Historical Grab Bag League - Initial Draft
 

I just spent two hours clicking the "Random Player" button on baseball-reference.com, and importing that player into a league. The search for a draft pool yielded several players, including five Hall of Famers - Paul Molitor, Nolan Ryan, Rogers Hornsby, George Brett, and Mike Schmidt. It also yielded some infamous players such as Bob Welch, Rob Deer, Dave Kingman, Elton "Ice Box" Chamberlain, and Bob Horner, in addition to steady major leaguers like Lance Parrish and Dave Parker, or Garry Templeton and Wally Moon and Hank Sauer. I also got a lot of nobodies, like Gene Leek, Joe Hutcheson, Phil Linz, Harry Heitman, and Bill Essick.

In the first round, the number one overall pick was of course 2B Rogers Hornsby, with his B/B/G talents and 10/10/10 ratings. Up next, however, was a surprise, 20 year old pitching prospect Ice Box Chamberlain and his G/B/G talents and 10/10/7 ratings. Pitchers dominated the rest of the rounds, with Bob Welch, Vern Ruhle, Randy Johnson, Steve Hargan, Nolan Ryan, and Bob Ojeda closing out the round.

Up next in the second round, another pitcher went first, Cyclone Miller. Then, the second position player was not George Brett or Paul Molitor, it was Chet Lemon, followed by Dave Parker, Hank Sauer, Wally Moon, Eduardo Perez, Ron Fairly, and Jim LeFebvre! A run on pitchers is expected next round. From now on, I'll post surprises.

What an excellent idea for a league!

Day 1 (First 8 Rounds) of the draft is complete. I will now import some more players for the next 8.

Real nice league idea. Are you importing everyone's rookie season or their best season? Or is their another way you determine which year of his career you import a player with?

I go in a cycle of three steps:
1) Career Year
2) Rookie Year
3) Veteran Year

For example:
1) Rogers Hornsby, I picked the year he hit .400 with 40 HR, I think it was 1925.
2) Bob Welch, his rookie year was 1978.
3) Mike Schmidt, I picked his 1985 season, when he was a bit of a veteran.

Then for the next player I would repeat the cycle again. It just so happened that Ted Williams and Bob Gibson showed up in the "career year" cycle, so the league should be fun. I now have enough players imported for each team to get 14 players, so I'll just keep going for about 150 more players. It takes quite a while...

Fantastic Idea! :) Keep us updated!

With 40 spots left in the league, I am going to fill 10 with some of my favorite players and leave the other 30 up to suggestions. Are there any particular players that anyone wants to see in the league (complete with a Lahman ID and a year)?

Well, with 199 players in, I'm going to import the last player right now and start the draft. The league is composed of 8 teams: Florida, Boston, St. Louis, San Francisco, San Diego, Minnesota, Texas, and Seattle. The initial draft has been randomized and the order is BOS, SDP, SFG, FLO, SEA, TEX, MIN, STL. It will be a serpentine draft. OK, I just imported player #200 and it is Rod Beck. Who woulda thunk it.

OK, Top players in the draft:
C - Bob O'Farrell, Lance Parrish, Biff Pocoroba
1B - Broderick Perkins, Tony Clark, Brian Duabach
2B - Rogers Hornsby, Ryne Sandberg, Tom Daly
3B - Wade Boggs, George Brett, Leo Gomez
SS - Dave Bancroft, Garry Templeton, Chris Speier
OF - Ted Williams, Bob Hazle, Ken Griffey Jr.
OF - Wally Berger, Tony Gwynn, Rocky Colavito
OF - Baby Doll Jacobson, Wally Moon, Dale Murphy
SP - (10) Pedro Martinez, Bob Gibson, Howie Camnitz, Elton Chamberlain, Randy Johnson
SP - (9) Bob Ojeda, Bob Welch, Tom Hughes, Brian Barnes, Jesse Tanehill, Nolan Ryan
MR - (10) Ferdie Schupp, David Nied, (9) Jim Umbricht
CL - (10) Rod Beck, Dennis Eckersley, Roberto Hernandez, Billy Wagner

In the first round, Boston passes on a young Ted Williams to pick up Pedro Martinez. Williams slides to second and goes home to San Diego. Possibly a bad move for Boston as SP is the draft's deepest position. Rogers Hornsby and Bob Gibson go 3-4 before Hurricane Hazle and Ken Griffey Jr. along with Colavito, followed by a shocker in Earl Hamilton, who is only rated 8, but has great talent and is only 22 years of age.

Howie Camnitz, a projected first round pick, slips to 13th overall at Florida, as another run on outfielders and pitchers follows. Seattle picks Randy Johnson in the fourth round, which could very well be a steal. The entire 1971 Baltimore Orioles rotation is picked between 32-36 picks with Foghorn Bradley sneaking in between. Everybody grabs a closer in rounds 5-6, with Wagner, Hernandez, Eckersley, and Beck leaving the board. A shocker in round 7 is that Chris Speier becomes the first SS selected instead of Hall of Famer Dave Bancroft. Hall of Famer Eddie Collins, 21 years young, falls to San Francisco in round 8, teaming up with David Justice, Bancroft, and Wade Boggs in a strong infield. George Brett falls to the 10th round, along with Paul Molitor, and Baby Doll Jacobson goes in the 11th. A/A/A/A rated second baseman Arlie Latham may be the steal of the 12th round. Outfielder Rob Deer falls to the 14th round and San Francisco. First Baseman Steve Garvey may be used as a backup in San Fran, but he may be another steal. Once again the Giants make news in the 21st, picking Dave Kingman as their 5th first baseman, though they still lack a catcher.

Top 10 Prospects As League Starts:
1) SFG OF Wally Berger
2) MIN SP Bob Welch
3) SFG 1B David Justice
4) SFG SP Foghorn Bradley
5) TEX 3B Bob Horner
6) SFG MR David Nied
7) SFG SP Gary Ryerson
8) BOS SP Brian Holman
9) BOS SP Bill Hands
10) FLO SP Hal Mauck

As for adding rookies, there will be no injuries and there will be no rookie draft. I will see how many people retire at the beginning of each new regular season, and I will supplement their team with a random player at the position that they lost.

This hasn't really generated any interest whatsoever, but just in case you're interested, the 2002 recap will be up whenever I have time this week.

Just because there arent a lot of responses posted doesnt meet there isnt any interest. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing about the league.

Many of my early HOB posts didnt get much of a response but as I found out later people were reading them and (hopefully) enjoying most of them.

Dude,

I check this thread three times a day to see if you posted anything new. I am also likely going to buy this game because what you are doing sounds like so much fun.

Plus I even registered and posted so you'd keep going with the updates.

Thanks!
Pete

Neat idea for a league. It amazes me just how many different ideas people have for this game.

Good luck with this league. I look forward to seeing the reports.

Speaking as someone who lurks more than posts, don't let the lack of direct replies dissuade you.

There are probably plenty of "silent" readers around here who'd like to hear how your concept fairs.

It is an interesting idea for a league, so go for it! :)

This is definately one of the most unique ideas for a league I have ever heard of - keep up the good work.

One suggestion - you could just use a random number generator instead of spending so much time on baseball-ref.... just a thought

_dan

<small>[ 05-01-2002, 01:57 AM: Message edited by: dnic ]</small>

Well I have no idea about programming but could someone actually make a random number generator for use of the lahman database? That would be pretty awesome.

Shane

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Specs:
<strong>This hasn't really generated any interest whatsoever, but just in case you're interested, the 2002 recap will be up whenever I have time this week.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Don't confuse lack of responces with lack of reads. Post it and they will come..

J

Great idea for a league. How did you setup the league. I thought that I would try and do the same thing, after seeing your idea but I keeping running into import problems.

Specifically I create the league and release all the players then delete the free agents, and when I imoprt any players their ratings are zeroed out.

Any help?

I can normally import players in other situations just fine.

thanks....