Season 25 (1862) Off-season

[Young Drachma]

Reminder that guaranteed contracts begin after tomorrow night's file gets uploaded, so if you want to release someone without penalty you must do in this export you send up before tomorrow night.

Also, I'm adding a winter league for SLOP. It'll start in November and last through just before Spring Training. The idea is to give GMs a chance to develop a young player a bit more during the off-season, as well as taking a flier on a guy who might not be ready yet, but who could perhaps turn into a lotto ticket of decency or more. Because ghost players are activated, you don't have to fill out a whole roster there, just send anyone you want and that's all. (Whether that's 1 guy or 25) and if you don't want to bother, you don't have to send anyone.

The Winter League season lasts 88 games.

[Young Drachma]

tvan will be taking over the Lake Placid franchise. We got to talking about sports over the weekend during the debate tournament, I mentioned OOTP and he thought he'd enjoy playing, so it's good to have him here.

He'll be moving the club elsewhere, but we'll announce that move sometime this week.

[Young Drachma]

[scotto313]

Very nice name and logo!

[Young Drachma]

File is up. We'll sim FA1 tomorrow. If you east coast folks need me to modify the schedule, please let me know. We had a lot of exports tonight though, so it didn't appear that we needed to modify anything. We'll play tomorrow by ear.

HTML going up soon.

[claphamsa]

I actually didnt lose power

[claphamsa]

crap! I cant believe I didnt resign Gray I missed him on the salary screen as FA eligible!

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by claphamsa

crap! I cant believe I didnt resign Gray I missed him on the salary screen as FA eligible!

Fire the GM!

[claphamsa]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Fire the GM!

cant, he just won GM of the year!

[Gomer]

Up and running now on the work computer. We should be good to go.
Is the new guy moving the team to Wyoming?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Gomer

Up and running now on the work computer. We should be good to go.
Is the new guy moving the team to Wyoming?

Good to know you're up and running!

Yes, the Plowboys will take over all of Lake Placid's players but is technically an expansion team. He's coming by my office tomorrow with his laptop and I'm getting him setup, because it turns out OOTP is sort of a pain in the ass to setup if you've never played a text sim before.

This reminds me, I need to run the draft lottery.

[Young Drachma]

[wolvie109]

50 balls!

[Young Drachma]

[Young Drachma]

I forgot to switch tvan from defunct Lake Placid/Syracuse to Wyoming and so, the AI briefly had control of Wyoming and signed Strutchen. I voided that deal because Tim won't get a chance to export until tomorrow and so, I'd prefer he see the landscape before letting him get stuck with a bunch of bad AI contracts that he might not want.

I just wanted to let you know, in case you see the signing in transactions and wonder WTF was going on.

[Young Drachma]

FA1 is complete. So far, Ponty Lopez and Brad Scots both head back to Chicago, Chicago getting the absolute best on that deal for Junior Garza as they get back Ponty and keep Garza as a parting gift. Dumbest trade I've made in this league ever.

Thursday, November 14th, 1861
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent SP Jimmy Gentzel to a 5-year contract worth a total of $15,420,000.
Chicago Hornets: Signed free agent SS Helespôntico López to a 3-year contract worth a total of $22,560,000.
Brooklyn Titans: Signed free agent 1B Clayton Cox Jr. to a 3-year contract worth a total of $3,600,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent CL Manuel Guillén to a 7-year contract worth a total of $42,575,000.
Chicago Hornets: Signed free agent SP Brad Scots to a 4-year contract worth a total of $109,280,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent RF Ed Cotton to a 6-year contract worth a total of $28,500,000.
Brooklyn Titans: Signed free agent CF Dusty Kelly to a 2-year contract worth a total of $3,500,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent MR Amari Gray to a 4-year contract worth a total of $34,100,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent SP Shakil Sa'eed to a 6-year contract worth a total of $146,780,000.
Sunday, November 10th, 1861
Cleveland Spiders: Signed CL Franklin Buenrostro to a 6-year contract extension worth a total of $54,950,000.
Cleveland Spiders: Signed RF Salvador Bernal to a 4-year contract extension worth a total of $27,000,000.

[Young Drachma]

Uploading now.

[Young Drachma]

Also don't forget that we have the Winter League now, in case you have some prospects you'd like to see (maybe) get some development work in over the winter months.

[Young Drachma]

File is up. FA2 tomorrow night.

[claphamsa]

man! how did i sign no one

[Gomer]

Hey YD.... can you check on the status of my export? I exported for FA-1, and in-game it doesn't have any pending FA offers listed for me. Which is wrong, 'cause I did make some offers to guys who haven't signed yet.

[Gomer]

Originally Posted by wolvie109

50 balls!

Better hope them balls are BIG!

[wolvie109]

not big enough...

[Young Drachma]

Oh here are the rest of the draft order:

11. Gettysburg
12. Winnemucca
13. Washington
14. Wyoming (via St. Louis)
15 Rio Grande
16. Wyoming (via St. Diego)

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Gomer

Hey YD.... can you check on the status of my export? I exported for FA-1, and in-game it doesn't have any pending FA offers listed for me. Which is wrong, 'cause I did make some offers to guys who haven't signed yet.

Your export didn't go through last night. I checked again just now.

[Gomer]

I exported again today. It said it went through on my end. Any suggestions?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Gomer

I exported again today. It said it went through on my end. Any suggestions?

Your export went through today. It's in there and downloaded okay. I was referring to your export from yesterday.

[Young Drachma]

Anyone else notice how Strutchen and Ridgeway are so similar?

I like them both, but I have doubts about whether either can lead a team to a title since neither has played for a winning team for any length of time.

[Young Drachma]

Ryan Schaefer is 15 wins away from becoming the 3rd pitcher in SLOP history to 300 wins. Meanwhile, 34-year old Chris Ross is just 33 wins away from 300. The only guy in the Top 20 who is younger is 33-year old Winnemucca hurler Denis Sheehan who has a relatively modest 216 career wins.

Ross won 5 pitcher of the year awards before he turned 30, but has gone on a 3-year drought of them. Still, at this rate, he's further establishing himself as one of the best hurlers in SLOP history.

[Young Drachma]

Here's FA2:

Oct 1861 | Nov 1861 | Dec 1861
Friday, November 29th, 1861
Brooklyn Titans: Signed free agent 3B Tristan Farrell to a 9-year contract worth a total of $191,385,000.
Columbus Crusaders: Signed free agent SP Tony Archuleta to a 4-year contract worth a total of $68,000,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent C Aurelio Salinas to a 3-year contract worth a total of $3,600,000.
Washington Grays: Signed free agent SP Matt White to a 6-year contract worth a total of $15,600,000.
Cleveland Spiders: Signed free agent MR Mashiro Morimoto to a 3-year contract worth a total of $10,770,000.
Friday, November 22nd, 1861
Wyoming Plowboys: Signed free agent CF Jimmy Ridgeway to a 8-year contract worth a total of $200,000,000.
Brooklyn Titans: Signed free agent CF D.J. Struchen to a 9-year contract worth a total of $225,000,000.
Washington Grays: Signed free agent SP Reginald Bradley to a 5-year contract worth a total of $68,750,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent 3B Clifton Marshall to a 5-year contract worth a total of $133,100,000.
Thursday, November 21st, 1861
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent MR Diego Rodríguez to a 2-year contract worth a total of $1,810,000.
Chicago Hornets: Signed free agent 3B Danny Salazar to a 5-year contract worth a total of $50,200,000.
Winnemucca Lake Monsters: Signed free agent CF Juan Otero to a 2-year contract worth a total of $2,400,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent RF Ramiro Cruz to a 3-year contract worth a total of $3,465,000.
Washington Grays: Signed free agent 3B Donald Hill to a 2-year contract worth a total of $2,300,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent SS Nick Edwards to a 5-year contract worth a total of $13,930,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent 3B Manuel Fuentes to a 3-year contract worth a total of $8,795,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent MR Dave D'Alterio to a 2-year contract worth a total of $1,400,000.
Monday, November 18th, 1861
Wyoming Plowboys: Signed SP Omar Bizzell to a 3-year contract extension worth a total of $1,245,000.
Saturday, November 16th, 1861 ▾
Washington Grays: Signed SS Ray MacKinley to a 2-year contract extension worth a total of $2,000,000.

Sunday, December 15th, 1861
Washington Grays: Signed free agent 1B Juan Moreno to a 3-year contract worth a total of $3,900,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent 1B Jeremie Stewart to a 4-year contract worth a total of $5,630,000.
Wyoming Plowboys: Signed free agent 2B Matsu Koizumi to a 5-year contract worth a total of $115,000,000.
St. Louis Aviators: Signed free agent CL Nick Bailey to a 4-year contract worth a total of $4,105,000.
Washington Grays: Signed free agent LF Colin Doyle to a 3-year contract worth a total of $6,000,000.
Columbus Crusaders: Signed free agent CF Dusty Kibler to a 4-year contract worth a total of $27,000,000.
Gettysburg Gomers: Signed free agent CL Ed Dycus to a 3-year contract worth a total of $27,000,000.
Columbus Crusaders: Signed free agent 3B Joey Harvey to a 3-year contract worth a total of $18,000,000.
Saturday, December 7th, 1861
Winnemucca Lake Monsters: Signed free agent 1B Sandy Herrera to a 2-year contract worth a total of $2,400,000.

[Young Drachma]

File is up, folks. Tomorrow we'll sim to the start of FA.

[claphamsa]

jeez look at those contracts... did people not get told they are all guaranteed now?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by claphamsa

jeez look at those contracts... did people not get told they are all guaranteed now?

Under the old system, those guys would've gotten 30 million a year or more.

[Subby]

Nine year deal! Wow. You should have to sign a pledge that you won't quit if you give out a deal that's more than 5 seasons long.

[Young Drachma]

I support that.

[Young Drachma]

Brooklyn is $22.204 million over the cap. Rio Grande is $835k over.

But...given there are no likely cuts to get them under $22 million, I'm just wondering what the plan there.

[Young Drachma]

The deadline for getting under the cap is usually just before the season starts, mostly because I like to give people the weekend to make possible trades if they want to. And I have no issues with teams trading over the cap and then releasing someone. But if you're releasing someone making more than $20m, you won't be able to sign any FAs. (Each team is cash capped at $20m, so that's the most salary you can dump annually.)

The game will let you spend a bit over the cap, because there's no cap set in SLOP since cap space trading is allowed. Auctioning a 1st rounder might work this year, especially since Brooklyn has the #2 pick.

But outside of that, there's no likely cuts and so, I'd just be voiding a contract of someone prominent to get them under the cap and then doing an closed auction (I wouldn't be eligible in St. Louis) for a 1-year deal for teams interested in signing said individual.

[jimedrice]

cap? we had a cap? damn... always forget that

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by jimedrice

cap? we had a cap? damn... always forget that

LOL. Well for years the game wouldn't let you go over it. Now it will because the cap isn't set, since otherwise teams who trade cap space wouldn't be able to use it.

The problem is, then it lets you go over a bit if you have cash...

You should let me know (posting here or via PM) what you want to do. Releasing someone will be catastrophic financially. So I can void a contract for you provided it's one of the guys you just signed. But maybe you have another idea. Just want to avert a crisis if I can.

[Young Drachma]

Ok, so here's what I'm going to do. Because tomorrow is already Spring Training and teams are constantly filling their cap space.

I'm going to void the contract of D.J. Struchen of Brooklyn. The deal never would've been allowed (or the one for Farrell) if the game had a salary cap, but I'm not turning on the cap.

I could make Farrell the eligible guy, but Struchen is more valuable I think to almost everyone and had the bigger year last year.

Here's how this is going to go down then:

- Any team (that's not St. Louis, since I run them) including Brooklyn can make a 1-year offer on Strutchen. That's all. You will PM your one-year bids for him and he will be awarded to the highest bidder. These blind bids will not be subject to upping or anything like that. You submit one bid and that's it.

You must have the cap space to make that deal at that moment that you make the offer, it can't be a contingent on space offer and if so, I'll invalidate your offer.

I think the negotiating window right now will be at least 24 hours through spring training tomorrow. (Let's face it, D.J. Strutchen doesn't need ST) and so....if you're interested in making an offer, let me know.

I'll also PM this note to all of you.

[Young Drachma]

Ok, so I think everyone should've gotten that. Or should be checking here anyway. So you have until tomorrow to place a blind bid on him if you want him. I'll announce the winning bid tomorrow just before the sim for spring training starts. Send me a private message.

Remember, it's a 1-year deal. The idea here is you can in theory get negotiating rights to sign him to an extension.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by claphamsa

jeez look at those contracts... did people not get told they are all guaranteed now?

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Under the old system, those guys would've gotten 30 million a year or more.

Under the old system, Strutchen signed with St. Louis for 10-years/$361 million. He signed this year for 9-years/$225 million.

So that tells you how much prices came down. About $11.1 million per year for elite guys. If this was a real major league, we'd probably have had a strike season over the new financial system.

I was tempted to simulate that with a shortened season, but I think that'd be a bit much realism for you folks.

[Young Drachma]

I actually simmed into spring training this year because I wanted to finish off the Winter League season. I forgot to reset Minor League free agency to 8 years, though, so you'll have to wait a year for that because it only lets you do it during the pre-season and I forgot before I started simming.

Anyway, here's the aftermath:

Monday, January 27th, 1862
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent RF Cliff Edwards to a 1-year contract worth a total of $800,000.
Winnemucca Lake Monsters: Signed free agent MR Jean-Claude André to a 1-year contract worth a total of $700,000.
Memphis Smokers: Signed free agent SP Deshawn Hall to a 1-year contract worth a total of $800,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent SP Roger Bullock to a 3-year contract worth a total of $2,850,000.
Memphis Smokers: Signed free agent 3B Don Bingham to a 1-year contract worth a total of $1,000,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent LF Miguel González to a 3-year contract worth a total of $4,500,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent 1B Gonzalo Carrión to a 2-year contract worth a total of $2,200,000.
Rio Grande Rough Riders: Signed free agent SS Jon Martinez to a 1-year contract worth a total of $750,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent 2B Ernie Church to a 2-year contract worth a total of $1,600,000.
Washington Grays: Signed free agent SS Allen Kennedy to a 1-year contract worth a total of $1,100,000.
Cleveland Spiders: Signed free agent C Don Hall to a 5-year contract worth a total of $69,500,000.
Memphis Smokers: Signed free agent SP Pablo Nieto to a 1-year contract worth a total of $950,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent LF Beau Fisher to a 1-year contract worth a total of $1,100,000.
Memphis Smokers: Signed free agent SP Rafael Baca to a 1-year contract worth a total of $950,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent CL Ili Shan to a 4-year contract worth a total of $15,200,000.
Winnemucca Lake Monsters: Signed free agent 3B Kevin McKinney to a 1-year contract worth a total of $1,600,000.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent CF Caspar Selkirk to a 1-year contract worth a total of $1,000,000.
Cleveland Laborers: Signed free agent CF Jimmy Evers to a 1-year contract worth a total of $18,500,000.
Saturday, January 25th, 1862
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Signed free agent MR Francisco Enriquez to a 3-year contract worth a total of $1,575,000.
Winnemucca Lake Monsters: Signed free agent 2B Alberto Hermández to a 1-year contract worth a total of $1,500,000.
Sunday, January 19th, 1862
St. Louis Aviators: Demoted MR Ernie Carter to Winter League St. Louis.
St. Louis Aviators: Demoted 1B Jeremie Stewart to Winter League St. Louis.
St. Louis Aviators: Demoted C Aurelio Salinas to Winter League St. Louis.
St. Louis Aviators: Demoted 1B Jeremie Stewart to Winter League St. Louis.
St. Louis Aviators: Demoted C Aurelio Salinas to Winter League St. Louis.
Columbus Crusaders: Demoted MR Colin Baxter to Winter League Columbus.
Lake Tahoe Syndicate: Purchased the contract of 3B Mike Torres from Triple A Oakland.
The St. Louis Aviators traded 27-year-old catcher Jimmy Arbogast to the San Diego Fathers, getting 24-year-old center fielder Fred Bishop in return.
St. Louis Aviators: Demoted CF Fred Bishop to Winter League St. Louis.
The St. Louis Aviators traded nothing to the Kauai Emeralds, getting 33-year-old center fielder Michael Payne in return.


Tuesday, February 18th, 1862
The St. Louis Aviators traded 29-year-old third baseman Manuel Fuentes to the Washington Grays, getting $1 in cash in return.
Monday, February 3rd, 1862
Cleveland Spiders: Signed free agent SP Yataro Arai to a 3-year contract worth a total of $11,600,000.

[Young Drachma]

File is up. Spring training tomorrow. Get those Strutchen bids in, too.

[INDalltheway]

Damn - did my export not go through?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by INDalltheway

Damn - did my export not go through?

No export. I checked several times for the teams that weren't in at deadline.

You all with the export failure issues might want to make absolutely sure you have the latest league file downloaded before you export. You might be making changes on an older file than we're on, then uploading your export from that file making the game think you're sending an old export when you think you're sending a new one.

I often send my export in more than once, just to be sure too, because I'd experience this occasionally too in FOBL where my export wouldn't be received.

[Young Drachma]

Reminder that tonight is Spring Training. Also, get those bids in. FFP closes tonight at 10pm eastern.

[INDalltheway]

It may have been caused because I didn't have the newest patch installed. Did you get my export from early this AM?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by INDalltheway

It may have been caused because I didn't have the newest patch installed. Did you get my export from early this AM?

I will check later.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by INDalltheway

It may have been caused because I didn't have the newest patch installed. Did you get my export from early this AM?

I just checked. It's received.