Our bright, shiny new Schedule is posted at the site. Many thanks to League Bursar Brasher for putting it together!
Some of you may have noticed that Strat has incorporated some new rules options this year. While I'm open to hearing people making a case in the other direction, for this season I am thinking that we will not activate the Use Defensive Shifts option, which I think could result in even further home-field (ie human manager) advantages and I would like to wait until Strat works the quirks out. I am thinking that we will activate the Catcher Blocking the Plate rule, which just incorporates another aspect of catcher defense.
i was just about to ask when you were going to unveil the schedule!
The current league configuration is a clear tipoff that I agree with your thinking about rules. I'm confused by the idea that blocking the plate is new, because we've clearly used it for a while, but perhaps it was enhanced or wasn't optional. I'm not sure if the shift option would necessarily increase home field advantage, but it does make playing the games infinitely more tedious. Strat asks about the shift for almost...every...single...batter. Do you want it on? Will your batter try to hit the other way to beat it? So annoying.
I have looked back at old versions of strat. Version 2017 is indeed the first time strat has had a way to turn "blocking the plate" on or off. Before it was just one of the things that could happen on a play at the plate- not optional.
Personally I would advocate for turning it off because major league baseball's rules have effectively done away blocking the plate as something that a catcher can really be "good" "great" or "poor" at. I don't know what those ratings are based on at this point but I don't see how they can be based on data.
The Blocking the Plate chance comes up when the roll is exactly on or one over the number needed to be safe at home. Then the catcher defensive rating determines whether batter is safe or not, using chart below. Although Kevin is right that current MLB rules limit the classic plate-blocking plays, it still seems logical to me that better defensive catchers would be more likely to get the tag down on close players. However, it's not a huge impact in the grand scheme of things and I don't really have great defensive catchers anyway.
