League 162: PS4 MLB Show '14 Online Franchise

[Mike Lowe]

Welcome to League 162!

Note: If you're messaging me asking me for a team, you're demonstrating to me that you can't take the time to read the league rules.

Introduction

• League 162 is the first online franchise that will offer a day-by-day, full 162 game schedule with manual roll-over into MLB The Show '15 and beyond via custom roster imports. Therefore, your transactions will stick including player progression, drafted players, trades, and your own free agent signings.
• This will be a slower moving league than most of you are used to, which I'll admit to not liking the idea of at first. That is until I joined an OOTP league that has been doing this for 3 years now, and it's been absolutely fantastic, engaging, and it helps us to weed out a lot of the impatient riffraff that can come in these online leagues.

Membership

• Ideally, this will one day be an online franchise with all 30 teams being controlled by humans. In order to be as efficient as possible in the early going, we're going to start off the league smaller than that with 12 teams, 2 from each division.
• Once games are being played consistently, we'll consider adding more in hopes of having an active 30 team league.
• Team membership cannot be changed, nor transferred.

Schedule

• League 162 will use the Series (Manual Advance) scheduling option, meaning, for example, that teams will have 4 days to play a 4 game series. This will help us to one day play along with the real-life MLB schedule.
• Of course, this year we'll be working from a schedule that allows us to get caught up, due to the game's late arrival. Regardless, the league is hoping to carry over year to year.
• We could probably get two seasons in per calendar year, with the nearly 6 month offseason. Or, no worries, we just ride out the offseason like in real life, or perhaps even play a sister league, such as a fictional universe or another MLB one all its own. With this first season, we may need the extra time to get the league started and running smoothly.

Rosters/Transactions

• 2014 Opening Day rosters (OSFM)
• No fantasy draft
• While we're going to folllow the MLB schedule, beyond that, the league will become our own and take on its own personality. We're not doing the silly "daily real life trades" because our universe will inevitably turn out very different than real MLB.
• All trades, AI or with other members, will need to be accepted and approved by the commissioner and the majority of the other members not involved in the trade. All trades must have purpose for both teams and their plan of action.
• If you're a big trader, I'd advise taking a team that fits your personality and/or playing style already, as it's not healthy for the longevity of a career mode game such as this to have a team go through some ridiculous makeover only for the guy who made the trades to up and vanish. Over time and when members prove they're going to be around, this will open up more.
• We'll be creating some "international free agents" each year to simulate guys like Cespedes and Darvish coming into the league. Not all of them will be that impactful, and it won't be a ton of players.

Sliders

• We're starting with All-Star default, but will adjust to ensure the sliders for this league are tough, but plausible; we'll use realistic and challenging sliders, and realistic gameplay.
• We're a sim-style league, which means there will be zero tolerance for the BS stuff you typically see running rampant in Diamond Dynasty.
• You will need to be focused to both hit the AI and get them out in user/AI games. As for head to head, we'll want games that are competitive and fair, obviously.

Additional Rules

• Teams must, at all times, play players defensively at a position they have either a primary or secondary position for. In the rare case a game goes like 20 innings and guys need to play out of position, the game will be examined on a case-by-case basis.

Settings

• Name: League 162
• Division Type: Divisional
• Max Teams: 30 (12 to start)
• Max Playoff Teams: 10
• World Series Length: 7
• Championship Series Length: 7
• Division Series Length: 5
• Wildcard Series Length: 1
• Total Games: 162
• Schedule Type: Series (Manual)
• Minimum Player Skill Level: Rookie
• Maximum Player Skill Level: Legend
• Player Draft: Off
• DH Type: Auto
• Allow Trades: On
• Trade Approval: On
• Allow Free Agents: On
• Hitting Difficulty: All-Star
• Pitching Difficulty: All-Star
• Innings 9
• Guess Pitch: Off
• Quick Counts: Off
• Strike Zone: Off
• Hot Zones: Off
• Balks: On
• Umpire Balls And Strikes: Variable
• Ejections: On
• Injuries: On
• Presentation Mode: Broadcast (please do not skip animations, etc. unless both players agree to it ahead of time)

Additional Recommended Settings

• Batting & Baserunning
  • Hitting Interface- Zone
  • PCI - Off
    
  • Hitting View- Catcher Classic
  • In-Play View Offense: Broadcast
  • Bunting Interface- Classic
  • Baserunning Decisions- Assist
  • Baserunning Interface- Default
  • Sliding Decisions- Assist
  • Runner Windows- Off

• Pitching
  • Pitching Interface- Classic
  • Pitching View- Broadcast
  • Pitching Ball Marker- Fade
  • Pitch Confidence- On
  • Pitch Callout- Off
  • Pitch Delay- Normal
  • API- Off

• Fielding
  • Throwing Interface- Buttons
  • Throwing Meter- No Feedback
  • Throwing Difficulty- All Star
  • In-Play View Defense - Medium
  • Throw Cancelling- On
  • One Button Dive/Jump- Off
  • Fielding Decision- Assist
  • Throwing Decision- Off
  • Catch Position Indicator- On
  • Defensive Shift- Auto

• General
  • Strike Zone- Off
  • Hot Zones - Off
  • Warm Up Pitchers- Off
  • Tutorial Tips - Off
  • Post-Game Auto Save - Off
  • Scoreboard Display - On
  • Pitch Select Display - On
  • Swing/Pitch Info- On
  • Balks- On
  • Umpire Balls and Strikes- Variable
  • Umpire Close Plays- On
  • Check Swing Appeals- On
  • Injuries- On
  • Ejections- On
  • Vibration- On
  • Game Log Order - Default

• Presentation
  • Presentation Mode- Broadcast
  • Batter Walkup- On

Membership Application

GroupMe (members only, please)

*Changes bold and in blue indicate most recent updates*

[Mike Lowe]

The Inaugural 12:

Orioles: MikeFoley4 (MFoley04)
Yankees: Detfan (Detfan1984)

Tigers: JibJab 24 (JibJab 24)
White Sox: miamidaddy (TheUInventedMe-6)

Athletics: HustlinOwl (HustlinOwl)
Mariners: slashpg88 (lBLACKNYELLOWl)

Braves: PovertyStricken (PovertyStriken)
Phillies: Mike Lowe (MikeLowe47)

Cardinals: sk (xsongk)
Cubs: Reedjohnson (justinjabs)

Dodgers: jmkh (jmkh88)
Padres: Feliz__7 (Feliz__7)

Spring Training Invitees (can join us for 2 weeks as a test run/backup in case others flake out):

1. chitownwonder
2. HyDr0pOnIcS
3. neifro (FRO17)

[Mike Lowe]

Membership Expansion Details

League 162 will allow for up to 30 members to join for Spring Training, but invitees who fail to maintain a schedule of games will be removed at the first violation to keep things moving along.

The league will open the regular season with 12 members, 2 in each division for balance. This is not up for debate.

The league will consider expanding by 3 teams after 2 weeks of consistent games being played by ALL current members.

There is no guarantee that the league will expand beyond 12 because it's too obvious to even state how difficult and impractical it is to expect 30 guys to play 162 games on-schedule.

Scheduling Games

It is the responsibility of the visiting team to get in touch with the home team for the current series. This can be done a number of ways, but PSN, OS private message, and texting are the preferred methods.

I prefer text honestly as I have my phone on me at all times. While I don't give out my personal cell, I use an app called Talkatone which gives you a free dummy phone number. It's free to send/receive texts using Talkatone, even with users who aren't using the app.

Obviously our GroupMe chat works well for scheduling too as it includes a private message feature.

[RobbieMacc]

Add my name to the list!

[Mike Lowe]

With screenshots of lineups/rotations being posted, we could start throwing around the idea of which division(s) and teams to open for this first round of membership. While the PS4 version will likely have an updated OSFM roster available, it will still be based on Opening Day, so this thread should be pretty darn close and certainly good enough for us to gauge our choices from:

http://www.operationsports.com/news/...s-and-ratings/

I'm leaning towards the NL East, as it has a few teams that are in rebuilding mode in Miami, New York, Philadelphia to an extent, and then two pretty good teams to balance out with the Nats and Braves.

Another option would be to choose teams that actually got new managers this year. We could then open up membership based on teams with managers "on the hot seat," or who deserve to be fired during the season or something like that.

Food for thought...

[RobbieMacc]

Personally, I'd prefer to start with the smaller market teams. Naturally the "big spenders" (i.e. NYY, TOR, BOS, etc.) will get snatched up first. The Houstons and Kansas Cities of the world require more work, and in my opinion make for a better experience.

[WB1214]

Definitely might consider this since you seem to be extremely organized. Always important for things like this.

[HustlinOwl]

no guarantee that online franchises will roll over