[ra24mpa]

Here's the deal: I've built two historical quickstarts (1996 and 2005) over the last several years and have a ton of data just sitting around. If I don't do anything with it, it will just sit there gathering digital dust, so time permitting, I'd like to put it all to use and build another, and not just some one-year thing. I'm thinking something a bit more grand, like four years worth of built-in draft classes, a few indy leagues (if applicaple), and maybe a foreign league, but who knows. So, basically, it would be a real historical league for four years before becoming a hybrid historic-fiction league. My inclination is to maybe keep things historical for a few years, but doing that for any longer just leads to chasing certain players for the entirety of the sim and not enjoying the actual game.

All that said, I'd obviously like to build something that I would want to play, but it seems kind of selfish putting time and effort into something that no one else is interested in, so I want to know which starting year everyone else might be interested in.

Most years between 1986-2000 and 2005-2014 could work for me, but there are many factors to consider:

1986 - Final year with the January draft, so anything before then is more complicated, and I'd like to keep things simple where possible. You could also tank for Griffey in the 1987 draft.
1987 - late 1980s Oakland core group is more-or-less in place. It was a fun year for baseball.
1989 - Griffey's debut year, and this would include draft classes from 1989-1992. The plan would be for guys like Roger Salkeld and Brien Taylor to have their official profiles deleted and replaced with a fictional version that would give them some of the potential they had in real life before messing up their arms. I may be wrong, but I'm under the impression that when you have yearly ratings recalc on, it doesn't apply to fictional players, so they would be subject to the development engine, which would give them a chance to attain their original, real-life potential. I also wouldn't have to concern myself with indy leagues.
1993 - Expansion, first year of indy leagues, and many of the important roster moves of the 1990s have already happened.
1996 - I already have the most time-consuming part done and really would just need to add draft classes and a few leagues. The 1997-1999 classes contain much of the 2000s core group of players, and the 2000 HS class can be squeezed in there with a bit of effort. And much like the Salkeld/Taylor thing from earlier, that sort of thing could also be done with many players from these drafts, like Rick Ankiel, Ryan Anderson, Chad Hutchinson, Drew Henson, and others. It wouldn't be a problem to also include Tom Brady, whether he signed with Montreal the year before and is in his first pro year, or to make him draft eligible later on out of Michigan. People also forget that this easily could have been a Cardinals-Yankees World Series year, but the Cardinals had the most dangerous lead in all of sports during the NLCS.
1998 - Another expansion year, I don't think the Marlins first firesale has begun yet, and the Yankees threepeat needs to be stopped before it starts. Personally, I think that can be better done with the 1996 start.
2000 - enough data is available on the Internet Archive that many of the Opening Day MiLB rosters can be closer to being right than they were in earlier years.
2001-2004 - NO. 2002 sucked personally, and by then we're close enough that starting there would interfere with the results of the 2004 post-season. By that time, I'm keeping things as they were. The curse is reversed.
2005 - I have much of the work done already.
2009 - Mike Trout draft. Depending upon the circumstances and your ability as a GM, it may be possible to both draft him and stop the Yankees from winning again.
2012 - Last year of normalcy in the world before the CERN thing happens (lol), draft classes from 2012-2015. Trout's debut year, and as long as Felix Hernandez pitches a perfect game at some point within the simulation, there really isn't anything else baseball related from the start of the 2012 season onward IRL that I feel is sacrosanct and off-limits.
2014 - Full draft classes 2014-2017, draftable college players through 2020. After that, everything is fictional, just like the world we've been living in (lol again). Much of the work is already done and just needs to be made useable within the game. Think of the offical QS for OOTP 15, but it's been cleaned up a lot and made presentable for modern times.

Thoughts?