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 Welcome to the expansion thread for the longest-running (probably) LP on Something Awful: the Baseball Mogul Super League. It's also going to be the FINAL season of the Baseball Mogul Super League unless you (yes, you! The reader!) register. Quite frankly, after like 40 seasons and over 10 IRL years, the momentum isn't what we'd like it to be. Something Awful being, well, *gestures at the last several years* not exactly the most popular site in the world has meant that as old owners transition out, we haven't had the infusion of new blood that we kind of need to keep the league vital. At present, there are probably like ~15 active owners and maybe another dozen who'll make a team but not have the time (which is understandable! We all got old and have families and jobs and poo poo) to stay up to date with their team. I'd like to have something close to 24 active owners so we can have a proper baseball league. That's where you come in! Why Should You Join? We can talk about the baseball element of it in a bit. But I want to emphasize the community. A lot of us have been playing together for 10+ years. We've had owners get married, get divorced, have kids, get through brutal illnesses, not get through brutal illnesses  , and folks are generally really supportive of one another. Like so many SA things, there's a Discord for it and that's where a lot of league stuff gets done. It's also a place to hang out and talk about whatever. One of the things I'm most proud of is that those of us in the league who were lucky enough to remain gainfully employed during the height of the pandemic pretty quickly formed a common fund to help owners who were having a relatively tougher time. Sure, there's not much we could do to fix systemic fuckups, but we were able to be of some help and also let folks know the community was valued.Long story short, I really love the community. I'd like to keep the fantasy historical fantasy baseball aspect of it going, but I think the biggest draw isn't the fantasy baseball (though that's fun) but rather the people. Come give it a shot. OK, so what are you giving a shot? The Baseball Mogul Super League runs on the Baseball Mogul simulation engine. It's...buggy as hell, in all honesty. But basically you collect historical baseball players (kind of like the gacha mode in all those MLB videogames, only everyone has an equal amount of currency and you can't pay to win) and they all get jammed into the simulator. 19th century legends who self-owned take the field alongside guys who excelled a full century later but still self-owned their way out of the Hall of Fame. It's essentially a baseball RPG. You try and find the right combination of statistics (baserunning! Strength against righthanders! Against lefties! Power! Throwing! Control! Not striking out all the drat time! Not getting injured every two seconds!) that will lead your team to victory. Thing is, every other owner is trying to find the same edge and as a result the meta is ever-changing. If you want a challenge, it's a good time. Also if you don't want that much of a challenge but just want to see Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani actually win something for once, this is the league for you. If you've wondered what it'd be like to have 3 separate instances of Barry Bonds on your team, this is also the league for you. If you wanted to field a team of great dudes whose careers ended prematurely due to injury or death, this is the league for you. If you want to build a team around Seattle's Jarred Kelenic, a once-hyped prospect who kinda sucks and is mediocre at best and also put himself on the disabled list kicking a water cooler after he struck out, this is also the league for you. I tried this before. It didn't go well. Why would this time be any different? A few reasons! 1.) We're running in the Mogul '22 engine, which fixes many of the bugs the Mogul '12 engine we used to run the league on. (It also introduces several new bugs, most of which I have found workarounds for.) Did your previous team die because some other owner had the same player you did only at a sub-prime age, and the simulator set all instances of that player to the garbage age? I have fixed that. Did your Barry Bonds, core of your offense, spend half the season on the disabled list despite being one of the most reliable players of all time? I have fixed the "bug" that Mogul's creator hard-coded into the engine that makes Barry Bonds injury prone. (Yes, that's really a thing.) 2.) During the move from Mogul '12 to Mogul '22, the league reset. Everyone is at a similar talent base right now. You're not going to come into a league and face established teams that have inner circle HoFers at every position and a minor leagues stacked with other HoFers in case of injury or ineffectiveness. 3.) I'm the commish if that sweetens the pot for anyone. I know Smasher had some run-ins with folks over the last 10 years. FWIW I want him part of the league (it's his league, after all; I'm just babysitting) and I don't think the league works without his creative writing. But if you found the previous iterations of the league perhaps a little too confrontational/doomy, I don't think it's like that anymore. 4.) Because SA just doesn't have the userbase it used to (and perhaps the folks who wanted to play fantasy historical fantasy baseball have already tried/stayed or tried/left at this point), we're not killing off as many teams to make room for new blood anymore. If you think you've got a work in progress, there's a good chance you'll be able to see it come to fruition over several seasons. 5.) Modern players are useable/actively good now. In Mogul 2012, I think the higher strikeout rates by hitters 1960-present made many of them unusable (this also had the effect of making Mogul racist as gently caress, since MLB didn't meaningfully integrate until right around that time.) But the last 2 league champions and last 2 league runners-up had offenses anchored by guys like Ichiro Suzuki, Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Lance Berkman. Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Madison Bumgarner, and Shohei Ohtani are all pitching aces. If you want to have a team with guys you've actually heard of, you'll have a viable squad. Probably. Alright, I want to play fantasy historical fantasy baseball. What do I do? 1.) Post that you want to play in this thread! 2.) You might want to join the Discord. You can get tips on team-building in there. 3.) Look over the Draft Sheet we'll use to make expansion teams. All owners can use 9 points worth of teams, and will select their teams in a snake draft. Any player who appeared AT ALL for that team that season is eligible to be on your team. 4.) Wait about a week until I start the draft. I'll close this thread next Sunday at which point we can start drafting. I figure anyone who's gonna join will have done so by then. Team Building Tips 1.) Mogul '23 hates guys in their first MLB season. Not "rookies," which has a different definition. Guys who never played in MLB prior to the season in which they appeared. To get around this, every team is allowed to "age up" up to 2 1st-year players on their roster. That way if you've got a guy who kicked rear end from the jump in MLB, you have a useable player. 2.) Other than the weird "hates guys in their first season" bug, Mogul is generally agnostic about specific seasons. Brady Anderson from That One Year He Hit 50 Homers isn't going to be appreciably any better or worse than Brady Anderson from the surrounding years. Guys at the tail end of their careers do tend to experience the rigors of aging pretty quickly, but you can still get a good season from old dudes if you protect them (platooning them, giving them time off, etc.) 3.) Mogul '23 seems to REALLY overvalue platoon matchups. You're going to want a couple lefties in your bullpen. Unless a guy is an all-time great hitter, you're probably going to want to find a platoon partner for him. 4.) Catcher and Shortstop are pretty hard to find good players at. You might want to get a team with them first. 5.) While MOST guys the old iteration of Mogul crapped on are now good, some are seemingly cursed. Larry Doby? He's good now, as he should be. Chipper Jones? Elite. ...Willie Mays? Might not be good still for some reason. David Wright? A bum. I don't get it either. And maybe YOUR version of that player will do well like they should. But know that it's probably a long shot. Anyway, that's it! I hope you play with us! Post here, ask questions, etc. Play ball?
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Jul 24, 2023 01:41
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I finally made the playoffs for the first time in years! Don't let me die now!
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Jul 24, 2023 16:06
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Well, I just watched one internet baseball community slip away from me, might as well do my part to keep up another. Put me in, coach! ...wait, what do you mean I'M the coach? Uh oh.
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Jul 24, 2023 23:01
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If I may take a moment to be appropriately confrontational and doomy: It is not a foregone conclusion that the Super-League is about to collapse. Also, I promise you, making a team is much less onerous than it seems, and also that even if you fail, it still might be fun.
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Jul 30, 2023 19:00
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That's not very doomy or confrontational! Anyway, Jossar stepped out. We'll run a ~28 team league with our existing teams next season. If there's enough interest to keep it going, I'll do so. New blood always welcome, though I'm closing registration for next season now.
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Jul 30, 2023 23:48
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