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Also, just wanted to let you guys know that the You've Been Friedman'd team is undergoing an ownership change. Joe Douglas was hired by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an analyst, so taking his place will be Brad Johnson, who you may know from his writing at RotoGraphs and various other entities. Brad knows both baseball and Ottoneu very well, and should be an asset to our league. Let's all help welcome him to Screw Cancer.
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You've Been Friedman'd's trade block has been updated!
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Just a quick reminder that arbitration allocations have to be completed in the next 72 hours. Let's try to get them all done this weekend!
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I'll spare you all the agony of deciding how much to allocate to Joey Bats or Matt Harvey. You're welcome. :-/
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Yes congrats Ben! You had a hell of a second half and really crushed it. It was fun competing against you and hopefully this will be a yearly endeavor.
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Thank you Dave. I want to tip my hat to Pedro for putting up a strong fight until the very end, and congratulate him on a terrific season. Looking forward to battling it out again with all of you next year.
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Congrats to Lincecum on not only the league title, but on scoring the third-most points in league history.
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On the prospects part, I would suggest setting a cutoff of Aug 15 or Sept 1, after which even players who make their MLB debut are ineligible for auction. Otherwise the value of the prospect draft will be heavily influenced by which prospects get a late cup of coffee, and there could be an auction free-for-all if a prized prospect is added to the roster for a few days. You need the best prospects to stay in the draft pool for the incentive to be worthwhile.
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I actually agree with the entirety of Dave's proposal, so long as Neil's option to "downgrade" one tier is brought into play. Creative and interesting, and a first season could show us if there are any unintended consequences.
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I'll try to catch up with everything and post thoughts tonight or tomorrow.
SABRfish on
September 25, 2017 3:09 PM
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Sorry I've been a bit quiet. I've lately had more personal drama in my life than allows me time for my hobbies.
That being said, I'm finally mostly caught up with the proposed changes.
I wish I had a bit more time to offer ideas, as I'm generally an ideas person. I simply don't. I'm also not great at poking holes in other's ideas.
Soooo...I like where we're headed. Thank you for all your work on bringing competitive balance to the league. Hope I can get better!
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Am really hoping to get feedback from everyone in the league, so thanks to those who have already chimed in. Would also love to encourage those who would prefer alternative plans to explain reasoning and lay out case for other options. Certainly don't think proposal is perfect by any stretch, but easier to improve it if ways to reduce impact of those flaws are pointed out and alternatives are suggested.
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Thanks Dave for coalescing a lot of thoughtful suggestions. The overall plan makes sense but has a lot of moving parts. I’m fine doing the whole thing, but I’d slightly prefer we start with modest changes next year and add parts in 2019 if we feel it isn’t working. I think either a monthly cash donation winner + full season winner, or 2 half winners + full season winner, is more than enough change for the league. I slightly prefer monthly. But if most folks want the whole shibang, no objec
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I've been reading and nodding along. I don't have a strong objection (or really, any objection) to anything proposed so far.
Oxford United on
September 23, 2017 5:10 PM
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I want to chime in about something before we get too far down the road with it: I'm not a fan of splitting the season into two halves. I would be in favor of some kind of benefit to being in the top three (or something like that) at the end of June, but I don't think it should have anything to do with actually winning the league. I remain most in favor of monthly incentives for non-contenders (definition TBD).
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In terms of the minor league designation, any player who had made his MLB debut could be auctioned in-season, regardless of where he's currently assigned. The only players restricted from in-season auctions would be players who have never been called up. Guys like Acuna, Mejia, Buehler, McMahon, Calhoun were guys who were added in-season this year that would not have been auction eligible under this proposal, but would have been selected with draft picks by the rebuilding teams.
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In terms of the trade ability of $50+ players, I don't think this would actually make it harder to move them; I think contenders would have to choose between including a mid-to-high-priced player of their own in a deal as a salary offset, or being more aggressive with cuts of their own guys to make room for new expensive acquisitions. I think we'll still see high-end guys getting traded, but it will be more like $55 guy for $30 guy and $1 guy then $55 for $1 guy.
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Yeah, the hard-line difference at 8,500 points could creative some weird incentives, so definitely open to thinking of ways to avoid having a team feel like they got punished for scoring too many points. We could make the extra cap space transferrable, so a team that earned it but didn't think they needed it themselves could trade it to another contender tier team, thus allowing those teams to also up their max payroll to $500. That cap space might have as much trade value as a draft pick.
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3. What's the cut off for minor league vs. major league in season? Would guys like Hoskins be unavailable until after the season?
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2. It seems like players over $50 might be basically untradable. Although maybe that's the point.
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Couple thoughts: 1. Agree with Raburns on the strange incentives for marginal contenders. But this is the nature of any incentive system with hard cut offs.
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I like the proposal, but have one concern. If you're a "lucky 8500 point team" (i.e. not close to first but also unlikely to be as good in second half) in the first half you would probably benefit more from entering the prospect draft than getting $25 of loan space. Maybe a provision that allows you to opt from the 1st tier to the last spot of the prospect draft if you forgo the loan space? Not a dealbreaker if people don't like it though
Brass NHPs on
September 22, 2017 2:31 PM
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An email has been sent to everyone's email on file with the league detailing a proposed structural change to the league in 2018. If you didn't receive this email, please let me know where to send you a copy, and I'll forward you the proposal.
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I like that idea as well.
Brass NHPs on
September 21, 2017 11:15 AM
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Personally I like the half-season championship idea so long as we don't lose the full-season championship as well.
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We could do the half-season split while still implementing other rewards to keep rebuilding teams interested, but my feeling is that we'd have fewer middle-tier teams selling off if they knew they had a shot at the second-half championship beginning in July. We could also still have an overall champion for the entire season, but having half-season champions (with some rewards potentially built in) could incentivize more teams to go for it, rather than beginning the sell-offs in May or June.
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Okay, one other idea I'd like to get feedback on, then I'll work up an actual proposal for league changes. How interested would everyone be in splitting the season in half, and having two separate seasons each year? We'd run April through June, then declare a first half winner, before resetting everyone to 0 points for the July-September season. It's more difficult for a few teams to build up unsurmountable leads in 3 months, so the chance to reset in July might keep more teams interested.
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I’m also not a big playoff fan. I like that fantasy baseball rewards consistent planning and small moves throughout the year to meet a long term goal, rather than a “playoff push.” And totally agree with Lincecum that September is a terrible month for fantasy playoffs in baseball. If we’re going to add a playoff, it should be in August and we should shorten the fantasy season for this league.
I think the league is better served with a small periodic incentive bump, not a drastic change.
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I'm not enthusiastic about a playoff system. On top of the issues Dave just mentioned, September is easily the least normal month in a baseball season, since rosters expand from 25 to 40 and teams often rest their best players (either in anticipation of a playoff run, assuming they clinched early, or because they've been eliminated and there's no reason to push guys). I like the original idea of creating monthly incentives for non-contenders (definition TBD) while keeping scoring the same.
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The biggest drawback to a playoff month plan, that I see, is innings management. Without some help from Niv on the coding side of things, it seems like a team could minimize their innings usage in the "regular season" to sneak into the playoffs, then just run up a huge September IP total to win the league. That's not something I'd want to reward. So we'd have to think through pitching management rules to keep that fair.
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And then, perhaps, we could have the rewards system kick in for the teams that don't qualify for the playoffs, so there would be rewards available to be earned for the rebuilders. Perhaps the non-playoff teams compete for arbitration rebates in that final month?
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However, perhaps there's a way to do a hybrid method that includes a playoff as part of the solution. One example: every team that scores 17,500 points qualifies for the playoffs; this would probably leave us with 3-6 playoff teams per year. Among those teams, the team with the highest regular season points total starts with with 150 points, the 2nd place team gets 50 points, and all other qualifiers get 0. This would still give an advantage to playing well the entire season.
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I had kicked around the idea of some kind of playoff, but I generally don't love the disincentives it creates to improve throughout the year. Under a everyone-starts-at-zero method, you only really need to put a decent-ish team on the field for five months, and then try to out trade everyone right before September starts so that you have the strongest team for the last month. I don't think it reward season-long management enough, at least for my tastes.
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... would be attainable for teams in any stage of "building/rebuilding" but also adds in enough variance that the 6th place team could outscore the 1st place team over a month. Figure a month is long enough to still heavily weight toward the "best teams" but I can run some monthly scoring numbers on this to check. Just a thought. I'm cool with this idea being rejected, but it'd be unique and require less tracking month to month.
Missed the Tag! on
September 19, 2017 11:57 AM
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Just reading through all of this now. I'm fine with whatever everyone else likes, but I think we could have a fix that is relatively easy and doesn't avoid as much monthly maintenance. What if we just added in playoffs? It wouldn't be that hard to do - check standings the morning of 9/1 top 6 teams get in, then those 6 teams are essentially at "zero" and have a 1 month race to the end of September. Still makes it a season long game in that attaining 6th place (if you don't sell)...
Missed the Tag! on
September 19, 2017 11:55 AM
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I might be alone in this, but I wouldn't mind instituting some sort of more advanced system of roster construction that more closely resembles actual MLB -- that is, multi-year contracts, arb years, maybe even pre-arb years. The goal would be a built-in limitation on the creation of mid-year super teams; the big downside, of course, is that this would be hard to both develop and implement (and maybe be too much work for the person/people in charge).
SABRfish on
September 19, 2017 2:25 AM
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Totally on board with the changes Dave's suggesting. I'm also in agreement with Oxford ... I'm not all that interested in paying more cash into the system, but would much rather see rewards tied to some form of team benefit (arb cash, waiver priority, roster spot, etc.)
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And, I should clarify that my thought was more along the line of a qualification system that everyone could achieve, rather than simply creating another winner-take-all (or most) race for a secondary position. My hope would be that the system would give every team something to play for every month. Perhaps there's a way to tier the rewards so that there's some extra drama associated with monthly points totals, but I want everyone to be able to earn some benefit to their team every month.
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In terms of cash or real-life prizes, my preference (but one I could be talked out of) would be to have the rewards improve the Ottoneu team's chances of contending again in the future. Part of the motivation for setting something like this up would be to undermine some of the mistakes Niv made when he built the Ottoneu structure, and to help close the gap between haves and have nots. Right now, the system is far too slanted towards keeping winners at the top.
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I should have probably included some more details in my original message, but Ralph, that is effectively what I had in mind. The idea I've been playing with would have both a minimum points threshold (probably ~2,500 per month) to qualify for any rewards, and the contending teams would be excluded. In practicality, everyone would probably be eligible for April reward, but by May, contending teams (TBD on definition) would not be eligible for monthly prize.
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I am skeptical that monthly prizes for a single winner would solve the problem. The top 3-4 teams would be most likely to win, so the bottom teams may still be motivated to bail early. It seems like instead there could be monthly point targets that any team that exceeds the target would receive a reward. I like the arbitration rebate idea. If the targets are reasonably attainable, it motivates the bottom of the league to try to hit the target so that they get the same rebate as the lead teams.
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I am wide open for side-games, mid-season cups, and monthly prizes. I don't love the idea of throwing in money - I think we should set aside all the money we'd donate to the cause. Maybe the monthly winner can have a donation in their name that month.
Oxford United on
September 15, 2017 3:56 PM
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Expanding on my last idea, we could even do something like have everyone pitch in $30 (giving us $360 total, $60 per month) and we could hand out $10 each to the top six finishers per month. Finish in the top half of the standings just half of the season and win your money back. Not sure which cash incentive system people like better, but I think giving away monthly prizes to at least the top three monthly finishers is important. Otherwise we're just making a strong team stronger.
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Spitballing: What if having the most points during a month allowed you to protect one player from arbitration during the following winter? Maybe the overall win gets one extra (presumably they will have one a month or two as well).
Brass NHPs on
September 15, 2017 3:32 PM
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Especially if we go with cash incentives, I'm worried about the ramifications if one owner consistently wins the monthly prize. That might leave some of us feeling more discouraged than before, since not only are we not winning the league, we're also handing out money to a juggernaut. However, if we each pitch in $25 before the season, we would have $50 to give away per month, or $25 to the top team, $15 to the second-place team, and $10 to thr third-place team. Lots of chances to win $ back.
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Totally on board with any and all ideas to improve the league for all participants. I think monthly incentives are a great idea (cash is probably best in my mind), and I also remember liking the ideas that were thrown around a couple of months ago (although I can't remember exactly what they were).
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I am hopeful for some lasting change, even if it means we have to experiment a bit. I am less motivated by trinkets, but am fine with whatever it takes to keep everyone from being sellers around July 1st (self included; not pointing any fingers).
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I'm also a fan of personalized rewards separate from the substance of the league. Like winner gets an autographed baseball from Dave where Dave has to write that they are the greatest mind of all time, or winner gets a framed certificate, or a dumb cheap trophy for their desk, things like that. Really silly stuff motivates me as much as money, but maybe that's just me. $10 from each team at the beginning of the year could go to the silly rewards.
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I really like the idea as well. Let me throw out as a reward idea the most crass (but time-tested) motivator: money. $20 for the monthly winner, based upon each team making a $10 payment at the beginning of the year in addition to the suggested cancer-fighting donation. I am open to higher dollar amounts, but figured $20 was roughly the minimum incentive. We can have the $20 go to charity in the winner's name, or simply let the winner keep it.
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Really like the monthly idea. Don't have strong views on exactly what prize is best but as someone who got knocked out really early this year it would have been a good way to keep me more locked in.
Brass NHPs on
September 15, 2017 6:15 AM
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