So here is our latest scheme with me and my friend Paul - playing out a 20 game season using a five team league. So far we've done a couple of best-of-five series with teams that we drafted, with an increasing power creep as I've added more gold and silver figs to my collection. So it was time to try something different - build five balanced teams, try and have a mini-league on our own. Practically speaking, there are currently only five relievers so we couldn't make more than five teams without duping people or going with no relievers. Also, we decided not to use any 4* people, or HOFERs, to see how the scores went. And these teams weren't exactly drafted, they were constructed - the points are a bit too tight to draft five teams out of the limited figure pool and make it work team-by-team (and also, to have somewhat balanced offenses and defenses). Since there aren't too many pogs, the teams are using the pog versions as bench even though the "real" players are on other teams... so we'll assume Pog Helton is 'like' the real Helton, but not really Helton, for instance.

We decided that we'd each have one team that only we would play (determined randomly) and for the other games, we'd roll. Since I've been doing weekly demos at the game shop, I have a pool of teams to bust out for the demo night and play a random game with someone at the store, or for the occasional game with my wife or a non-gamer (and handy stats sheets to score it).

We built a 20-game schedule, with designated pitchers for each game, and printed sheets - so we can play games out of order, since the rotation is pre-determined. The trick now is building a database to paste the game results and generate ongoing season stats. (If anyone has built anything to do that, please share~ otherwise I'll be cracking into Access or XLS this week...)

Anyway, I'll post some game results here and there, standings and whatnot, Octavious was just asking for more game results and we'll ultimately have 20 of them...

Here are the five teams, I'll post the schedule next w/ explanations:

------------------
FLAMERS
(yeah, there's an in-joke there...)
TEAM 1 Pts
SP1 Johnson 3
SP2 Clemens 2
SP3 Wood 2
RP K-Rod 1
1B Casey 2
2B Castillo 2
SS Matsui 1
3B A-Rod 3
C Kendall 2
RF Ichiro 3
CF Griffey 2
LF Dunn 1
DH Greene 1

Bench Pog Soriano 3
Bench Pog L.Castillo 2

------------------
WALKERS
(This is the team I got stuck with on the roll...)
TEAM 2 PTs
Schmidt 3
Sheets 2
Loaiza 1
Graves 2
Thome 3
Loretta 2
Crosby 1
Mora 2
Martinez 1
Guerrero 3
Hunter 2
Matsui 2
Harvey 1

Pog Helton 3
Pog Mauer 1
Pog Willis 1

------------------
BOMBERS
(Paul got Beltre...boooo)
TEAM 3 Pts
Schilling 3
Glavine 2
Brown 1
Gagne 3
Ortiz 2
Boone 2
Izturis 1
Beltre 2
Lo Duca 1
Sheffield 3
Damon 2
Berkman 2
Thomas 1

Pog Rolen 3
Pog Sheets 2
------------------
SPEEDY JACKS
(This would be my favorite)
TEAM 4 PTs
Santana 2
Buehrle 2
Prior 1
Rivera 3
Pujols 3
Kent 1
Tejada 3
Chavez 2
Mauer 1
Abreu 2
Jones 2
Crawford 2
B.Giles 1

Pog Mora 2
Pog Ramirez 1
Greene 1
Pog Martinez 1

------------------
DREGS
TEAM 5 PTs
Martinez 3
Mulder 3
Sabathia 1
Kolb 1
Helton 3
Giles 2
Garciaparra 2
Ramirez 1
Lopez 2
Cabrerra 2
Biggio 1
Manny 3
Nix 1

Pog Thome 3
Pog Pierre 2

Here is the schedule...

We debated whether each team should play the other teams as home and away series, instead of just home and away games, and maybe that is something for the winter, with new teams. We're still holding out hope for a lifeline from Wizkids this fall - some kind of new product, something. So we settled on just home and away games against each other team...

The number after the team name is where they're at in the rotation, so we could play games out of order if necessary. (Like only Paul will play the Bombers; so if I'm at the game store and someone wants to play a game, we can skip games to get to the next non-Bomber game, and we know who's pitching).

I'll dig out the scorecards, I think we got the first 3 games in the books.

SCHEDULE

1 Flamers 1 vs Walkers 1
2 Bombers 1 vs Speedy Jacks 1
3 Walkers 2 vs Dregs 1
4 Speedy Jacks 2 vs Flamers 2
5 Dregs 2 vs Bombers 2
6 Speedy Jacks 3 vs Walkers 3
7 Flamers 3 vs Dregs 3
8 Walkers 1 vs Bombers 3
9 Dregs 1 vs Speedy Jacks 1
10 Bombers 1 vs Flamers 1
11 Flamers 2 vs Speedy Jacks 2
12 Speedy Jacks 3 vs Bombers 2
13 Walkers 2 vs Speedy Jacks 1
14 Dregs 2 vs Flamers 3
15 Bombers 3 vs Walkers 3
16 Flamers 1 vs Bombers 1
17 Dregs 3 vs Walkers 1
18 Speedy Jacks 2 vs Dregs 1
19 Bombers 2 vs Dregs 2
20 Walkers 2 vs Flamers 2

This is an ambitious project. Very Cool!
I'm betting on Speedy Jacks to go 8-1 and win the series. They will lose game 4 to the Flamers. Oooh, I think I was just channeling Jimmy the Greek.
I have an Access database I made for 2004 which I've partially modified for 2005, but it is very homespun, so I don't know if it would help you much, but if you PM your e-mail, I'll send you a copy.

Game Results so Far... we've played three (I'm likely switching to the Speedy Jacks, they look to be more fun, I love Crawford's speed, and Paul is cool with it... he has Beltre).

Game One, Eugene played the Flamers against the Walkers...

First inning - the Flamers batted completely around, scoring five runs against Jason Schmidt. It was just one of those innings where he either guessed every pitch, or rolled a 9 when Jason rolled low... Ichiro stretched into triple at lead-off. Casey doubled and knocked him in second. A-Rod flew out. Dunn walked. Kendall singled, loading the bases. Griffey hit into a fielders choice that missed the double play (I took the out at home). (As an aside, is there a rule that if the play goes home, you can't go for a DP? Seems like it'd be a good house rule).

Castillo and Kat Matsui both doubled out of the 7th and 8th spots (oh, the humiliation) and then Randy even got a single! Ichiro grounded out to end the inning, 5 runs later...

Then Dunn got a solo homer in the second inning, making it 6-0.

On the other hand, Schmidt recovered in the 4th, hitting his Shut 'Em Down against the heart of the Flamer's line up, and was able to complete the game on Flamethrower and not give up any more runs.

Meanwhile, Randy was brutal to the Walkers. Mora and Loretta did their thing, getting on base frequently, and Guerrero doubled in a run in the third, and hit a two-run homer in the eighth, to make the final score 6-3. No one else was effective.

Game Two last week (Paul played the Bombers vs John as Speedy Jacks)
Damon doubled to open things against Santana; Beltre singled but that drove Damon home (he is rather fast). On the other side, Crawford stretched a double into a triple, and then Bobby Abreu hit a fly ball and Crawford tagged up. Score was 1-1.

Bombers went on to score two more in the third and fourth innings, Beltre hit a solo homer, and Izturis doubled at one point, scoring Lo Duca from first (Lo Duca gambled and ran against Abreu's bad arm in right field).

Things settled down until the 8th inning, when Andruw Jones somehow homered off Schilling with Kent at first, tying the game 3-3.

We both went to the benches in the ninth to try and get something going, so the game ended up being Mariano Rivera against Gagne; in the bottom of the 10th, Chavez, Mauer, and then Kent all hit singles, loading the bases with two outs, and then Gagne walked in Andruw Jones to lose the game... 4-3. (Pujols was an 0-fer in that game). Paul whined.

Then, I got in the third game with the wifey yesterday, she took on the Walkers with the Dregs, Ben Sheets against Pedro. Guerrero hit a 3-run homer in the third inning with Sheets and Loretta on; for the Dregs, Manny doubled in a run in the the 4th and Javvy Lopez hit a two run homer in the 6th, making it a tie-game at 3-3. Pretty close.

Pog Helton subbed for Sheets in the seventh inning, and hit a pinch-hit three run homer on blue with Torii Hunter and Bobby Crosby on base. That made the score 6-3, and it stayed that way until the bottom of the 9th with Graves pitching. Biggio hit a solo homer making it 6-4 but that was it... Walkers evened their record to 1-1

Overall, the games have been pretty exciting and balanced (even the drubbing the Walkers took was still a fun game...) We'll see if the offenses go crazy when we get to the 1* pitchers.

Sean, I'll PM you, I wouldn't mind checking out your Access DB and see if it would work out.

We got in another game, skipping ahead to Game 5 so Paul could play his Bombers.

Dregs vs Bombers, Mulder vs Glavine

As the Dregs came up to bat, you could hear the lip-smacking salivation of the hitters, feeling bad that the Bombers were forced to field Glavine... and expecting a big run-fest. And the first inning went according to plan, with Cabrerra doubling in Helton and starting the score-fest, 1-0.

(Apparently, 2* Glavine didn't get THAT memo...)

Boone doubled in Ortiz in the second inning for the Dregs, tying the score, and then Beltre solo homered in the 4th, giving the Bombers a 2-1 lead. Meanwhile, Glavine went on to pitch a gem, completely limiting the Dregs. There were lots of factors... I ran some 11 speed guys, Giles and Garciaparra, stretching hits against his 4-defense corner outfielders, and they rolled spectacularly. His Boone played like an all-star at 2B, missing nothing, turning DP's against slow runners, solid.

So Game 5 ended up 2-1 (Gagne came in for the last inning) and the Bombers evened to 1-1.

Sean, I built a small XLS file that is working great for stats, let's me key them in pretty simply after the game and collates everything with simple COUNTIF statements. When it's meaningful I'll start posting league stats.

crash_beedo,
Cool! I can't wait to see how your stats compare to mine.
4 games down only 16 more to go.

I have two more games to add in - Game 4 (Speedy Jacks vs Flamers) and Game 8 (Walkers vs Bombers). We got Game 4 done last week, and then during the week my wife had our baby, so I never had a chance to post it! We have a new little baby girl named Holly! Wahoo!

Then my friend Paul had a chance to come visit at home and see the new baby (we usually play at work once a week over lunch) and the wifey was cool with us getting in a game after the kiddo's were asleep.

So here is the belated Game 4 and recent Game 8.

Game 4 Speedy Jacks vs Flamers
Buehrle vs Clemens

Ah, the problems with waiting a few weeks before posting the game report... remembering the stats. Well, I do remember the game was tied through the 4th inning, and the Flamers were winning 3-1 going into the top of the 7th.

It started off good for the Jacks. In the first inning, Crawford walked for the Speedy Jacks, stole second, and Tejada, batting third, doubled to score him.

In the bottom of the second, the Flamers came back, with Griffey doubling out of the 6th spot and then Castillo singling in the eight-hole and Griffey stretching it home against Abreu's 4-arm in right. Tie game.

A-Rod homered in the fifth, and Ichiro doubled home the pitcher in the 6th, opening the game to a 3-1 lead for the Flamers.

Then in the top of the 7th, things lined up for the Jacks. Kent singled to open the inning, Andruw Jones got struck out, and then Buehrle was replaced by Pog Ramirez, who hit a double in the 9th spot, men on second and third. Crawford walked again, loading the bases, Abreu struck out, Tejada got another single (scoring a run), Pujols walked, keeping the bases loaded and scoring a run, and then Chavez singled as well, scoring a third run. Mauer grounded out to end the inning, but the damage was done - 3 runs scored, and the Jacks had the lead.

Mariano Rivera came in and pitched two scoreless innings to notch another relief win...

Just some observations about the players... Crawford is money. His decent on-base score means he walks a lot, and then that 12 speed makes him a terror. Too bad Juan Pierre didn't have a better defense, he'd be similar.

Tejada has also been an all-star, absolutely worth his 3-stars at short.

Pujols, Thome, David Ortiz... we've seen enough of the 7-red guys to know that they are too streaky. When we have 10 games done, I'll post the halfway stats and you'll see that they're really not carrying their weight. (I do think the 4-star versions of some of those guys are worth it, just not the 2 or 3 star versions...)

A-Rod's stats don't look dominating, but he seems to park one every game...

GAME 8
Walkers vs Bombers
John vs Paul
Jason Schmidt vs Kevin Brown

(Oh, on the previous game I played the Jacks, my friend Eugene played the Flamers again). So the Jacks are now 2-0.

We skipped ahead so that Paul could play his Bombers; based on scheduling wonkiness, that meant 3* Jason Schmidt was up in the rotation because the Walkers were ahead a game on their schedule, while the Bombers were just getting to their third pitcher. (Smack, smack, sound of lip smacks as the Walkers' hitters get ready to tee-off on Kevin Brown...)

First inning for the Walkers looked good, Mora grounded out, Loretta singled, Guerrero flew out, but then Thome doubled. Loretta stretched it against Sheff's bad arm in right, but he hit a 10 and gunned him at the plate.

Meanwhile for the Bombers, all-world Beltre singled after Damon grounded out and Sheff struck out, and then Ortiz flew out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the second, things go interesting for the Bombers; Brett Boone doubled, which he stretched into a triple. Cesar Izturis doubled, which he stretched into a triple, scoring Boone. Brown struck out, but the Bombers lead, 1-0.

Things got funny for the Bombers in the third. Schmidt led off, and got a walk. Mora doubled, putting men at second and third. Loretta and Guerrero made outs. Thome walked, loading the bases - one of those things where he knows I'll roll red, so he rolls black, but I know he knows what I'll roll, so I rolled black too. (You know, the classic... "I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you..."). So now with the bases loaded, he knows what I know that he knows, and so Hideki Matsui also rolled black against his black, and walked again, and Kevin Brown walked in a run. Bwah hah haaaa. Three walks in an inning, including walking in a run, he could pitch for the Rockies. But then he struck out Victor Martinez to get out of the jam.

In the bottom of the third, Beltre knocked in a 2-run homer to give the Bombers a 3-1 lead.

From there, it gets kind of hard to recreate the game from just the stats... more work than I want to put in. The Walkers chipped away, scoring single runs in the 4th and 5th inning, chasing Kevin Brown for his Pog Sheets, who gave up three runs in the top of the 6th (a 2-run Homer by Matsui who rolled red when Sheets rolled red). Ultimately his Gagne came in for the top of the 7th and pitched a number of scoreless innings, holding the Walkers to 6 runs.

The Bombers continued to chip away at Jason Schmidt, scoring a single run in each of the 5th through 8th innings, and they ultimately won it 7 to 6. Damon stretched a double into a triple in the 5th, and Beltre notched another RBI getting a single. Boone got a solo homer in the 6th, and Sheff got a solo homer in the 7th, tie-ing the game up at 6. And the Lo Duca doubled in the bottom of the 8th, and Boone doubled him home to give the Bombers the lead. As mentioned, I couldn't get anything going against Gagne in the top of the 9th, and he notched a win.

Just some observations...

As you all have noticed, Beltre is way undercosted. In a five-team league like this, we're playing lots of alternate third baseman (and a lot of them are solid) but Beltre is all-world. So in a standard constructed type situation, where both players can draw from the same pool, there is no reason to play anyone else... he's easily going to lead our league in most hitting categories.

My eyes were opened by Paul's use of 2* Bret Boone at second (and his macho 6 defense). When Boone clicks down into great range, or up into great range. you can park him near second, and move you SS to the middle SS zone. Now, there should be next to no chance of ever missing an infield grounder. Anything to zone 1 hits the 3-B person, zone 2 hits the short stop, zone 3 is covered by Boone with 6 D and great range (giving him a 6 to field it with the -1 OOP), zone 4 is routine, zone 5 Boone covers it with a 7-D, and zone 6 is routine. It was kinda brutal.

Neat project. Some friends and I are trying to form a league, but we want to add an economy to it. We want it to work something like this: Start out with teams formed with a fairly low point value. After some set number of games is played (a season), awards are given to series winners and overall placement. Winners earn additional stars toward their next season's team (i.e., winning -> more fans -> more $ -> better players).

Thoughts?

billarama,
Doesn't that become a slippery slope? (i.e., winning -> more fans -> more $ -> better players -> more winning -> more $ -> even better players -> etc.)
That is why the MLB has salary caps.
I would think you need something to balance the teams, not make the best teams better.
Other than that, I like the idea.

This is, like it or not, how baseball works. MLB has no salary cap, just a luxury tax which the rich teams ignore anyway.

I guess the way to incorporate the luxury tax would be to have a nonlinear reward system.

In the end, though, the real prize is being able to add cool figures to the team. I don't think a star here and there is going to greatly impact competetive balance.

You could give it a try, but let me express some of my concerns with "campaign style" minis like that... we've done similar things with Heroclix in the past (where your rookies get to become experienced and then veteran, as you notch successes)... and we did a Pirates-style campaign too, where you got gold, bought more ships and crew, to get more gold...

In both those situations, the rich get richer... which is fine for a solo game on the PC, but with your friends, when someone gets left in the dust, they have a curious way of 'having other things going that are preventing them from showing up to play...' stuff like that. Pretty soon everyone will just concede to the person that is clearly in the lead...

So - my caution would be this - you could invest a lot of time up front doing the planning, and putting the structure in place for the league, and then if someone runs away with it, your other players could lose interest (how the heck is my 20 point team going to compete with "steinbrenner's" 40 point team?)

Heck, we've had the same thing happen in a few of our 5-game series with two teams... "Oh, you've got a 2-0 lead and my crappy pitcher is next, let's just call it and do the next series..."

The one thing this five team league has going for it, is since we're both playing alot of different teams, we're not stuck with a loser. And we've agreed to do a mini-series at the end with the two best teams, regardless of whose team they were during the season. So if my team, the Speedy Jacks, gets blown out, I'll play someone else in the playoff, ditto with Paul.

I could see, if we had five different players playing all five teams, and someone's team was like 0-5 or something, having a hard time getting them to play out the string, too.

It's taken a long time, but we finally have the first 10 or so games done.

Here are the results so far:

Flamers vs Walkers, 6-3
Bombers vs Speedy Jacks, 3-4
Walkers vs Dregs, 6-4
Speedy Jacks vs Flamers, 4-3
Dregs vs Bombers, 1-2
Speedy Jacks vs Walkers, 5-3
Flamers vs Dregs, 9-7
Walkers vs Bombers, 6-7
Dregs vs Speedy Jacks, 3-4
Bombers vs Flamers, 2-3
Flamers vs Speedy Jacks, (Not Complete)
Speedy Jacks vs Bombers, 7-6

That makes the current standings like so:

TEAM W L
Speedy 5 0
Flamers 3 1
Bombers 2 3
Walkers 1 3
Dregs 0 4

We have a full database of stats, I'll start posting some as I get the chance.

Basic hitting stats so far (I tried to exclude pitchers and bench players like the pogs - a few of the pogs are batting 1.000):

Ichiro-Flamers, AVG: 0.631, RBIs: 2
Guerrero-Walkers, AVG: 0.500, RBIs: 8
Tejada-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.500, RBIs: 4
Garciaparra-Dregs, AVG: 0.500, RBIs: 1
Lopez-Dregs, AVG: 0.470, RBIs: 5
Beltre-Bombers, AVG: 0.450, RBIs: 7
Loretta-Walkers, AVG: 0.444, RBIs: 0
Giles-Dregs, AVG: 0.428, RBIs: 0
Johnson-Flamers, AVG: 0.428, RBIs: 0
Kendall-Flamers, AVG: 0.421, RBIs: 1
Casey-Flamers, AVG: 0.421, RBIs: 5
Lo Duca-Bombers, AVG: 0.421, RBIs: 0
Matsui-Flamers, AVG: 0.375, RBIs: 3
Castillo-Flamers, AVG: 0.375, RBIs: 3
Hunter-Walkers, AVG: 0.352, RBIs: 1
Abreu-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.347, RBIs: 4
Biggio-Dregs, AVG: 0.333, RBIs: 3
Berkman-Bombers, AVG: 0.333, RBIs: 2
Thome-Walkers, AVG: 0.333, RBIs: 2
Chavez-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.318, RBIs: 3
Cabrerra-Dregs, AVG: 0.312, RBIs: 1
Crawford-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.304, RBIs: 3
Jones-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.300, RBIs: 6
Ortiz-Bombers, AVG: 0.300, RBIs: 3
Sheffield-Bombers, AVG: 0.285, RBIs: 2
Kent-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.272, RBIs: 2
A-Rod-Flamers, AVG: 0.263, RBIs: 4
Boone-Bombers, AVG: 0.263, RBIs: 3
Pujols-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.260, RBIs: 2
Manny-Dregs, AVG: 0.250, RBIs: 1
Ramirez-Dregs, AVG: 0.250, RBIs: 1
Crosby-Walkers, AVG: 0.250, RBIs: 1
Matsui-Walkers, AVG: 0.235, RBIs: 2
Izturis-Bombers, AVG: 0.222, RBIs: 2
Damon-Bombers, AVG: 0.181, RBIs: 1
Helton-Dregs, AVG: 0.176, RBIs: 0
Griffey-Flamers, AVG: 0.166, RBIs: 0
Dunn-Flamers, AVG: 0.157, RBIs: 2
Mauer-Speedy Jacks, AVG: 0.136, RBIs: 0
Mora-Walkers, AVG: 0.105, RBIs: 1