The All-Timers League: The Background

Pedro Martínez vs. Babe Ruth. Walter Johnson vs. Barry Bonds. Who will prevail?

It's taken a bit longer than expected to get this league going, but the inaugural draft for the All-Timers League (ATL) has reached its conclusion, so games are extremely close to starting. With this in mind, I want to make sure everyone actively participating in the ATL, as well as anyone who's interested in following the ATL, knows the entire background regarding the league's rules, settings, player creation, and anything else that doesn't fall under those categories. Here's the hopefully comprehensive FAQ:

How many teams are there? 6 teams composed of 25 players each. There's been some talk of doing this again next year with more willing participants.

Which players are eligible for the ATL? Any player who has played a substantial amount of seasons in the major leagues since 1901, the year the American League was formed. For example, Cy Young's career spanned from 1890-1911; his 11 seasons certainly are a substantial amount since 1901. 1901 is a good year to denote when our national pastime became what it is today because the vast majority of rules, major league setup, and dimensions match those used in 2010.
Unfortunately, this excludes the best of the 19th century, as well as Negro League greats. As much as I'd want to include the Negro Leaguers, I would have a great deal of difficulty predicting what kind of hitting, pitching, and fielding statistics these men would post as compared to their major league counterparts.

How are games being "played" in this league? I purchased Out of the Park Baseball, a fantastic program for carrying out many different simulations of seasons over whatever time period one wants. I entered each player's statistics into the game, and we'll all see how each player will produce as the season progresses. The games are simulated in a text-based format; it's not like a video game where the players are literally playing on the screen.

Which statistics did you use for hitters and pitchers? I used the players' career statistics, usually cutting off a year or two at the beginning and end of their careers to make them more in line with their better major league seasons, and averaged them out for an average season of production over their careers. For hitting stats, I had to conform them to what they would look like over 550 ABs. Unfortunately, fielding and baserunning were purely ratings based (0-250 scale), so I had to make some highly educated judgment calls based on a combination of statistics, awards won (e.g., Gold Gloves), well-studied accounts of their performances, and strategy of that era of the game (e.g., players stole bases frequently in the first 2 decades of the 1900s).
Pitching worked a little differently. Outside of the above-listed stats, others like stamina and holding runners on base were also entered utilizing highly educated judgment calls; certainly, "Deadball Era" pitchers who threw complete games every time out were near the maximum for stamina. I selected the types of pitches that each pitcher threw with tremendous help from The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers. ERA served as a way of ranking pitchers: I consulted 2 phenomenal sources (The Baseball Page and The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract) that gave thoroughly studied rankings of the pitchers, and I rearranged their positions slightly thanks to Baseball-Reference's ERA+, which shows how dominant the pitcher was compared to his league. The counting numbers are a bit imperfect; for instance, many great pitchers from the early part of the 20th century got their strikeout numbers raised considerably in order to bring their ERAs down and make their performances more in line with the modern game.
**Note well that this season is being played under conditions as they are today. Power numbers and playing strategy reflect how the game is being played now as opposed to, say, those in 1908, 1930, or 1968.

How long is the season going to be? In the game's time it will be 154 games, as it was in the bigs until 1961/2 (AL switched a year earlier than NL). In real life time I am not completely sure because it will depend on how busy I am with my life. I will make prompt updates after playing a series of 14 games.
The top two finishers in the league will square off in a best-of-seven series for the All-Timers Championship.

Can players get injured, and what happens if one does? Yes, players can get hurt in this game. Because I hope that as many of the best players can stay healthy throughout the season as possible, I leaned toward low injury proneness ratings for the vast majority of players. Should one get hurt, the team manager will choose from all the players not selected in the ATL draft. Once the injured player returns, the manager does not completely lose one of his players to free agency; the player who gets booted off the 25-man roster goes onto the team's Reserve Roster, where he's still under that team's control.

Will players get traded? I wasn't planning on anyone making in-season trades, and I would think that at least at this point, each manager is content with the players currently occupying his roster. Still, I will definitely not go as far as saying that trades are forbidden.

How unique is each manager's team? Each manager got to select not only his team city and nickname, but he also got to choose what ballpark (real but did not have to still exist) will house his team's home games. So due to potential differences in park dimensions/factors, each team's scoring outputs could be much different from one another.

What does the winning manager get? Outside of bragging rights, we never decided on a tangible prize. This could change.

Are you stoked to get thing thing going? You bet I am! It should be both educating and entertaining, and I'll do my best to entertain you all with what happens.

I'll have a team preview for each of the 6 teams coming extremely soon. Stay tuned!