Well, I've been thinking more and more about the "franchise game", and on a parallel track I've been working again on my baseball game -- for somewhat obvious reasons... (Go White Sox!)
I think I've gotten the "tactical" game to a workable stage, and I thought of an excellent idea (at least to me... 
) for the "strategic" level.
Basically, we'd run a league, in which you could draft ANY PLAYER from ANY ERA of major league baseball. I've worked out a system where the average player's stats from a given year are adjusted to match the average player from 2000-2004, and then all the players in that given year are modified accordingly (for example, in real life, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920 -- adjusted to a 162-game schedule with modern stats, he would hit 85).
Here's the fun part -- when a player is drafted, he begins with the capabilities of his rookie year. Then, at the end of each year, his performance "shifts" randomly; for example:
Roll -- Effect
1 -- Back one year
2 -- Stays the same
3 -- Ahead one year
4 -- Ahead one year
5 -- Ahead two years
6 -- Ahead three years
Thus, if we roll a 5 for the Babe, in the next season he would perform as he did in 1922, skipping 1921's performance entirely. If at the end of the next season we rolled a 1, then he would shift to 1921's performance.
In this way, while you have a general idea of how a player will perform over the course of his career, and on average he'll last as long as he did in real life, from year to year his impact will be unknown.
In the absence of "create your own player" rules (which could be done, as well), I think this would be an excellent way to move from season to season...
Also, at the end of each season, several more historical players would become available, again each at his rookie level of play.
Does this even remotely spark anyone's interest?
