Bad Teams

Date: Wed Sep 12 07:59 2007

Bad Teams

Date: Thu Sep 13 13:46 2007

as being owner of a bad bad team ...manhatten...i believe there must be a change in order to make league more balance....i never understood why the better u finished the more money u get for player salaries this dosnt make sense...i knew that even as my team sucked big time last year ..worse team...i had very little money to spend in free agent draft..this didnt make sense.

but i think things will be better for manhatten in few years down the road

kershaw, longaria, brett anderson ,kyle russell moving up...so u see there is a plan....i would love nt being the bottom feeder...as for fears of team dumping games...i would love to see non -playoff teams to be in a lottery to determine where to draft

Date: Thu Sep 13 18:13 2007

Personally, I hate going through a season with a terrible team. I did it with BTM for years before having a few good years and I now I'm back to being terrible. BLF went through some awful years to get where they are now. I believe this way has been the preferred method for years in this league. It was going way back when I joined the league over 12 years ago. I joined back when we used dice and cards and kept stats with paper and pencil...yeeesh.

A couple of GM's (Travis and Gary) have taken the higher road and have rebuilt without completely tearing down their teams ove the last couple of years. I'll probably give their method a shot when Belfast gets too expensive in the very near future.

Since building a team can happen either way, it's obviously just each GM's personal preference.

I think the only way to stop tearing down a team is to take away the rewards for being really bad...top draft picks and oodles of money to spend after a few years of suckage. Of course, the current bad teams would have one hell of a hard time getting better if we ever voted to go that route. About the only way to make that work would be to have a league rebirth and start from scratch, redrafting all the teams. And I think we all know that more than a few owners, understandably, have man-crushes on "their" players.

I also think that ARBA is still enjoyable under the current system. Anyway...I've rambled long enough.

Date: Fri Sep 14 08:56 2007

I am not so sure that you can do anything about the really bad teams except maybe a lottery system for choosing the draft picks for the teams that don't make the playoffs. Honestly I could care less either way, I think managers just choose to rebuild their teams in different ways. I enjoy playing the games as much as building the team so I try to win as many games as possible every year. Just my two cents!

Date: Fri Sep 14 15:07 2007

yep, I do have a man crush on Ryan Braun and a soon to be man crush on Travis Snider, I'm willing to admit that to the league. wink

Wait, let me format it right.

"Hello, I'm Jeff, and I have man crushes on my players in a fake baseball league"

Man that feels good to get off my chest biggrin

Just tease'n Dave...lol

Date: Fri Sep 14 15:08 2007

I actually HATE playing the games and am only in the league to try and collect as many cool minor leaguers as I can so there is always "hope".

Date: Fri Sep 21 08:27 2007

I concur that ARBA seems to be at the extremes of replay leagues in terms of both terrible teams that are lucky to win one game a series and super-uber-mega teams where MLB stars sit on the bench and wait for PH opportunities.

Having been at both extremes, this doesn't bother me in the slightest. Obviously, it's much more fun to play the games with a team that has a chance of winning, but the ability to strip down a team and sell off everything to get top prospects and picks makes a full commitment to rebuilding alot more fun than being a team like the MLB Pittsburgh that cannot commit to a strategy and ends up being sub-.500 forever.

It's all a matter of personal preference for me - it doesn't bother me that the ARBA structure doesn't reward .500 teams (although I think - hope? - that that's where SFE will be next year), because being at the extremes and either having a great team or a great minor league system is more fun for me.

Of course, if a substantial portion thinks there is a problem, I'm happy to discuss possible solutions. Instituting a draft lottery would certainly provide a bit less incentive to bid up the unlimited players.

Date: Fri Sep 21 17:47 2007

Well to this point most seem to believe that although the gap exists, it's not a problem. Would still like to hear from more people, but seeing how many have looked at the post versus how many took the time to respond, it sounds like a silent majority see it as a non-issue.

I guess the way to handle it at this point is for anyone who is concerned to propose a rule change. I have tried to get ARBA to expand roster sizes so rebuilding teams can keep marginal cards/players and still stock up prospects. OF course the opposite is true also in that the good teams can stockpile more talent. That rule proposal has already been voted down before. I think a cap on money would also help redistribute the talent.

At this point I guess I will end up proposing a rule change and go from there. Thanks to those who spoke up on the issue.

Date: Sun Sep 23 01:56 2007

put me in the category for maybe some possible changes.

an NBA type lottery for the bottom 8-10 teams would be cool....would solve a lot of the just terrible play and giving up.

you could also put a bonus in there for teams who finish with a better record than the previous season.....say 250k for the first two years and 500k for 3 straight years. A small incentive to maybe spend some money in the offseason.

For teams that do not win more than 50 games per year take a 500k penalty and lose their 10% in the offseason. This might help prevent teams from winning 20 games and carrying 6 million dollar balances. So no bonus in hte off season and a penalty for not trying.

Team in the bottom 10 of the league get a 250k extra to help buy a player.

i think the incentive should be for teams to try and compete....the penalties are tough enough.....People don't care if they don't get hte 40 game bonus when they get a top 5 pick and 10% of their 5 million hold over. Start taking money away from teams who play poorly with over stuffed cofffers and might force them to participate more in hte offseason.

Maybe a use or lose policy for hold over money.....say 3.5 million.....force people to spend money and try and win. That's a ton of money and with potential bonuses will still be a significant chunk of change.

what can i say, after a few beers i like to be creative at 3 am.....lol

Date: Sun Sep 23 08:54 2007

Keep drinking Jeff, I like your ideas!

Date: Sun Sep 23 21:30 2007

I am not a fan of the lottery. But I would like to see the money change. Such as the more games you win the less money you get and the less games you win the more you get. But that is my thoughts.

Date: Sun Sep 23 23:00 2007

I had decided back in the spring that I was going to propose a rule change that teams that didn't win X number of games would forfeit place money and interest on leftover money. I hadn't decided what the threshhold would be but I am leaning toward a 50 game minimum. If a gm isn't going to spend the money to win then I assume he wouldn't sell many tickets to his home games and there wouldn't be the resulting revenue. I am open to other thoughts.

Date: Mon Sep 24 02:30 2007

man, my grammar wasn't the greatest...but hey, that was pretty decent typing considering the situation.

yes it's 3am again, but i have monday off so lucky me!!!! Gotta love working for the gov't, I think i'm off more than i work.

Date: Mon Sep 24 09:29 2007

The question for me is why don't teams spend the $$$ to win more games? The answer, that I, Don, and others long ago came to, is that it hinders the rebuidling process. By building up $$$ and your minors, you get to the point where you can compete and if you spend the built up funds you can push your team over the top to contend. I think it is foolish to squander your money in a usually futile attempt at mediocrity. Excuse me, you can achieve mediocrity but it is harder to "get over the hump" and have a realistic shot at competing. I have rebuilt New Monmouth and P'burg more than once and the best way to build them into contenders IMO is to tear the franchise down, suck up losong for around 3 years and then when your minors kick in spend the $$$ to keep your now A studs or invest in key FA that put you over the top. I would hate to see the league legislate against a choice in how to build a franchise.

Perhaps people would rebuild and spend the money sooner if we expand the playoffs? Maybe you shouldn't need a dominate, All-Star laden team to get into the playoffs? I know people argue about watering the playoffs down, but I always considered that nonsense in a league such as ours. In one of the above posts you see that I have offered Alg to anyone who wants to switch franchises with me for a franchise that is in need of extensive rebuilding. To me a complete rebuilding job is more enjoyable than taking over a franchise such as ALG that is close to competing. One of the things that will put them over the top and make them a formidable franchise that truly has a chance to win the title is that whoever had the franchise previously has done a good job of building up the $$$ so that by investing in FA, they can seriously compete perhaps this year or, certainly next. If that $$$ had been squandered in a vain attempt the last couple of years at getting ALG to mediocrity sooner, they would have won more games but at this point would actuallly be farther away from truly competing. I would hate to see the league prevent me from buuilding up my team to a contender as I see fit. just my two cents worth.

Date: Mon Sep 24 12:04 2007

why would u penalize a bad team cash...how in hell would be able to rebuild....i think u should look at treshold a team can have with money balance...thats what u should look at..art

Date: Tue Sep 25 05:23 2007

Thanks guys for the discussion. At the bare minimum this discussion needed to take place. I hope you guys with ideas will follow through rule proposals so we have a variety of ideas to choose from. I like both Jeff and Keith's ideas.

Warren, I think you would get 100% agreement from the league that it is fun to rebuild teams from the scrap heaps into a contender. Most of us old timers have done it multiple times. But from a competition standpoint, is it in the best interest of the league to have no competition for the playoff spots because of the gap between teams? I agree each owner should have the choice of how to rebuild or spend the money. But I also think the league should have incentives for teams to try and be competitive year to year. As for play-off spots available I hope you will put that out as a rule proposal. The more ideas put forth for the league to consider, the better the solution will end up being, I hope.

I have laready submitted several rule proposals to Tom T. Hope you all will do the same.

Date: Tue Sep 25 09:54 2007

I do not think that forcing a rebuilding franchise to spend $$$ to get to mediocrity sooner is really "Competition for a playoff spot". I suppose our defintions of competition are different. I believe that is actually harming a teams attempt to attain that elite, playoff status. But, the discussion is, as you stated, good for the league. I do not see much support for expanding the playoffs so if more of y'all want it, let me know.

Date: Tue Sep 25 13:37 2007

The above reply was mine. I was thinking of what Tom had said, while talking to someone, and inadvertently typed Tom's name. Sorry for that. I don't even have 3 A.M. and liquor as an excuse.

Date: Tue Sep 25 22:11 2007

Wow that is funny Warren. Guess we are all getting old.

I guess I don't buy the "spending dollars to reach mediocrity" arguement much. In my exposure in other leagues I see teams trying to build talent level across the board, not just in the minors. You can spend some money or make trades to acquire some talent, compete with other teams in the league for something other than the #1 pick, and build through the draft. It's not just one or the other. You can do both. And to do both is better forthe league in my opinion. It's just that in ARBA it has traditionally been the way to rebuild. When I speak of competition I don't mean just competing for a playoff spot,although that is most important. I also mean competing in games and series against the other teams instead of rolling over and playing dead for 2 or 3 seasons while other 5 teams win 115-120 games. I guess after all these years it has grown old to see teams suck for 5 years then dominate for 6 or 7 years then go right back to sucking. No middle ground,always on the extremes. And I'm not accusing anybody in particular as we have all done it at least once. But just because it has traditionally been that way doesnt mean it is the best way. I mean we arent all aggies that think that way. (Sorry had to sneak in an aggie slam, hadnt had one in awhile). Anyway the rule votes will put this all to the test. But hey at least people have something to read on the message board.

Date: Tue Sep 25 22:53 2007

Put me down for trying to create a lot more parity. I rebuilt 4 years ago, sucked for 2 years, got competitive last year with 90+ wins, only to see the handwriting on the wall. You can get close, but as long as there are teams out there willing to sacrifice the future it will always be hard to get over the hump, and there is always 3 or 4 teams willing to make that jump. You might get to the playoffs, but the super teams that sold out will always have the advantage. So I took the plunge because I got tired of waiting. I knew it would be a one year deal and I was willing to trade Hernandez, Hughes, Kennedy, Wieters, Barton, high picks, and money to get there. Did I lose a ton of talent, yes, but how many years would it take for those guys to get there. I'm in my 50's and don't how many more years I'll be in the league.

I would rather see a lot more teams playing 500 ball and have races go down to the last series or so than see them wrapped up with 40 games to go and a bunch of teams that couldn't beat most college teams playing out their seasons .

I believe a salary cap may be part of the answer. I have crunched a lot of numbers and see several areas that I believe would help. However they are too numerous to mention now. All of the 100+ win teams this year would have not been able to pay the salaries they currently have, thus meaning they probably wouldn't be super teams. That means players they couldn't pay would have been available for teams under the cap. I tried to think of all the good and bad and how to work it out, and believe there are far more advantages than disadvantages. I can discuss more if anyone is interested.

Ken and I have talked and we kind of think that instead of several of us proposing a bunch of ideas that we all have to vote on, that maybe we create a committee that can look at several of the ideas and come up with something that we can propose to the league that could be combination of the best of the ideas. That is what we did a few years back when we altered the "C" contract rules and the change for winning/losing compensation. We could get feedback from the members, come up with a proposal that enough members seem to be in favor of and then vote in the offseason.

Date: Tue Sep 25 23:05 2007

Keith's idea

Date: Tue Sep 25 23:16 2007

Warren's idea on increasing # of playoff teams

Date: Wed Sep 26 11:06 2007

RE: Bad Teams

Date: Wed Sep 26 12:38 2007

Trav,

You may have never torn your teams completely down, but you did wholesale your minors, spend all your money, and give up all your draft picks to get to the top. Can't deny that.

You always play to win every game you can, so you will probably never be hurt if the minimum number of games to win got increased and you would never lose earned interest on carryover money if that rule got adopted.

If you were smart enough to draft and hold on to Albert Pujols or simply astute enough to rip off your best buddy in a trade to get him, a salary cap would not force you to let him go. What it would do would allow you to keep the players you want, but you would not be able to make trades to add high dollar players like Schilling, Hunter, Renteria, Abreu, K-Rod, and Alou like Austin did in the offseason. Those players put me nearly two million dollars over what I would recommend as the cap. I could still have been a very good team and probably a playoff team with the players I had and just a few additions as long as other teams were playing under the same rules. Almost all of us have played somekind of a ROTO game with a salary cap. It merely becomes a different challenge.

Everyone,

I would really appreciate it if members would be open minded about what is good for the league and would build more interest for everyone instead of always looking at it from a ME perspective. "Why do I have to get penalized?" NO ONE is trying to penalize anyone. Some of us don't like the way the league has moved in the last few years and would like to bring about some change to improve what we feel is not good for the league. When the season ended we had 6 super teams and 7 teams with over 100 losses. HAR wins CL North by 19, Iowa wins CL Central by 5, Belfast wins CL South by 41, Springfield gets the Wildcard 19 out with 99 wins. In the Federal League, Pbg wins North by 10, Brooklyn wins Central by 34, and in the only close race in ARBA, HDT wins over AUS by 1 game. Oh, I need to mention that the HDT and AUS records were 122 wins and 121 wins respectively. If people don't see this as a problem then all the arguments in the world will never convince them that something needs to be done. I sincerely don't see the league as being near as much fun as it used to be. Change is just another challenge. Step up and take it on.

Date: Wed Sep 26 14:05 2007

Well I must reply since what I have done to have a good team can't be denied. I personally don't see the difference between a 2nd round draft pick and a 6th round draft pick. The 1st round gives you a chance to draft players that are usually going to be studs, past that it is really a crap shoot. I have drafted all of these players in the later rounds: Billingsley, Lofgren, Upton, Carrasco, Stock, Cedric Hunter, Madison Bumgarner, Matsuzaka, Hellickson, and LaPorta amongst others, so why not trade away your draft picks for major league talent.

As far as wholesaling my minors to compete, I guess this all just depends on what your definition of wholesaling minors is.

In 2004 HAR traded Billingsley, Littleon, Bozied, Tavarez, Hagerty, Jerome Williams, Hanrahan, Stokes, and Tyler Greene.....I would do it all again besides Billingsley. In 2005 HAR traded Choo Freeman and Josh Willingham, in 2006 JP Howell, Connor Jackson, Bartlett, Andino, Jesus Flores, and Freddy Guzman. In 2007 HAR traded Patterson, Carrasco, Moldenhauer (drafted that same year), Delmonico, Noonan (drafted that same year), Paulino, Banks, and Bristow.

Let's see about Camden, in 2004 none, 2005 Munoz, League, Nageotte, Purcey, and Tsao the last 4 in a deal for Pedro and Schmidt. In 2006 CMD traded Hochevar and Miguel Perez, in 2007 no one.

So to sum it all up CMD made the playoffs their second year in existence after being an expansion team and lost in game 7 last year before the World Series. HAR has made the playoffs the last three reaching the World Series the first two years and losing in game 7 before the World Series last year.

I didn't write this to expound on what I have done in a replay baseball league hopefully there is more to life than that. I think this just goes to show that there is more than one way to build a team and you can't force people to compete. We all have different strengths whether that be the draft, making trades, or stock piling money to make a run at the top c players.

I guess that after writing all of this I can deny some of the previous statements!

Date: Wed Sep 26 22:19 2007

I agree that there is more than one way to make teams competitive. In fact the point of this thread was to explore ways to make the league more competitive during league play. Even if a new system is in place of the current one, each person will still be able to implement whatever strategy they prefer to build their teams. The question is, is it in the LEAGUE's best interest to revise the financial rules, roster rules or other rules to create a more competitive league. As it is now and demonstrated by Gary's post, there is very little competition within the divisions. There is little to no incentive for teams to even try and win games if they are not an Uber team that can win it all. The basis of a league like ours is to try and recreate an MLB type season. In MLB this yea most recently, not one team was playing 0ver .600 or under .400. That is good for baseball. Our league has gone in the opposite direction. Having played in other leagues I have come to realize that, in my opinion, it is a fatal flaw in the ARBA rules that has allowed the league to reach this point. Most ARBA games and series are irrelevant because it is a forgone conclusion who is going to win the games, the series and the divsions before the season ever starts.

Everyone is attached to their teams and players (except Warren who isnt attached to ALG). Noone wants to have to dismantle their teams. BUt for the good of the league we all may have to make some sacrifice in that regard. Or maybe not, depending on what rules, if any,change. I agree with Gary also that we have to be willing to look at it objectively and think beyond the impact of ourselves. I know I know, a novel idea in these times.

I agree with the committe idea. ANyone else agreee with forming a committee, and any volunteers forit?

Date: Wed Sep 26 22:20 2007

I pulled a Warren and didnt change the name on above post to me. Swore I did though.

Date: Wed Sep 26 23:26 2007

Nope, you can't deny it. I was talking about your second year in existence. That was the year you made all the above moves I was referencing. Not any year after that. You didn't take a draft pick that year until the 7th round because you traded all the earlier picks away to get the players that put you in the playoffs. You also spent all of your money that year either in trades or paying salaries, and you traded away what decent minor leaguers you had to get the quality players back that year. Just as you said above, you reached the playoffs in your second year, but you did it by doing what I said you did. I didn't say you tore your team down. You never stripped your roster of all the good players to be bad and accumulate early picks and money. You chose a strategy and were successful. What I was saying was that you chose the second half of what most managers do to get where you are. After they are bad for 2-3 years and accumulate a core of decent players they then do what you did to get to the top. Nope, you can put on the blinders and remember it differently if you want, but you can't deny what I said. smile

Date: Thu Sep 27 09:30 2007

I always trade my draft picks, please review my last couple of drafts. As far as trading off my minors in 2000 to compete I can't deny it because I can't remember that far back and I was not keeping records for my team back then, I wish I would have now. But please feel free to email me those trades that I made since you do remember or have them written down somewhere. I can't imagine that my minor league system was that good being filled with players I took from other teams in the expansion draft and having drafted one year for myself. Maybe I am wrong please feel free to correct me!

Date: Thu Sep 27 09:43 2007

Thanks, Tom , Travis or whomever, I feel much better now.