As a theme to get owners to use more unique players instead of the usual suspects, I stumbled upon the idea of a league where each owner uses players from a randomly-selected birth year.
We are moving to Season 4 and going back to the beginnings of the game, using players born between 1857 and 1880. Lots of unfamiliar faces who could be heroes! We need a few new owners to round out the league. You'll have $100M to spend on your roster, which gives almost everyone a fighting chance to make the playoffs; the paper favorites never seem to win here.
We are halfway to using all of the birth years between 1857-2000 over six seasons, and then we'll run a Tournament of Champions for the final four teams from each season. Any owner who plays for three seasons or more will be eligible for the ToC, if you don't get in on your own, you can take manage some other owner's second or third entry.
We have 13 owners who have signed up to return and I will post the draw for their random seasons once contrarian23 sends me the draw. Come and join us!
THE FULL RULES:
League number MLB144249
DH in both leagues.
No WW or trades, you can only play with your the players you draft for your given birth year. No clones! [I was asked if we could make an exception for this season, and some teams would have loved to have a pitcher/hitter clone, but I'd already ruled them out.]
0/6 below average AAA: Because there are a couple of seasons that don't have enough pitchers or innings, all teams will get six random below-average AAA pitchers. [If you don't have seven pitchers, roster a $200k guy and you'll send him down once the season starts.] You should re-name your AAA pitchers after scrub players born in the year you've been assigned.
Also, to clarify a question from _JJP_, you may use the 200k exemption in place of any pitcher who only has available seasons of more than 200 innings, so you're not stuck rostering a lot of innings you can't use. But if you have seven available pitchers with less than 200 innings, you've got to use them all, and no 200k exemption.
The 1860 team is especially light on pitching, but has an all-star team of hitters, so who knows how it will turn out?
You must choose a manager who was born in your given year, if one exists, and choose a home park from one of the seasons that he managed. This rule may be harder to follow this season because there are a bunch of pre-1900 parks that aren't in the SIM . . . if none of your manager's home parks are eligible, I guess that WhatIfSports park is the default.
We do need some new faces to fill out the full 24 seasons. Come and join us!
ASSIGNED SEASONS AND OWNERS
1857
1858
1859 DJTaylor
1860
1861 oldtimer59
1862
1863 Rattlers
1864 contrarian23
1865
1866 vilefileman
1867 zephyr1949
1868
1869
1870 holleybard
1871 redcped
1872
1873
1874 _JJP_
1875 joerat1
1876 whalers10
1877 bixman51
1878 tdoak
1879 2chair
1880 bbondsmvp
1/2/2026 9:00 PM (edited)