Minimum Roster Requirements

[rcankosy]

I would like you guys to consider the idea of establishing minimum roster requirements.  We don't have to force teams to fill all 9 spots on offense or have 5 SPs.  Perhaps, we could require 7 or 8 everyday players and 3-4 SPs.  True parity can never be achieved if there are teams with only 3-4 everyday players and 1-2 SPs on their major league squads.  Also, requiring teams to field almost-complete teams would prevent them from causing whole-scale carnage to their teams and make the jobs of the TC members that much easier.  I have read many suggestions about how to make the league more realistic, but ponder this question.  Would a small market team in real life ever field a roster with less than the required amount of starters and claim that they are "building for the future"?  I don't think that the goal of winning now is mutually exclusive of winning later, because a small market teams such as the Oakland As has managed to compete for the title every year and also managed to have one of the best minor league systems as well. 

[Dan Wood]

Roy, I like the idea, and have thought that this should have been in place from the get go. But at the same time you don't want to put a team in a bad spot signing someone to a prohibitive contract just because he could be a starter, later loses his job (Daric Barton), and then you are stuck with dead money and getting penalized for it.

Again I do like the idea and I think it is where this league should be heading, but I think coming up with a happy number for filled roster spots might be difficult.

[Corey]

1 million % against it

[rcankosy]

Let's look at the numbers.  We have 40 man rosters and a 20 man EDR for a total of 60 players.  With 12 required starters (8 offense + 4 SP) as an example, that would allow teams to have 48 prospects if they chose to go in a full re-build direction.  Teams could theoretically trade their best players and ask for the other team's starter coming back and prospects back in trades.  Also, teams could sign bargain-basement free agents such as a David Murphy last year if they wanted to horde their cap space.  Teams could make a minimum commitment to winning now in terms of both roster spots and cap space and still manage to preserve their hopes for a better future.

[Jake]

Let's look at the numbers.  We have 40 man rosters and a 20 man EDR for a total of 60 players.  With 12 required starters (8 offense + 4 SP) as an example, that would allow teams to have 48 prospects if they chose to go in a full re-build direction.  Teams could theoretically trade their best players and ask for the other team's starter coming back and prospects back in trades.  Also, teams could sign bargain-basement free agents such as a David Murphy last year if they wanted to horde their cap space.  Teams could make a minimum commitment to winning now in terms of both roster spots and cap space and still manage to preserve their hopes for a better future.

What happens when a team meets the bare minimum, and one or a few of his fringe starters is demoted to the minors or released outright?

[h4cheng]

I am dead against this one. In real life, a team has a AAA, AA two single A and one or two short season teams. That's at least 25*6 = 150 spots to stash prospect. Until we get that many spots, it's not reasonable to expect rebuilding teams to field a complete major league team. I think the fastest way to respectively is to follow what KC did and what BAL is doing at the moment. By limited the number of prospects a team can stash away, it severely slows the rebuild process.

[Brewers GM]

Complete roster is too much, but we could consider a minimum like the OP suggests.  It does place an extra burden on rebuilding teams, but that burden exists in MLB.

However, the reason MLB teams try to remain competitive is to keep butts in the seats, and we do have cap effects based on record. We could try to impose this constraint through stricter cap effects of a terrible record.