Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2023 12:50:39 GMT -5
This is one of two major posts going into the season that I would like you all to read through. I have gotten feedback from one owner who is concerned that I seem to want to make this MY league with some of the changes that have been made. That's actually pretty far from reality. I have always felt that this is OUR league and that the league should exist to make the game more competitive and active and fun for all 20 owners who are part of it. During the down time leading up to the start of this season, I spent a lot of time looking at the rules and thinking about how they worked. I also considered that we had added nine new owners in the past couple of seasons and most of them had come from other leagues where they had been very active and involved. I apologize for any changes that have offended anyone or caused any issues. The intent has always been to make the league work more efficiently and create more activity where possible, but mostly to make it better for all 20 owners. Any changes made for this season were intended as just that and my hope is always that all of you will take some ownership as we go forward and participate in our discussions so that we can tailor things to the will of the majority of our owners. Wherever we can get consensus of a majority of owners, I'll always respond to that. Hopefully, we'll get more folks posting to discussion threads. The admin committee will also help to make things less of a one man show now that it is in place. I could still use a couple more members there if you want to volunteer (I'd love to have another one or two of our newer members on that).
As we begin the season, I wanted to review a couple of things and make clear where things came from and where I hope they go (mostly that's in the direction of all of you participating in discussions):
MLFAD:
The MLFAD begins on Monday. We had some limited discussion on the board regarding drafts. Though only a few owners participated, the general tone was that we wanted shorter drafts. I chose to make this year's MLFAD longer by five rounds and I wanted to explain the thinking. Last season, we has a 24 round FYPD and a 15 round MLFAD. With the addition of comp picks in the FYPD, we had a total of ~900 picks. This year we limited comp picks to 25 and cut the FYPD to 20 rounds (MLB now only does 20 rounds) so that we didn't have to pick every senior sign pitcher at the end of the draft. All 20 rounds can now be more meaningful. We have cut back to closer to 800-825 picks this season between the two drafts.
The drafts, free agency and trades are the three ways we have of adding players to our roster. We have chosen a dynasty format for our league, which typically has minor league rosters of 200 or more players. For us that means ~4000 guys total on our minor league rosters. While we currently have seven teams with 200 or more guys on their minors rosters, we have nine with fewer than 150, including five with fewer than 100. Most of those are newer owners who took over neglected teams. While most minor leaguers never make the majors, the more guys we keep on our minors rosters, the more chances we have of getting productive MLB guys down the road.
As such, I chose to expand the MLFAD this season, hoping to inspire some trading of picks to get an influx of potential talent to those rosters that have been neglected. Those owners with under 100 minor leaguers, could legitimately make 80 picks in this draft and still have plenty of room to make all of their FYPD picks later in the year. I am still hoping that they will ask for extra picks and that those of you who don't like to draft will trade your picks to them so that they can begin to build a farm system. The thinking here is that the MLFAD pool is huge for those of us who don't mind looking for guys. We should be using >90% of the total picks. Every other deep league I've ever seen (ironically, PTB has done a mostly better job than we do here) does that and more. If anyone wants to make picks but doesn't know where to begin to do the research to find available guys, PM me and I'll give you some tips. One last time, please trade any picks you don't want to use!! New guys (and anyone else who likes making picks, get on the board and look for extra picks)!! If we do neither of these things, we will continue to have a top heavy league where only a few teams compete for a title each season. In that case, we may want to look at not being a true dynasty league and capping minor league rosters at a much smaller number. Where we are now, with 40-45 picks available for each team each year, seems quite reasonable for our current rules. It means we would have a four to five year window to keep guys on our minors rosters to see how they develop and drop those that don't...Please initiate/participate in discussion on this as the season goes on and we'll set things up next year in a way that better reflects what we all want.
Free Agency:
I want to thank you all for the smooth free agency period we are finishing up. I think we had better overall participation as I saw that most owners were on the board almost every day. I think we have work to do with roster/cap management as we still are going to wind up with too many teams with too much cap space (though not quite as many as in past season) and rosters that could have used more help. I think we will find our footing going forward. I'm hoping that, because we have a lot more owners paying closer attention to things on a more regular basis, no one gets any bargains in in-season free agency
Thanks again to all!!
Now that we have gone through one cycle of off season free agency, we hopefully have some thoughts on the process. You can begin/continue to post those thoughts on the board or wait for the rules/timeline post to come to keep it all organized. When we have discussions, please post your thoughts even if you agree with others who have already posted. We need to see where the majority of the league stands on things. Also, post your different thoughts even if everyone else seems to agree to something else. We need to know where there might be an issue for an owner if a change is considered.
Rules/Timeline:
I mentioned above that this would be one of two posts that I wanted you all to be sure to read through. I will be posting a thread in the 2024 rules discussion that will include the current rules and timeline. I will do some markups on each one to add some things from other areas that I've found (like free agent bidding procedures) and to pose questions about what we might want to consider for the future. Look for that sometime in April after we get this season up and running. That will still give us plenty of time to consider all of the possible issues.
Rosters:
Please have rosters set by opening day (March 30). This is the first day of stats for period one of the new season. Make sure that all changes are posted to the board to keep everything legal and transparent. Once the MLFAD ends and the season starts, I will begin transferring rosters to the google sheet. I will update rosters there based on any activity on the board and use this as my semi-official roster. I will compare it to Fantrax from time to time to make sure that they match. By next season, I'd like to make the google sheet the official roster for the league. You might ask why...and it is simply because I want to make sure that all transactions are posted to the board. I will work from those postings to update the google sheet. In 2024, any changes made to Fantrax without posting to the board, will be invalid. If you'd like to get an idea of what the google sheet roster will look like, I posted Atlanta's roster there earlier in thee week just to have an example (it's not now current or accurate, but it gives you an idea).
Trading:
Well...most of you know this has been a crusade of mine forever. I mentioned above that we can improve our rosters in three ways, with trading being one of them. Since January 1st of 2021 (yes, that is more than two years), we have had 79 total trades in the league (10 since the end of last season) and the large majority of them have involved only four or five teams. By contrast, similar leagues in which I play have had 70-100 trades just since the end of last season). Some of those league have more teams, some have fewer.
I know that some of you simply don't believe in trading. That is just an unrealistic approach in this type of league, especially when many don't like to make all of their picks. It keeps your team mediocre at best. Yes, I see that you have a team of y2y guys, but I also see that some of those guys are not very good and won't contribute much to your team. A lot of the new owners have come from some of those leagues that are very active. One of two things are happening once they get here. Either they see the inactivity and they put this league as their lowest priority and don't spend nearly as much time on it or they want to make deals, but can't find a willing partner. I'm really hoping we can make some headway in this area. The league would be better for it and more teams would be able to contend down the road. My one biggest goal is to have a league where every owner wants to win every year and will do things to make that happen. That would be a lot of fun for everyone...
I'm looking forward to the season. I know change comes slowly. I also know that I can be impatient and that I make mistakes. I never mean to offend anyone or detract from your experience here with what I decide or do. I apologize for the times when that happens anyway. I'm hoping for more input from more of you so that the decisions will be easier and clearer and we can do this together for everyone's benefit and enjoyment. Thanks and good luck to all. Let's get busy on the board. Make picks. Make trades. Share your thoughts. Have some fun. That's ultimately why we are here...
As we begin the season, I wanted to review a couple of things and make clear where things came from and where I hope they go (mostly that's in the direction of all of you participating in discussions):
MLFAD:
The MLFAD begins on Monday. We had some limited discussion on the board regarding drafts. Though only a few owners participated, the general tone was that we wanted shorter drafts. I chose to make this year's MLFAD longer by five rounds and I wanted to explain the thinking. Last season, we has a 24 round FYPD and a 15 round MLFAD. With the addition of comp picks in the FYPD, we had a total of ~900 picks. This year we limited comp picks to 25 and cut the FYPD to 20 rounds (MLB now only does 20 rounds) so that we didn't have to pick every senior sign pitcher at the end of the draft. All 20 rounds can now be more meaningful. We have cut back to closer to 800-825 picks this season between the two drafts.
The drafts, free agency and trades are the three ways we have of adding players to our roster. We have chosen a dynasty format for our league, which typically has minor league rosters of 200 or more players. For us that means ~4000 guys total on our minor league rosters. While we currently have seven teams with 200 or more guys on their minors rosters, we have nine with fewer than 150, including five with fewer than 100. Most of those are newer owners who took over neglected teams. While most minor leaguers never make the majors, the more guys we keep on our minors rosters, the more chances we have of getting productive MLB guys down the road.
As such, I chose to expand the MLFAD this season, hoping to inspire some trading of picks to get an influx of potential talent to those rosters that have been neglected. Those owners with under 100 minor leaguers, could legitimately make 80 picks in this draft and still have plenty of room to make all of their FYPD picks later in the year. I am still hoping that they will ask for extra picks and that those of you who don't like to draft will trade your picks to them so that they can begin to build a farm system. The thinking here is that the MLFAD pool is huge for those of us who don't mind looking for guys. We should be using >90% of the total picks. Every other deep league I've ever seen (ironically, PTB has done a mostly better job than we do here) does that and more. If anyone wants to make picks but doesn't know where to begin to do the research to find available guys, PM me and I'll give you some tips. One last time, please trade any picks you don't want to use!! New guys (and anyone else who likes making picks, get on the board and look for extra picks)!! If we do neither of these things, we will continue to have a top heavy league where only a few teams compete for a title each season. In that case, we may want to look at not being a true dynasty league and capping minor league rosters at a much smaller number. Where we are now, with 40-45 picks available for each team each year, seems quite reasonable for our current rules. It means we would have a four to five year window to keep guys on our minors rosters to see how they develop and drop those that don't...Please initiate/participate in discussion on this as the season goes on and we'll set things up next year in a way that better reflects what we all want.
Free Agency:
I want to thank you all for the smooth free agency period we are finishing up. I think we had better overall participation as I saw that most owners were on the board almost every day. I think we have work to do with roster/cap management as we still are going to wind up with too many teams with too much cap space (though not quite as many as in past season) and rosters that could have used more help. I think we will find our footing going forward. I'm hoping that, because we have a lot more owners paying closer attention to things on a more regular basis, no one gets any bargains in in-season free agency
Thanks again to all!!Now that we have gone through one cycle of off season free agency, we hopefully have some thoughts on the process. You can begin/continue to post those thoughts on the board or wait for the rules/timeline post to come to keep it all organized. When we have discussions, please post your thoughts even if you agree with others who have already posted. We need to see where the majority of the league stands on things. Also, post your different thoughts even if everyone else seems to agree to something else. We need to know where there might be an issue for an owner if a change is considered.
Rules/Timeline:
I mentioned above that this would be one of two posts that I wanted you all to be sure to read through. I will be posting a thread in the 2024 rules discussion that will include the current rules and timeline. I will do some markups on each one to add some things from other areas that I've found (like free agent bidding procedures) and to pose questions about what we might want to consider for the future. Look for that sometime in April after we get this season up and running. That will still give us plenty of time to consider all of the possible issues.
Rosters:
Please have rosters set by opening day (March 30). This is the first day of stats for period one of the new season. Make sure that all changes are posted to the board to keep everything legal and transparent. Once the MLFAD ends and the season starts, I will begin transferring rosters to the google sheet. I will update rosters there based on any activity on the board and use this as my semi-official roster. I will compare it to Fantrax from time to time to make sure that they match. By next season, I'd like to make the google sheet the official roster for the league. You might ask why...and it is simply because I want to make sure that all transactions are posted to the board. I will work from those postings to update the google sheet. In 2024, any changes made to Fantrax without posting to the board, will be invalid. If you'd like to get an idea of what the google sheet roster will look like, I posted Atlanta's roster there earlier in thee week just to have an example (it's not now current or accurate, but it gives you an idea).
Trading:
Well...most of you know this has been a crusade of mine forever. I mentioned above that we can improve our rosters in three ways, with trading being one of them. Since January 1st of 2021 (yes, that is more than two years), we have had 79 total trades in the league (10 since the end of last season) and the large majority of them have involved only four or five teams. By contrast, similar leagues in which I play have had 70-100 trades just since the end of last season). Some of those league have more teams, some have fewer.
I know that some of you simply don't believe in trading. That is just an unrealistic approach in this type of league, especially when many don't like to make all of their picks. It keeps your team mediocre at best. Yes, I see that you have a team of y2y guys, but I also see that some of those guys are not very good and won't contribute much to your team. A lot of the new owners have come from some of those leagues that are very active. One of two things are happening once they get here. Either they see the inactivity and they put this league as their lowest priority and don't spend nearly as much time on it or they want to make deals, but can't find a willing partner. I'm really hoping we can make some headway in this area. The league would be better for it and more teams would be able to contend down the road. My one biggest goal is to have a league where every owner wants to win every year and will do things to make that happen. That would be a lot of fun for everyone...
I'm looking forward to the season. I know change comes slowly. I also know that I can be impatient and that I make mistakes. I never mean to offend anyone or detract from your experience here with what I decide or do. I apologize for the times when that happens anyway. I'm hoping for more input from more of you so that the decisions will be easier and clearer and we can do this together for everyone's benefit and enjoyment. Thanks and good luck to all. Let's get busy on the board. Make picks. Make trades. Share your thoughts. Have some fun. That's ultimately why we are here...
