The 1999 Divergent League Baseball season is in full… swing! There was a big deal struck between the Expos and Red Sox but first let’s take a look at the final team selection and draft picks from last week’s big draft. Here’s how it shook out:
Tony – Arizona Diamondbacks – Kevin Millwood
Liam – New York Yankees – John Smoltz
Dan – Toronto Blue Jays – Chipper Jones
George – Chicago Cubs – Roberto Alomar
Me – New York Metropolitans – Greg Maddux
Derek L – Seattle Mariners – Tim Hudson
Travis – White Sox – Curt Shilling
Joseph – Detroit Tigers – Mark McGwire
Austin – Boston Red Sox – Mike Mussina
Charles – Montreal Expos – Brian Giles
Henry – San Francisco Giants – Bartolo Colon
Sandy – Cincinnati Reds – Tom Glavine
Gary – Los Angeles Dodgers – Larry Walker
Derek J – Houston Astros – Ivan Rodriguez
Red Sox & Expos Do A Draft Day Deal
It’s already proving to be a wild season, with a trade being pulled off by the Expos and Red Sox. The Red Sox sent Brent Saberhagen (P) to the Expos for Manny Martinez (CF) and Michael Barrett (3B, C).
Consider this post your invitation to become a team manager and participate in a weird atemporal look at 1999 though the lens of Divergent League Baseball.
Keep reading for how to join, when to watch, and what to look out for. I’ve also got some real life 1999 history material at the end for you to vibe on.
Wait, What Is Divergent League Again?
Divergent League Baseball is a simulated fantasy baseball league based on historical seasons (previous ones include: 1985, 1977, 1993) in which human managers make high-level decisions and trades and leave the coaching and playing of games to the Playstation 4 CPU. We simulate a full baseball season starting with the opening day rosters for our chosen year (1999 this time) based on a community-created roster in MLB The Show 20. Managers choose a team and get to make one pick of any player from any non-managed team, just to spice things up. We stream a subset of games featuring player owned teams on Twitch, YouTube, and RetroStrange TV on a routine schedule. Divergent League does not recognize the Designated Hitter rule under any circumstances.
The Divergent League 1999 Team Selection and Player Draft will take on a new form, to accommodate our players in different timezones and with different life contexts. Here’s how team selection will work:
Each manager will submit a list of 5 teams in order of most preferred to least to Phil in Discord or via email (divergent at extrafuture.com)
On Friday, March 18th at 5:00 Pacific / 8:00 Eastern, we’ll host a live Team Selection in our Discord Server
The Manager names will be randomly shuffled via a Python array
If Manager is attending live, they’ll be asked for their team choice
If Manager is offline Commissioner will choose teams based on the order in the list given in step 1 depending on what teams are available
And then the Player Draft:
Each manager will submit a list of 6 players in order of most preferred to least
On Saturday March 19th at 3:00pm Pacific / 6:00pm Eastern, we’ll host the Divergent League Draft in Discord
Draft Order will be the reversed order of the Team Selection order, for balance purposes
The Commissioner will post a list on divergentleague.com of the results of both Team Selection and Draft as they occur, as well as these events being the subject of the first 1999 episode of the Divergent League Update podcast.
Divergent League works by having players “buy-in” to manage one or more teams. You get to choose the team, and a special draft pick. We use the money to buy a custom trophy for the winner of our championship.
This season, each team costs $10 to manage. I do not particularly care how you get me the $10. Here are two ways, listed in order of preference:
This weekend saw the Divergent League Baseball draft, where owners were introduced and formally selected teams and players. The final results are as follows:
Seamus – Blue Jays – Rickey Henderson
Henry – Giants – Pete Harnish
Derek L – Phillies – Mark Langston
Tony – Tigers – Tony Gwynn
Charles – Expos – Andres Galaraga
Austin – Rangers – Kenny Lofton
Gary – Cubs – Mark Portugal
Sandra – Mariners – Albert Belle
Travis – White Sox – Craig Biggio
Liam – Yankees – Danny Darwin
Derek – Braves – Mike Piazza
George – Reds – Bryan Harvey
Dan – Royals – Greg Vaughn
Phil – Mets – Cal Ripken Jr
There was some team-swapping over the event. Through negotiation the Expos, Tigers, and Blue Jays switched owners to the ones listed above.
