Welcome!

Welcome to MLB Showdown 2014! The premise of this blog is simple: to record and catalogue an MLB Showdown season, compiled of all 30 MLB teams.

The rosters are composed of players from the original MLB Showdown 2000 and 2001 sets, along with 2011 and 2012 player cards made by Colby Tallafuss. Definitely try checking out his website (http://mlbshowdowncards.blogspot.com/) where you can order modern MLB showdown cards if you want!

The process of forming these teams was fairly simple. I gathered up all my 2000, 2001, 2011, and 2012 cards and sorted them all into their respective teams. From there, they made cuts to meet roster size and the salary cap. From there, teams that were under the salary cap could sign free agents (and there were plenty of great free agents, mostly from the Red Sox), with the team with the most cap space getting first dibs, etc... It should be easy to tell which player was a free agent signing.



League Rules:
-6,000 point salary cap for teams
(Yes, it's high, but with so many great players available for every team, I wanted to keep as many of the good cards in the game as possible)
-18 players on each team, as that amount of cards fits perfectly on a sheet
-It's not a hard cap, so some teams may be over. However, those teams will have that amount taken away from them next season (i.e.: a team with 6,200 this year will only have 5,800 next year).
-The DH is in play in both leagues, mainly for salary cap balance and not having to worry about pinch hitting, double switches, etc.... Yes, it breaks tradition, but playing a full season will be time consuming enough
-The season will either be 36 or 48 games long. Honestly, it'll depend on how much help my cousin ends up being in simulating.
-Only one wild card in each league... I've got to be a traditionalist somehow!
-There's a host of various offseason and salary rules being formulated now, we'll keep y'all posted

Roster Explanations:
On each team preview, I include the rosters from the google drive I uploaded the rosters to. One of the categories that isn't technically on the cards is the "tiers" attributed to starting pitchers. The tier system is simple: the better the pitcher, the better the tier.

Starters Tiers
Tier One: Control 6, allows a baserunner (on at) 17; C5, on at 18; C4, on at 19; C3, on at 20
Tier Two: Control 6, on at 16; C5, on at 17; C4, on at 18; C3, on at 19; C2, on at 20
Tier Three: Control 6, on at 15; C5, on at 16; C4, on at 17; C3, on at 18; C2, on at 19; C1, on at 20
Tier Four: C5, on at 15; C4, on at 16; C3, on at 17; C2, on at 18; C1, on at 19, C0, on at 20
Tier Five (ouch): C4, on at 15; C3, on at 16; C2, on at 17; C1, on at 18, C0, on at 19

Relievers tiers work the same way, but tier one begins one level higher (C6 on at 18, etc.), as there are those rare gems that are true shut-down closers.

Final Notes
Before the simulation begins, I'll post individual team updates, have a predictions page, and set out a schedule. Hope people find this entertaining, let's play ball!