Per the below message, we have two unowned teams. I've been trying to find owners for these spots for a couple of months now to no avail.
I've been looking around and talking to other commissioners that I've encountered, and most Strat leagues have either 24 or 26 teams. We, of course, have 28. While I don't think it's a structural problem to have 28 teams, the hard fact is that every year there is a struggle to fill one or two spots, and last year we had the unfortunate spectacle of JRS being unowned during the season.
I wanted to raise this as a possibility for people's discussion, so please everyone and anyone chime in. Personally, I would much rather go to 26 teams than have one or two ownerless teams.
On a practical level, I'm totally open as to how to conduct a contraction. My initial thought would be to have the minor leaguers available either in the regular draft or in a special one-off draft while the major leaguers would be available in the FA auction (which would presumably help significantly reduce the amount of cash on hand that people complain about). But I'm totally open to any and all suggestions on that front - I very much don't want to upset the competative balance. I've also thought about having those players all just be unavailable for 1 year or phasing them back into the league over time.
Anyway, please let me know your thoughts on this subject.
28 teams is pain for owners (not having enough, or 2 team owners) and the amount of teams out there dilutes the league IMHO.
Allowing a few of those teams players to be spread amongst the masses "might" get some of the mid level teams in playoff contention.
I don't really care about the cash issue in the league...If teams want to suck for 5 years in order to build up a warchest more power to them. Playing 5 years of FAIL baseball sucks sucks sucks...been there and done it.
The minor leaguers I don't really care what we do with....throw them back in the pot...not a big deal either way.
Maybe allow the teams who finished under .500 to be able to get the MLB players in some sort of draft. I'm just thinking if we help prop some of the lower teams up it might give them incentive to get going with an extra player or two. If the teams want to trade them the following year so be it, but at least it will give them some options.
Get the league somewhat competitive and then everything will smooth out in a year or so anyway with teams again.
This is a league of haves and have nots...or maybe "competitive" vs "apathy" is a better way to describe it. Would be nice to see more teams not on autopilot b/c they're in a 10 year rebuild mode.
If we do decide on contraction, which I am okay with either way, then my vote would be to throw the minor leaguers back in the draft this year and to expose the major leaguers in the free agent auction.
If the purpose of the mechanics of the league is to promote parity-then parity would be better achieved by placing the carded and uncarded players into the rookie pool and letting them be drafted by inverse order. Whatever we do would need to be voted on by the league with the majority number of votes being the final decision.
You would also need to address what would happen with their contracts. I agree with Tom though that putting the carded players in the free agent auction would eliminate some of the "excess" money that some rant about.
Everything we've done in the past has been in the name of parity. Placing the players in the IOD draft would promote parity. Contraction has occurred once before in our past history. In that case we did a dispursement draft in inverse order of all the teams carded players, when you took the player you took the contract. Any player not selected went into the free agent pool. All minor leaguers were available in the IOD.
I think several people have stated good ideas. I agree that this league, more so than others, appears to be one of have's and have nots. The good teams are really good and the bad teams really bad, with very few middle of the road teams. With all the talent FTW had on it this year and it still finished under .500. Halladay had more hits than ip in ARBA despite being under in real life. When facing All-Star teams that will happen.
I would like to see more parity. Our system though obviously isn't conducive to it though. Attempts at making changes to the system to achieve this have either been voted down or not been successful. Toward that end, I'd like to see a special contraction draft from the eliminated teams major and minor league rosters for the bottom rung teams. Say maybe 3 rounds. The remaining players would then go to the FA for carded players and draft for uncarded.
I would think a decision needs to be made soon as the trading period "officially" starts on 10/4. Depending on what is decided concerning contraction 1st round draft picks this year could have a substantially higher value.
No issues with the contraction. In the past we have held a dispersal draft using inverse order. I wouldn't mind that or just limiting the draft to non playoff teams. I do think that whatever we do it should happen soon.
I think the Saleries should stay and all card and non carded players should go in the IOD it will help out the League. To many teams try to compete but can't. It will help the other teams. If they go in to the FA then yes for some of the players it will help but the big man guy it won't you will have to pay more in the FA and then they will have high salaries for the next year. I say keep the salaries the same and put in IOD.
I agree with the general consensus that the time for contraction has come. Of course, the devil is in the details. As evidenced by the suggestions so far, there are many potential approaches, some of which can be combined. One factor that I haven't noticed yet is the number of contracted teams. If it turned out to 4 instead of 2, that could make some of the options more difficult to manage.
My preference would be to start with a special inverse-order dispersal draft that carries current salaries forward. There would probably be too much chaos if none of the players are exposed until the FA or IOD. It should probably be limited to a few rounds at most and teams should be able to pass if they don't want to pick anyone. Otherwise, we may see too many players drafted just to be thrown out there again on a C or FA contract. In fact, we may even want to consider prohibiting the dispersal draft players from going on a C the first year. I'm assuming that we're trying to redistribute talent, not just give teams another opportunity to cash in. I would rather include all teams in this dispersal draft rather than restrict it the non-playoff teams or losing teams, but acknowledge some self-interest there.
Any carded players not selected in the dispersal draft would join the FA pool. I'm leaning toward dumping all minor leaguers into the IOD, but might be persuaded to make them eligible for the dispersal draft. I do worry that having both included would simply expand the gap between good and bad teams, rather than close it, which seems to be a primary goal here.
Okay, that's my opinion...for whatever it's worth. Damn, I just realized that 2011 will be my 24th season in this league. I need to go lie down now...
I am indifferent regarding whether or not we do contraction. If we do it, though....
One aspect of this nobody's discussed is that the C/FA auction has been running several hours and ending after 11 pm as it is. If we throw two entire rosters of carded guys directly into the auction on top of the usual suspects, its going to be out of control.
So from a parity standpoint I have no preference between "throw everyone into the auction" and "have a special dispersal draft" but practically speaking I am opposed to anything that will make the auction bigger or longer than it has to be.
On top of that, I think having a dispersal draft by email will be a great way to try it out and decide if we want to start doing the IOD that way.
I think that contraction may be necessary, just because a limited number of people play strat and those that do are not always looking for this deep of a league. That being said, I hope that any distribution method offers access to all owners (not just those who didn't make the playoffs). I know that SCG is a playoff team, but this is just a personal belief: contraction is a mechanism to increase the quality of talent in the league. As always, the distribution of talent is subject to the ability and resources of the owners of the league.
I believe that I would most favor an IOD starting ASAP to distribute players with salaries/contracts intact. I'm not sure if it would be better to include minor leaguers in this grouping, or just dump them into the regular IOD or have a separate draft as well.
Contraction seems necessary, so be it. I would prefer a dispersal draft for all carded players with the contracts kept intact and have the minor leaguers put back into the IOD. I am also assuming carded players would mean for next year? Santana being available in the dispersal draft and not the IOD, for example.
- I think that a limited dispersal draft for carded players is a good idea. I don't see any reason to exclude playoff teams from that; playoff teams already have the hit of drafting much later in the round. It's not like Jimenez or Santana is going to go to a playoff team.
- Players taken in the dispersal draft should definitely be subject to their current contracts.
- I think 2 rounds should be plenty of time for the dispersal draft. There should be around 60 carded players total on the 2 teams being contracted, so that's 52 picks anyway.
- The dispersal draft, if there is one, will be done via email or picks on the site or something. No need to schedule an online chat for that.
- Carded players not picked in the dispersal draft should go into the FA pool. I don't think that will expand the time of the C/FA auction, as those teams would've fed some players into the C/FA pool anyway and most players will presumably be taken in the dispersal draft.
- I don't see why a team couldn't take a player in the dispersal draft and then stick him into the C auction or decide to cut him in the normal roster cut process. Obviously, that assumes that the player taken isn't on a long-term contract that would be subject to the normal rules for those.
- I think minor-leaguers (being those that are uncarded for this season - ie, not including Santana) should be tossed back into the minor league pool and available for the IOD.
You know, I think that uncarded minor leaguers should be in the draft as well. It is not for someone to decide how a person manages his/her team. If someone thinks that a player in the minors will make a bigger impact on his/her team than a carded guy, then so be it...
If minor leaguers are to be included in the dispersal draft then two rounds is no longer enough. We should either limit the dispersal draft carded players only, or make it long enough that essentially everyone is dispersed.
