2029 and Beyond

[Borealis]

Before I begin delving into the details, let me congratulate Kevin Vail and the Shin Seiki (Evil) Evas for winning the 2029 Rodriguez Cup with a dominant performance in the Alliance Tournament and the Planetary Extreme Championship. The Evas have been a model of consistency for many, many seasons now and like their 2027 title, this one is richly deserved!

I'd be remiss if I didn't congratulate not only Duane for the fine job he has done guiding the Thoroughbreds - their 3 PEC appearances in four seasons make them just the 3rd team to accomplish that feat (behind Aurora and Florida), but I'd like to take the chance to commend the entire roster of GMs for all their handwork in making the PEBA the best baseball world, ever! For me, personally, it's hard to believe that it has been two full seasons (and nearly a full RL year come Thanksgiving) since I took on the Commissionership, and thanks to your support, spirit, friendship and belief in our little League, we have thrived. I took on the job with hesitation, but now I am thrilled to be your Commish because you all make the effort worth while (ok... maybe not all those traded picks - eyes shifting between Shin Seiki, West Virginia and Yuma ), and I thank you for that!

I do the best I can, but I couldn't do half as much without the great support of the Board - Dylan, Reg and RJ have been rocks behind the scenes as we've battled the challenges that we've faced and looked to move the League forward. As I thank all of you, I thank them for their efforts - I appreciate you guys very much!

One of the key things that has allowed us to thrive over these past two seasons has been a sense of calm stability. We were down 11 GMs a year ago, and by the 2028 season we had all spots filled. This season we had three openings, which filled quickly, along with expanding to 28 teams. One never knows, of course, but things feel strong - I think the deep loyalty and commitment that our core long-time group has demonstrated, has rubbed off on our newer GMs - each who have blended in with the group magnificently! I have a sense that we will remain a very stable group for quite awhile. Currently we are a full house!

So... With all the mushy stuff out of the way, Where are We? The following is a collection of thoughts and offseason information that will carry us into the 2030 season - the 24th Season of PEBA Baseball!!

1) I won't lie - I like tradition, and if it were up to me there would be somethings I'd never change - but that's not realistic, but one change that has no real effect on anything is a nomenclature change - and you may have noticed it already above. I am returning the League Championship series title back to it's original name, the 'Alliance Tournament'. I'm not sure when we lost that name (maybe in v14 or earlier - whatever years that was, and whoever Commish may have been), but I always liked the uniqueness of the name - and you may have noticed last offseason with some of the minor league realignment we did (especially in the GNL and with the upcoming Rookie League) look for unique ideas.

2) The 2029-2030 Schedule is pretty much ready to be released and it will take us up to Spring Training. When I release the schedule, I will go into greater detail, but amongst the important bits of information I will mention here are:

- Our first offseason sim will be this Friday, October 18, at 5pm PT. Our second sim will be next Wednesday, October 23, at the same time. The extended break is to accommodate for...

- The Server Migration. We all know how disruptive the current situation has been, and Dylan has worked hard to find us a new home, do the prep work, and the actual moving of the entire PEBAverse to the new server. This will be a little bit of an unknown - it's not totally in his wheelhouse, and I suspect that there may be some delay - but please be patient as we move through this. In a perfect world, we will be all set by Monday, but I wanted a little buffer room, in case we all have a little adjustments we need to make. Better safe than delayed, and a HUGE Thanks to Dylan for this massive undertaking!! In the end, we should be better off with this move.

- Performance Based/Fan Loyalty Adjustments. We returned these to the mix, after a short hiatus, last season and they will be implemented again this year. In-game Market Size adjustments have already occurred, so we will have our League Adjustments happen for Offseason sim #2 - to be fair. Last year they happened a little later in the offseason. I'll have more to say on this when I post the results.

- Winter Meetings, which are tentatively scheduled for November 9, 1pm ET, 10am PT. We will firm that up in the coming days.

3) Other League specific stuff...

- Award voting will end at 11:59pm PT this Friday, October 18, to accommodate the Server Migration. 20 GMs have voted, so the remaining 8 please take a moment to get your votes in!!

- Minor League Hitter and Pitcher of the Year selections are happening in the forum now, get those in, too! Both the Major League and Minor League Awards earns you CP...

- Speaking of CP, the CP Reward selection process begins after the Winter Meetings and runs until the Preseason (February 2, 2030) is reached - the Monday before Thanksgiving. CP Earning Season is once more Winter Meeting to Winter Meeting, so you still have a few weeks to get some writing done!! You may want to start thinking now about your priorities. Remember, you must have the cash available to pay for a reward, or exchange CP for cash to chose certain rewards.

4) Rookie League. I'm not certain when we will precisely enter this in-game - I have it on the calendar as between Arbitration and Free Agency, which is when we expanded with Charleston and Manchester last season. Once again, Dylan will be doing the grunt work of adding the Rookie and Feeder teams, so I will defer to his needs. Meanwhile, what we need from people at this moment is the following: Team name (most have given this to us), Location (if it's not obvious by the name - for instance, the Montserrat Mystique will play in Little Bay, Montserrat), Color Scheme (if you've the color code, even better!) and your ballpark dimensions (distance and wall height) - we will use the Ballpark Factor Generator to determine the factors, which will normalize the league in some manner. A logo would be great. If you are struggling finding/developing the artwork, the Board can help you out - or any number of guys in the League - we have some talented people here! I would prefer that all artwork were in place for implementing before the Preseason.

5) Rookie League coaching staff. One last thing on the Rookie League that I think we originally brought up (?), but hasn't been mentioned much - Teams will be allowed to freely select former players to convert to coaches for their Rookie League teams, and they will need to remain through the Inaugural campaign. The Board is still discussing whether GMs will be allowed any bonus points (as we do for the CP award) to boost these coaches abilities. I favor the idea, but not to the level the CP award does. So start thinking who'd you'd like to hire - I know my first two manager choices have stayed stubbornly active, so my search continues. The CP rules regarding player selection still apply - so if you have someone in mind, please be respectful of teams with first right of refusal.

And, lastly...

6) Slack v. Forum. Please try to remember to keep the forum involved in discussions about League news. We had 13 pages of things in the Neat Stuff thread - last season (2028) we had 20 pages, and in 2027, with the GM shortage being what it was, we had 21 pages... The forum has our history, and it's the simple things posted in the forum, like Neat Stuff, that carry the day to day Legacy of the PEBA. Slack bits roll to the top and - poof! then they are gone. I get the quick and easy interactions that Slack provides - I love waking in the morning and the East Coast guys have been rolling along for 2 hours, but lets not lose important pieces of our history to the Cyber Vacuum in the Clouds!

PHEW!!

I think that's everything on my list. Once again, Congrats to everyone associated with the PEBA, and thank you - including all the significant others who may be out there and who put up with our madness, for making this Community one in which we keep coming back to, day after day! Without each of you and your contributions, the PEBA would not be what it is. For that, I Thank You!!

[Arroyos]

Mike, we can't thank you enough for rejuvenating this little league of ours. Muchas gracias, amigo!

[Lions]

Huge thanks to Mike, Dylan, RJ, and Reg for making this league hum. Also a huge shout out to all the folks writing articles and blogs on a regular basis. The quality and quantity of writing right now is tremendous.

[Leones]

Bob and Frank are on point. Couldn't say it any better. Thanks!

[Evas]

The amount of work that goes on behind the scenes here is staggering. You guys rule.

[Ghosts]

To offload just the tiniest amount of all that great effort, allow me to start a thread here for us to select former players to become rookie league personnel. Looking forward to learning more about the league history in that thread!

[John]

I can't applaud all this enough, guys. But I will try.

[Sandgnats]

Mike you rock in every sense of the word. Thank you brother!