I've received a couple of other proposals via email, so I'm putting this in a sticky thread for convenience. Feel free to comment on any of these (or any other proposed change) in this thread or start a new one if you want.
(1) Limiting co-owned teams from bidding on C players (details TBD)
(2) Deleting the $950k cap on position money for team wins
(3) Excepting unlimited players from the rule that tired players must be removed at the start of the next inning
(4) Eliminate little a designation and allow teams to have 35 carded players on the 60-man roster generally
(5) Limit active rosters for any series (other than the last 2 series of the regular season) to 30 carded players
(6) Allow injuries but with the "Limit All Injuries to Current Game Only" setting
(1) Limiting co-owned teams from bidding on C players (details TBD)
I support the idea of two-team owners being ineligible to bid on any player from their other team.
(2) Deleting the $950k cap on position money for team wins
I would be against this one. It seems that we have the same teams/owners in the playoffs each season, so I don't see it as a good idea for league parity to give successful teams more money. Apparently, they don't need it.
(3) Excepting unlimited players from the rule that tired players must be removed at the start of the next inning
I would be against this one too. I'm more a proponent to "realism" as much as possible, and having a tired pitcher continuing to stay in the game reeks of unrealistic usage.
(4) Eliminate little a designation and allow teams to have 35 carded players on the 60-man roster generally
I'm on the fence on this proposal. I lean more to "No", since I do like the idea of having a few cheaper guys on the roster that can help out later in the season with usage.
(5) Limit active rosters for any series (other than the last 2 series of the regular season) to 30 carded players
I think its a bad idea to enact this proposal alone, and not include an additional aspect that allows for a larger number of carded players to be inactive and made active during any block of the season. I think this rule alone will lead to more overusage issues.
(6) Allow injuries but with the "Limit All Injuries to Current Game Only" setting
I am dead set against allowing injuries and thus allowing Hal to make even more bad decisions for my teams.
Hello Rick (and anyone else who bothers to read this),
Unsurprisingly, #4 and #5 are intended to go together, although I felt obligated to make them separate proposals. If people are worried about one being approved without the other, then perhaps it would be better to vote on them as a pair.
The "little a" concept goes all the way back to the 80's when we actually used Replay Baseball instead of Strat. It represents "September Callups", but that's not really how MLB teams use their rosters anymore. In modern MLB, it's more of a churn through players moving up and down throughout the season. Having 35 cards without the "little a" or "minors eligible" restriction should make it easy enough for teams to cover usage. The expansion to 32-man rosters was done to address the same need, but I think this is a better solution and Kevin (who proposed the roster expansion) agreed when we talked about it. Having 32 players active all the time just doesn't feel like real baseball to me and represents a big jump from what MLB has. 30 seems like a big enough increase from 26 to cover the need/desire to use extra players in a 6-9 game series.
- E
P.S. I also proposed bringing back injuries limited to rest of game because I miss the chaos, but have very low expectations on that one.
Yes - regarding 4 and 5, when I proposed the expansion from 30 to 32 cards a couple seasons ago, my goal was to give people more cards so that it was easier to cover the needed minimums of PA and IP for the season. It also expanded the number of players available for an individual game, but that was something that went along for the ride, it wasn't the goal of the proposal.
Under the current rules, MLB teams never have more than 28 players active for any game (even in September) but they have all sorts of ways to shuffle people onto the active roster that didn't exist until just a few years ago- extra players for double headers, shorter-term injury lists, bereavement and paternity lists etc.
I think if we allow 35 total cards but only allow max 30 active for any individual series, it would capture the spirit of how modern MLB actually works rather well.
Regarding 3- I guess my question is how the proposed rule is meant to interact with our other rules? Home managers are expected to make the good faith effort to follow all the rules when they play the home games, but I am aware of situations late in seasons where managers are running out of pitchers who have innings, and the guys who still have innings are all tired. The overuse triggers fines but there's no specific consequence for violating the "tired pitcher" rule, so if a manager is in a position where they have to decide which rule to violate, well, that's an easy call.
So, is the idea with this proposal to avoid that situation where a manager has to decide which rule to violate- to basically ensure there's always a legal option?
And if the fear about this proposal that people will exploit it- i.e., I will use my crappy unlimited guy for multiple innings in every blowout all year, not because I don't have other options, but because I'd just rather not use those other options.
1- I'm in favor of the simple proposal from the other thread... if you have two teams, you can't be the first bidder in the C auction on a player under your control.
2- Nope- Keep the $950. After years of getting my brains beat out by a division with 3 consistently good teams, the last thing I need is MORE of a disadvantage.
3- Nope- I abused the heck out of Matt Boyd this year because he was an unlimited pitcher who could throw multiple innings.. BUT... I don't think it would be fair to do even more, especially when considering how many PAs it would require to get through games. A series with Rome this year, had this rule been in place, would have used every PA a team had available (no exaggeration).
4&5- I support these changes in the aggregate, but want to add one thought... I think roster spots 1-25 should be major leaguers... 26-35 can be either major leaguers or minor leaguers.. and 36-60 can only be minor leaguers. I'd open it up for people to carry more minor leaguers if they're able to meet their available PA/IP requirements.
6- I say yes... bring back a little more variety into the scripting we all go through.
Jeepers... did I just agree with Eric across the board? I need a shower.
Hello Mike! Thanks for your support and yes, you do really need to take a shower. If it's any consolation, only proposals 4-6 were mine and I haven't gone on the record about the other 3. Perhaps I should do that now, but I'm less sure about these other proposals.
1) I would definitely vote No on prohibiting multi-team owners from bidding on players from their other team. Sometimes I really want to keep those players in my life, but they just don't fit with the other team that season. I would be more on the fence about preventing the other team from making 1st bid. That does serve as kind of a "Get Out of Jail Free" card to save the posting team from getting stuck with unwanted players. My other team has sometimes refused to help though. I still get why people might see this as an unfair advantage. So yeah, I'm not ready to commit to an alternate version of this proposal that doesn't seem to be official yet anyway.
2) As one of those teams that has consistently beat the brains out of Rome, I would love to get more credit for winning lots of games. It will be hard to set aside self-interest on this one, but I don't want to commit yet.
3) I don't really have a strong feeling about this one either, mostly because I tend not to rely heavily on unlimited pitchers anyway. I really don't want to see crappy S1/R1 pitchers throwing complete games though. In theory, this would allow teams to get through an entire season with only 4 pitchers, which would be ridiculous. Kevin does make a good point about this been difficult or even impossible to police and punish.
4/5) Jumping over to Mike's suggested addition to my proposals, the current rules already allow teams to carry fewer carded players if they're able meet PA/IP requirements. The only minimum in the roster rules is that teams must have at least 10 minor leaguers. Looking back at our 2021 season, only 12 teams actually carried the max of 35 carded players. Unsurprisingly 3 of our lottery teams had <30 because they were reliant on unlimited players. MUD had only 26 carded players, 19 of whom were unlimited! ISL was right behind them with 27. So yeah, this door is already wide open.
Hello to anyone who bothers to read this! The hot stove seems to be rather cold right now, so I might as well post another rule proposal. We have tried other versions of this in the past, but perhaps keeping it simple will work.
Teams will be allowed to change ballparks each season without paying a fee. Only MLB ballparks for the current league season are eligible for selection. (The 2nd part has always been true, but isn't actually stated in the current rules.)
So yeah, we'll see how that does. Sadly, it's too late for Surprise to escape the dire fate of spending their 2021 season in Buffalo. <shudder>
While I would support Eric's ballpark proposal over our current rule, I would prefer a proposal that allows a team to slightly adjust their current ballpark or freeze their ballpark settings over several seasons. I think we need some flexibility to combat Strat's annual changes to our ballpark, which is solely done for replay purposes.
