Dear Fellow Owners,
The following post was a response given recently to a new owner's email inquiry. Since it's related to the previous post, I thought it worthwhile to add this one as well.

Welcome to the Nostalgia Baseball universe. Hope you have as much fun with it as I've had over the past several years. The game has changed since my glory years, plus the number of leagues and owners has multiplied many times over. In any case, in answer to your question, how to succeed in Nostalgia Baseball, here are some observations and bits of advice I've given to rookie owners in the past.

1) There's no single, proven "method" of winning. When you play around the same owners for awhile, you'll note the successful ones have their own unique brand of managing.

That said, here are some similar traits of owners who have a long history of success.

2) They are the ones who usually talk rookie owners out of their high first round draft picks. When you make a trade, ask yourself if in the long run your team will be better than the team you're trading with. If not, think twice about that trade.

3) They rarely ever sign mediocre players to Type One contracts. If you compare the ongoing rosters of good owners versus the perpetual inept ones, you'll note that the owners who have trouble winning are often those who've stuffed their rosters with lots of average players signed to Type One contracts that they can't get rid of. It's a tempting rookie mistake to save units that way; I did it myself when I first started playing NB (I signed shortstop Tony Kubek to a 6 season T1, then had a tough time getting rid of him).

4) They have a good sense of the quality of players that comes from experience and from paying attention to the statistical data provided in the database. Over the years, I've built up my own private list of 'blue chip' players, the top 24 or so players at each position. They are the ones I go after in the draft. After that, I draft for particular needs and rely on trades, my old-timer roster, and the waiver wire for mid-season improvements.

5) They are willing to take chances. That's really the best way to learn the game, and in so doing, you'll make mistakes. I still make them. What separates the haves from have-nots is the ability to learn from and not repeat those mistakes.

6) Learn the economics of the game. An average .500 team will earn around 2100 units. The average targeted salaries of the top 7 teams in the Campbell League thru April is around 2350 units, which is what I'd expect for teams loaded with better, higher salary players, ie., you have to spend to win to make Nostalgia bucks so you can spend to win. Make sense? But we've also got some teams with terrible records whose salaries are around 2600 units--those franchises are headed for the abyss of bankruptcy on greased train tracks.

A long time ago I created a Salary/Roster Excel spreadsheet that I use and update around draft time. I figure out how many innings I'll need from pitchers, how many at-bats I'll need per position, and draft accordingly. If I'm in a building stage, I keep my total team salary well below 2100 units. For example, my Peanuts team is a new franchise starting its second season. My style of play is to build and improve franchises slowly, so my team salary is just over 1600 units, and I'll probably spend around 100-300 on trades, waiver pickups, and old timer acquisitions. When I know I have a playoff caliber team, I don't mind running team expenditures to the 2300-2400 range. Generally, once my roster is fairly settled with players I know can sustain a multi season run at the playoffs, I like to keep my total salary between 2200-2300 units.

In the end, there's a lot of luck behind winning a Nostalgia World Series. I played 10 seasons in the Cooperstown league, put together very good teams that had the highest overall winning percentage in the Coop'town league's toughest division at the time, but my House of Onan Mules always got waxed in the playoffs by other teams having a great playoff run. The Campbell league has had some terrific owners who've never won a championship, so I consider myself very fortunate to have won a few trophies in NB's original league.

But getting to the playoffs, you'll note a lot of the same owners in a variety of leagues sustaining winning seasons year after year. That's not luck--that's good managing. Pay attention to those owners, and you'll do OK.

7) Finally, the only dumb question is the one never asked. So take advantage of the Forum to get feedback from your fellow Nostalgia managers.

Hope that helps. Good luck!