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Although I'm not personally "against" either of these concepts, both changed the face of baseball in the last 30 years. I want to, using PS, see how keeping these drastic changes out of baseball might have changed the outcome of some things.

I decided to start with the 1969 American League. Through baseball-reference.com, I am able to track player transactions for each team. I setup this association through the Sandbox mode, Multiplayer, with all teams human-controlled. Once I put the players on the proper rosters, I let AI sim the games until I reach a date where a team had a transaction. I make the player move and resume AutoPlay until the next date with a transaction.

If I haven't[>:] everyone yet, I'll briefly recap 1969-1971.

1969: Oakland over Boston 4-0 in the "World Series"
1970: Oakland over Baltimore 4-1
1971: Oakland over Baltimore 4-2

The A's have jogged along around .500 every year, then finished strong in AUG-SEP to win their divisions.

This is most peculiar, since one of the things driving me to do this assn. was to see what would happen to the A's if there was no free agency. Once I get a few years' of AL data done, I might get energetic and do the entire MLB. Keeping up with the trades and releases is a pain in the a$$, as I spend most of my "playing" time making the transactions, but it has been entertaining.

One odd fact: Jim Fregosi, former SS for the Angels, racked up almost 100 stolen bases from 1969-71 (about 90 more than in real-life). The Mets must have been drooling, since they are about to trade Nolan Ryan and THREE other players for Fregosi[X(].

Update:

1972: Baltimore over the Chicago WS 4 games to 1

Chicago's Richie/Rich/Dick Allen welcomed himself to the AL by winning the triple crown in his first AL season.

Three-time defending champ Oakland trailed CHI throughout the season, brielfy taking the division lead in August. The A's were done in by losing 4 of 5 games to the White Sox in September, finishing in 2nd place.

One month into 1973 has Baltimore off to a great start in the AL East.

Updating through the end of July 1973:

Baltimore had looked unstoppable thorugh the first 3 months, then went 7-21 in July. They have fallen to 3rd in the East, behind both Cleveland and Boston.

In the West, Minnesota has stayed in first throughout. Oakland has been within a game a couple times, but now stands 5 GB.
 
I'm eternally grateful to the folks at baseball-reference.com for being detail oriented in their lists of transactions.  Looking ahead to 1975/76/77, I noticed that they use the listing "Granted Free Agency" for players who filed for and became free agents.  I will keep those players on the same teams, only moving players whenever they were traded or released.
 
 
 

1973 saw Baltimore repeat as champs, this time in an exciting 7-game series over Minnesota. Game 7 was decided on a Tony Oliva error in the bottom of the 8th inning. In real life, he would've been the DH, but was in LF for the costly error.

Now in the middle of June, 1974. Minnesota and Chicago are battling atop a weak AL West, while the NY Yankees hold a slim lead over Baltimore in the East. Oakland is below .500 and has bounced between 4th and 6th place all season.

The season started poorly for the A's when three Texas pitchers combined on a no-hitter in the season opener. Texas starting pitcher Pete Broberg was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the 7th inning and two relievers finished the no-no. I only watch a few games each season, and this was the first PureSim no-hitter I've had the "pleasure" of "watching".

1974 season complete. The NY Yankees led the East most of the season, but Baltimore caught fire in August, ended up with 101 wins and another division crown.

Over in the West, Chicago won 102 games, then took Baltimore in 6 games to win their first title. My A's finished well below .500 and in 5th place.

Through the end of July 1975, Milwaukee leads a crowded AL East, with Cleveland, Boston, and Baltimore all within 3 1/2 games. Over in the West, Oakland leads both Minnesota and Chicago by 7.

Ready for the postseason, 1975 version. Cleveland caught fire and left all others far behind in the East. Oakland led most of the way in the West and hung onto the best record to have home field advantage in the playoff.

One bit of drama on the last day of the regular season: Kansas City visited Texas in a game meaningless in the standings, but crucial to the batting race. KC's George Brett led Texas' Mike Hargrove by a point going into the final day. Brett started with a walk. Hargrove overtook Brett with a single in the early innings. Brett managed a single of his own during the game to retake the lead. The game went into extra innings, but both players went hitless the rest of the game. Brett went 1-for-5 and Hargrove 1-for-6.

The A's took game one from Cleveland in the playoff. It looks as though the assn will be on strike for a few days: something about the Commissioner taking a few days' vacation at the beach. Maybe he is just delaying the start of the off-season, when the A's will be trading Reggie Jackson and Kenny Holtzman to Baltimore. This is GREAT news for Oriole fans, however, as Reggie will stay with them for many years (remember, NO free agency).

I just checked out the transactions. The A's will get Don Baylor and be able to keep him until he retires. He is three years younger than Reggie, but with NO DH, can he survive in the field? We'll see......

With the new patch (and the option to have multiplayer without Finances) this should make things easier for you.

Quick Question? Have you tried the patch with your already started league to see if you can remove the finances or would you need to start over (sorry don't mean for you to be a guinnea pig, but I'm testing a few other things ATM).

Sorry, been gone a few days & just got back. I d-loaded 1.17 before I left and now see that 1.18 beta is on the streets. I'll probably get a chance to look at things tomorrow. By now, you've probably checked things out and can give ME the answer you were looking for.

ORIGINAL: motnahp

Sorry, been gone a few days & just got back. I d-loaded 1.17 before I left and now see that 1.18 beta is on the streets. I'll probably get a chance to look at things tomorrow. By now, you've probably checked things out and can give ME the answer you were looking for.

No lol, sorry, I've been trying to set up a Sandlot league with limited success this far (but I have high hopes!). Let me know when you have a chance to monkey around with the patch changes.

Finally finshed up 1975, which was delayed due to weather (the weather at the beach was really nice). Oakland led Cleveland 3-1, allowed the Tribe to tie the series 3-3, then won game seven at home.

How's this for strange: In real MLB, Oakland won in 1972, 1973, and 1974. In this assn., they won in '69, '70, '71, and '75, but NOT in '72, '73, or '74. Cue the Twilight Zone theme music.

Claymore, I've d-loaded both beta 1.17 and 1.18, but have not installed either of them. I'm sure it's just paranoia, but I'm comfortable with 1.16 and a little wary of making any changes while Shaun is out to sea. Keep mentioning those toggle options whenever you can. Eventually, enough people will agree and request them.....and Shaun always aims to please.

1976 regular season complete. In the East, Milwaukee led throughout, ending up 104-58 and taking the division by 16 games over Cleveland. In the West, Minnesota led the entire first half, then faded to third. Oakland kept close the first half, then held off KC, winning by five games at 90-72.

The A's won their 5th title, beating Milwaukee in 6 games. Then it was on to expansion, as Seattle and Toronto are joining the AL for 1977.

One odd thing happened when I was naming the two new teams. The program accepted Toronto with no problem, but kept changing the Seattle team's name to Texas whenever I tried to name them. I thought I was stuck with the "Texas Mariners", but I changed their name to Portland and everything went fine. I was able to change them to Seattle before the expansion draft and everything went well from there.

After what seemed like hundreds of roster moves, 1977 is finally underway. At the All-Start break, Boston leads Detroit by 2 1/2 games in the East, while Oakland leads Minnesota by 4 games in the West.

1977 completed. With the two expansion teams joining the assn., wins for established teams took off. Oakland finished with 109 wins, Boston got 105, and Minnesota missed the playoffs despite a 105-57 record. Boston took Oakland 4 games to 1 in the postseason. The Red Sox hit 230 home runs as a team during the season.

This season may signal the start of a "down" cycle for the A's. The free agents they've kept (Hunter, Rudi, Tenace, Bando, Campaneris and Fingers) are starting to show their age. Also, the A's will be trading away Vida Blue this off-season.

One odd thing which somewhat skewed the historical aspect of the season: During the season, I checked some team vs team results and noticed that Toronto and California weren't playing the right number of divisional games. It appears that their schedules are actually reversed. I'll have to either try to somehow modify the imported OOTP sked I used, or go with the generic sked in the program. I'm sure this issue was somehow caused during the expansion process.

1978 season underway. I was able to edit the OOTP schedule text document and get the sked fixed. It only took about an hour to do it, then another hour to fix the errors I created. Now that I understand the format, I may create schedules myself in the future, instead of just using the same one over & over again.

Through the end of July 1978:

Baltimore leads a competitive AL East by 1/2 game over NY, with MILW and DET 3 GB.

In the West, Oakland looks good for one more division title, leading MINN by 4 1/2 and CAL by 5 1/2.

Boston won't have to worry about Bucky F......n' Dent, as the Sawx are buried in last, a full 18 1/2 GB. The biggest shocker is the White Sox, currently a woeful 22-77 in the West and "riding" a 13-game losing streak.

I jinxed the A's, as they ended up 2nd to Minnesota, two GB. Oakland lost 7 of their last 8, while Minnesota won 8 of their last 9 games.

In the East, the NY Yankees overtook Baltimore in early August and held on, beating MILW by two games.

In the 1978 postseason, Minnesota took NY in 6 games.

Jim Rice of last place Boston won the batting title. The Yankees' Dave Kingman won the HR and RBI titles with 49/131. Since sportswriters hate both of these guys, it really put the writers in a bind when voting for MVP. In the end, they chose Kingman.

A bit of a lull in the assn., as the commish attempts to edit an OOTP schedule. I actually got April through August done this morning. I'll finish up September tomorrow morning.

It takes about one hour per month to write down the "real-life" schedule onto a calendar, then edit a .txt document to reflect that schedule.

UPDATE: Finshed up the sked this morning and tried it out on a copy of the assn. that I had saved before I d-loaded 1.19. I found a couple of my own errors and corrected them. I also had an extra game show up which did not appear anywhere in the text document. After some head-scratching and scrolling through the document I decided to just re-write that particular DAY on the schedule. Once I did that, the schedule imported WITHOUT the extra, mystery game.......strange.

I got caught up in the "excitement" of making schedules and went ahead and did one for 1980. I corrected one error and it tested out fine. I'll get back to the business of running the AL over the next few days.

In the midst of 1979, at the All-Star Break. The AL East has Milwaukee on top, up by 6 games over Cleveland and 7 over Detroit. Kansas City leads the West by 2 1/2 over Oakland and 6 over Minnesota.

Fingers crossed.....this is the first season which I'm playing with a schedule I made myself. All seems to be going well so far.

Not much drama in the regular season for 1979. Milwaukee lapped the field in the East, finishing 105-57, a full 17 games ahead of Cleveland and 18 ahead of Detroit.

In the West, Kansas City makes their first trip to postseason. The Royals overtook Oakland in June and stayed on top, finishing 98-64 and 10 games ahead of Oakland. KC and OAK were the only two West teams above .500.

Mixed news on schedules. This 1979 sked worked great. I did one for 1981 (strike season) and tested it out on a 14-team Quick Assn. Puresim said "No Can Do", apparently recognizing that my sked had a big gap between mid-June and early August.
I guess I'll just fill in the dates with the games as they "should've been played", or let the teams use 1979 or 1980's sked again.

Milwaukee took KC 4 games to 3, pounding them 13-3 in Game Seven. Milwaukee was led this season by league MVP Gorman Thomas. Thomas hit .303, with 53 HRs and 143 RBI.