Rule Change Discussions

[Maydab23]

1) Like Chris said cap penalty doesn't mean much to a tanking team void of MLB contracts. Not a fan of punishing a team that's bad in standings with pick losses either though. This one will always be a tough one.

Maybe put a minimum number of points teams must reach in Fantrax during a season or they forfeit picks. For example <1k points in a season loses 1st rd, 1k-2k lose a 2nd rd etc. Something along those lines. I think that is better than saying must have X amount of MLB players as in years past. It doesn't matter where the points come from. This will force those bad teams to either spend in FA or call up players.


2) I think trading is fine just no more than 2 drafts out. Personally I like only being able to trade current years. For example 2017 draft is a long ways out right now and there will undoubtedly be owner turnover and I hate to see someone trade picks then jump ship. That said if people like 2 years out as limit that's fine I just think only upcoming draft is better.

3) I agree salary cap should be something along the lines of previous years average or average plus 5%. This offseason should probably be a slight increase of a couple mil or so.

4) Everybody agrees on this. Make it easier on the spreadsheet person.

5) Revocable Waivers should require 48 to pass to give teams a chance to claim then start another 48 hour clock to negotiate/post a trade. As it is now a team can post on waivers and another team see, claim, agree to trade and post within 10minutes of being placed on waivers. That's not fair to all teams.

6) I'm mostly indifferent to roster changes. Maybe cut one position player for another P or UT/P spot.

7) I definitely support this. Hoarding of prospects is bad for the league and prevents those bad/mid level teams from getting better as there aren't players available to fill out rosters. This might help curb issue #1 as well.

8) I think international is fine the way it is for now. Wait and see when/if MLB creates international draft or something then change.

9) QO should be avoided for now. Rule will probably change soon in real life anyways.

[chrisetc21]

We've had I think five or six different commissioners in the 5 seasons this league has been here so things that are additional spreadsheet or tracking work to what we're already doing is kind of a non-starter for me.  I put in a lot of time to keep things going and I know Chris probably puts in more time on the spreadsheets.  Jeremy and Sean could probably confirm how much work it is every day.  Burn out happens very quickly when there's no help for running the league.  So all these ideas about QO's and Rule 5 drafts that mimic MLB are great but practicality has to win the day. 

Having said that, the MLB draft is too long.  I haven't asked Chris about it but I would imagine he'd agree.  I'd like to cut it to 20 rounds in 2017.  There are very, very few players drafted in this league past the 20th round that matter.  It's just as well to have teams bid on these players in minor league free agency if they want to take a chance on them.  The draft is not only incredibly time consuming to manage, it's complicated even further when teams let their picks be skipped and then they show up and make up a bunch of skipped picks.  I think 20 rounds is more than enough for this league. 

1) I like the minimum points idea.  There are three teams under 3k points currently.  Perhaps you lose a 1st round pick if you're under 2k points, you lose a 2nd round pick if you're over 2k but under 3k.  Unowned teams would not be subject. 

2)  I think here we need to protect the league.  No trading of picks past two future drafts.  In the NBA, they don't allow teams to trade 1st round picks in consecutive seasons.  Our picks are not as valuable so I'd really like to make it three seasons in this league.  You wouldn't be able to trade 1st round picks in three consecutive seasons. 

3)  We'll start increasing the cap by average of MLB plus 5%. 

4)  We'll do away with affiliates.

5)  Revocable waivers will be 48 hours, after 48 hours any claims have 48 hours to be processed as pull backs of players or trades.

6)  I'll have to look at the roster spots in FanTrax and what is possible here. 

I don't see a problem with international free agency.  It's worked very well since we instituted the current rules.  Players are dispersed pretty well. 

[ldsjayhawk]

I don't think it is beyond practicality to ask for a 2 round Rule 5 draft, especially when we are all on board for slashing the amount of work by eliminating affiliates.

Additionally, cutting the draft in half is a significant move that significantly alters this league.  It has the potential of setting this league on a path of becoming just another league at the site.  First cut the draft, then we cannot fill rosters, so we rosters get cut too.  This is not a good idea, it is part of the draw to this league to have the realism.

I don't understand why we are talking about protecting teams picks by not allowing them to trade them two years in a row, when it brings them beneficial players.  Yet we talk about taking teams picks for tanking?  How does that make sense.  The teams that are doing the worst need their picks to be protected or if they so choose, let them turn them into profit.  As a team, I am rarely willing to move that first round pick, but if it will bring me someone that will help me this year, next year and down the line, I just may pull the trigger. 

We need to be careful that what we do is for the benefit of the league and doesn't alter the original purposes of the league in the name of making things easy.

[mgzd]

The "White Sox Rule" is a great title and I am proud to be the inspiration for such a rule!
To tell you the truth, I am just trying to stock-pile players in order to compete at a certain period of time. Really, I'm not trying to cause problems. To me it is a strategy you put in place to compete at a point in time, somewhat similar to what the Marlins have done on a couple of occasions, and I'm talking real life.
If the concern is that there are organizations in our group, such as mine, trying to plan ahead to compete at a certain point in time instead of the present, then that is short sighted. You are either fielding a team who is challenging for the title, or doing what you can to get to that point.
Why all the concern about teams that are trying to re-build any way they can as opposed to teams currently competing?

[Jss0062]

The "White Sox Rule" is a great title and I am proud to be the inspiration for such a rule!
To tell you the truth, I am just trying to stock-pile players in order to compete at a certain period of time. Really, I'm not trying to cause problems. To me it is a strategy you put in place to compete at a point in time, somewhat similar to what the Marlins have done on a couple of occasions, and I'm talking real life.
If the concern is that there are organizations in our group, such as mine, trying to plan ahead to compete at a certain point in time instead of the present, then that is short sighted. You are either fielding a team who is challenging for the title, or doing what you can to get to that point.
Why all the concern about teams that are trying to re-build any way they can as opposed to teams currently competing?

The most glaring reason that it's a problem is the limited schedule that is roughly 1/8th of an MLB schedule. A win or 3 for teams fortunate enough to be scheduled or in the division with the team not fielding anywhere near a complete roster gains a large advantage especially for wild card spots.  You can sell off and still build a team. Also if you don't stagger your Players service time payroll will explode in the later ARB years.

[Jss0062]

The draft is an albatross at 30 rounds and the overwhelming reason I could not continue as commissioner along with the headache caused by owners no longer here.  20-25 rounds is adequate. Possibly the opening bid for draft eligible players not drafted could be lowered to $5-$10k to make the cost of aquistion lower for teams looking to add more long shot players to their roster. 

The only real problem I see with a rule 5 draft outside of the administrative work involved would is the salary implications of protecting a player. In MLB a player on the 40man put not the active roster earns about $70k a year. All players on our 40man earn a big league salary because we track service time by the year not the day. A player who would be rule 5 eligible may not be called up late in the season more for salary purposes in our league rather than service time reasons in MLB.

[chrisetc21]

I would add
6) removing one of the outfield spots to be replaced by an additional pitcher, also consolidate the CI and MI postions to make room to add a flex UT/P position.

In looking at it, there is an MLB team position which I think would let a player pitch or hit but it can't specify starter or reliever.  Teams do carry 12/13 pitchers but it's almost always 7/8 relievers.  We can't specify a relief pitcher/hitter position, it would just be pitcher/hitter. 

[chrisetc21]

Or maybe just in the name of flexibility we add one RP and add the hit/pitch position.  That'll give us 5 SP, 6 RP, 1 P, and 1 hit/pitch. 

[Maydab23]

I don't think I chimed in about the draft when I posted.

I'm in favor of reducing the rounds. I think 20 is good. In the years I've been in this league once it gets that far it is just a couple owners left drafting whoever they want anyways. It won't be a big change. Just less admin work and the few owners hanging around can just post PC bids.

After rd 20 draft ends then owners could sign undrafted players to PC deals with no bidding (finders keepers) but only at a rate of 1 per day per owner. This would prevent one team from inundating the commishes with work while giving all owners still interested in signing players opportunities to get some more guys. Maybe also put a time limit on it to prevent some owners from going crazy and signing every player drafted. Something like 10 days following the end of 20rd draft which would effectively put a limit of at the most 10 undrafted signings per team and limit the work on commish. If you are worried about owners knowing when the draft ends/unsigned draft pick period begins then put a dead period in between end of draft and start of 10 day unsigned draft period to allow emails to be sent out notifying owners and time for commish to catch up with Fantrax and spreadsheets.

[mgzd]

Just out of curiosity, is the league experiencing major problems from this "tanking" situation? Like real life, are teams not being competitive purposely so they can compete later?