If you want to play in a tried-and-true format and create your team right now, standard leagues (Classic and SSG) are open to the public 24/7. But if you want to try something different, Custom Leagues – created by customers – are there in abundance.

There are franchise leagues, progression leagues, captains leagues, high and low salary cap leagues, “rags to riches” leagues, alphabet leagues, place of birth leagues … the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Diamond Mind Online would not be the same if the Community did not include some of the most clever and prolific creators of Custom Leagues. We’ll be featuring one of these in this space each month.

This month we’re visiting with David Stern, the driving force behind the Completely Random leagues, which recently completed their 35th season.

Tell us something about yourself: age, occupation, marital status, where you live, and interests (apart from DMO, of course).

I grew up in New York, went to college in Rhode Island and England, and spent most of my career in international consumer marketing and management. I now chair a number of companies in the UK and work with P/E companies to identify opportunities and improve companies in their portfolios; I specialise in branding and marketing, digital transformation, and geographic expansion. My wife and I live with our three dogs in a very old pile of stones in Yorkshire, “Gods Own Country”, in a small village about 5 miles outside of York. When not working or playing DMO, we tend to travel quite a bit – to visit our son in SF, to follow our daughter (she is an opera singer), or to keep working on our bucket list of visiting 100 countries (we are at 75!).

When did you start playing DMO and how did it first come to your attention?

First, I can remember playing Strat-O-Matic baseball while growing up, so I guess DMO for me was predestined. I have been playing DMO for probably close to 20 years – I believe that I originally joined through ESPN, well before Simnasium was a glint in the eye. My first continuing league was The Liquor Leagues, where we had a very good and very vocal group of owners including Hans Lang, Marc Bozeman, Drew Morby, and the inimitable Russ Siegel. They really taught me the game, and we even made a trip to Cooperstown together – ask Hans about his haunted hotel room.

You’re the driving force behind the long-running Completely Random leagues. Tell us something about the format, and what it is that you find appealing about it?

As we say in Yorkshire, the Completely Random leagues are exactly what it says on the tin. The entire player pool is randomised by position, and 24 teams are created each season at random from that pool. Teams and parks are similarly assigned at random, and each player starts with their 28 players. During the preseason, which lasts 8 days, no free agent moves are permitted – only trades – so each owner has to fill whatever holes they have or execute some cunning strategy through trades. Once the season starts, each owner is limited to 7 free agent moves after the 18th game.

The format makes being an owner much more like being a real-life GM. Your team has strengths and weaknesses, financial limitations, and may or may not fit your park or strategy. During the preseason there are no free agents out there to solve your problems, so you have to make trades and some tough decisions – do you keep a $20M+ stud or turn him into 2 or 3 starters, at which positions do you go cheap or with a player you may not love, what do you have to give up to get the player you want, or do you stockpile cash or go for a better opening day roster? During the season the trades continue, as with only 7 moves you cannot fix everything, so again hard choices come into play.

For me, it is much more realistic than being able to create a team from scratch or select from the entire player pool. It is also much more fun. I look forward to the Saturday morning when the new league runs and the flurry of trade offers that start flying. And as the same 24 owners generally come back every season, we get to know each other, our tendencies, and which types of rodents we prefer (don’t ask).

Can you offer a few tips for success for those inexperienced with this format?

I wish I could, but I have yet to win one of my own leagues!!! With any format, I think it is important to have a strategy. I tend to build more balanced teams – more mid-tier players rather than one or two stars, a blend of pitching and hitting – whereas other owners go for a few studs and useful parts or more offense, defense, or pitching. I tend to match my team to my park, whereas other owners don’t think it matters as much. Regardless, in this format you have to make compromises and in a trade you have to sacrifice something to get something, so it is important to have some parameters in mind to guide those decisions.

The flip side of that is that you are forced to use players you don’t normally use, and quite often they turn out to be a revelation.

Is there any advice you would give to people who haven’t created a Custom League before, but would like to give it a try?

Be creative!!! Most custom leagues simply change the financial limits or player pools, which is fine of course. But there are so many more ways to inject strategy and fun into a league concept. Leagues in which there is an unchangeable core of each team – be it related to franchise, cartoon characters, cities/countries, or some other unifying factor. Leagues in which each player draws on a limited pool of players, either unique to them or shared. Challenge leagues – I once had a league where I drafted the ’27 Yankees and dared everyone else to beat me (they did). Given the enormous player pool and freedom built into this game, the possibilities are endless.

If you are creating a continuing league, it is important to listen to the other owners and make changes accordingly. The Completely Random leagues have evolved based on their feedback, and for the better. Salary caps and weekly monies have been brought down, which has made strategy and trades more important. The WS winner now chooses the era for the next league. Neutral parks were dropped. The DH position as a drafted position was dropped as it produced too many one-dimensional draftees whom nobody wanted. A Wild Card player was introduced to add randomness to the draw. All ideas introduced by the other owners, which have made the leagues more inclusive and enjoyable for all.