Under the Cap

How to play

Fill every starting spot with a player of the right position, from any era. Each player has a cost and a rating, and your budget does not cover a roster of all-time greats. Pick a bench with anyone left over. When every starter is in, play the season.

You get a record, your longest winning streak, a playoff run and the exact chance your roster had of going undefeated.

Players come from lists we curated of well-known stars in each league, with team histories checked against Wikipedia and Wikidata. A player counts as a teammate when the two were on the same franchise in the same season; a team that moved or changed its name is one franchise. Baseball data comes from the Lahman Baseball Database, copyright 1996-2025 SABR, via Sean Lahman, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. We matched it to our own player list and combined it with other sources, so it is changed from the original. Ratings blend career honors (Lahman database for MLB, Wikipedia for the other leagues) with our tier for each player. They are not official statistics.

Questions

How is a season simulated?

Your team's strength is the average rating of the starters, a smaller share from the bench (an empty bench spot counts as a replacement-level player, so leaving it empty is no shortcut), and a bonus for players who were really teammates. Each game is a weighted coin flip against the rest of the league. The same roster on the same day always gives the same record.

Where do the ratings come from?

About 60% of each rating comes from the player's career honors, counted from public records: All-Star or Pro Bowl selections, MVPs, league and playoff awards, all-league teams, titles and the Hall of Fame. The rest is our own judgement of how good he was at his best, in five tiers. Honors come from the Lahman baseball database for MLB, the player's Wikipedia page for the NBA and NFL, and Wikipedia award lists for the NHL. Stats like points or yards are not used, and eras are not adjusted.

Can a team really go undefeated?

It can, but it is very unlikely even for the best roster the budget allows. The result card shows the exact chance for your roster.

What are the weekday rules?

Each weekday has a rule: a bigger budget on Sunday, an open draft on Monday, only players who started before 1990 on Tuesday, only players who started in 2000 or later on Wednesday, no all-time icons on Thursday, a smaller budget on Friday and stars only on Saturday. Other leagues use their own cut-off years.

Where can I see the best roster?

In the section under the puzzle called This week's best rosters. For every day so far this week it shows the highest-rated roster the budget and that day's rule allow, the season that roster plays, and how you did. Last week is kept in a drop-down. Today's appears once you finish today's puzzle, or tomorrow. It is the best roster by team rating, which is not the same as the best result: the season still has luck in it.

Does a practice run count?

No. Only your first daily roster counts toward your streak and stats. Practice rosters never do. For a rated daily result the rating service replays your season from your roster, rule and budget, so the record is the one the roster earns.

Is there a rating or a leaderboard?

Yes. Each day you finish counts once toward a running Elo rating for Under the Cap, starting at 1000, and it is worked out by the rating service from your result and the difficulty of that day's puzzle. Without an account the rating stays on this device. Signed-in players can opt in to the all-time and weekly leaderboards under a display name.