We current have a limit of 30 cards, with up to 5 additional little A players.
What would people think of changing that to 32 cards, with up to 3 additional little A players?
Its always been a bit of a challenge to cover 1450 innings and all of our positions with 30 rosters slots. And, to a point, I like the challenge. I like the fact that you can keep guys with say 150 at bats because you think they have a future, but you have to be strategic with how many of those guys you invest in, because you still have to field a team.
However, I think it is getting tougher, especially in pitching. Teams are using the DL more aggressively, plus there's the concussion protocol, the bereavement list, the paternity list, the 26th man for a double header. All of this means more players are hanging around the fringes of the majors and playing time is getting spread out over a larger number of guys, especially in pitching. Hardly anybody pitches 200 innings any more. Even relievers who pitch more than one inning stints are getting rarer.
So, I'm just thinking, it might be time to shift a couple of those little A slots into "full season" slots.
I could be persuaded into a change like this, as long as it comes with a second part: teams must send a 25 person roster for every series.
When we got rid of injuries,we eliminated the randomness of a player's playing time distribution. Since that doesn't exist anymore, I don't see why we need to have bigger active rosters.
I guess I'm saying Im ok with a bigger taxi squad, but smaller active roster.
If we go to a 25 man roster, then I think we'd also need to allow managers to activate/deactivate players each block, not just once for the last two blocks.
Thanks for bringing this up, Kevin. However, I'm just not convinced that there's a problem to solve here. Looking at the season stats, although some individual pitchers went over their max IP, their teams had other pitchers with innings to spare and/or chose to carry more minor league players instead of a full roster (looking at you, Travis). It seems like the 30-man roster with up to 5 little As should be sufficient to cover usage, particularly with injuries no longer a factor, despite recent changes in MLB.
However, I would be willing to support other changes that could offer more roster flexibility, such as the following:
Allow "little A" players to be used earlier in the season. I wouldn't want to have the full expanded rosters much earlier, if at all. Allowing teams to move players up and down from the minors during the season could be a viable solution though. We could either make that option available from the start or at a certain point in the season, after the Series 6 halfway point perhaps. Given how many relievers end up in the "little A" range now, they could be a lot more helpful if available earlier.
Add the +10% to GS and IP. We currently add the +10% to IP, but restrict to actual GS except unlimited pitchers. Starts are always at a premium and adding the 10% could make it easier to manage their pitching staffs and potentially free up a spot for another need.
Those are the 2 ideas that come to mind first, but I would consider others along those lines. I don't really like the idea of restricting teams to 25-man rosters, partly because I already have a league like that. That would create some new challenges and we would also probably end up with a lot more over-usage in that scenario as most people don't update their CMs as obsessively as I do. You might be able to talk me into some number in the middle though.
I think I can get behind a number of these ideas. Regardless of whether this is a "problem," allowing more roster flexibility would make life easier in some respects.
Allowing 32 with 3 Little A makes sense as a moderate change tat probably won't impact things too much, but creates can help make the end of the year slightly less stressful.
If expanding ability to use Little A players, instead of waiting to end of season, what about allowing Little A players to be active for all intra-division games?
What was the reason to not add 10% to starts, anyway? This distinction never made sense to me, but maybe I missed something.
I see your point, Eric. Clearly, people are able to field legal teams. The question is whether the phenomenon of "gosh, I'm leaving better talent on the board but I really need a guy who played more" is becoming more pervasive. I think it is, so I'm interesting in tweaking to address that. But there's no crisis here, this is entirely a matter of preference and I'm good with whatever the group decides.
Personally I would support applying the 110% to starts as well as innings. Might mean we see a bit less of unlimited characters, at least in starting roles.
I would also support making little-A players more available/available earlier in the season. Even three series instead of two would make a big difference in terms of how many innings little-A relievers are able to carry for your team, to get you to 1450.
I think the best way of addressing the starting pitcher usage relating to game starts is to do away with the game starts limit altogether. As long as a pitcher is rated as a starter, the only limit should be innings pitched. This is especially true nowadays, with some MLB teams starting a guy who only goes one or two innings, then the second guy comes in and throws 5-6. Case in point, Ryan Yarbrough of the Rays. He compiled 146 innings on the year and a 16-6 record, but only has 6 game starts. West Chester should be allowed to start him as many games as needed to reach the IP limit.
