[Mikey]

I think we've come to the conclusion that the two biggest problems in our nifty little league here have been:

1) Studs being kept long term at minimal cost

2) Minor league keepers sitting idle on minor league rosters while the player is producing at the MLB level.

Thus far, we've been unable to come up with a good solution for either. This is an issue that Lucky and I talked about during the season last year, and I think I tossed my "arbitration" idea out for open discussion. I don't recall if it drummed up any interest, but I've revisited the issue today. I'm re-opening this for debate, as personally, I'd like something on this to be hammered out before the minor league draft.

"Arbitration," as my idea stands right now, only addresses the first of the two aforementioned problems, though I have some thoughts on the other issue that I may be able to weave into this to focus on the minor/major problem.

Here goes... ARBITRATION

The way I see our league right now, all owners have five "renewable one year contracts" that they may wish to impose on five players within our given parameters. I am not proposing a keeper limit, but rather a "keeper review."

A player may be kept at standard major league cost for two consecutive seasons. If an owner wishes to renew said player for a third straight year, the player will head to "arbitration" IF the player falls within the given top number of players in our fantasy league for the prior season. (This would apply to any player who had been kept by any owner, thus eliminating a traded player loophole.) This review would apply to ALL players whom had been kept: drafted, free agent/waiver pickups, promoted minor leaguers.

Arbitration cost would be calculated using the ESPN Player Rater function, which uses similar tabulation to the deviation stats I put together for each team during the season. Players would be broken into three categories and arbitration-eligible on the limits set below:

Batters (any position) - Top 50
Starting P - Top 50
Relief P - Top 25

Using the ESPN player rater, if the player in question falls in this range, the player shall have his cost recalculated via arbitration rules. What I need input on is what a fair cost would be. I am currently looking at three formulas. The player's "real value" would be where he falls on the player rater. Depending on the number of teams in the league (12 now), a mock draft using pure numbers would place that player in a given round. That formula itself would be:

(Spot in OVERALL - not positional - player rater) / (Number of teams in league) = REAL VALUE (this figure needs to be a whole number, so it is always rounded UP)

From there, the three formulas I got to calculate the arbitrated value would be...

(Existing cost + Real Value) / 2 = New Draft Cost
- This just averages the two.

Real value + Three Rounds = New Draft Cost
- This is a stiffer cost, while still allowing the owner the player at a discounted rate

Real Value = New Draft Cost
- The stiffest of all costs, obviously, but may be easiest to deal with.

Should the owner decide to keep the player for a third time (fourth year), the new cost is implemented. If the owner decides not to renew the contract, the player goes back into the draft pool.

I'm also considering (particularly with the first rule) a continuation of penalties after the third year kept. That the player would go back to arbitration every season so long as he's kept again.


That's my idea on that. It seems like a bunch, but I don't think it's quite as crazy as all the words make it out to be. I'm also working on a "minor league clock" idea in my head, and I'll roll something on that out sometime int he next two weeks.

Discuss. Let's get some movement on this. I'm totally open to suggestions.

[DevSop]

What?

[Attitude Adjuster]

Mikey, I know you're trying to do this in the C&B football league, and I have to oppose it here as well. I don't think the biggest issue we have is studs being "Kept" for long periods of time. That to me is shrewd drafting, either in the C&B draft or the Minor League draft. If we're going to have a Minor League draft, then there has to be some long-term reason to make me care about it. If the "arbitration" rule is implemented, it means I've worked my butt off researching minor leaguers, drafted wisely, watched my minor leaguer develop, and then three years down the line his value shoots up to a point where he's not worth keeping...in a Keeper League. At that point, I'd question the use of have minor league keepers. To me, it's not worth finding a gem like Michael Inoa if I only get to keep him for two years before his Keeper value shoots into the mid-teens and he's not worth it to me any longer. I've enjoyed Tim Lincecum and Josh Hamilton's value to my team, knowing that I grabbed them before anyone else realized their lifetime value.

The same thinking goes for any keeper picked up through waivers or wise major league drafting. Let's not take away someone's intelligent research after only two years of reward.

I think our biggest problem is valuable players sitting on minor league rosters for nearly an entire year. And I think Lucky proposed a solution to that, where not only at the end of the season, but in the middle of the season, minor league eligibility is reviewed and owners have to decide whether to move "major league" minor leaguers up to the big club or cut them lose. That would prevent guys like Colby Rasmus (who I had last year on my Minor League roster) sitting doing nothing when he's was obviously major league caliber.

[Pun]

Mar 30, 2010 23:14:24 GMT -5 Attitude Adjuster said:

Mikey, I know you're trying to do this in the C&B football league, and I have to oppose it here as well. I don't think the biggest issue we have is studs being "Kept" for long periods of time. That to me is shrewd drafting, either in the C&B draft or the Minor League draft. If we're going to have a Minor League draft, then there has to be some long-term reason to make me care about it. If the "arbitration" rule is implemented, it means I've worked my butt off researching minor leaguers, drafted wisely, watched my minor leaguer develop, and then three years down the line his value shoots up to a point where he's not worth keeping...in a Keeper League. At that point, I'd question the use of have minor league keepers. To me, it's not worth finding a gem like Michael Inoa if I only get to keep him for two years before his Keeper value shoots into the mid-teens and he's not worth it to me any longer. I've enjoyed Tim Lincecum and Josh Hamilton's value to my team, knowing that I grabbed them before anyone else realized their lifetime value.

The same thinking goes for any keeper picked up through waivers or wise major league drafting. Let's not take away someone's intelligent research after only two years of reward.

I think our biggest problem is valuable players sitting on minor league rosters for nearly an entire year. And I think Lucky proposed a solution to that, where not only at the end of the season, but in the middle of the season, minor league eligibility is reviewed and owners have to decide whether to move "major league" minor leaguers up to the big club or cut them lose. That would prevent guys like Colby Rasmus (who I had last year on my Minor League roster) sitting doing nothing when he's was obviously major league caliber.

This.

And I have to second Lucky's proposal about the minor leaguers that are in the majors. I think there are some teams that have probably 3 or 4 guys that will make their big clubs this year. If they are not called up, they should be cut loose.

[National Champion Chris Cole]

My suggestion would be to eliminate or severely diminish the number of minor leaguers. I hate picking up somebody mid year only to have them removed because they are on a minor league list.

I don't have a problem too much with long term keepers. If we really wanted to do something we could eliminate franchise tags.

[Lucky]

I've been having power/cable/internet problems again so just getting to this.

Mar 31, 2010 11:24:47 GMT -5 Pun said:

Mar 30, 2010 23:14:24 GMT -5 Attitude Adjuster said:

Mikey, I know you're trying to do this in the C&B football league, and I have to oppose it here as well. I don't think the biggest issue we have is studs being "Kept" for long periods of time. That to me is shrewd drafting, either in the C&B draft or the Minor League draft. If we're going to have a Minor League draft, then there has to be some long-term reason to make me care about it. If the "arbitration" rule is implemented, it means I've worked my butt off researching minor leaguers, drafted wisely, watched my minor leaguer develop, and then three years down the line his value shoots up to a point where he's not worth keeping...in a Keeper League. At that point, I'd question the use of have minor league keepers. To me, it's not worth finding a gem like Michael Inoa if I only get to keep him for two years before his Keeper value shoots into the mid-teens and he's not worth it to me any longer. I've enjoyed Tim Lincecum and Josh Hamilton's value to my team, knowing that I grabbed them before anyone else realized their lifetime value.

The same thinking goes for any keeper picked up through waivers or wise major league drafting. Let's not take away someone's intelligent research after only two years of reward.

I think our biggest problem is valuable players sitting on minor league rosters for nearly an entire year. And I think Lucky proposed a solution to that, where not only at the end of the season, but in the middle of the season, minor league eligibility is reviewed and owners have to decide whether to move "major league" minor leaguers up to the big club or cut them lose. That would prevent guys like Colby Rasmus (who I had last year on my Minor League roster) sitting doing nothing when he's was obviously major league caliber.

This.

And I have to second Lucky's proposal about the minor leaguers that are in the majors. I think there are some teams that have probably 3 or 4 guys that will make their big clubs this year. If they are not called up, they should be cut loose.

This.

Nothing against your arbitration idea, Mike, as its a system I think I COULD get behind. But I think it makes a lot more sense in Fantasy Football where talent is such a premium than it does in Fantasy Baseball where Pujols is a fucking stud but he's not THAT much better than Justin Morneau or Adrian Gonzalez or Mark Teixiera or whoever. I think because fantasy baseball is so big and widspread that studs have less value here than they do in football where a certain QB or RB could make or break your season. Lose you top 2 picks to injury in football and you're basically dead. Lose them in baseball and you can adjust with smart managing. And me having a fairly free Ryan Braun or you a fairly free Hanley gives us a nice edge but not much of one. Its just 1 position of many.

So while I can see the "need" in football to get the talent circulating and not let someone have a dynasty of dominance because of a few nice rookie grabs I think we're fine as far as keeper circulation goes. I don't think a bad team or a team with bad keepers has any real problem competing the next year unless he just does a bad job.

So yeah, I want to keep the reward for smart managing that AA talked about. That was the point of the minor league system in the first place and I like the system. I think it has been an overall success, we just kind of over stepped its reach last season. Basically I think there's 2 things we should do, and they've already been said.

1) Cut the rosters back down to 5-6 so that there's SOME available rookie talent in the free agent pool. This is a simple matter. Obviously we'd have to grandfather it in for those with 6 or 7 keepers right now but that would probably correct itself before the end of this season.

2) Some kind of mid-season evaluation to keep valuable talents from wasting away on minor league rosters. And I think this is pretty simple too, its just going to be a matter of setting the numbers and dates, and I have to kind of think on that. I think a simple matter might be to say something like:

"Anyone who has spent a month+ on the major league roster come Aug 1st must be called up or lose eligibility at the end of the season."

I don't know if that's the fairest idea as I'm just sort of spitting it out at the moment but something like that.

Like I said, I don't hate your arbitration idea but I think its much more suited for the other fantasy sports, football especially. Fantasy baseball is just a different game all together and its one that I think is good to reward smart owners for. And the key is that no matter how awesome AA or Moose's keepers are that really doesn't guarantee them much of anything. If you were holding Drew Brees, Andre Johnson, and Ray Rice the season might as well be over. But if you're holding 5 absolute top 5 round studs on baseball there's still a lot of room for your season to fall apart.


EDIT: And yes, as Mkid said, if we really did feel like there was a need to tweak keepers in general to spice up the pool then ditching one or both Franchises seems the real way. That would drop a lot of major talent like Ryan Howard, Grady Sizemore, and Joe Mauer back into the draft pool and wouldn't be too unfair to their owners as those people are really just profiting forever based on the luck of drafting a guy in the 6th instead of the 5th.

But like I said, I don't think anything NEEDs to change, but if others do then I could be talked into dropping or limiting the Franchise tags.

[Attitude Adjuster]

Mar 31, 2010 17:53:04 GMT -5 Lucky said:

"Anyone who has spent a month+ on the major league roster come Aug 1st must be called up or lose eligibility at the end of the season."

I was thinking something even more severe than that. I'd suggest anyone with a month of service at X date must be called up by X+Y days or lose their service. That would allow the rookie to be grabbed by another team THAT season.

For instance, how about a rookie with a month of service by June 15 would have to be called up by the end of the All-Star Break? That gives all owners about three weeks to know who's affected, and then 3-4 days of no baseball to make their decisions. If the owner doesn't call up the player, Lucky drops that player from the Minor League roster and they're now free game for the rest of the league.

[Lucky]

That's an interesting notion. It would effectively allow an owner to "hoard" a minor leaguer like Latos or Feliz over the off season but then give him a couple of months in the next season to shit or get off the pot. If we implemented it this season it might catch a few owners off guard but in the future it should never catch them off guard. If your guy hung around the majors long enough the season prior to make an impact than odds are his clock his ticking close for you. You won't have to make him a full fledged keeper but you will have to give him a roster spot sometime in the 1st half of the season. I suppose an amendment could be made to avoid some flukey occasions where a dude does a month in one season and then spends the next season in the minors (Jeff Clement).

And, yeah, the All Star Break certainly presents a nice easy to remember marker and "down period" in which to make a trade, make a roster move, or just weigh the pros and cons on a dude, as well as giving me or Mike the room to double check the numbers.

My only concern is the wording of eligibility in general. Does the new Minor League eligibility become "less than one month of service time" instead of the "rookie" status? If not then a dude who did a month in 2010 and no more would effectively be ineligible for the 2nd half of 2010 but once again eligible in 2011. Which is not only screwy and confusing but kind of a screwjob on the owner forced to drop him because the team called him up too early. But if its just "one month" then that ends up creating the same problem of dudes with screwy ownerships that fuck with their development or guys who pop in and out but never really get anything resembling a real run. Good for you that you drafted Stephen Strasburg or Aroldis Chapman ahead of the pack, but you better hope their teams don't decide to throw them into the fire for a month only to back off and send them back into regular development. Because the result will be that whether they're major leaguers or not they're ineligible.

Which might not be a terrible rule now that I say it out loud as at the very least it would mean the return of some rookie free agents to the free agent pool, even if its after a year's hiatus from the equation. It would just be a tough pill to swallow for the owner who gets hit with it here in the interim, but in theory we're all on even footing with the potential to be dicked over there and it could happen to a top 10 in baseball stud or a journeyman.

The "rookie" eligibility was always kind of arbitrary any way just set up as the easiest way when we started, that proved to be a lot more complicated in practice when I realized all the quirks of options.

So I think I kind of like that.
"- Players are eligible for minor league keeper status if they have less than 30 days major league service time, minus September days.
- Player's eligibility are evaluated on June 15th and December 1st. Players having lost eligibility as of June 15th must be called up to the major league roster by the All Star Game or be released to the major league free agent pool. Players having lost eligibility as of December 1st must be made major league Keepers upon Keeper deadline or be released to the major league draft pool."

What say you? We can screw with the service time and dates if we like the idea but not the numbers. But in reality the current rule says 45 days so 30 days isn't really THAT much more severe.

OR I'm an idiot and the obvious solution is to retain the already existing markers (45 days, 130 ABs, or 50 IP) and just add the June evaluation date/All Star deadline.

[Mikey]

Wouldn't the easiest number be games played? (No, it wouldn't. Pitchers would be different. I don't know how difficult iti is to find service time, but if that don't work, our current criteria is fine.) And this was basically the idea i had for minor leaguers, too. This all sounds good.

In regards to the other topic, if y'all think it's good as it is, okay. At the end I really don't care one way or the other. I'll be content keeping Ramirez in 2015 for an 11th rounder. Or maybe I won't and i'm just too close to the forest to see the trees or whatever that silly saying is.

Though I do think some sort of incremental penalty should be put in place after a given number of years, even if it's as simple as adding one round to the existing draft cost each year beyond X year. I don't think that's unfair or stripping the shrewd owners or anything - just bringing guys closer to market value. Shouldn't the marginal cost of re-upping Hanley or Braun or Lincecum or Longoria after a given number of years be more than that of re-upping Joe Rookie after his first year?

That last sentence was the heart of my crazy ass arbitration idea. It was probably too convoluted anyway. But I'm down with anything that's been discussed here. I'd almost push for two minor league review periods during the season though. May 10, six weeks into the season and immediately before the minor league draft. Owners would have five days to call up expired players or let them go. Then another review two months later at the break where owners would have to call up expired players by the Monday after the short week. Or maybe just August 1. But the one review at the break sounds good to me and makes for a simple reminder.

I'm totally rambling and will now shut up.

[Lucky]

No, I see your point. I mean, like I said, I don't think you having Hanley locked up forever or me having Braun locked up forever or AA with Lincecum is THAT huge a deal. Its a nice edge but its a drop in the bucket. I think its a quirky thing but no different from the F1 which allows Army to keep Mauer forever or Moose to keep Howard forever. There will just come a point of the league still exists and the owners stay the same that the two will clash and the owner will have to make a choice. I can get behind speeding that up to a more reasonable 5 years or whatever, but I think t hat's more of a "Do we want to change this?" question instead of a "We need to fix this" thing that minor leaguers are.

So yeah, I'm open to creating some eventual penalty increase on the undrafted/minor leaguers just as I think I initially wanted a cap on how many years you could Franchise someone but I think I was voted down. But I think that's a seperate issue from the minors.

[Attitude Adjuster]

I didn't mean to start a conversation on changing the rookie status. If Lucky thinks the current status is manageable, then let's leave it as is. What I wanted to suggest was a twice-yearly evaluation of minor leaguers rather than once a year to prevent hoarding of young studs.

As for guys who get called up too early, then are sent back down or perform poorly, I think that's half the fun of the minor league system. I know I got screwed with that way with Clayton Kershaw. I called him up when he was brought up to the Dodgers, and then he floundered. I cut him loose, and the next season he was drafted by someone else. I've never seen him again. If I was a little more patient, well, it would have been a different story. But that's the cool thing: sometimes you have to sacrifice the present for the future. That's why I like this league--it's not a one-year shotgun approach.

[Attitude Adjuster]

EDIT: Never mind.

[Grover]

I disagree with Lucky in that I don't feel the Longoria/Hanley situations are just a drop in the bucket. They are huge edges, which is fine because everyone had a fair crack at those players and you guys were the smart ones. But it's a huge edge.

Personally, I think there should be some sort of a limit on how long a player can be kept. While you want to reward someone who drafted smartly, you also wan to keep things exciting for the health of the league - and a new stud player becoming draft eligible is exciting.

I'd suggest this: players may only be kept for MLB 5 years. After that, they have to be cut loose. That's a nice, long time to keep a player, a nice reward, but it also lets someone else get a shot at them eventually. (I'll also say as an aside, I would LOVE this league to go to a salary/contract system. It seems perfect for it, considering how involved the owners are and it's a ton of fun, but I know that's a huge step).

As far as the MiL players go, pretty much every other league I've ever been is gives you 2 weeks to call a player up off your MiL roster after they hit the big leagues in real life. If they get sent back to the minors in that 2 weeks, you can keep them there. If they are still on a major league roster after 2 weeks, you have to activate them, trade them or loose them.

Two weeks might be a little tight. More then that, it's probably a ton of work for Lucky or Mikey to keep up with it. But it is fair and it does solve the problem.

Personally, I'd be OK with something that was based off rookie eligibility. If a player looses his rookie eligibility by going over 130 AB or 50 IP (or 45 days of service), then you have to activate them. We could set it up where the check is run at the end of every month, so it would cut down on the work for whomever does it.

My $0.02

[Lucky]

The work is the reason I've never adopted any kind of X days/weeks timetable that's been suggested. It requires constant managing of the minor leaguers and a lot of hands on commissioning mid season, including situations where I'll end up removing a player from a guy's roster mid season and really hurting him. The once a year evaluation has always been a perfectly manageable deal and adding a 2nd yearly evaluation is pretty manageable. But that level of hands on managing requires more than I'm able to give and I wouldn't think Mike would jump at it either.

Every month also requires a good deal of work. Not a TON by 6x what I currently have a 3x what is being suggested with the summer evaluation.

As far as minor leagues I like the idea we have proposed. A June evaluation of the minor leaguers followed by an All Star Break deadline to call them up. And probably sticking to the rookie eligibility numbers we've been using. If no one has any more opinions or objections I'll put that up for a vote sometime next week.

As far as the longevity of keepers I think putting some kind of limit on years or escalator is perfectly reasonable. Its just a little bit more of an involved debate because I'm better there's guys not reading this who are going to be pretty against the notion. Plus it would mean some drastic changes since a great deal of our keepers are in their 4th season.