In This Month’s Newsletter
Ladder Leagues SSG Association Restart
The Ladder Leagues are a series of leagues that operate like European soccer: each Ladder Leagues season, the top teams in a league are promoted to higher-ranked leagues and the bottom teams are relegated to lower-ranked leagues.
There are three Ladder Leagues associations. All are played at normal (3 games per day) pace.
The Standard Association and the Random 600 Association utilize the Classic (career-rated) player pool and have been going strong for many years. Their current seasons are just finishing up and registrations for the next seasons will commence soon.
The SSG Association utilizes the single-season (SSG) player pool, is relatively new, and has been dormant for some time, but is now taking registrations for its revival season. In Season 5, the SSG Association leagues will be played in the Home Run Derby era of play, without the DH, with a $120 million salary cap and weekly payments (millions) of $2, $3, $4, $8, $4, $3, $2; loans at 20% and interest earned at 10%; standard PTL and PTL on splits; multiple versions of players not allowed but season of player may be changed. The player pool is limited to the HR Derby Era seasons (1993-2004) and there are IP and PA minimums in place for inclusion in the player pool.
You can register here for Season 5 of the Ladder Leagues SSG Association.
Modern Teams Transported to The Dead Ball Era
Larry Macdonald recently ran the 24 Great Teams Deadball Era League. He described the league thusly:
I just ran a league with the following parameters:
24 teams
Dead Ball Era of play
PTL at 115%, injuries off
Do not use batting splits
Pitchers hit
All teams eligible up to 1960 (154-game schedules)With 115 PTL, teams had to use the reserves to prevent pumpkins down the stretch. I was curious to see what happens if the teams that built around power had to play in the Dead Ball Era. Would they still have power or would Ruth and Mantle be kept in check? How would the Dead Ball teams do against the more modern ones?
So what happened? 1927 Babe Ruth hit 48 home runs, which is more than some teams hit (I ran the 1906 Cubs and we hit 35). The 1927 Yankees had the most wins in the season, 97, followed by the 1939 Yankees and 1922 Browns with 96.
Overall there were more triples hit than home runs. The league averaged 617 runs, batting 242/303/333.
I thought that this was a fascinating league: The 1927 and 1939 Yankees met in the World Series, with Murderer’s Row prevailing in seven games.
World Series Hero
Mickey Lolich (pictured above left leaping into the arms of catcher Bill Freehan after recording the final out of the World Series) turned in one of the all-time great World Series performances in 1968 in leading the Detroit Tigers to a come-from-behind seven game triumph over the defending champion Cardinals. Lolich notched three complete game wins, including Game 7 on just two days rest. He also hit the only home run of his career (1,037 total PA including postseason) in Game 2, and with the Tigers trailing 3-2 in Game 5, got the game-winning three-run seventh-inning rally started with a one-out single.
Dick Donovan (pictured above right after notching a save for the White Sox in Game 5 of the 1959 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers), turned in an equally electric performance for Bill (Wheat4) Wheatley’s White Sox in the Core Progression 1958 league World Series. Donovan pitched his team to a 3-2 win in Game 2, driving in all three runs with a single and a home run. He then topped that performance in Game 6, tossing a shutout and hitting two solo home runs to account for all White Sox runs in the 2-0 win. Even more remarkable is the fact that, although Donovan did hit 15 home runs during his career (in just 804 PA including postseason), in 1958 he had none and hit just .113 (in 94 PA).
The Tipping Point
Each month we’ll offer a few tips in this space that may come in handy for the beginner as well as the experienced team owner.
There is an old proverb:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
In this month’s Tipping Point, rather than giving you some tips, we’ll suggest some good ways to find them.
Check out our Reference section. There is a wealth of information available if you click on Reference in the center of the banner of links at the top of most site pages.
• There are Reference articles on specific aspects of the game like Eras of Play and How Park Factors Work.
• Frequently Asked Questions contains a wealth of information, such as average error rates by position, and pitches that starters and relievers can throw before beginning to tire, broken down by era of play; insights into the workings of the Computer Manager; and much more.
• There are Tips for Newcomers to Diamond Mind Online, and a Guide to the Single-Season Version of Diamond Mind Online for those familiar with the Classic version looking to dip their toes into the single-season game.
Check out the Advice message board. There are many team owners willing to share their knowledge on the Advice message board. There also are links to past Tipping Point columns and to other articles offering advice posted there.
Check out the Articles message board. Many of the best “advice” articles on the Articles message board have been linked on the Advice board as well, but there is a wealth of interesting information and insights to be found in our library of Articles.
Check out the Downloads page. Perhaps a lesser-known source of information is the Downloads area, which is accessed via the Downloads link on your My Teams page above and to the right of the Active Teams heading. There you will find things like downloadable spreadsheets of the complete salary history for all players in the Classic player pool, and park factors for all single-season parks (making it easy to compare the park factors for a single park or parks over a range of seasons). We also welcome customer contributions, such as spreadsheets and utilities, for posting to Downloads.
Willie Mays MLB Career and Early Life
Willie Mays is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time, with elite hitting and fielding skills as well as impressive speed
What Were the Best Baseball Moments in the 1990s?
Baseball produced great moments in the 1990s, including the return of the New York Yankees’ dominance, Joe Carter’s famous home run & more!
when will the encyclopedia be updated so it can be transported to all league members???