[Lucky]

What if any changes do we want to make for the 2010 season?

Here's the stuff I've had suggested to me.

- Expansion to 14. Is this worthwhile and do we have 2 owners we want in? Or 2 owners who want in? And are we happy with the 12 we have?

- Cutting down the roster size. This is a MUST if we expand but even if we don't it seems like a smart idea considering how shallow the talent pools have been. I'm thinking cutting down to 25 at least. One SP spot gone and ditching the CI and MI spot for a single IF spot. If we want to go down to 24 we can ditch CI/MI/IF/OF all together and do a 2nd Utility spot and f we want to go down to 23 we can drop the extra offensive spots entirely except for 1 Util spot. Its easy and just a matter of what size roster we want.

- Cutting the minors back to 5. This is complicated but I think it might have been a mistake. My bad. A big part of the reason we're shallow is because when a prospect gets called up he's not an option to beef up your team like he is in other leagues. That didn't become as obvious until this season, IMO. But we'd have to grandfather it in or something as it wouldn't really be fair to force me or others to cut 2 guys nor would it be fair to let us carry 2 more keepers than others. So its something I need to think on.

- Tighten up the eligibility for Minor League Keepers. Basically we want to eliminate the problem we've seen where guys get hoarded for a season or two despite being productive players. Its well within the rules but it again makes the league very shallow. Mike and I and others have discussed ideas but its complicated and this is going to be a big project of the offseason.

- Set up a me-run Consolation Bracket for real for next year's playoffs. Right now the bottom 6 teams just play in some convoluted mess ESPN runs. I can set up a bracket if we wish and I don't think it would be much problem.


Anything else? Anyone have opinions on this stuff? I forget something I discussed with someone? Someone have some nagging thing that has been bugging them?

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Oct 5, 2009 20:26:16 GMT -5 Lucky said:

What if any changes do we want to make for the 2010 season?

Here's the stuff I've had suggested to me.

- Expansion to 14. Is this worthwhile and do we have 2 owners we want in? Or 2 owners who want in? And are we happy with the 12 we have?

Or 2 owners who want out?

- Cutting down the roster size. This is a MUST if we expand but even if we don't it seems like a smart idea considering how shallow the talent pools have been. I'm thinking cutting down to 25 at least. One SP spot gone and ditching the CI and MI spot for a single IF spot. If we want to go down to 24 we can ditch CI/MI/IF/OF all together and do a 2nd Utility spot and f we want to go down to 23 we can drop the extra offensive spots entirely except for 1 Util spot. Its easy and just a matter of what size roster we want.

I like the single IF spot and dropping a SP.

Anything else? Anyone have opinions on this stuff? I forget something I discussed with someone? Someone have some nagging thing that has been bugging them?

What about cutting a week off the regular season and making the finals two weeks? You would be able to get a better output from playoff-bound players who rest over the final weekend or playoff-bound pitchers who are on pitch counts the last few days.

[Sparty]

Wow, had a long post typed out then it crapped out when I tried to post it.

In sum:

Not a real big fan of expansion.

Want to see MI and CI gone. Am OK with 2 UTIL or IF and OF. Would prefer IF and OF, though, to spread it out a little bit. Would like to an SP spot cut. I got extremely lucky and had a great pitching staff this season and was able to fill out all the spots no problem all season long. I know not everybody was that lucky.

My big issue right now is the lack of decent free agents come Julyish once everybody is mined out. Yes, it places a greater emphasis on having a good draft, but we all know injuries/shit happens, so I'd like to see the rosters thinned down a bit to compensate for that.

With you on all the MiL stuff, Lucky.

Consolation bracket is a must. With the No. 1 pick on the line, it needs to be a little more organized. If it didn't mean anything, then who cares but it does. So if it's an easy fix, then let's do it.

But I'm really OK with anything.

[Lucky]

4 SP or 5 SP spots really doesn't change anything. Its just a matter of the roster spot. Its not like anyone plays 5 SP who are starting a day. Its rare that you have 5 SP starting a day. If anything its value is in sneaking in a SP eligible RP because that's someone with every day usage. But realistically I think cutting a bench spot or a SP spot amounts to the same thing. I just figured might as well make it a SP spot since that's always been a "wow, you have a lot of SP slots" thing for this league.

The lack of free agents midseason is exactly the problem I'm trying to solve. Cutting 2 or 3 roster spots and changing up the minor league system is the key there. Although that's the drawback of expansion since anything we gain with those moves would be negated by more owners.

Solly, I believe we discussed that playoff setup this year and it simply wasn't an option. We can do 2 weeks every round or 1 week every round but we can't do the Yahoo setup on ESPN. Maybe they'll change that next season, I don't know. Yahoo has gotten worse and worse as ESPN has become very stable so I would most certainly not support moving the league for that. I see the strength of 2 week playoffs (especially since in my other leagues I got dicked over hard by the short series' to the point where my opponents were apologizing) but unless we want to make it a 6 week playoff (which I'd actually be ok with but which I believe was voted down) I don't think its an option.

[Mikey]

Yeah, the six week playoff is a no-no. Two week finals would be ideal, but status quo is ok.

I don't really care about expansion one way or the other, but I'd lean no, but not enough to fight about it. More money for me to lose in the finals next year.

Roster size.... I really like the IF slot idea, but I wouldn't be against eliminating the CI/MI/OF extra slots altogether, AND a SP slot - especially if we expand. That'd put the rosters at 18 starters - 4/5 bench slots and that cuts 4 players down - that's an additional 48 available players. That's a BIG number.

Lucky, we'll see if we can work on my "arbitration" idea this winter. I think it has loads of potential with some tweaking of the original concept I threw at you.

[Mikey]

And just to get discussion going, this was the idea I referenced in the last post.


ARBITRATION

* Any minor league PLAYER who gets promoted to MLB before July 31 and remains on an MLB roster for the remainder of the season while NOT being promoted by OWNER in C&B shall be eligible for "C&B Arbitration" at the end of the season, regardless of innings pitched or at bats. Any PLAYER that falls into this window shall be considered "restricted free agents."

* Arbitration value is decided via the ESPN preseason rankings as follows:

* PLAYER is found within pitching or batting rankings.

* PLAYER's rank under the rankings will be divided by [some number that is to be calculated - I have a couple of different ideas about this] to give PLAYER his keeper cost at which the C&B OWNER may wish to exercise the right to keep PLAYER on the roster.

* An OWNER will be allowed to "re-sign" one restricted free agent that will NOT count against the five keeper cap. Any additional RFA's signed must also have a coinciding drop of a keeper, who will immediately go onto waivers.

* If OWNER wishes to not re-sign an RFA, PLAYER goes onto waivers as an unrestricted free agent, available for the calculated draft cost PLUS three [or some other negotiable number] rounds.

* UFA's count that same as standard keepers and a team may NOT use it as a "sixth" keeper like it could if the player was an RFA.


This may sound complicated, I know. But I think it has the possibility of limiting carryover minor leaguers who really should be in the major league pool. Perhaps we should check for "restricted free agents" before the start of the minor league draft, too - the May window entailing any player that has been with an MLB club since the beginning of the season.

I think by using an RFA-like system, it rewards guys who picked up good minor leaguers and allows them to keep them at market value, and the RFA as a "sixth" keeper I think would help owners have a little more continuity from their minor league system to their big club. And like Lucky said to me, this also makes the market a little more fair and there won't be as many Hanley Ramirez and Ryan Braun situations where first round talents are being kept at 20th round costs. I think there may have to be some grandfathering done or some re-valuing guys once/if we set something up.

If this makes no sense to anyone, I'll be glad to try and clear my thinking up. I may have missed a step along the line here, too. I know Lucky wanted to think it over a bit when I mentioned it to him last month - just because it is so much to comprehend. I'm just not sure of the calculations on the draft cost. That's one of the reasons I'm throwing that out there now.

[Mikey]

Glad to see that I killed discussion dead...

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I don't get it.[/Big]

[Attitude Adjuster]

I'll chime in in full tomorrow, but Readers' Digest version of my opinion is expand if we can find two solid owners, otherwise don't do it just for the sake of doing it. Cut back the Minor Leaguers to five. Cut back the main roster if everyone else agrees, but I'm fine with it the way it is. The talent pool may be shallow, but it's shallow for everyone. And who really cares how shallow it is if everyone has the same issue. It's not like we're trying to impress fans who are watching our games, which is usually the "shallow player pool" argument.

I kinda get Mikey's arbitration idea, but will read it more in depth tomorrow. We do need to do something about the hoarding of minor leaguers who aren't minor leaguers.

Big yes on a real consolation bracket. Didn't Lucky fix it each week last year?

[Attitude Adjuster]

Now that I've had a chance to read the MiL arbitration idea, I like it. One question though:

If an owner pulls up a player as described before the end of the season, can the owner keep the player at a last-round Keeper price (as if he were a free agent) or would he still have to evaluate the player via the arbitration process?

For instance, when I pulled up Tim Lincecum a few years back I did it before July 31, and he remained on my team as a Keeper with a 27th (or whatever the last round is) price. Would that still be the same, or would he be evaluated through the arbitration cycle?

My thought it if you bring the minor leaguer up during the season, you should reap the Keper rewards. If you don't, however, you should pay the arbitration price. Colby Rasmus would be a good example of this on my team. As long as everyone else gets dinged the same way, I have no problem paying a higher arbitration price to keep Rasmus because I didn't bring him up during the season.