1843 Season Thread

[Young Drachma]

Ok, so I'm uploading the file now from Spring Training.

Once the file is up, the deadline for the 1st half is Wednesday night at 10pm eastern.

[Young Drachma]

So our file is up. Good luck getting those teams together for our 6th season of SLOPpy baseball!

[chicago_gm]

Is there a rule about having minor league rosters limited to 25 players in AAA and AA and to 35 in Short A?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by chicago_gm

Is there a rule about having minor league rosters limited to 25 players in AAA and AA and to 35 in Short A?

Once the season starts, yeah.

[chicago_gm]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Once the season starts, yeah.

Ok, taken care of in my export.
Play ball!

[Young Drachma]

It's Wednesday night, so let's get ready for the 1st half.

[Young Drachma]

But not for another 1 hr or so. I need to go get a haircut, haha.

[Young Drachma]

STANDINGS AS OF APRIL 1, 1843
------------------------------
NATIONWIDE LEAGUE

Carolina 8-3
Milwaukee 6-5
Phoenix 5-6
Chicago 5-6
Brooklyn 5-6
Los Angeles 4-7

ASSOCIATED LEAGUE

New York 7-4
Memphis 7-4
San Diego 6-5
Rio Grande 6-5
Philadelphia 4-7
Syracuse 3-8

[Young Drachma]

STANDINGS AS OF MAY 1, 1843
--------------------------

NATIONWIDE LEAGUE
--------------
Carolina 24-15
Phoenix 22-15
Milwaukee 18-20
Chicago 17-20
Los Angeles 16-21
Brooklyn 15-23

ASSOCIATED LEAGUE
---------------
Memphis 27-10
Syracuse 21-17
San Diego 20-17
New York 17-22
Rio Grande 16-21
Philadelphia 13-25

[Young Drachma]

STANDINGS AS OF JUNE 1, 1843

NATIONWIDE LEAGUE
-------------------
Carolina 43-24
Phoenix 39-25
Los Angeles 30-34
Chicago 30-34
Brooklyn 29-36
Milwaukee 29-37

ASSOCIATED LEAGUE
-----------------
Memphis 41-24
San Diego 35-30
Syracuse 34-32
New York 31-35
Rio Grande 29-36
Philadelphia 21-44

[Young Drachma]

STANDINGS OF JUNE 20, 1843

NATIONWIDE LEAGUE
------------------
Carolina 53-32
Phoenix 51-32
Milwaukee 40-43
Chicago 39-44
Los Angeles 37-45
Brooklyn 36-47

ASSOCIATED LEAGUE
-----------------
Memphis 51-31
Syracuse 44-39
San Diego 43-40
New York 41-43
Rio Grande 35-48
Philadelphia 29-55

It's mid-season break time.

[Young Drachma]

File is up gang. Trade block is open again. Draft tomorrow.

[chicago_gm]

Draft done in game?
How many rounds?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by chicago_gm

Draft done in game?
How many rounds?

Draft lists are done in game. I believe we're down to 5 rounds now.

[Cole]

Wow I didn't expect my team to have turned around into first place already! Good news though. I guess I'll hope it continues in the second half!

[Ramzavail]

The Unknown family is about to take SLOP down!

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

The Unknown family is about to take SLOP down!

That's a naming issue that happens with the game I've noticed that happens occasionally. I'll rename them.

[spleen1015]

That is really odd. I have never seen that before.

Maybe there is something unusual that you do that make it happen, DC?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

That is really odd. I have never seen that before.

Maybe there is something unusual that you do that make it happen, DC?

Haha, yes. It's a vestige of that time when you all had players on your rosters with strange names last season (all of those Smiths.) It's the same problem and I think it has something to do with me going back and forth between two machines administrating the same file and a missing names.dat file in one or the other. That's all.

Bunch of Smiths in the FA pool from that issue too, but I retired the ones who were bad and deleted the ones who never played so never have to look at them since they were released from minor league rosters.

But not any new changes, because I haven't made any. (Let the church say amen.)

[Young Drachma]

Ok, I'm going to sim the draft now. One sec.

[Young Drachma]

File is up. We'll sim the 2nd half tomorrow night. Good luck to everyone!

[Young Drachma]

HTML is updated.

Second League of Offseason Play Home

[Young Drachma]

Laptop finally went kaput. Well on a technicality...it was basically being fused together after soldiering the power adapter but that went away and so, I need to run the season at work. I'll go to my office in the morning and do that, so you'll need to wait a few more hours to see who will be our playoff teams this year.

[chicago_gm]

The suspense is maddening.
Well, not really, since I won't be in the playoffs anyway.
Getting a new notebook?

[Young Drachma]

I'll replace it with a desktop because it works better for my purposes these days and I'm tired of sacrificing power for portability anyway.

annnyyyway, the league file is up. I had to do it remotely -- it snowed, so I wasn't trudging to work today -- but I got it done and uploaded the file just now. We'll do the playoffs on Monday night. Congrats to our post-season teams!!

[Jack Raden]

What's the rule on releasing guys who are under contact for future seasons? Does this count against my cap/budget for future seasons?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Jack Raden

What's the rule on releasing guys who are under contact for future seasons? Does this count against my cap/budget for future seasons?

There's no penalty for releasing a guy under contract. Contracts in SLOP aren't guaranteed a la the NFL.

[JTSMOOTH]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

There's no penalty for releasing a guy under contract. Contracts in SLOP aren't guaranteed a la the NFL.

So I could offer a guy 8 mil his first season and 50 million every season after and never have to pay anything past his 8 mil and there is no problem with that?

[Jack Raden]

Yeah, that was my thought - I can sign a top FA as you mentioned, and as long as I release him at the end of the first year, I'm paying a very minimal cost.

[JTSMOOTH]

Just browsing through some of the team salaries and NY appears to have quite a few escalating salaries through the next few years that take them well over the salary cap.

So just to understand the rule here, NY can pay all these guys low salaries in year 1 and release them prior to any of the big salaries kicking in with no penalty and then offer similar contracts again the following offseason?

The biggest ones being:
Arthur Strickland 6.3 mil in 1843 escalating to 30.7 mil in 1847
Jason Jones 8.3 mil in 1843 escalating to 25.7 mil in 1849
Dave Norman 14.4 mil in 1843 escalating to 30.4 in 1848

Nothing wrong with escalating contracts, but it seems a bit silly that teams can offer these escalating contracts and never have to live up to them.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by JTSMOOTH

So I could offer a guy 8 mil his first season and 50 million every season after and never have to pay anything past his 8 mil and there is no problem with that?

Originally Posted by Jack Raden

Yeah, that was my thought - I can sign a top FA as you mentioned, and as long as I release him at the end of the first year, I'm paying a very minimal cost.

Look, there's absolutely no history or evidence of anyone trying to do that in this league. I know that in some leagues, there are people who do that. But that's not happening here.

In the particular instance where I got called out, it's just a matter of failing to pay attention to my craptastic middlebrow team over the years. Noah McKinney's contract was structured similarly and he's still on my team. Eddie Wallin isn't a star and I'm still overpaying him too. This isn't a new thing, I signed the guys I wanted and if you had offered any of those guys deals that were structured more sensibly, they would've signed with you instead of me because the contract system was changed in OOTP12 to reflect that.

I wanted those guys, I was willing to pay market rate for them, but I couldn't do it a more smooth fashion across the deal and so, I spread the pain out figuring that if we could become a playoff team it'd be worth it. Clearly that didn't work out and I'm not sure it will. But to make the assumption that I intentionally signed those guys just to release them is a bit unfair given that I've never done anything like that.

Bottom line, if some asshole signed someone to a 5 year deal with a ridiculous ballooning payment and then released that player a year into the deal there would be some major league recourse involving cap penalties because right now we're on the honour system.

There's no smoke and there's no fire.

If you perceive the deals I signed, have intended to honour and that have yielded me absolutely no success whatsoever as anti-competitive; then I'm sorry to hurt your feelings with my 3rd place finish and shitty contracts. But you are free to do the same thing. I just wouldn't recommend it given that tying up so much of my cap in the wrong players and not tanking hasn't yielded me any ability to rebuild this team. It was a poor tactical decision that I'm pretty much wedded to until my long-term players finally finish their careers/deals.

Spoiler

If there was ever to be a rule (and there is no rule), the rule to deter this behavior would be that you couldn't release more than $20m of the life of a deal.

p. ej.: if you released a guy owning him $75m, you'd still have to pay a prorated amount of the cap for that particular time. That'd deter it. It'd also require more account (aka, work from me) and it'd also be ridiculous because it's not as if players move -- there are never trades -- and so, if you get stuck with a guy who might be productive elsewhere, but doesn't fit into your plans and who is hogging your cap space; I feel that everyone ought to be able to shed that guy. Another team can sign him for what he's worth at that moment and it's a casualty of a system where we don't have injuries that guys stop producing well over time and sometimes prematurely.

But again, there is no rule. And there won't be a rule unless we need a rule.

TL;DR: Ridiculous contracts that you realistically can't honour will be voided. That has always the case, but I trust people to play fair and have fun. We've never had this problem and I doubt we ever will. That's a credit to the people in this league.

[Young Drachma]

HTML is updated.

Second League of Offseason Play Home\

If Carolina exports in the morning, we'll sim the post-season tomorrow during the day. All of the other post-season exports are in.

[JTSMOOTH]

I don't think I was calling anyone out, just merely posting examples where a team could in theory abuse your rule of no consequences for releasing players under contract.

I think you and I DC have gotten off on the wrong foot and maybe its best for both of our enjoyment of OOTP that I step aside and let someone else run the Phoenix franchise.

Its nothing personal, I'm not crying or upset. I play OOTP for fun. But I don't want to have fun at the expense of others and I think its obvious the direction you want to take the league is different than what I had envisioned the league being when I first joined. Your the one putting the time into running the league, so you should be able to do with the league whatever you want without having someone like me questioning everything.

I appreciate you letting me play here for the short time I was here and hope the league sticks around for a long time to come.

Thanks again and best of luck again to the league DC.

JT

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Look, there's absolutely no history or evidence of anyone trying to do that in this league. I know that in some leagues, there are people who do that. But that's not happening here.

In the particular instance where I got called out, it's just a matter of failing to pay attention to my craptastic middlebrow team over the years. Noah McKinney's contract was structured similarly and he's still on my team. Eddie Wallin isn't a star and I'm still overpaying him too. This isn't a new thing, I signed the guys I wanted and if you had offered any of those guys deals that were structured more sensibly, they would've signed with you instead of me because the contract system was changed in OOTP12 to reflect that.

I wanted those guys, I was willing to pay market rate for them, but I couldn't do it a more smooth fashion across the deal and so, I spread the pain out figuring that if we could become a playoff team it'd be worth it. Clearly that didn't work out and I'm not sure it will. But to make the assumption that I intentionally signed those guys just to release them is a bit unfair given that I've never done anything like that.

Bottom line, if some asshole signed someone to a 5 year deal with a ridiculous ballooning payment and then released that player a year into the deal there would be some major league recourse involving cap penalties because right now we're on the honour system.

There's no smoke and there's no fire.

If you perceive the deals I signed, have intended to honour and that have yielded me absolutely no success whatsoever as anti-competitive; then I'm sorry to hurt your feelings with my 3rd place finish and shitty contracts. But you are free to do the same thing. I just wouldn't recommend it given that tying up so much of my cap in the wrong players and not tanking hasn't yielded me any ability to rebuild this team. It was a poor tactical decision that I'm pretty much wedded to until my long-term players finally finish their careers/deals.

Spoiler

If there was ever to be a rule (and there is no rule), the rule to deter this behavior would be that you couldn't release more than $20m of the life of a deal.

p. ej.: if you released a guy owning him $75m, you'd still have to pay a prorated amount of the cap for that particular time. That'd deter it. It'd also require more account (aka, work from me) and it'd also be ridiculous because it's not as if players move -- there are never trades -- and so, if you get stuck with a guy who might be productive elsewhere, but doesn't fit into your plans and who is hogging your cap space; I feel that everyone ought to be able to shed that guy. Another team can sign him for what he's worth at that moment and it's a casualty of a system where we don't have injuries that guys stop producing well over time and sometimes prematurely.

But again, there is no rule. And there won't be a rule unless we need a rule.

TL;DR: Ridiculous contracts that you realistically can't honour will be voided. That has always the case, but I trust people to play fair and have fun. We've never had this problem and I doubt we ever will. That's a credit to the people in this league.

[Ramzavail]

did you just quit?

[Ramzavail]

secondly, instead of whining about other peoples contracts - you should have concentrated on your own. You had nearly 50mm of cap room.

Everybody in this league *should be* maxing out their salaries as close as the salary cap as possible. Having empty cap space is pointless, its use or lose.

Your welcome for giving you the secret to this league.

[Ramzavail]

thirdly, New York hasn't won anything.

its not like this strategy has worked. The fundamentals of your implied argument is that he's using an unfair advantage to either win or to stockpile superstars. so what are you *really* complaining about? or do you just want to find stuff to complain about once every few weeks?

I think that sort of strategy is perfectly fine and legal.

[Young Drachma]

Sweet, post-season exports are in. Going to sim post-season now.

[Cole]

Carolina is exported and ready to go. With a payroll of only $33 million, we are by far the cheapest team to ever make the playoffs... Hoping to be the championship team with the smallest payroll too !

[Young Drachma]

ALCS GAME 1: Syracuse 3, Memphis 2
NLCS GAME 1: Phoenix 5, Carolina 4

[Young Drachma]

NLCS GAME 2: Carolina 6, Phoenix 5 (Series tied 1-1)
ALCS GAME 2: Memphis 6, Syracuse 3 (Series tied 1-1)

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

secondly, instead of whining about other peoples contracts - you should have concentrated on your own. You had nearly 50mm of cap room.

Everybody in this league *should be* maxing out their salaries as close as the salary cap as possible. Having empty cap space is pointless, its use or lose.

Your welcome for giving you the secret to this league.

I don't think that's necessarily true .... Spending right up to the cap when your team doesn't have a shot at the playoffs and you have some young players in your own organization who will need to be extended to multi-year contracts doesn't seem wise.

As for the argument at hand here, it's unfortunate for someone to quit over this... All that being said, I think some sort of contract rules being in place would be beneficial... I'm not a huge fan of contracts being non-guaranteed as I think it just encourages people to throw money at players without any long-term planning or strategy.

That being said, I think some checks and balances for contracts to be more balanced should be put in place. While DC says nothing has been done to game the system yet I think it's too easy that it could happen.

[Young Drachma]

NLCS GAME 3: Phoenix 5, Carolina 3 (PHX leads series 2-1)
ALCS GAME 3: Memphis 5, Syracuse 4 (MEM leads series 2-1)

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Cole

I don't think that's necessarily true .... Spending right up to the cap when your team doesn't have a shot at the playoffs and you have some young players in your own organization who will need to be extended to multi-year contracts doesn't seem wise.

As for the argument at hand here, it's unfortunate for someone to quit over this... All that being said, I think some sort of contract rules being in place would be beneficial... I'm not a huge fan of contracts being non-guaranteed as I think it just encourages people to throw money at players without any long-term planning or strategy.

That being said, I think some checks and balances for contracts to be more balanced should be put in place. While DC says nothing has been done to game the system yet I think it's too easy that it could happen.

The other side of this, is that it's not fun to play when you're stuck with a ton of contracts of underperforming guys that no one else wants.

I didn't want anyone to quit over this, obviously. It'd be one thing if we had an actual scenario that happened, but I'm not really big on spending a lot of time legislating for stuff that might happen, just because it happens in other leagues. Fast-sim isn't like other leagues and there's just no incentive to do that in fast-sim. It doesn't work. I'm talking several years seasons of sim experience proving this.

OOTP won't allow absurd contracts in OOTP12. So if you try to offer a guy a 2 year deal structured where he makes $10m one year and say $50m the next, the game won't let you do that. The game already bars contracts that it deems to be unrealistic and it's gotten better about this, so there are limits from what you can do. Try offering a guy an extension that's wacky and see what it tells you.

If someone makes an offer that doesn't meet the smell test or said owner has a history of signing guys and releasing them for unfair play I will deal with that owner. That owner won't be me, because if I wanted to go balls to the wall to try to win here I'd have already done that.

I'm trying hard to make this a league that's enjoyable, without turning it into "like every other league but faster." One way to do that is to create a ton of extra rules simply for the off-chance that something might happen.

Now, back to the playoffs!

[Young Drachma]

ALCS GAME 4: Memphis 8, Syracuse 1 (MEM leads series 3-1)
NLCS GAME 4: Carolina 6, Phoenix 5 (10 innings) (Series tied 2-2)

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

The other side of this, is that it's not fun to play when you're stuck with a ton of contracts of underperforming guys that no one else wants.

I didn't want anyone to quit over this, obviously. It'd be one thing if we had an actual scenario that happened, but I'm not really big on spending a lot of time legislating for stuff that might happen, just because it happens in other leagues. Fast-sim isn't like other leagues and there's just no incentive to do that in fast-sim. It doesn't work. I'm talking several years seasons of sim experience proving this.

OOTP won't allow absurd contracts in OOTP12. So if you try to offer a guy a 2 year deal structured where he makes $10m one year and say $50m the next, the game won't let you do that. The game already bars contracts that it deems to be unrealistic and it's gotten better about this, so there are limits from what you can do. Try offering a guy an extension that's wacky and see what it tells you.

If someone makes an offer that doesn't meet the smell test or said owner has a history of signing guys and releasing them for unfair play I will deal with that owner. That owner won't be me, because if I wanted to go balls to the wall to try to win here I'd have already done that.

I'm trying hard to make this a league that's enjoyable, without turning it into "like every other league but faster." One way to do that is to create a ton of extra rules simply for the off-chance that something might happen.

Now, back to the playoffs!

Sounds good, fair enough. It sucks being under bad contracts, but part of being a GM is dealing with that and trying your best not to make bad ccontract offers. Plus, with fast sims ... wait a few weeks and your contract faux pas will be over.

Anyway, go Kings!

[Young Drachma]

ASSOCIATED LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES GAME 5
Syracuse jumped out to an early lead in the top of the first and tacked on 2 more in the top of the 3rd. But Memphis wasn't to be denied, scoring six in the bottom half of the 3rd thanks to home runs from Tim Jackson and one of Derek Campell's 2 home runs on the day.

Nelson Remedios only lasted two innings, giving up 5 hits and six earned including three dingers and from there, it didn't get any better for the defending champion Stars. Despite a rally in the top of the 7th scoring two, it wasn't enough.

19-game winner Eddie Donovan walked six and gave up five earned, but pitched 7 1/3 innings to set the game up for Logan Becker to close in the 9th.

The Smokers advance to the Sunset Series for the first time in franchise history after winning Game 5 of the ALCS 7-5 over the Syracuse Stars.

Derek Campbell was named the first-ever ALCS MVP after hitting .421 with 3 HRs and 7 RBI in the series.

[Young Drachma]

The Carolina Kings are on the doorstep of their first-ever Sunset Series after knocking off the Phoenix Firebirds 8-5 in Game 5 of the Nationwide League Championship Series in Phoenix last night. Ed Saunders went 2 for 4 with 3 RBI, adding to his monster series hitting .526 with 3 HRs and 7 RBI so far. Carlos Gonzales had a big name, going 3-3, with a walk and an RBI in the victory out of the 8th spot.

Allen Gorman struck out two and gave up 4 earned in seven innings of work. Then the Kings bullpen took over and showed why it was one of the best in baseball all year, giving up just one hit in two innings of work. George Howard got the save and Phoenix hurler Bryan Shafer took the loss.

Game 6 is tomorrow night in Carolina.

[Young Drachma]

GAME 6: The Phoenix Firebirds took Game 6 on the road from Carolina to force a 7th game in the NLCS last night. Eugene Nelson went 2 for 4 with a double and a home run in the win. Jim Woods contributed with 2 RBI and Jack Quevada also chimed in with a dinger. Dan Ackerman got his first post-season win of the year and Ed Saunders of Carolina kept his monster September going with his 4th HR of the series.

Thursday night in Phoenix for all of the marbles, the two teams will face off to see who will take on Memphis in the 1843 Sunset Series

[Young Drachma]

GAME 7 NLCS: Justin Gorman hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 9th off Carolina's Jimmy Wilder to send the Firebirds to their 3rd Sunset Series in four years and ending Carolina's cinderella season. Justin Gorman was named NLCS MVP.

[Young Drachma]

I won't spoil the results of the Sunset Series. Replays will be uploaded with the file and you can see it play it out when you download, but it was a real doozy.

The file is up.