Rule Proposals are Due THIS THURSDAY 12/15. I know that's not much notice - if someone wants extra time to develop something or whatnot, LMK.
Otherwise, here are the proposals I have received to date:
A team winning less than 40 games will no longer forfeit the money for wins.
Reasoning: To be honest, this rule encourages poor teams to aggressively save money to gain interest the following year. Missing the 40-win mark and having little savings would result in the team being poor year after year. Removing this rule should help make the "cellar dwellers" more competitive and assist in the rebuild.
Stealing of home is allowed.
Reasoning: If you are gutsy enough to try it, great. The chances of success are fairly low anyway.
If the Owner of the "C" Player declines to match (in the C Auction), they receive:> The winning bid, if that bid is 250K or less.> The refund of the 125K "C" contract salary + 50% of the winning bid, if that bid is more than 250K.
Reasoning: Currently, for "C" players which receive a winning bid under 250K, the owner of the "C" player receives more than the winning bid in return. For example, if the winning bid was 200K, the owner of the "C" player would receive 225K (125K from the contract salary + 100K from 50% of the winning bid). A bid of 250K is the point at which the 125K "C" contract salary + 50% of the winning bid is equal to the winning bid itself.
ARBA adopts the MLB playoff format (3 wild card teams, etc.).
Reasoning: It probably should be discussed at least. Not sure how I'd vote yet on it, but I figure I would propose it.
I brought this up last year, but it wasn't put to a vote (turns out Elon Musk is the *second* person on the internet to use his bully pulpit to quiet his critics, eh YOC?).
I think we should have a one-week trading period during the season: https://arba.activeboard.com/t68000062/proposed-rule-change-in-season-trade-deadline/
.but you already paid $125k in this scenario so getting $150k nets you $25knot sure I understand why one amount paid on a player should be handled differently than another amount paid on a playermaybe Im just missing something and need to stay silent
Sorry, yes, you would net $25K. I read it as a disincentive to put marginal players you don't want to keep on C contracts because the risk of a no bid isn't worth the small return.
Though 1: instead of eliminating the 40 win level, would it be better to *raise* the level -- as it stands now there is a consistent problem of not enough incentive for teams that are marginally bad to try to compete. 40 wins is still a pretty bad team.
Thought 2: If the goal is to help teams at the bottom relative to those at the top, why not change ALSO put a cap on the amount a team can receive for wins in a season? In other words, after 110 wins, teams don't get any more money for wins.
Looking for reactions before maybe making these actual proposals.
With the exception of Mudville (which has historically had a completely different strategy when approaching the 40-win rule than other teams), almost every year I have been in the league at least one or two teams fell barely short of the 40-win threshold. The rule currently sets up a dilemma for teams expecting to be near the 40-win mark. If a team thinks they can reach the 40-win mark by picking up a player (or two) for about $360K to secure a 40-win season, it is in the team's best interest to do so. However, if it would cost more than about $360K to secure a 40-win season, the team is better off choosing to save the money and reevaluate next year, since $360K with 10% interest would impact the team's next year's budget by $396K. By removing the 40-win rule, teams no longer would need to try evaluating their expected position relative to the 40-win threshold.
When Mudville won 12 games in the COVID adjusted replay season, I estimated it would take Mudville at least $2M to reach 40 wins in the season where many player's stats were extremely skewed and abnormal to their typical season averages. Mudville instead chose to save the $2M, earn 10% interest on the money, and reevaluate their position the next offseason. Was it an extreme strategy? Probably. Was it fun to lose so many games? Not really. However, I feel it was the best opportunity for Mudville to rebuild in the future.
For those trying to rebuild and regain a foothold (which I do not include Mudville due to their budget), having the ability to get money for wins, however small it might be, could help them a lot in the long run. It seems many teams struggle to move either from the cellar to the playoffs or the playoffs to the cellar in this league. For the most part, the same teams struggling now, are roughly the same ones when I started a few years ago. I personally have no problem giving the cellar teams money for wins even if they miss the 40-win mark as I view it as a way for them to possibly save a few dollars to attempt a stronger rebuild later on.
In the end, we are talking less than $400K for a poor team.
Losing 40 games is a choice, we put the rule in years ago to try and keep teams from tanking, using the 1962 Mets as the bar for worst teams in MLB history. I'm also not sure what your definition of "poor" teams are, SFE is in no way a poor team, they have won several championships and Tom will tell you he could have put together a much better team if he wanted to this year. EGR was just in the WS a few years back, so I don't think they are poor either. ISL 100000% chose to be this bad buying $40K unlimited players to fill their roster and save money. MUD bought Voit, Nimmo, Realmuto, Lemahieu, and Castellanos last year in the c and still carried over $20 million, losing as many games as they did was a choice. CMD was an expansion team in 1999 and won 57 games and never had fewer than 55 wins.
I think if you go look at the "poor" team's money they have way more than either CMD or HAR.
If we vote to change the rule its whatever but don't try and mask it as we need to help the poor teams! And I believe not spending $360K in a year would effect next year's money by $36K, the 10% interest in carryover money. $36K equates to 4 wins or $40K at $10K per win.
1. This proposal removes one of the league's incentives for teams to forgo tanking. We should be doing the opposite, as in comparison to other leagues I'm in, ARBA routinely has more teams with less than 50 wins and more than 105 wins, and it's not very close either. Rebuilding is one thing, but tanking is completely different. ARBA needs less tanking teams and less teams with 110 wins every season, so maybe the payment for reaching 40 wins should be increased, not removed.
2. Stealing of home? I wasn't aware that we couldn't do it?
3. I don't see a compelling reason to change the current rule, as it makes more sense to have a consistent formula for all winning bid amounts. The amount of money earned by not matching bids below $250 is nominal anyways, so why change it?
4. I would be against adopting the MLB playoff format. IMHO, there are too many playoffs teams in MLB anyway. Also, MLB has 30 teams, while ARBA has 26, so we should have less playoff teams since our pool of teams is smaller.
FWIW, in my capacity as a team owner and not as commissioner, my feelings on the first four proposals are exactly reflected by Rick's post above.
I could go either way on the interim trading period - could be fun but also if you happen to be busy with work or other life stuff that week you miss out while pennant races could significantly shift around you.
I feel like the "tanking" vs "rebuilding" distinction is more complicated in this league as compared to others given the fact that both money and draft picks are involved. Putting a team of 40k players on the field has a double advantage in that it doesn't just improve draft position but it could also contribute (literally) millions to the budget for future years, so there's a really big incentive to actively follow this strategy at times.
I like many things about this league, but the variance in winning percentage is not one of them. It generally feels like the optimal strategy is "superteam or bust", with everything in between just... blah.
So, if the goal is to incentivize more teams actively trying to improve in any given year, what about a scaled payout for wins in which wins are worth increasingly more up to some threshold (and starting at some minimum threshold)? This could be a linear increase (win #40 is worth $5000, #41 is worth $5100, etc.) or tiered (wins 40-50 are worth $6000, wins 51-60 are worth $7000, etc). Alan Greenspan asks that you please note that these are examples only and not intended to be the exact figures that would neither dump money into nor remove money from the total leaguewide money pool and lead to inflationary spending or other unintended outcomes.
I'm happy to help pay for the accounting services that Tom might need to hire if this would get too complicated.
Interim trading period sounds interesting but like a headache for whoever (Tom/Eric) has to verify money (as I assume you can't spend what you don't have), roster spots (as I assume you would still have to meet roster restrictions), traded players usage (assume current in season usage would carry over to the other team), also not sure if strat will let you move players between teams mid season (Eric?), and I'm sure I'm missing other hurdles.
You can definitely move players between teams mid-season since we do it in another league many of us are in. Usage and roster spots are pretty easy... you get the remaining usage at the time of the trade and no team can exceed the roster limits at any time during the season. As for money, isn't that paid up front before the season starts? The receiving team of the more expensive player(s) would thus not be on the hook for any money, would they? (and the team trading the more expensive players wouldn't get any back...)
Different rules topic: I'm not particularly in favor of expanding the number of teams, but any support for making the wild-card series 3 games instead of 1?
The other league that I was referring does not have a salary structure like ARBA, so it's not an issue there. I suppose cash could be part of a deal here if a team has a positive balance from which they could spend?
I have been in this league several years now. I have been playing strat for a very long time, and I only play in salary cap leagues, and I am an accountant, lol.
However, this is by far the most challenging league I have been in, from the drafting and developing part to the free agent bidding and contract system.
I have never tried to tank, I have always tried to field a competitive team, and, I really think that has been to my disadvantage, since, I never seem to have a lot of money to spend.
It always puzzles me how so many guys blow their brains out in FA, and, I really barely ever can.
I think I am finally figuring out when to cut guys loose instead of just renewing their contracts annually, and, I am starting to get a feel for FA and the drafts.
But, what one person said on here was true, it is very difficult to turn a bottom dweller (which this team was) into a contender, in this league, by trying to be competitive every year.
I really think I would've been better off tanking, saving the money, earning the $, and then going all in.
I also think the in season trading would be beneficial...this is the only league I am in that does not allow for in season trading....it seems kinda 1980's play by mail archaic to me, lol.
FInally, and although this may be too late for this year, why can't we set up a schedule in SOM, instead of the (once again, archaic) method of schedule that we use in this league?
Just some thoughts from a meddling team, never truly bad, never ever good, lol.
