My solution to big market/small market problem...

[Tram2Whitaker]

This is my real life hypothetical solution to the real life problem of large market teams v. small market teams, and I was wondering how to go about this in setting up a new league.

This hypothetical league would take the top 20 revenue producing (real life) teams, such as the Yankees, and put them in a Major League. At the same time, have a simultaneous "small market" Major League, featuring the bottom 10 (real life) ML teams and the top 10 minor league markets, thus creating a 40 team major league.

Here is the technical issue. The 2 Major Leagues would not be mutually exclusive, in fact going after the same pool of free agents, and trading players between the leagues, and such (except the LML would go after 1st and 2nd tier free agents, and the SML would go after lower level free agents) Further, the SML would not be a "feeder league" for the LML, as each major league would have the current minor league infrastructure (i.e. AAA, AA, A, short A, and rookie league, each with 40 teams). The SML would simply pay less for their players, as they would be limited with a hard salary cap, whereas the LML would not.

So far, in the demo versions, I have not been able to create this league by importing current ML teams. Further, I either have to create the major leagues (and their minor league systems) separated, or else create the SML as a sub-league of the much larger league, limiting my ability to structure the financial s, or as a minor league to the LML.

Any suggestions?

[kq76]

I'm afraid this isn't of much help, but at least it might be something...

I'm not sure you can do all that, especially the part about limiting the type of FAs each league can go after. The separating the teams into different leagues part should be no problem. Maybe the demo just doesn't allow you to do that or maybe imported rosters won't for some reason (I've never tried with MLB, just fictional). You could try doing it by dumping the world database, manipulating it outside of the game and then re-importing it although I doubt that's necessary.

[targetthyself]

i dont think its a problem... why can't we just mitigate our own expectations rather than make the leagues fair... as if that matters. I know id love nothing more then to cut down the Yankees on the field of battle, rather than castrate them for balance sake. I personally am in a league (MLBDreams shameless plug) who has a dynasty(Boston), this motivates me... it keeps me going, ive even switched to the Yankees(who the CPU ran into the ground) just so i could personally try to beat him in the toughest divison in baseball. Am i going to be a Dynasty myself, i seriously doubt it, as Aaron is a top class GM and has the advantage over us, but ill spend every second that league stays alive trying, i find being David far more fun then being Goliath, I wish more did.

[Le Grande Orange]

My solution would be to completely rework the game's financial system to make it both more realistic and more flexible.

But, uh, well, that's not on the table for this year. And maybe not next year either. It'd be a pretty big revision...