getting restless as the team seems to creep closer towards the promised land, but always seems to fall short. After all, 1833 isn't just the last time this team won a title, it's the last time it appeared in a Daylight Series Final period.

So Year 91 of the drought is about to begin now.

PREDICTION: 91-71, 1st place, PL EAST

STANDINGS AS OF JUNE 22, 1924

After starting off roaring out of the gates into the Wild Card lead, we eclipsed Pittsburgh several weeks ago to take over sole possession of 1st in the PL East. In terms of where the team stands, offensively the team is 7th in league batting, 4th in slugging and 2nd in Home runs and strikeouts. Not exactly the performance of last year, but that was somewhat expected.

On the other hand, the pitching revamp worked well so far. The team is 2nd in ERA, runs allowed, home runs allowed and 1st in strikeouts.

I dunno if the team can hold up, if the offense continues to play like that, but...so far, so good.

1924 FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS

Well, the first part of our challenge is complete, I guess. We have a steep test as the Wild Card this year is Toronto and they won a game more than we did. We went 3-3 against them during the regular season. No changes to the team this off-season, just gonna run it in the style that I used to run these where we just do the whole thing -- no alterations -- all season through the postseason and see who emerges.

I think this team has the talent to do it, but I just don't know if it'll come together. I hope so, though.

ULDS RESULTS
Cleveland def. Minneapolis 4-1
Victoria def. Newark 4-1

PLDS RESULTS
Portland def. Washington 4-3
Bantam def. Toronto 4-1

ULCS RESULTS
Cleveland def. Victoria 4-1

PLCS RESULTS
Portland def. Bantam 4-2

124TH DAYLIGHT SERIES (1924)
Portland def. Cleveland 5-2

For those scoring at home, my owner confidence score after 3 seasons is now at 99. Not enough points for me to leave Bantam if I wanted to (there isn't a team bad enough that wants to hire me, based on the tool) but...I am safe for at least two more years and given we're bringing our entire team back save for a few random guys, we'll be in a good shape I think.

This season's off-season priority? A top of the rotation arm. I don't know if we can even find one, but I'm convinced that's what's going to get us through the playoffs.

Our payroll this off-season is starting at $70.9 million and the cap is at $75 million, meaning we don't have a lot of flexibility at all. I might move a guy or two, but I'm thinking we'll keep the core relatively intact.

Two of the best pitchers in the league are on the market this year in the form of Sergio Sanchez and Robert Owen. I'd love to have Sanchez, but he's just not the sort of guy who fits. Owen would be a fit for us, but I'm just not sure I can really move the sorts of people I'd need to move to make either possible, as both are commanding salaries in the 10-15 million range per year and for Sanchez, trending towards $20m/year towards the back half of his deal. Is he worth it? No doubt. But that's a lot to invest in a guy that'll tie up your franchise's financials and Cleveland didn't win when they were still paying him peanuts.

So, I'm gonna have to pass, sadly.

DC, what's the story with Lars-Erik Johansen? He started out as a SP from 1840-1848, then he started playing a lot of 1B and LF. Did you edit him to be a hitter in 1849?

I'm also interested in knowing what you have your player development and aging modifiers set to.

Yeah. I did. He had some hitting talent and I decided I wanted a historical Paul Bunyan/Babe Ruth type of dude back then who had done both and so yeah, he's a human engineering project. He was a hitter, than a pitcher, then went back to being a hitter again, then was a pitcher before closing out his career as a hitter I think. There were a few other pitcher/hitter types in those days, but he's the most notorious.

Back in those days, player development modifiers were set to 1.200 across the board. For the past 75 years or so, it's been set to 1.000 and everything is default. I did that purposely, as I wanted the initial set of players to put up huge numbers that the guys in the future would have a hard time catching and thus, making records pretty meaningful.

Retooled the offense, with only four guys coming back from last year's division-winning squad including John Thompson, Tony Soriano, Julian Ayala and Darby Mason. I wanted to deal Mason, but the fans love him and so, I decided he'd just be Mr. Original and that he's pretty much untouchable during my career and that even when I thought it was dumb to resign him, that he's one of those guys that just has to be here.

Sergio Sanchez signed with Portland (6 yrs/$113.6 million), Robert Owen signed with Eau Claire (3 yrs/$47 million) but in a twist of interesting fate, he's apparently from a place called Rib Mountain, Wisconsin and so, the signing at least sorta makes sense. I love when those twists happen.

LF Damien Walec was the 1st pick in the 1925 First-Year Player draft by the St. Petersburg Pelicans. He's a created player from someone on the OOTP Boards (I realized I needed to add that for context over here.)

I'm preparing to do a write-up preview for the 1925 season, too. I think this team should be much better pitching-wise, offensively it's a bit of a mystery to me, though.

I don't do my own drafting and I don't usually control lineups. Last season I did at the beginning of the year, but usually I automate it and just play GM. Seems more realistic that way.

I'm going to update the HTML so the player cards are fresher, but eventually we'll get to the 125th season of speedy fake baseball.

File are uploading, but it takes forever and it's not like that many of you are checking out the HTML anyway. So I'm gonna keep going. If there's something you're curious out, do please let me know.

1925 BANTAM ORIGINALS TEAM PREVIEW
After a breakthrough 92-win season and a trip to the league championship, Originals management decided to get serious about turning this club into a championship contender. 3/5ths of the rotation has once again changed with 20-game winner Richard Monroe brought in as a free agent and Paul Franklin (18-5) and Jimmy Hooper (17-4) acquired in trades. 17-game winner Dan White remains from a year, along with youngster Bernardo Davila who will vie with Eddie Garrett and Carlos Alomar (16-8) for the 5th spot in the rotation.

31-year old Chris Miller takes over as the closer in his 2nd season in Connecticut.

Offensively, the team lacks the punch it had two seasons ago when it slugged its way into the post-season. Julian Ayala is still here, along with mainstay Darby Mason. They're joined by newcomers 1B/DH Chris Sweet (.254/20 HR with St. Louis in '24) and new catcher Cecil Killough should help the team defensively and might help hurlers keep games close.

To summarize this year's Bantam team, the assessment would have to be that they're on the right track. But it's hard to really know whether this team can hang with the top teams in the Presidents League. They've got the arms to do it, so really this will just be one of those situations where we'll have to see how the team does heading down the road. If they get into the postseason, anything is possible.

PREDICTION: 90-72, 1st place, PL EAST

I sat here and watched the half-season unfold and knew my bullpen was killing me, but come to find out, that's not quite it.

We were sweating it out for a while there, before coming together slowly and creeping towards the top as the mid-season arrived. We're the #1 pitching staff in the league at the All-Star break, no small thing when you consider the teams that are out there. Offensively, we're 7th in batting, 9th in HRs and 6th in OBP, SLG and Strikeouts.

Sergio Sanchez went 20-8 wtih a 1.99 ERA and 322 strikeouts this year for Portland in the first year of a six-year, $113.6 million dollar deal.

They missed the playoffs.

Ok, here are the playoff matchups:

Minneapolis v. Los Angeles
Eau Claire v. New York
Fresno v. Houston
Washington v. Bantam

Here are the results from the LDS phase:

Los Angeles def. Minneapolis 4-3
New York def. Eau Claire 4-3
Fresno def. Houston 4-3
Bantam def. Washington 4-0

Another year same result.

Los Angeles def. New York 4-2
Fresno def. Bantam 4-1

125th DAYLIGHT SERIES (1925)
Los Angeles def. Fresno 5-3