MILF (OOTP11)

[Young Drachma]

2020 REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS

Federal League Standings
Eastern Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Philadelphia Quakers	89	73	.549	-
New York Gothams	87	75	.537	2.0
Jersey City Mammoths	83	79	.512	6.0
Boston Yanks		76	86	.469	13.0
Toronto Blueshirts	73	89	.451	16.0

Central Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Pittsburgh Yellowjackets113	49	.698	-
Chicago Redbirds	96	66	.593	17.0
St. Louis Terriers	83	79	.512	30.0
Minneapolis Millers	64	98	.395	49.0
Eau Claire Paws		57	105	.352	56.0

Western Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Los Angeles Aztecs	93	69	.574	-
Seattle Pilots		79	83	.488	14.0
Victoria Cougars	78	84	.481	15.0
Dallas Haymakers	73	89	.451	20.0
San Francisco Peanuts	66	96	.407	27.0

Southern Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Baltimore Wrens		89	73	.549	-
Charlotte Hornets	83	79	.512	6.0
Houston 36ers		83	79	.512	6.0
Almendares Alacranes	79	83	.488	10.0
Tupelo Moonshiners	76	86	.469	13.0

Allied League Standings
Eastern Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Brooklyn Originals	97	65	.599	-
Cleveland Broncs	93	69	.574	4.0
San Juan Senadores	83	79	.512	14.0
New York Knights	78	84	.481	19.0
Montreal Wanderers	65	97	.401	32.0

Central Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Milwaukee Creamers	109	53	.673	-
Detroit Robins		88	74	.543	21.0
Chicago Comets		80	82	.494	29.0
Kansas City Scouts	76	86	.469	33.0
Mississauga Civics	73	89	.451	36.0

Western Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Sacramento Solons	96	66	.593	-
Hawaii Islanders	78	84	.481	18.0
Hollywood Stars		75	87	.463	21.0
Salt Lake City Elders	67	95	.414	29.0
Colorado Gold Sox	65	97	.401	31.0

Southern Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Habana Leones		94	68	.580	-
Rio Grande Roadrunners	87	75	.537	7.0
Charleston Seagulls	76	86	.469	18.0
Atlanta Firecrackers	72	90	.444	22.0
Miami Amigos		68	94	.420	26.0

The Chicago Redbirds have the misfortune of finishing with the 2nd best record in the Federal League, but miss the playoffs. I felt bad, but the schedule is unbalanced, so you play your division more than the rest of the league. Thus, you're really only competing against the teams in your division for a playoff berth, not as much the other teams in other divisions. So it's fair, even though it sort of sucks.

Here are the playoff matchups:

FLDS
-------
Pittsburgh v. Philadelphia
Baltimore v. Los Angeles

ALDS
-----
Milwaukee v. Habana
Brooklyn v. Sacramento

[Young Drachma]

Ok, let's do the recap of my players over this past year.

Tommy Barton, 1B, Milwaukee Creamers

Well, if there was any doubt that he would be worth it, those doubts was squelched this year. 42 home runs, 141 RBI, 109 walks in 628 at-bats. I was petrified that he'd turn out to be a flake after the ups and downs of his first few years in the majors, but then I had to remind myself that he's not even 24 yet. Anyone who didn't know who he was before, is well aware of him now.

While he was snubbed (again) for the all-star game, he's got an outside shot at an MVP award. Not a bad consolation prize, eh?

Bo Picot, RF, Brooklyn Originals

Bo was traded by Dallas to Almendares and was then flipped to Brooklyn when they needed someone to patrol the outfield. I always knew he'd emerged into a solid player and he proved me right.

He hit .281 with 21 HRs and 110 RBI this year for the Originals and will be heading to the post-season for the first time. He had 45 doubles and more hits (191 to 170) than Tommy Barton did this year, too. He's a solid player who is still a few years away from the open market (only has 3 years of ML service time) but I hope he can maintain it by the time we get him there.

Chip Hubbard, SS, Brooklyn Originals (AAA)

Chip played in AAA again this year and hit .284 with 25 HRs and 81 RBI. He struck out 120 times and stole 13 bases. He has potential and is still tapped as the Originals shortstop of the future. We'll just see what we get when he gets there. It could be next year or he still might be held another year. I'm not sure what to think about him, really.

Nate Murdoch, RF, Chicago Redbirds (AAA)

He hit .307 this year and stole 27 bases. He also had 17 HRS AND 74 RBI for the Redbirds Triple-A club. He's probably penciled in for next year as the team's starter. They don't have a ton of cap flexibility anyway and I think he'll be too good for them to ignore. But we'll see.

J.C. Coronado, SP, Miami Amigos

He went 15-15 with 2.64 ERA, 278 strikeouts in 261 1/3 innings this year. He had 11 complete games and a whopping 26 quality starts. The long and short of it, is that we need to get him out of there. He will be a free agent this off-season and has not been offered an extension in Miami as of yet. I hope he resists, because I can't stop it if it happens.

Mal Thompson, SP, Chicago Comets (AAA)
He went 14-8 with 2.86 ERA and 212 Ks in 214 innings for the Comets farm club. He's worked out his control issues, but still might be a year away from returning to the majors. It's hard to say. Nonetheless, he's only 20 years old and will be a solid starter once he's there. Sky is the limit for this young hurler.

[Young Drachma]

2020 PLAYOFF RESULTS

FEDERAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
------------
Philadelphia def. Pittsburgh 4-2
Baltimore def. Los Angeles 4-2

FEDERAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
---------
Philadelphia def. Baltimore 4-1

ALLIED LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
-------
Milwaukee def. Habana 4-1
Brooklyn def. Sacramento 4-2

ALLIED LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
----------
Milwaukee def. Brooklyn 4-2

2020 DAYLIGHT SERIES
-------------
Milwaukee def. Philadelphia 5-0

Philadelphia last claimed the title in 2010, which was their last appearance in the Series. Milwaukee was making their first appearance in the post-season and first in the Series.

[Young Drachma]

My free agents this year are J.C. Coronado and apparently Chip Hubbard has become a minor league free agent. We'll see how it goes, since both are at different ends of the spectrum.

[Young Drachma]

I've also contracted four teams and we've returned to a 3-division format. Still 162 games, but now there is one wild card. I felt like it was a more competitive setup this way and it also stems a bit of the of the talent dilution that'd been going on with having a ton of teams. We may someday return to 40 teams if I can get a schedule that works with say, two divisions setup...but for now, this will work.

[rjolley]

How did Barton do in the Daylight Series?

[Young Drachma]

I just updated his player card. .193 with 4 RBI, no homers in 16 post-season games, but he was walked 19 times in 57 at-bats, so he had an OBP of .395.

So he helped the team I guess, just not in the ways that we'd have expected.

[Young Drachma]

J.C. Coronado signed a 5 year deal worth $145.5 million with the Chicago Redbirds thi off-season.

Chip Hubbard resigned with Brooklyn on a one-year deal and will be starting in the majors this season.

The numbers were getting haywire, so I lowered the financial coefficient in half, so all of the financial numbers were halved, as well.

This might wreck having on my agent game, but I'm just going to still follow these guys through the seven year period anyway and then try another scenario provided I still feel like writing.

[Young Drachma]

I just finished two more seasons. I'm about to start another scenario now. I will check back in on the guys I've introduced you to before, but one of the things about playing fast-sim and dynasty writing is that I need to balance my desire to play a lot and sim fast with the need to write things down and share them with whatever audience there is.

I've put the financials back where they began, mostly because it worked better for me. We've expanded back to 38 teams (20 in the FL, 18 in the AL) and I'll explain why in a while, hopefully without confusing you (That is, if anyone is even paying attention to begin with.)

The more interesting story I've wanted to share is Gil Spence's 2021 season. The first man to ever hit .400 was Hall of Famer Bobby Starke who hit .407 in 1979, breaking a record that had lasted since 1800 when Konrad Rodinger hit .3996 the first year of the league. Three guys hit .400 during the offensive juiceball year of 1993, but that year is often looked upon derisively by most experts.

Gil Spence left nothing to doubt though in 2021 hitting .431 during his last season in Brooklyn. The 28-year old centerfielder signed a free agent deal with Salt Lake City after his monster year and has a career batting average of .400. Yes, that's his CAREER average. The guy only has 23 career home runs, but he's a hit machine otherwise. It'll be fun to watch the rest of his career.

PLAYOFF RESULTS SINCE 2020

We've crowned two champions since the Creamers claimed their title in 2020. If you want a full playoff breakdown, let me know. The Chicago Redbirds won their first title since 1907 in 2021, knocking off the Rio Grande Roadrunners.

In 2022, the Cleveland Broncs denied the New York Gothams a chance to exorcise a demon that's lasted since their last title in 1960. It was Cleveland's first title in ten years.

SOME COMING, SOME GOING
MILF broke ground on new territory, expanding into Japan starting with the 2022 season. The Milwaukee Creamers and Chicago Comets headed to Japan after two major Japanese companies offered their owners big money to relocate the teams.

This will trigger some realignment, which again, I'll mention in passing but won't get you bored with the minutia since I doubt it's interesting.

The City of Milwaukee sued MILF and the former owners of the Creamers, saying they had an agreement with the team that spanned 25-years and the team had only lived up to six years of that. Realizing the city had a case, MILF officials decided to expand the Federal League by two teams, awarding a team to Milwaukee (who would be renamed the Creamers) and one other city that has yet to be named, but is expected to be a western city within the Mountain Time Zone.

STATUS UPDATES

While I'm no longer playing the agent game, I feel like it's important to let you know how the guys we were following are doing and where they're all playing now.

J.C. Coronado, SP, Chicago Redbirds
The 25-year old Coronado has emerged into a real ace. In his second year in the Windy City, he's gone 50-5 with an ERA just over 2.00, logging over 600 strikeouts during that time. He's also won his back to back Nelson Mares awards, as the Federal League's top pitcher.

Mal Thompson, SP, Tupelo Moonshiners
Before shipping themselves to Japan, the Comets sent Thompson and a 1st rounder to Mississippi in exchange for Japanese hurler Kory Hamada. Thompson went 8-19 for the second straight year in the majors, with a 5.56 ERA in 32 starts. He's still considered a prospect, at just 22 years of age, but many are wondering if he'll ever get the form that will make him a top starter in the league and some skeptics are loudly beginning to doubt he'll truly ever be anything other than a middle of the rotation guy.

It'd be interesting to see him on a good team, something he's never done before, but lots of guys play on bad teams and find ways to excel.

Tommy Barton, OF, Osaka Braves
Oh, I didn't tell you the Creamers became the Osaka Braves? Well, that's their new name. And their favorite player? Barton-san. He's picked up where he left off, hitting .272 this past year and logging his third straight 40+ HR season. Despite this production, his last all-star appearance was during his rookie season and he's yet to win an MVP.

There's some discussion about whether he'll be reacquired by the new Creamers franchise and sent back to Milwaukee, due to his lack of a no-trade clause, as the leaders of that franchise look to get a foothold in the market.

Chip Hubbard, SS, San Diego Seals
After a trade from Brooklyn, Hubbard finally got his chance to be a starter at the major league level. The 25-year old shortshop hit .198 in 405 ABs for the Seals this past year. It's too soon to call him a bust, but many thought he'd be an active contributor at the ML level by now and he's yet to reach that potential.

Will he ever?

Nate Murdoch, RF, Chicago Redbirds
Nate was the 2022 Federal League Rookie of the Year after hitting .287 with 23 HRs and 93 RBI in his first full major league season with the Redbirds. The 23-year old outfielder is emerging as a star and should have a bright future ahead of him.

Bo Picot, RF, Brooklyn Originals
After two straight years of 20 + HRs and 100 + RBI, Picot had a dropoff this year hitting just .280 with 12 HRs and 82 RBI for the O's. The 28-year old is a local favorite, but is in a walk year this season. If he's not selected in the expansion draft, he'll be a free agent and it's not evident where he'll end up. He might not factor largely in Brooklyn's long-term plans.

[Young Drachma]

SCENARIO TWO: THE EXPANSION YEAR

The Milwaukee Creamers and Mendocino Kingfishers (Ukiah, CA) will be joining the Federal League.

My task will be to steer them through the first season, by setting them up with the best players I can in the expansion draft.

Then, my task will be to manage one of the two expansion teams for the year as their GM and attempt to get them a winning record. I will be restricted to making a maximum of five trades during the off-season, which if you've read me is no easy feat.

I'm going to take over the Milwaukee Creamers, mostly because the storyline of having the new Creamers coming back to town sounds like a fun idea to me, because the fans are going to demand a winner from the start since the old Creamers were good when they left.

So that's where we are next. If you have any ideas, feel free to post them. Should the new Creamers attempt to see if they can pry Tommy Barton out of Japan? Or should the new team try to establish itself out of shadow of the old Creamers?

[JetsIn06]

I would go after Barton, for sure. Would be a great story to have him go back and establish the new Creamers.

[Young Drachma]

I made the cardinal sin of having the game crash on me when I was deleting this strange ghost player in the retired player section after I'd run the season, but before it could save or backup anything good. So now I think my league is officially farked. I could go backwards to my older iterations of the league (like the ones I've posted on the web) but that'd be sacrificing quite a bit of history and I'm not sure I want to do that.

So I'm considering starting over with the same amount of teams or a more perfect setup, starting with OOTP11 and trying to see if I can import the same players into this new league if I set it up exactly the same way at least to start. Because if I could salvage my current generation of guys, that'd be awesome.

If not, well...I guess I'll be starting over to generate another set of history. Which probably isn't the worse thing in the world, especially now that I know to do it. But it's sort of sad, because I had a really good run going there.

I'll let you know what I figure out.

[Ramzavail]

oh man, that sucks.

[Young Drachma]

Ok, it's official. My league is toast. What happens is, since the season didn't officially end, the stats from that year are still there and won't clear. When that happens, they'll just keep cycling and the year never turns over. It's sort of ridiculous, but it's a perpetual OOTP problem that you can't really fix. And I didn't backup because well...I had the need for speed.

Sooooo...that means, I'm going to have to start over with a completely new universe, which means I'll need to decide what year I want to start it. Or go back to my quickstart so I don't lose all of my history entirely. I'm leaning towards that, because at least that way I could keep the continuity of the history over the past several hundred years. It'll suck to lose guys like Tommy Barton and others to the annals of history, but I guess I could go recreate them if I was feeling like it.

I sort of figured out what I wanted to do as I wrote this and I am going to do just reload quickstart and do the history from there, because what was special about this league was the fact that I had all of the history and stuff like that rather than starting over again with a parallel history that doesn't mesh with what happened before.

In a way, it'll be better this way...things were working fine and I made a lot of alterations in recent seasons mostly because I was tinkering around, so this will give me a starting point where I don't have to do that.

So while it's annoying and frustrating, it'll be interesting in the same way.

[Ramzavail]

in short, there will be no killing the Johansen boyz.

[JetsIn06]

Sorry to hear DC. Whatever you do, I'll still be following along.

[Young Drachma]

Thanks guys.

Here's the scoop.

I went back to 2012 and restarted from the beginning of the quickstart that I uploaded and released to everyone else. A smart decision in retrospect, huh?

I'm still sort of figuring out how I want to play, but what I've done so far is replace a few of the franchises with ones I liked from my recent sims (Milwaukee Creamers come to mind, as well as the two Japanese franchises, adding to them two Aussie teams too...) and have first off simmed a few years into the future.

I'm about to sim the 2019 season and my tentative idea (as I type this) is to start with the 2020 season and do something. What, I have no idea. There are 36 teams, I haven't expanded from the initial setup and I don't know if I will yet.

The two leagues are the Nationwide League (NL) and the Allied League (AL).


Here are your league champs since 2012:

2012: Cleveland Broncs def. Colorado Gold Sox
2013: Philadelphia Quakers def. Detroit Robins
2014: Rio Grande Roadrunners def. San Francisco Peanuts
2015: Colorado Gold Sox def. Detroit Robins
2016: San Francisco Peanuts def. Pittsburgh Yellowjackets
2017: Kansas City Scouts def. Jersey City Mammoths
2018: New York Knights def. Colorado Gold Sox

Which means we haven't had a team repeat as champions since the 1994-1996 Kansas City Blue Sox (now Scouts) who won three in a row en route to six straight AL pennants (and four titles overall during that stretch.)

I also do regular backups now.

I'll probably start a new thread for the next iteration of the dynasty because it might be confusing for someone to start at the beginning and then pick up the league when we go back in time.

[Ramzavail]

what are the Japan teams names?

[Young Drachma]

Here's the 2019 regular season standings:

Nationwide League Standings
Eastern Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Wooster Wrens		96	66	.593	-
Buffalo Brothers	91	71	.562	5.0
Jersey City Mammoths	85	77	.525	11.0
Hartford Gothams	75	87	.463	21.0
Boston Yanks		72	90	.444	24.0
Philadelphia Quakers	70	92	.432	26.0

Central Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Minneapolis Millers	90	72	.556	-
Chicago Redbirds	88	74	.543	2.0
Eau Claire Paws		80	82	.494	10.0
Milwaukee Creamers	77	85	.475	13.0
Indianapolis Terriers	71	91	.438	19.0
Charlotte Hornets	63	99	.389	27.0

Western Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Colorado Gold Sox	99	63	.611	-
Los Angeles Aztecs	97	65	.599	2.0
Nevada Silverhawks	89	73	.549	10.0
San Francisco Peanuts	79	83	.488	20.0
Salt Lake City Elders	70	92	.432	29.0
Seattle Pilots		66	96	.407	33.0

Allied League Standings
Eastern Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Toronto Blueshirts	98	64	.605	-
New York Knights	95	67	.586	3.0
Miami Amigos		88	74	.543	10.0
Cleveland Broncs	86	76	.531	12.0
Brooklyn Originals	82	80	.506	16.0
Montreal Maroons	72	90	.444	26.0

Central Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Kansas City Scouts	89	73	.549	-
Detroit Robins		87	75	.537	2.0
Pittsburgh Yellowjackets86	76	.531	3.0
Rio Grande Roadrunners	75	87	.463	14.0
Dallas Haymakers	64	98	.395	25.0
Tupelo Moonshiners	64	98	.395	25.0

Western Division	W	L	PCT	GB
Tokyo Comets		95	67	.586	-
Hollywood Stars		84	78	.519	11.0
Victoria Cougars	84	78	.519	11.0
Osaka Braves		81	81	.500	14.0
Brisbane Wonder Workers	75	87	.463	20.0
Arizona Firecrackers	53	109	.327	42.0

As far as the team name changes, all of these moves occurred before I started the 2012 season, so basically these are the teams that deviate from the original quickstart file. No team was folded:


Baltimore Wrens became Wooster (OH) Wrens
Compton Brothers became Buffalo (NY) Brothers
New York Gothams became Hartford (CT) Gothams
St. Louis Terriers became Indianapolis (IN) Terriers
Washington Maroons became Montreal (QC) Maroons
Chicago Comets became Tokyo (JP) Comets
Atlanta Firecrackers became Arizona (Glendale, AZ) Firecrackers
El Paso Incredibles became Milwaukee (WI) Creamers
Portland Sockeyes became Osaka (JP) Braves
Hamilton Tigers became Jersey City (NJ) Mammoths
Monterrey Orioles became Brisbane (AUS) Wonder Workers
Victoria Cougars moved from Victoria, B.C., Canada to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

[Young Drachma]

Here are the 2019 Playoffs in review:

NL DIVISION SERIES (BEST OF SEVEN)
Colorado def. Minneapolis 4-1
Wooster def. Los Angeles 4-1

AL DIVISION SERIES
Toronto def. Kansas City 4-3
Tokyo def. New York 4-3

NL CHAMPIONSHIP (BEST OF NINE)
Colorado def. Wooster 5-3

AL CHAMPIONSHIP
Toronto def. Tokyo 5-2

2019 FALL CLASSIC (BEST OF NINE)
Colorado def. Toronto 5-1

NOTES
The Gold Sox win their 2nd title in five years and second straight NL pennant. This was Wooster's first playoff appearance since 1992 when they still played in (South) Carolina, the franchise never played the playoffs while in Baltimore.

[Young Drachma]

As far as the cities are concerned, there are some cities that in my mind have a long fast-sim legacy because of my time with FOOL. So I try to move teams in my fictional leagues away from those places. Not always, but I tend to like to have balance between franchises/cities that I have a mental affinity for versus those that have cultivated an online league legacy to me.

That's why I sometimes will move teams, because part of why I play is the immersion of having connections to certain franchises and if it doesn't feel right, I have a hard time playing with those teams around. Which I know is a little weird, but it's always how I've played dating back to my super old dynasties (mostly over at OOTP rather than here...) with teams I cultivate over a period of time.

My plan is to retire the Colorado Gold Sox franchise, which I know seems weird given their recent titles, but for all intent and purposes the team is moving and the league left the Gold Sox name and colors and titles in Denver/Colorado Springs where the team has always been a la the Baltimore Ravens/Cleveland Browns.

Names we recognize, like Billy Chapel are still around and dominant, while there are other names that we don't who have picked up where their predecessors left off.

I've still got to figure out where to put the new team, but I'll come up with something eventually and go from there.

[Young Drachma]

NOVEMBER 13, 2019

Billionaire tycoon and software magnate Oliver Esmonde finalized his purchase of the Colorado Gold Sox. The franchise, in existence since 1812, has won 9 championships in their franchise history. But according to Nationwide League officials, Esmonde will not be permitted to take the Gold Sox name, colors or history with him when he moves the franchise to Twin Falls, Idaho for the 2020 season.

Esmonde has turned the sleepy Magic Valley outpost into his own personal playground afte founding his internet startup Verve there in 2008 and after an IPO, it made him one of the richest men in the world. He believed that baseball needed to be located in the state and was looking for a team to acquire and with the Gold Sox -- despite their success -- one of the cash poorest teams in baseball, they've always been vulernable to a move.

But at least NL officials have ensured the history will remain in Colorado, even if the players move elsewhere.

The new Twin Falls Magicians will begin play at Verve Stadium of Twin Falls next year.

[Young Drachma]

I think after 200+ years of the same history, I might have a bit of fatigue with this particular universe. I like the premise, I just have been trying to get back into it and I'm sure that being busy isn't helping but....ultimately, it's not working for me right now.

I came up with an idea in the meantime. I went back to OOTP9 and ran across the original version of this. As it turned out, I only played 2 years in there before moving it to OOTP10 and so, I had this league when it first first started before things had evolved at all. Even before I created minors. There were 8 teams and one league and that was it.

So I brought that version into 10 and then into 11 and I'm going to delete the original league with just 3 years of history (1800-1802) and create an alternate universe, so the original players will be the same from the 1st three years and whoever might be on the reserve rosters but then the other 217 years or so will yield us an entirely different crop of players, along with their own histories and so forth. My thought?

Getting to 2020 like I am with the original league and then merging them into one league if possible. Could be interesting. The franchises in the new league will be entirely different than in the other league, with different histories, existing in different cities and everything. It's likely to be a smaller city league, because that'd make for a better eventual story.

We'll see.