The hobby of sports simulation games can be enjoyed in a variety of ways.

1. You can conduct team or season replays
2. You can join a league
3. You can participate in live weekend tournaments

All of these options are fun, but they all require a significant time commitment, especially season replays and league play.

Tournaments are fun too and they offer the camaraderie that is such a big part of this hobby, the things that I like less about tournaments are the fact that you’re playing with historical teams that were not created by you and also the sample size that determines the winner is very small, allowing luck to play a big factor in who is crowned champion.

My goal with this website was to create a fun and challenging project and to provide a 4th option for APBA players, fans of statistical baseball simulations and fans of baseball history in general.

My idea is disband two or more historical teams, in other words, make the players free agents and then create new teams via a fantasy baseball style auction.

The APBA Baseball For Windows program allows two or more owners to drop the players from any two or more teams in baseball history and reconstruct them via a draft, for our purposes, we’ll do this via fantasy style auctions (260 – imaginary dollars per owner) – you can then choose micromanagers to manage your teams and replay an entire season in a very short time. The entire season must be replayed because a short series (e.g. – 4 out of 7) will often not identify the best team.

Time is a vanishing resource for all of us, so my intention with this project was to create a competition between two or more player, driven by the intensity of the auction process, and then to quickly determine who had the best team without having to engage in a long term commitment (like league play or a season replay).

Below are the two primary ways to conduct an auction:

OPTION #1 – LIVE VIDEO AUCTION – this is conducted via a video chat application like Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, etc. For my auctions, I like to use Zoom.

1. This auction is ideal for 2 to 4 people. Of course, if the participants do not have time constraints, you can certainly have more than 4 participants in live auctions.
2. Each GM would select one historical team – the players on those teams will all be made free agents.
3. An auction would be scheduled via Zoom to recreate two new teams from the the pool of free agents.
4. Each GM/Owner would receive 260 imaginary dollars to purchase their players.
5. Each GM would nominate one of the available players to be auctioned. The order of who nominates the first player would be determined randomly. The auction would proceed in a back and forth fashion until all the players were purchased and the two new teams were created. As an example, GM #1 nominates a player for $1, lets say its the 1956 version of Mickey Mantle, GM#2 bids $15, GM #1 then ups the bid to $20, GM#2 doesn’t relent and bids $30 for Mantle, GM#1 will not be outdone and bids $40 for Mantle, GM#2 bids $43, GM#1 considers bidding higher, but decides to save his money for other players, so the bidding ends at $43 and GM#2 is awarded the player. The auction then continues in a similar fashion for the next player that gets nominated. This whole process is carried out live on Zoom. A two player auction can take from 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on the pace of the bidding.
6. 25 players must be purchased – if the predetermined roster size of each team is more than 25 players, a draft would be scheduled to fill the remaining roster spots. Most Sim Auction teams will consist of 25 or 30 players.
7. The day after the auction is over, I input the rosters for the teams into the APBA program and set each team’s preferred right handed/left handed lineups and starting rotation .
8. Each owner selects a Micro Manager (ideally with tendencies compatible with the makeup of their team).
9. I schedule a 2nd Zoom meeting and share my computer screen with the other GM, I then simulate one game at a time, or small batches of games, and we review the box scores and periodically check the standings to gauge who’s winning. After the entire season is simulated and a winner is declared, we review the final statistics for the players. The simulation of the entire season can be conducted in less than one minute, but to create some suspense we typically stretch the process to 1 hour.
10. After the simulation is over, I send the GM a summary of the standings and statistics.
11. All told – not counting the time it would take you to prepare your strategy, you can conduct a two man auction and simulation in about 2 1/2 hours, split into two Zoom sessions.

So as I mentioned earlier, no long term commitment, and since an entire season is simulated, you get definitive confirmation of who created the best team!

OPTION #2 – “SLOW AUCTION” VIA THE BASEBALL SIM AUCTION WEBSITE

1. These auctions are intended for 5 or more players (in this description, I will assume 6 GM/Owners are participating) – they are ideal for those participants that like to have the auction spread out over several days and prefer the idea of having more time to consider their bids.
2. Each GM would select one historical team – the players on those teams will all be made free agents.
3. An auction would be scheduled via the sim auctions website to recreate six new teams from the the pool of free agents.
4. Each GM/Owner would receive 260 imaginary dollars to purchase their players.
5. These auctions would be scheduled and conducted on the Sim Auctions website over a span of 6 days (the number of days vary depending on the number of teams)
6. Slow Auctions are flexible and can accommodate a variety of time frames. The two options that have been used recently are auctions from 9am to 6pm (one player auctioned every 30 minutes), and a more compressed format of 9pm to 11pm (one player auctioned every 6 minutes) – as mentioned, these auctions are conducted over multiple days.
7. The progress of the auction would be visible to all the GMs via an Excel spreadsheet that would be updated periodically and be accessible online to all the participants.
8. The order of the players to be auctioned is determined randomly and will be visible on the website under the “Future Auctions” tab.
9. 25 players must be purchased – if the predetermined roster size of each team is more than 25 players, a draft would be scheduled to fill the remaining roster spots. Most Sim Auction teams will consist of 25 or 30 players.
10. Once the auction is complete, I enter the rosters into the APBA program together with the lineups and pitching rotations that have been submitted to me
11. Each owner selects a Micro Manager (duplicate Micro Managers are allowed)
12. I schedule a Zoom meeting and share my computer screen with the other GMs, I then simulate small batches of games, and we periodically review boxscores and check the standings to gauge who’s winning. After the entire season is simulated and a winner is declared, we review the statistics for the players. The simulation of the entire season can be conducted in a few minutes, but to create some suspense we typically stretch the process to 1 hour.
13. After the simulation is over, I send each GM a summary of the simulation statistics.

OPTION #3 – DRAFTS – Yes, you read correctly, although I prefer auctions, drafts are fun too, and I recognize it’s the format that most players are familiar with and utilize.

1. Since there is no back and forth bidding, Drafts are typically faster than Auctions. A Draft via ZOOM is ideal for 2 to 5 participants, or more.
2. Drafts of 6 or more participants can be conducted via text, email or a group chat app like Slack or Group Me. The time interval between picks would vary, but would typically be 30 to 60 minutes and selections would be made between 9am and 6pm, the draft would last as many days as necessary to fill all the team rosters.
3. Each GM would select one historical team – the players on those teams will all be made free agents.
4. A Draft would be scheduled to create new teams from the the pool of free agents.
5. The progress of the draft would be visible to all the GMs via an Excel spreadsheet that would be updated periodically and be accessible online to all the participants.
6. Once the Draft is concluded, I would enter all the team rosters into the APBA program, along with the team lineups and pitching rotations.
7. Each owner selects a Micro Manager (duplicate Micro Managers are allowed)
8. A Zoom meeting is scheduled, I share my computer screen with the other GMs, I then simulate small batches of games, and we periodically review box scores and check the standings to gauge who’s winning.
9. After the entire season is simulated and a winner is declared, we review the statistics for the players. The simulation of the entire season can be conducted in a few minutes, but to create some suspense we typically stretch the process to 1 hour.
10. After the simulation is over, I send each GM a summary of the simulation statistics.

For additional information, please check my RULES page.