Two Hall of Famers and a Cy Young Award winner on today's Birthday Team.

C: Frank Connaughton
1B: Earl Torgeson
2B: Hugh Nicol
3B: Fernando Tatis
SS: Tom Downey
LF: Hank Greenberg
CF: Ethan Allen
RF: Hack Miller

SP: Tim Keefe
SP: LaMarr Hoyt
SP: Ned Garvin
SP: Bob Owchinko
SP: Carl Scheib
RP: Charlie Bishop

Manager: Bill McGunnigle

25-man rosters for the first batch of teams in the Birthday League. Strat-O-Matic limits leagues to a maximum of 30 teams, so I'm going to make each league consist of 28 teams. The first league will be January 1-28, then I'll do January 29-February 25, and so forth.

Park effects and weather effects are turned off, injuries are turned off, and the league is set to automatically control overusage in order to limit playing time for guys with great rate stats in extremely short careers.

Park effects and weather effects are turned off, injuries are turned off, and the league is set to automatically control overusage in order to limit playing time for guys with great rate stats in extremely short careers.

I'm curious as to the details on this - the stats listed in the PDF appear to give each position player 32 PA per career season played. I assume that's not a hard cap, because some of the teams would have trouble completing the season otherwise.

Also, do we know how the player profiles are era-corrected, if at all? Does park effects being turned off mean that all hitters from the '90s and all pitchers from the deadball era are awesome?

What's the plan once the individual groups are done? Something like a Champion's League taking the top 2 teams from each batch seems like an interesting option.

The teams from 1/5, 1/16, and 1/28 look like solid contenders in this group. Really looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

I'm curious as to the details on this - the stats listed in the PDF appear to give each position player 32 PA per career season played. I assume that's not a hard cap, because some of the teams would have trouble completing the season otherwise.

Right - if the team doesn't have enough AB at a position, the program will attempt to overuse players approximately equally. A guy rated for 128 AB would get around twice as many AB as a guy rated for 64 AB in an overusage situation. Or at least that's my understanding and intention.

Also, do we know how the player profiles are era-corrected, if at all? Does park effects being turned off mean that all hitters from the '90s and all pitchers from the deadball era are awesome?

Strat doesn't release the process they use to normalize, but the players are all normalized on this "disk" regardless of park effects.

Park effects being off just means that, say, January 13 isn't playing in Coors Field and January 22 isn't playing in 1968 Dodger Stadium. They're all playing in an average park, but deadball pitchers and 1930s hitters don't get an automatic boost or anything.

Not sure what the plan is after the groups are done. I figured we'd get underway, then have a year to figure that out.

The first batch of games is done.

Notes:
* January 5 has the best record in the league, at 7-1.
* Phil Mankowski (January 9) is red-hot, hitting .483/.545/.586.
* Six players are tied for the league lead with three home runs: Ron Kittle (January 5), Wayne Gross (January 14), Bobby Grich (January 15), Dib Williams (January 19), Marvin Benard (January 20), and Wily Mo Pena (January 23).
* Otis Nixon (January 9) leads the league with nine stolen bases.
* Red Kress (January 2) leads the league with 23.2 RC/27.
* Dontrelle Willis (January 12) has two complete-game wins, allowing one run in 18 IP.

Stats, standings, and box scores are here.

Please, hammer. Don’t hurt ‘em.

Hammer! Hammer-MAN! Hammer! Hammer-MAN...!

I know you hate me now. I understand.

Tribe signs Brett Myers. He'll slot into the rotation and, presumably, continue to (allegedly) punch women in the face.

Just curious: How did you determine the birthday team nicknames (Robots, Papal Bulls, etc.)?

Went through the Wikipedia entry for each date and found a historical event of some note. "Papal Bulls" references the excommunication of Luther. "Robots" is in honor of Asimov's birthday.

Some are intentionally goofy ("Fightin' Hoxhas" on the day of the declaration of the People's Republic of Albania) and some made me cringe (R. Budds on the day of the infamous Dwyer news conference), but I figured I might as well throw something in the nickname field.

Thanks for the info. And nicely done on the nicknames.

"Papal Bulls" references the excommunication of Luther.

Coincidentally, it's also the nickname of Orlando Cepeda's grandfather.