I used to play Strat extensively at TSN, and I would only play in the Theme leagues. You end up with a real dedicated group. The one defense I will give you fro stratomatic is that you know what the math is behind the numbers, the only problem I had with whatif sports was you never had any way of knowing which players are actually good and which ones are not. What is real cool at whatif is the unlimited choices you have for players to build a team.

Actually, I am planning on starting a theme league on WIS pretty soon. See what you think.

Pick two teams which have been to the World Series, win or lose, and make a team. No AAA, WW, or free agents. There would be DH and trades. No players out of position. 100M cap. Any team that went to the WS from 1903-2008.

Joel, are you on WIS? If so, keep an eye out for the league. It'll be up after the WS and when the 2008 players come out. And if you're interested, check out the 2008 Cookie League in the Theme Classifieds.

A brief update:

ROBOSOX IV ended up going 86-76, 9 games out of first. That was my best full season finish since the original ROBOSOX won 96 and the division.

ROBOSOX V is currently two games below .500, and about a week from the All-Star Break. It took a while for the team's bats to heat up, but 1974 Lou Brock is stealing bases at a prodigious rate.

I also have a team in a 100M cap Theme league. That team, INITECH Staplers, is 18-7, and leads its division by a game. Essentially, it is an Open league team at a higher cap, with "Way Above Average" AAA players (players who are actually between 5-8M in the sim, versus regular AAA which is between 750K and 1.5M).

I was also invited to take over a team in a Progressive league. Progressives are leagues where you start with players from a season (this league started with 1987), and each year, you can pick up new players to complement your keepers. We are in 1993, a pretty weak year for new players, with many of the big names already gone in the first round. Still, I have a decent team, featuring Pudge Rodriguez, John Olerud, Ryne Sandberg, Ken Caminiti, Omar Vizquel, and Jose Canseco, plus pitchers like Chris Bosio, Tom Glavine, Jose Mesa, and Roger McDowell. I have renamed the team the New York Big Apple Juicers.

I started The World Series Team Theme, and have recruited six other owners so far. A brief desciption of the theme is explained above. If anyone here would like to play in that league, just join whatifsports.com. It's free to join, and you can play in the 10 game Spring leagues for free, but only one every 30 days, unless you own a full season team. It is fun, and you can learn quite a bit about historic baseball players. A full season team is only $12.95, about half of a Strat-O-Matic team.

With the slack time before the Super Bowl, here's a brief update on my WIS adventures:

ROBOSOX V, my Open League team, ended up going 83-79, and missed the playoffs. However, Lou Brock 74 stole 110 bases for that team.

INITECH Staplers, my team in the 100M Theme league, won 90 games, and went to the playoffs as the NL Wild Card (I had tied the Division winner, and the H2H standings gave him the division). This was in no small part due to the WAA AAA players who played a large role, especially AAA Dave Henderson, who stepped in to replace an underachieving 79 Andre Dawson (.229/1 HR/15 RBI in 59 games). I won the Division Series, but lost in seven games in the LCS to the eventual WS winner.

I was also part of the 2008 Cookie League, where we used many of the popular 2008 players (including everyone using Dustin Pedroia). My team was Double Stuffed Oreos 08, and I went 85-77. However, because this was a 16 team league, only division winners made the playoffs, and I missed out. My Pedroia went .338/22 HR/154 RBI/14 SB and came in 4th in the MVP. The consensus was that Pedroia does well in the sim, but his salary was too high at over 6M for the 80M Open Leagues.

My team in the 1993 Progressive, the New York Big Apple Juicers, went 88-74, ended with a 14 game winning streak, and missed the playoffs. I had obtained John Olerud in a trade before the season, and he certainly worked out for me, winning the MVP, the Silver Slugger, and the Gold Glove, batting .400, and leading the team with 25 HR and 144 RBI. We are almost done with the 1994 Draft, and with some trades and some picks, I added Mark Gubicza (who has good years coming in 95 and 96), Dan Plesac and Hector Carrasco (both of whom will be in my relief corps for a good long while), and complementary players Rafael Belliard, Archi Cianfrocco, and Brian Johnson. With my last pick, I am targeting RP Tim Mauser for a one year fix. By the way, my finish with this franchise is the best in the league's seven years so far.

My World Series Team Theme leagues is now up to 64 games. My team, The Power Station, is made up of the 1957 Milwaukee Brewers and the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals, and is 33-31, one game out of first. My pitching is a little weak (team ERA is 5.19!), but my hitting is strong, with the likes of Lou Brock, Red Schoendienst, Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda, Tim McCarver (a better ballplayer than announcer!), and Curt Flood.

I have also started another theme league, again based on my experiences years ago with the old FullCount Baseball program. I call it the 2009 Progressive. The idea is to hold a draft of current players during Spring Training (late February-early March). This would be for the 25 players that would make up the team. You would then track your players throughout the 2009 season. Trading is allowed, so you can try and improve your chances. After the regular season ends, there would be a three round supplemental draft, where you can drop underachievers, and pick up better choices. When the 2009 players become available in the WIS database, then the teams would be created, and the season played. At the end of the season, following the playoffs, each team would declare their keepers (which would be set at 10 batters and 10 pitchers), and another draft held during the 2010 spring training, thus beginning the cycle again. I think this will be a lot of fun, with the emphasis being on trying to predict future performance (more like fantasy) rather than creating teams based on historic performance.

If anyone is interested, please join WIS and go to the Theme League Classifieds and find the thread entitled The 2009 Progressive. And the best thing about it is that you don't have to buy the team until late October!

Hey-

Do any of you guys have the promo codes for WIS?

HI DANNINO. How is it going man? I just joined my first strat league last week. Pretty damn nervous about the whole thing. I am completely confused.

Here's another sim leagues update in honor of Opening Day:

When last I left off, my World Series Teams Theme team, The Power Station, was 33-31 and in the hunt. I ended up going 76-86.

In the 1994 season of the 1987 Progressive, my New York Big Apple Juicers went 94-68, winning the NL East by 19 games. Admittely, the division was weak, with the three other teams winning 75, 37, and 26 games respectively. My starting pitching was my Achilles heel, and I lost in the LDS 3-1. On the upside, I played Jose Canseco an entire season in right field. He made 41 errors (he was only rated as a DH), but hit 51 HRs and 161 RBI. The 1995 draft has begin, but I have traded my first round pick for Mark Gubicza. I really need a 2B, as Ryne Sandberg didn't play in 95.

I also took over a team in another progressive run by the same guy. It's a dual progressive, using players from 1953 and 1983. My team, the Steel City Buccaneers went 81-81, the best the franchise has ever finished, thanks to Ted Kluszewski's 38 HRs and 149 RBI and solid pitching. I made a bunch of trades for draft picks, which I turned into 2B Frank White and RP Sammy Stewart. Not too bad for a team that I didn't draft, and that I took over two days before the season started. The 54/84 draft is about to begin, too.

I currently have an Open League team, ROBOSOX, at 62-55. This is only good enough for fourth in my division, although I'm only 6 games out of first. The team started poorly before coming around. However, I may not do another OL for a while, if ever again. The cap is lower, only 80M compared to 100M or more for theme leagues, and progressives generally have no caps. Plus, most OL teams use many of the same players, which I don't subscribe to.

I have two theme teams based on random assignment of teams. One is a league where every owner was given nine random World Series teams to make a team from, the other uses 15 randomly assigned playoff teams. Random Chaos, the random WS team, is 26-40 and spiralling downward, having lost 20 of its last 23. The other team, Even More Random Chaos, has just started, and I'm 1-2.

Another theme team uses randomly assigned players. My team in that league, Planet Express, is 54-54, mostly due to inconsistent pitching.

I am also playing in a theme league where you pick either a hitting or pitching team. You draft 200k scrubs for the other side, and spend most of the cap on your choice. I picked a hitting team, and drafted 49 Jackie Robinson, 48 Lou Boudreau, 42 Ted Williams, 37 Hank Greenberg, 23 Babe Ruth, 53 Al Rosen, 97 Larry Walker, 72 Johnny Bench, and 54 Willie Mays. I called the team Monster Magnet, and they're currently 14-13, one game out of first.

I have also signed up for another progressive, this one beginning in 1901, and using odd numbered seasons. We have 10 of 16 owners signed up. Plus, I found 15 other owners for my 2009 Progressive. We begin drafting the week of April 20th. And I signed up for a 80M version of the Extreme AAA Theme, but that looks like it might not get off the ground.

Yes, sim is addictive. I have only two fantasy teams, but I have five active teams with two more drafting. Again, if anyone is interested, check out whatifsports.com.

Another brief sim update:

The New York Big Apple Juicers, my 1995 progressive team, is currently in first place at 45-27, with a four game lead.

The Steel City Buccaneers, my team in the 1954/1984 progressive run by the same commissioner, isn't doing well. It's currently 19-35, at the bottom of a weak NL Central, six games behind. I also traded Ted Kluszewski at the height of his career for a first round pick and 1B Greg Walker. The team is in a rebuilding mode, especially as most of my pitching staff is headed for down seasons coming up.

ROBOSOX, my open league team, finished 86-76, and missed the playoffs.

Planet Express went 82-80, and missed the playoffs.

Random Chaos, the team with the randomly assigned World Series teams, finished 58-104, my worst ever sim finish. Even More Random Chaos, the team with the randomly assigned playoff teams, isn't doing much better. It's 51-66, so it should end better than Random Chaos, if not by much.

Monster Magnet, my hitting team in the Pitching vs. Hitting Extreme AAA league, is also failing. It's at 64-77, and fading, after having spent a while in first place in the division, if not above .500.

The 1901 Progressive and the 80M Extreme AAA league both fell through.

My 2009 Progressive league has drafted. I'm going to post the first five rounds for review. I had to replace one owner immediately, as he never showed up for the draft. Then, another bailed with some lame excuse after drafting with a questionable strategy, and I got another replacement. But the teams are drafted, and we're setting up an ESPN roto league for player tracking.

I also joined a 1969 progressive, which hit a few snags. We had one owner skip out after one pick, then others go missing without asking for proxies. Even the commissioner went missing for a few days. So, we've shut down the draft, and we're starting all over again. We'll begin drafting again in early June, once we find three more owners.

I also signed up for a dual progressive starting with the 1900 and 1980 seasons. We've started untimed drafting because the commish will be out of town for a couple of weeks, so we're not in a hurry. I've also signed up for another progressive starting in 1979, which has six owners so far.

If anyone is interested in checking out sim, you can play a free 10 game spring season. Just go to whatifsports.com and check it out.