[luckymann]

Well, Ted Williams certainly let the baseball world know there is a new Kid in town with that outrageous rookie season. The question is, will the Red Sox be able to do in this timeline what they couldn't in the real one and build a squad around him to lock down a Championship or two? Or will the Yanks' IRL dominance translate here as well. Over in the NL, with Campy and now Pee Wee we are starting to see the foundation for that great Dodgers dynasty of the 40s and 50s being built. Can they finally see some post-season action? Can the Tribe? Will the Cards ever come good?

So many unanswered questions and so many amazing players doing astounding things it is hard to know where to look sometimes, which seems set to continue. All eyes are on Lou Gehrig this year as he approaches the Babe's HR mark, while Satchel Paige should pass Walter Johnson's strikeout record over the next few seasons. Most of the other records look fairly safe for the time being.

Only two more NeLers to come into the league - Larry Doby in '42 and then the great man himself: Jackie Robinson in 1945. After that, the exodus of these superb ballplayers is fairly quick, with all gone by 1960 at the latest and most well before that.

While I'll miss having them in the league, their absence will free up a lot of the settings I've had to impose to enable me to properly track them and keep their ratings where they should be. This in turn will continue to increase the challenge for yours truly to keep the Bucs competitive.

As it is, I've made a few key settings changes to usher in the new decade. We're moving from 4- to 5-man rotations, with Pitcher Stamina now ticked down from HIGH to NORMAL. The Active Roster has been increased from 24 to 26, with Position Player Fatigue now set to HIGH. I'm a bit concerned about depth across the franchises at both the MLB and AAA levels, especially with no Historical Minors, so I will almost certainly increase the number of Draft rounds to the max that can be had for the 16 teams, thereby ensuring they are getting their fill of new players each year.

FYI, this save is still on v22 and will remain so until 1950.

With regard to our franchise, I am keeping our payroll at the very bottom for the league. For example, while our owner allotted us $1.1m for 1940, I have reset it to half that. Only Cleveland's $540k is less than ours. I have also tinkered with Market Size and the other financial metrics, greatly handicapping us in comparison to the other clubs. As I do each new decade, I have reset our Fan Interest to 50. We have the league's smallest market at 5 and I have also set our Owner Spending to an MLB-low 3. I'll keep moving these around in parallel with the IRL until the two meet exactly or close enough to as full FA kicks in for the real-life side of things and salaries start going exponential. I will eventually relax my house rules on FA signings and trades, once I feel the financials are in place to handle the level of difficulty and verisimilitude I am seeking.

Can't wait to see what this new decade has in store and will be fascinated to see how the multi-year recalc handles player performance over the War Years.

Thanks for following along, hope you are enjoying the ride!

G