The Otis Association is a promotion / relegation setup featuring three tiered leagues.
- PENTHOUSE LEAGUE (TIER 1; REPUTATION 10)
- SKYLOBBY LEAGUE (TIER 2; REPUTATION 8)
- BASEMENT LEAGUE (TIER 3; REPUTATION 6)
Each season will see one team relegated from and promoted to the various levels in the traditional manner according to their record in the 162-game regular season, with tiebreakers applied if necessary.
Each league is comprised of ten MLB teams, ranked initially according to their current IRL payroll.
Which means, at inception, the three leagues will look like this, with their financial standings as at Opening Day, 1980:
Penthouse League
Skylobby League
Basement League
Each of these clubs has a AAA franchise at which to develop their prospects and playing group. These clubs will stay in their original formation throughout, without being subject to promotion and relegation.
In lieu of League playoffs, there will be an end-of-season tournament in which the Skylobby and Basement League winners will play off in a best-of-five series, with the winner then taking on the Penthouse League Champion in a seven-game series for the Otis Cup.
Settings
For the most part, I am applying the appropriate settings to make this as challenging and different to my other saves as possible. In other words:
- Stars / 2 to 8 / cut off above max / low scouting with no stats.
- Coaching is on with defaults left in place.
- Owner goals / storylines both on.
- Injuries on and set to classic for Short-term and low for long-term, with the players’ injury ratings hidden. Position player fatigue set to high.
- Suspensions on and set to low.
- Personality / Chemistry / Morale all on.
- Aging / development speeds at default with target at younger for dev and older for aging.
- TCR at 175.
- Trading one short of hardest / prospects one toward hardest.
- AI eval at 54/24/16/6. Lineups sabermetric.
I have spent a big chunk of time testing the financials and think I have got them set up in a way that both reflects the IRL and is manageable and effective within the promotion / relegation structure.
To protect the integrity of this financial ecosystem, I will be applying the following settings from inception in 1980:
- All clubs start with 50 fan interest / 5 loyalty.
- Inflation set at -2 / +4%, but will move around to keep things in check.
- Cash compensation for lost FAs.
- FAs allowed in and out of the three leagues.
- No service time reset.
- Opt-outs permitted / min buyout 10%.
- Extensions permitted with max contract duration set at 5 years.
- No salary caps.
Most of the other game settings are at default, so I won’t bore you with specifics but feel free to ask if you want to know any of them.
There will be a communal Rookie Draft consisting of six rounds on December 1 each year, and a communal Rule 5 Draft two weeks later. The order for the Rookie Draft will be set in a way that respects the Association’s hierarchy, with the higher-up teams getting more early picks.
One of the unique elements of this will be the almost exclusive use of historical minor league players. Basically, anyone that has a Lahman ID is ineligible, although a handful of randomly-chosen players with MLB experience will enter the Association each year as Free-Agents.
The peripatetic nature of these MiLB players’ careers and the hit-or-miss element of their statistical IRL output will make this an absolute crapshoot, even though I have switched recalc OFF and will just be letting the dev engine do its work. In the sim testing alone, I could already see this league was going to be a ton of fun on so many levels, not least the annual drama of the promotion / relegation itself.