Highlights From Diamond Mind February 2023

2023 MASTERS GETS UNDERWAY

The 2023 Masters – the 14th running of this annual tournament – is now underway. Sixty competitors in five leagues will vie for the title in this four-round cumulative-scoring tournament. Masters leagues present participants with a range of unusual and challenging league configurations, and Round 1 of this year’s tournament is no exception:

Old/New Dual Franchise Classic Two-round snake draft for franchises, one for hitters and one for pitchers
Must draft one original franchise (16 MLB plus NEL) and one expansion franchise
$150M cap plus $7M / week
Golden Age Era of Play
DH and Injuries on
Manual player draft

Good luck to all!

SIMS Santa Features

In response to your “Sim Santa” requests, we’ve implemented a number of new site features and modifications including:

Batter and pitcher handedness is now displayed on all pages, using the designations asterisk (*) for Left, hash (#) for Switch and nothing for Right.
The menu options bar has been added to the Search for Players page.
Batter, pitcher and fielder ratings tables now display at the top of player Details pages.
We added Team LOB (left on base) to the team batting stats.
On the Cash Worksheet, you can now mark multiple bookmarked players to remove by clicking a single button.

But the best, and by far most significant, new feature, is just around the corner: the long-awaited continuing leagues page will allow you to set up a page to track your continuing leagues.

SSG IS HERE!

Introduction of the 2022 single season is here! Along with the 2022 season, Classic parks currently in use now have their park factors windows adjusted to include 2022, and the “Ohtani rule” allowing the pitcher to be listed as and remain in the line-up as DH, even if removed as pitcher, will be implemented.

We made a change to the two-day rest rule applied to dual roles players as well. Previously, a dual roles player who started a game as pitcher could not be in the starting line up as a batter for the two days following. This rule has been modified so that it will NOT apply if the player is in the line-up as DH. (It will still apply if the player is in the starting line up in a position in the field.)

WALK IT OFF!

Bill Mazeroski’s 9th inning blast in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series remains the only World Series winning walk off home run in baseball history. But Mazeroski’s historic blast came with the score tied 9-9.

In the 1999-2003 Franchise SSG 24 Team league, Randy Velarde pulled off an even more dramatic World Series Game 7 feat for Dan (machogrande) Simmons‘s Oakland A’s against Vince (danekerv) Daneker‘s San Diego Padres. With the game tied at 3-all, Ryan Klesko belted a solo HR off Jason Isringhausen in the top of the 10th to put the Padres in front, 4-3. Trevor Hoffman retired the first two batters he faced in the bottom of the 10th, but then walked pinch hitter Mario Valdez to bring Velarde to the plate, who blasted a two-run home run off the Hall of Fame closer to snatch victory, and the Championship, from the jaws of defeat.

CUSTOM LEAGUES KINGS

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 Clint Mustain, creator of the 7 Man and Milestones leagues. Click here to get Clint’s tips for succeeding in a league of this format.