Franchise Stars Rosters: Each Franchise's Best

[GForce22]

I mentioned this a while back when I surveyed whether people would rather I do this or all-decade teams and this won. I said then that I wasn't going to talk much about it until significant progress had been made. Fortunately, I'm far enough along that I'm comfortable getting a thread going, as I HOPE for a complete Version 1 to be done by the end of the month.

I am a huge fan of cross-era matchups. I love history, but I don't like historical replays...I know what DID happen. I'm far more interested in the what ifs. As much I loved doing TotalMinors for High Heat, MVP and OOTP, it's the cross era stuff from my old Franchise Stars roster set for OOTP that I had the most fun with.

Briefly, what this will have:

At least 55 players per team: I created a list of each franchise's best players based on Wins Above Replacement. I set up the top 4 at catcher and the four infield positions, top 10 outfielders, top 15 starters and top 10 relievers. I wanted teams to include relievers, like real teams, rather than be loaded with 10-12 starters. That's not a team to me. It also gets some sleepers into the set, which is fun.

One player, one team: Any roster I've ever made I think of being used in a season/franchise setting. So I don't like, say, Reggie Jackson playing for the Yankees AND the A's or Tris Speaker playing for the Red Sox AND the Indians. I think of it as a universe. Players were assigned, however, not based on their WAR, but based on their position ranking (i.e., where they are on each team's depth chart). A case is Torii Hunter, who despite having a higher WAR for the Twins, is on the Angels because he ranks 5th on the Angels ALLTIME outfield WAR ranking but 10th on the alltime Twins WAR ranking.

Alltime MEANS alltime: This is an observation over years of doing this...most (not all!) "alltime" sets I have seen seem to be "Hall of Famers and then the best since 1970" or so. I love baseball history. So this set will have a lot of the great, forgotten pre-war players for the franchises that go back that far: Travis Jackson, Stan Hack, Heinie Groh, Dixie Walker, Cecil Travis, etc.

Level playing field: All players will be rated using Baseball Prospectus' Davenport Translations, which adjust for era. This lets players like Frank Home Run Baker of the A's be a 30 homer guy as opposed to a 10 homer guy as he was the deadball era. Pitchers are adjusted the same way, obviously.

Real splits: All ratings will have proper, real-life split adjustments for hitters. My spreadsheets run their translated stats through their real-life R/L splits.

One drawback...I am a terrible face maker, and honestly don't care too much about that (though I respect greatly the guys here who are good at it). Hair color and such will be right, but getting face shapes right is far more time than I have, and the gameplay means far more to me.

Recognition goes to KCRoyals, whose first set is what I started from, and all the guys working on bedwardsroy18's set (him, PJSnell, Chisox, Mysterioman, Maizeblue13...smack me if I missed anyone) for any player who I lifted as a base. While I'm redoing ratings for everyone, any one of those guys that I started from saved me time, and thus they deserve appreciation and credit.

There will be plenty of revisions after the first release, but the main goal is the "WAR 25-man Roster" for each team (though there will be 40+ guys per franchise at the start, I want to make sure the top 25 are included for all), with the hitting and pitching ratings adjusted accordingly. I will then create a revision list and tackle one thing per version.

At this point I have more than 30 players for each team, batting ratings entered for 20 teams, pitching ratings entered for 10. Should have another 10 of those entered by Tuesday, which will put us 2/3 of the way to Version 1.

I realize this is a niche project, but hopefully some others will find it enjoyable.

GH

[MysterioMan007]

Look forward to seeing the finished project. Working on a similar one myself, so I know it's a lot of hard work. Still, it's worth it when you finally get it finished and play some games. Good luck with it!

[GForce22]

Quote: Originally Posted by MysterioMan007

Look forward to seeing the finished project. Working on a similar one myself, so I know it's a lot of hard work. Still, it's worth it when you finally get it finished and play some games. Good luck with it!

Appreciate it. Glad I was able to make time to at least get a core set done. I miss doing it, just with a wife, three boys and work, time is in short supply

I'm looking forward to playing with my boys and teaching them some baseball history.

GH

[KCRoyals]

I can't wait to use your roster set. I remember the work you did for ootp. It was the only roster set I used for that game.

I used baseball games like this to teach my two sons the history of the game. They both grew up loving the game and thankfully receiving college baseball scholarships.

Might we see version 1 sometime next week?

KCRoyals

[GForce22]

Quote: Originally Posted by KCRoyals

I can't wait to use your roster set. I remember the work you did for ootp. It was the only roster set I used for that game. I used baseball games like this to teach my two sons the history of the game. They both grew up loving the game and thankfully receiving college baseball scholarships. Might we see version 1 sometime next week? KCRoyals

More inclined to say end of month, but we'll see.

GH

[bedwardsroy19]

Feel free to use any of our player's faces and what not. We should release our Best Teams roster by next Sunday and that should include many of the same players that you can edit for your set, since we did spend a lot of time on faces it might help you out with yours!

[GForce22]

Quote: Originally Posted by bedwardsroy19

Feel free to use any of our player's faces and what not. We should release our Best Teams roster by next Sunday and that should include many of the same players that you can edit for your set, since we did spend a lot of time on faces it might help you out with yours!

Much appreciated. I make faces and they look like me...that's not a good thing

Thanks.

GH

[GForce22]

Early sim observations:

Team ERA's in 4s. Four teams below 4, one team over 5.

Team Avgs look good.

Team homers are high, but that's to be expected in an alltime set where 20+ homer guys are at a majority of spots. No outlandish individual homer totals..****th and McGwire tied for overall lead with 48.

This is with not all teams done, but I just wanted to do a quick test run and see what was being spit back at me. I do, however, need to adjust some speed/baserunning ratings. Some guys stealing WAY more than they should.

GH