Off Topic
This helpful guide was written by Chris Wilson (last rev. by the GB on 11/12/22), the Vice Commissioner of ORB2, in an effort to help new GM's in particular but also all of us stay on the ball with everything the league does.
Read It.
History
The league maintains it history in a few different forms. First, of course, is the forum itself, which houses all Team News from the 1995 season on, as well as the running list of features, polls, reviews, Media Guides, and whatnot that our GMs create.
Unified History Document: In addition, a Google sheet document that includes franchise histories (by GM), award histories, and several other fun an interesting pieces of information. check it out here. You can also find a link to it in the link bar of the forum labelled "History."
Media Guide: League members will often create a combined Media Guide that gets released on Opening Day. This will vary in length based on the number of participants who contribute, but is generally a pretty hefty document full of team previews, fun articles, commentary on relevant league activity, and any other flight of fancy that happens along. Though participation is not required, all league members are encouraged to add something each year.
Cato History: The Brewster launched in game-time 1973 on earlier games and earlier versions of OOTP. While player histories from that time are available in game and in the online HTML, much of the historical records earlier than 1995 (considered Modern Day), can be found in the Cato Database, which as of the time of this writing is found under the "Extra Quick Links" part of the forum (upper right hand side of the screen).
Governing Board
Commissioner - Matt Rectenwald - Recte44
Vice Commissioner/Historian - Stephen - @Lane
League Director (JL) - Brett Golden - @GoldenOne
League Director (FL) - Mike Simon - @CTBrewCrew
League Advisor (JL) - John Momberg - @chicoruiz
League Advisor (FL) - Chad Nason - @Dington
GBC Ambassador - James Walker - @Jwalk100
All GB members are here to help, via forum PM or Discord.
Getting Started
OOTP
The first thing you need to have is the proper version and patch of OOTP. If you are unsure of this, please contact one of the league Governing Board members.
League file
Once you're are added to the league, the simmer will set you up with a password to access your team in the game. The latest file, and find instructions for setting it up, can be found here.
StasPlus:
This helpful utility is linked at the top of the page. You can use the utility to check your exports, track player development, vote for all-stars and awards, and most importantly DRAFT! Commish will link your forum/slack/StatsPlus accounts shortly after you join and are assigned a team. If you cannot access your team in StatsPlus, contact him.
Discord:
The league uses Discord as a place to engage in live sims. Several GMs also prefer its realtime aspect to enhance quicker trade conversations than can be had on the forum PMs. We do not track participation on Discord, and all TNs and other relevant journalistic aspects of the league are to be housed and maintained on the Forum. Important channels include #general, #highlights (sim highlights and results), #finals (final scores), #draft, and #umeba. We will send you a Discord invite when you are assigned a team. If we forget, message Lane or anyone else on the Governing Board.
League-wide Announcements:
Critical information regarding the league and its status will be released in the League Announcements forum thread. It might be a good idea to subscribe to this thread to ensure you don't miss anything during periods of high forum activity.
Sim Schedule
As a general rule, the BBA sims three times a real week, running seven games per sim. This will be adjusted at times due to both life situations and issues in game. The commissioner also will strive to maintain the sim calendar, which at the time of this writing is in the top area of the forum. The posted sim time should be considered the export deadline, meaning the Commish will sim at that time or later, depending on his real life commitments. Keep your eye on the League Chatter forum for the sim threads, and the Sim Complete/Upcoming events thread. You should also receive an email at the conclusion of every sim. StatsPlus bot posts to #general on Discord when the league file is ready, when the HTML is updated, and when StatsPlus is updated. Note that in the playoffs and offseason, the schedule is generally accelerated both in sims per week and days per sim.
Exporting
Every team is expected to export every sim--even if nothing needs to be done, simply because this is a great way to ensure we know GMs are engaged. If you cannot export due to a life or other technical issue, you are expected to post a message in the "GM Availability" thread of the forum. Exports are tracked and rewarded in the Participation System, and as such "excused misses" that you report in advance will be included as if they were successful exports. It is best practice to make sure that you handle your team the night before a sim to avoid a potential missed export.
If you miss three consecutive exports you will be contacted by a league director about your situation, to which a timely response will be expected, lest you run the risk of forfeiture of your team.
You can track your exports by looking at the exports tab/link in StatsPlus here.
Ping Commish:
In any case you need the commissioner to take a special request regarding any oddity regarding your team in the league file, please drop a note in the Ping: Commish forum topic.
Participation System:
In this league, you are required to participate. You must earn at least 20 Participation Points (PPT) per season to keep your team. Anything less will cause the Governing Board (GB) to either place you on the GM Bailout Plan (per the constitution) or take your team. Methods to earn PPT,and their rates, can be found here, but in general consist of being active on our forum, exporting, writing team news, previews, and league features, participating in podcasts, and creating polls or other content that is fun and relevant to the league. bottom line: the more we put into the environment, the more it pays back.
Team News: Every GM winds up having his or her own flair and personna, but here's a guide to writing in the BBA.
Tracker: The league uses a Google sheet to track participation, which you can find here as well as in the forum post linked to in the the paragraphs above and below. We also have a Guidebook on how to read the Tracker system (also linked to in the tracker).
Participation Rewards:
In the off-season, GMs can exchange their participation points to take one or more of several actions that serve to either improve their team's situation or just enable us to personalize and more fully engage with our team and the league. Common benefits include improving player personality ratings, converting RP to SP and vice versa, as well as translating the points to cash or budget for your organization. Other factors can be changed, also--including improving personnel, converting ex-players into coaches, adjusting your ballpark, and rebranding or even moving your major and/or minor league clubs. All of these have different advantages and disadvantages. For more detailed information about PPTs and their rewards reference this.
Spending PPT:
Teams report points they want to spend by posting notification in the Participation Points and Rewards section of this forum. The Governing Board will then use those posts to take actions needed to execute the reward.
Drafts:
Rule 4 (Amateur Draft)
We use StatsPlus to conduct the draft with it commencing early on in the regular season. With the utility, you can rank the players in order of how you want to draft them. One of the main problems we have with using this in the draft is when GM's do not set their utility to auto-draft from list - especially if you're a GM who isn't on the forums a lot. After setting your draft list, it is always helpful to set your draft to auto-draft from list if you know you're going to be away. Always be sure to save your draft list each time you edit it.
Rule 5
The Rule 5 draft is conducted via in-game lists and it is the responsibility of each GM to add players to their 40 man roster in advance of the sim. It is generally good practice to add players to the 40 man roster at least one sim prior to the draft, so that there is time to catch any players that OOTP may miss.
Rule 6
The Rule 6 draft (defined in the Constitution) is conducted outside the game. Combined with the Rule 7 draft, It's primary purpose is to provide a controlled path by which players can move between the BBA and the UMEBA (or any other Independent League that we might create in the future. The rule 6 draft occurs immediately after the Landis Series is complete, and enables a BBA team to acquire bid-topping rights to players from UMEBA teams.
Rule 7
As noted above, the Rule 7 works in concert with the Rule 6 draft, and allows a UMEBA team that loses a player in Rule 6 to select a Rule 5 eligible player from the drafting team.
Draft Order
Draft order is determined by a three year weighted average record, details of which can be found in the Constitution.
Draft Classes:
The BBA uses Feeder Leagues to represent High School and College players. This allows BBA GMs to always be capable of looking forward to assess future draftees.
Custom Amateurs: On occasion, the commissioner will make open calls for custom amateurs. These allow BBA GMs to earn PPT by creating personas for future players. Once this personal has been created, the commissioner will go through players in the current feeder leagues to find most similar players, and will edit their names to match.
Trading:
Responses
Trading is an integral part of any online league and, to many, is considered one of the most important aspects of team building. As such, while participating in trades is not required of GMs to be considered 'active', timely responses to PMs with regards to trades are. If a GM takes an inordinate amount of time to respond to a trade inquiry, the GB may be alerted by the initiating party and penalties could be levied.
Who can be traded
See the Constitution for restrictions. Note that there is no trading between GBC and BBA.
Trading after the deadline
The BBA does not allow waiver trades after the August 31 trade deadline.
Trading Culture: Entering a new league can be a bit intimidating, and trading players in that environment can be a little overwhelming. The Brewster’s rating scheme is also—like most leagues—a little different from others, so we understand that determining proper values can sometimes difficult. In that light, new GMs are strongly encouraged to seek out advice from other GMs in the BBA prior to making their earliest trades. While you are always free to make deals on your own, of course, you’ll find almost everyone is willing to provide advice or points of view for you to consider as you get familiar with the league. (To be clear about how open we are to these questions, please note that even grizzled BBA veterans often ask each other via slack DM or forum PM what we think of various players as we work out our various deals. In some ways, this camaraderie adds to the fun of the league.)
Finances:
Thanks to a variety of adjustments to the league’s financial architecture, cash and budgets are more important than ever for GMs to be aware of. Here are some bullet points to review:
• Team max cash on hand = 20M
• Team max bonus fund capacity = 40M
• League salary cap = 120M (player payroll)
Bonus Funds: When a BBA team earns more cash than the $20M max on hand, those funds go into their Bonus Funds account. This fund is kept outside of game (segregated from cash on hand) so that it does not affect owner budgets, FA demands, or anything else the game might do with excess cash on hand. Teams can move funds out of their Bonus Fund Account in accordance with this handy Bonus Cash Quick Primer.
A Governing Board Member maintains the status of each team's Bonus Funds account, and will post updates each off season. This thread can usually be found inside the Participation System section of the forum.
Bonus funds can be traded or used for a variety of things, such as (but not limited to):
• Recovering from unprofitable seasons (replenishing cash on hand)
• Annual stadium maintenance
• Stadium renovations, rebuilds, relocations, etc.
Stadium Maintenance: The BBA uses a system by which each team has to pay for their stadium upkeep, and in which that cost will raise as their ballparks get older and more sophisticated. This fee is tracked by a Governing Board member, and is updated in the off-season each year. GMs should be aware of these charges and work to maintain a health cash balance to account for them. These fees will be paid out of the Bonus Fund Account first, and Cash on Hand if necessary. Specifics of these fees are identified in the Constitution. As with the Bonus Funds account, the status of each team's Stadium feed will generally be posted in the Participation System section of the forum.
UMEBA:
The Global Baseball Consortium (GBC) is set up as an independent league in the BBA universe. It's a small league with limited minors, set to be considered a tier down in quality. The value of the league, besides creating a fun place for people to compete, is multi-tiered and includes the idea that it's a good place for new GMs to come into our world and get used to our complexities, allows a place for older BBA players to continue their careers in some cases, provides a fun and fresh source of players.
Though the GBS as a fully dynamic element of the BBA world, it is generally separate from the BBA in most fundamental aspects of its operation with the most notable exception being the shared Free Agent pool.
Florida Prospect League (FPL):
The FPL is a developmental league that runs in October/November for BBA teams. Each team selects a roster of players who are under 23 years old to participate. Various BBA teams use this league in different ways, but it's an opportunity to get players of your choice some additional reps. General mangers are expected to support this league via creating a roster and setting lineups. It should be noted that GMs have to export BOTH their regular team and their FPL team as two separate entities during the season. Here is a guide for how to do that.
