A Host of Rule Change Discussions

I've got a number of things under consideration for rules changes.

Some of these might happen, some of them definitely won't (or so I think) ...but I'm always curious to get feedback from owners on what they think.  This is a better forum for me to collect opinions (and hopefully for some intra-owner discussion too) than just to collect emails.

They're all in the posts below, but here are direct links to the call for comments/opinions:

• Changing the trade deadline
• Are cash-only trades good or bad?
• If cash-only trades would be changed, how to change them?
• Larger roster size
• A suggestion about how to get more high-priced free agents in the off season player pool - and prevent late-season dumping of players via cuts or trades.
• Better lineup flexibility with multi-position players - allowing starters with multiple positions to be put in different positions
• Don't count players in game scoring who have zero plate appearances
• Dealing with team finances that may be too high: Higher cost for multiyear contracts
• Greater control in the startup draft - adding cash bid/bonus to your initial draft list
• Greater control in the startup draft - using #1 draft ranks as the order of player awards
• A multi-week Redistribution Draft

Some things I like to hold to the tradition of the original Robot Baseball rules - or maybe "that's just how it's done here."

Some changes suggested make the rules more complicated...with different conditions for different parts of the season and I like to keep things simple when possible (though I know we do have different rules at different times already).

Changes that revolve around lineup usage - it's always easier to look at one or two games and consider how you'd do the lineup differently if you were doing it by hand.  It's another thing to have a rule in place to check the starting lineups/bench usage (and the computer code to do so) for the 328 unique games that are scored for each BWB game.

Some things may just have no easy technical or web implementation.

Beware of unintended consequences...

Some things may make sense to change...

Chime in where you have opinions - and not just if you desire a change.  The squeaky wheel here is usually the push for a change - I'm interested in hearing as much from the defenders of the status quo to get an accurate feel.

You don't have to do this all at once - none of these changes would likely be announced until at least October - and the history here will also be useful to check back on in another year or two.

As always, thanks for your input....

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Trade Deadline

Is the trade deadline too late in BWB?

Deadlines for contract extensions (last transaction period in July) and trades (last transaction period in August) have been calendar based since we started.

In 2014, the trade deadline is the final one in August - Wed, August 27.

This is Week 22 and traded players hit new rosters/lineups for Week 23 and just 3 weeks of the regular season plus the playoffs.

Do you think that's OK or do you see any problems with this?  (Whether that's in the balance of competitiveness so late in the season, possibility of collusion, salary dumps so late in the season after there are no rebates for releases, etc.)

For example, would a better trade deadline be, say, Week 20 - regardless of calendar date?
This year that deadline would be August 14.

I'm not leaning one way or the other - just trying to see where people stand on this.

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Cash Trades, Good or Bad?

What's your thought on cash trades? ...that is, player(s) given up and the only return is cash

I don't want to get rid of them entirely, but have some concerns in implementation - largely in the "Player X is available for $100" broadcast message types types of trades.  Or even absent the email broadcast, there end up being some trades with minimal cash trading hands.

This isn't to demonize the people who do it - they're playing within the rules and it's a smart move on their part.  There are reasons to do it, including helping the team's bottom line financially.  But my concerns are:

1. This turns what I like to be a game you can check in on once a week if you prefer into a first-come, first-served situation.  Yeah - all trades are first-come, first-served to some extent if a target team likes the first offer - but the announcement of taking the first $100 to come your way is a little different.
2. It's a glorified cut - and the trade to the first team to pony up a small amount of cash circumvents the waiver order system that would come into play in attempting to sign that player via free agency if he was cut instead of traded.
3. It's an unintended loophole to allow salary rebates after Week 15.  Rebates for cut players end on Week 15, but prorated salary rebates for trades continue as long as the trades do.  That in itself is a good thing - I want that to be available to stimulate trades.  But for the "glorified cut" style of cash trade, this kind of circumvents the general spirit of the salary rebate.
4. You could argue also there are collusion concerns, but that's not my general feeling.

I finally figured out the post-Week 15 proliferation of bargain-basement cash trade offerings a few years ago - getting that late salary rebate for a guy you'd actually be cutting for no return.  But this year I noticed a lot of it coming in the early part of the regular season too - and I think again the rebate structure comes into play...from Weeks Zero through 5 the maximum salary rebate is 80%, but the trade rebates cycle from 100% down to 80% - so there's added benefit on a $100-trade for a player rather than cutting him.

In a game where cash limitations are a prime concern, I get the need and the strategic value for cash/salary relief in the late season.  However, I think overall cash balances are out of whack (and too high) and I'm looking for ways to tighten the finances.

This may or may not be one of the ways to do that.

I'm interested in hearing your opinion on this - whether you see it as a major problem, you strongly defend the status quo, or fall somewhere in between (or don't even care).  Maybe you have some other reasons that what I've outlined above.

For the purposes of this comment thread, I would just prefer you to comment on the situation of cash-only trades.  We'll discuss alternative strategies in a different post and I'd rather see your comments or suggestions there in one spot on potential changes.

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Cash Trades: Fixing It

Let's say in the thread about cash-only trades the overwhelming sentiment is that change needs to be made (or regardless of comments, I decide to change it unilaterally).

What would be a good fix?

Things to keep in mind:

• Avoid as many different rules for different times of the season as possible
• Avoid unnecessary difficulty and complexity for the website and general administration of the game
• Avoid a lot of extra steps on the part of owners
• Maintain options for teams...including how to get some extra cash if needed.

Some possibilities, with one or more of the above concepts in simplicity violated in each suggestion:

1. Eliminate cash-only trades altogether.
2. Disallow cash-only trades after Week 15.
3. A pass-through-waiver system for cash-only trades after Week 15 - or maybe all trades for the last few weeks of the trade season. (But the weekly free agent pickup process is our real implementation of a waiver system).
4. An auction system for cash-only trades after Week 15 - Team puts up a player on the blocks within the first 1-2 days of a transaction period (kind of like our current flurry of broadcast email messages) - and teams have until the transaction deadline to submit a blind bid - highest bid wins.
5. Some minimum fixed cash amount required to be sent in the trade - say, $500..or $1000 (pick a number).
6. Some minimum cash amount required to be sent in the trade based on player salary - say 10% or 25% of the player's salary must be offered up to get the player.

The auction system goes to the highest bidder...but provides no control to the team trading away the player - you might prefer to trade him outside your division or conference.

Either minimum cash proposal actually funnels even more cash back to the team dumping the player, but perhaps limits the pool of possible buyers or makes them think a bit more about it (pay more cash + pay the pro-rated salary).

Other suggestions?  Or thoughts on these?

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Larger Roster Sizes

Suggested to me this year:

"How about adding 5 more minor league spots.  These extra spots will help teams that are low in the standings to build a stronger farm system and also help teams that know their prospects well.  The catch though would be that once a team assigns a minor leaguer to one of these 5 special spots, they CANNOT be moved to until the end of the season (September call ups)."

Your thoughts?
I'm personally in favor of maintaining the 40-man roster - largely to keep more players in the pool - one of the "constraints" in BWB is roster size and a choice in the late season to keep a prospect or cut him loose to make room for an injury replacement is a big decision.

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Put more established players into the off-season free agent pool with transaction order based on salary cut

Suggested to me this year:

I just wanted to offer one possible idea that may increase a "rebuilding" team's incentive to retain big money studs rather then trade them to a short-term super team.

As the system sits now, the team with the worst record gets first crack at the top 3 picks in the redistribution draft. That alone Is a huge incentive for teams to tank, Along with the top weekly picks they receive along the way. This may help parity since it allows them a mechanism for gaining assets, but it also may diminish the in-season competition. In short, what if the redistribution picks were ordered as a result of total dollars of players released to free agency at the time of the 28 man roster crunch?

It seems this could possibly incentivize struggling teams to think twice about trading a 10 million player for future salary relief. It may still be practical to do such a thing, but it think it would help some. Last year was a huge haul with Tanaka and others I remember. Also, I think it would make the redistribution draft a huge event if suddenly guys like Miggy or Kershaw were floating around. Doubtful the top redist picks would net a bigger haul then trading one of those studs, but it does seem increasingly difficult to move high priced talent in the off-season.

Your thoughts? (I'm personally in favor of no change as this would be something difficult to track and I do feel there's importance for teams that finished at the bottom one season to get first crack at the draft list)

Also note this change is as much about preventing dumping of players for salary reasons and for tanking late-season to get a better draft position (leaving some teams even more non-competitive during the last few weeks of the season).

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - More flexibility with multi-position placing in lineups

This one comes up a lot from owners - usually at least once or twice a year:

The only players able to fill any open lineup spot when a starter does not play are the DH and bench players.  Identified starters at positions cannot be moved into other positions.

Current situation via a scenario.

Part of your lineup consists of:

• David Wright 3B
• Miguel Cabrera 1B (but eligible at 3B)
• Matt Carpenter at DH (eligible at 2B-3B)
• No other 3B-eligible players active
• Brandon Belt (1B) on the bench at B1.

Then...David Wright does not play
If Matt Carpenter plays that game, he takes Wright's spot at 3B.  Belt, who played, fills in at DH.

But - let's say Wright sits out AND Carpenter doesn't play either:

• No one available to play 3B
• Belt fills in at DH
• You get a Benchwarmer Batter at 3B for the game

But...you say...if I could readjust the lineup on the fly I could see that I could instead move Cabrera to 3B.  Then Belt could be at 1B, and another bench guy becomes the DH.

I'd like to know your thoughts on this -

Should this be changed?

I'll say that the technical change here to implement this in a computer program would be tricky, if not impossible (or become a process that simply takes forever - the current brute-force coding method of finding best lineups and checking pitching rotations takes 35-40 minutes for every 2 BWB games through the 41 active leagues).  So I will admit that there may be overwhelming support to change this and I still decide not to do it.

But you might say "leave it the way it is" despite some possible benefits, maybe because:

• It becomes a strategy consideration in roster construction, lineups, and working around injuries and player promotions/demotions.
• It's just fantasy baseball - if that's the rule, that's the rule.
• Often when MLB teams make a lineup/position choice for a player who last year played multiple positions, it's fixed.  Sure - Joe Mauer is eligible at C along with 1B, but even in an emergency there's no way he'll catch this year.  Carpenter has zero games at 2B this year (so far) - the Cardinals made a choice and had other options there.  You place a player in a given fielding position...you're making a similar choice.
• If you want position flexibility for a guy, you put him at DH...or even on the bench.

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Guys who play but have no plate appearances

This also comes up every year -

So you've got a guy in your starting lineup, who appears in the MLB game, but maybe it is as a late-inning defensive replacement or a pinch runner.  Or maybe he gets injured in the field in the top of the first inning and gets replaced.

Whatever, you've now got a guy in your lineup with box score:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...

Meanwhile, you've got a guy on the bench who would have filled in at the position and lineup slot and went 3-4 with a homer and 3 RBI.

Or even let's say he went 0-4...if you had been able to put him in the lineup you would have at least had a real shot at a positive contribution.

Should this be changed?
And, if so, what are the cutoffs?

• Zero plate appearances?
• 1 plate appearance?
• Do we base it on "at bats" or "plate appearances"? (Keep in mind that BB, HBP, SB, etc. contribute in the scoring formula to ATB (Adjusted Total Bases)
• If no one can fill in, does he maintain the lineup spot?  Or do you take a Benchwarmer?
• Is a bench player who played but with no plate appearances eligible to fill in at an open lineup spot?

Possible side effects:

• What if he was a defensive sub with no errors - and the guy who would replace him had 2 errors? - potentially costing you the game.
• What if he was a defensive sub and had an error - if not counted, this potentially hurts your opponent.
• What if he was a pinch runner with no plate appearances, but stole a base (adding to his ATB) and/or scored a run?  Maybe that costs you a game.
• If you're cutting out guys with 1 AB (as suggested below), what if the guy hits a 3-run HR in his only appearance?
• The suggestion below also had a cutoff for "no official AB" - and 3 walks and a Sac Fly would contribute to your offensive performance.

From an owner this year - this is the most recent suggestion sent to me to change this:
"I know it may be a difficult task to program, but in instances where a player in real life participates in a game and either registers 1 official AB, No official AB (BB, HBP), or No official AB due to being a defensive sub or pinch runner, I believe that the BWB team should NOT be penalized by this.  My reasoning is that in real life, the player was not intended to be a starter in that game, but in BWB, since we do not make daily lineup changes, we assume that he WILL be the starter.  Therefore, my suggestion is that in these instances, the current BWB procedure should be used as if the player never appeared in the game to allow our bench players to be the starters.  An argument can be made that this affects all teams, but I believe that it will make the BWB more realistic"

Last time this was brought up, most of the feedback I got was "keep as is"

I won't hide my desire to make no change here - both on the rule itself and once again this may be as much trying to avoid a computer programming quagmire...

But I'm interested in your views...

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Higher cost for Multiyear contracts

In a game about constraints (cash limits, roster limits) the wise team can build up a roster of players on multiyear contracts and save a ton of money in future seasons - providing more cash for free agents or taking on more expensive players in trades - and providing more cash for future contracts ... and the cycle continues.

In some leagues, it's to the point where many teams have no real cash worries. (Some of my teams included).

This can make moving a player to IR instead of cutting and getting a salary rebate a no-brainer.
This can mean the team has no real cash concerns when choosing 28 keepers.
This can mean the high-priced players never reach the open market.

There are some different moves going on to try to change this, including some adjustments/corrections in the salary and salary cap formulas.  One possibility is making the cost of a multiyear contract more expensive.

I think perhaps the basic formula is OK - with a 33% increase in successive seasons (used to be 25%).
But maybe where we can tinker here a bit is with the minimum cost to extend:

Contract Length	Current Minimum	New Minimum (a suggestion)
1st year	250	500
2nd year	1250	1750
3rd year	2500	3500
4th year	4000	5000
5th year	6000	700

We could also set a maximum if we're fooling around with this since the current maximums for high-priced players out even a year or two are a bit ridiculous - like tie any season maximum to be the maximum salary of the current season (or maybe historically within BWB).  Extending a guy 5 years out isn't very likely, but is more possible in successive seasons rather than in a single 5-year extension.


Thoughts?

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - More control in the Startup Draft with Cash bids

As much as possible I like to give people control over their fates in the startup draft.  I still like total team salary as the first tiebreaker rather than draft ranks because in the end we're still trying to distribute the talent as much as possible.  If you get a high-priced player that 6 other guys were shooting for, then it's not unreasonable that the high salary keeps you out of the running for a while on other contested picks.

I think separating salary 100 players starting in 2014 and awarding them in succession first had the intended effect: In the past a team that went overwhelmingly with cheap players/prospects that won out early on for a cheap player was often set up to miss the most desired expensive players - which in turn eliminated those other teams when going up against the prospect-heavy draft list...that team kept getting players and a salary hit at 100-200 at a time still kept them at the top.

Also, with reintegrating the "draft rank" several years ago as a tiebreaker, we've cut down on the number of random draws required to settle a player's selection.  We might get 1-3 per draft now where 8-12 random draws were the norm back in the past.

I'm also looking to cut down on the number of tiebreakers.  I think consulting the number of pitchers vs hitters on a roster or number of third basemen or whatever has kind of lost its value.

Here's the current order of draft tiebreakers:

1. Most salary cap space
2. Team with the fewest number of awarded players in the draftee's category (hitter, SP, or RP)
3. Team with the fewest number of awarded players
4. Team without a qualifying starter at the draftee's position
5. Player ranking
6. Random draw

What I'd now suggest:

1. Most salary cap space
2. Team with the fewest number of awarded players
3. Player ranking
4. Random draw

And now the new bit...this could be modified for amounts or processes, but this is the basic idea:

• Allow a team to reserve up to $5 million (5000) of it's statup draft cash for "draft bidding" or "contract bonus"
• Along with picking a player, fitting him into a roster position, and giving him an optional draft rank for tiebreakers, a team could use some of its cash pool as an extra tiebreaker - listing a bid/bonus amount for that player
• We'd make it simple - minimum bid is $500 and would be in $500 increments, making the draft bid an easy menu choice on the screen (a pulldown menu of 0-500-1000-1500...5000).
• The bonus amount comes out of the original draft cash and will be counted in the draft list's salary total.  For example, if the salary cap for the draft is 40000 and a team uses all of it's possible 5000 in bonus cash, that means that the total salary for all the players on the list has to be 35000 or lower.
• On a contested draft pick, the new first tiebreaker is the "bid/bonus" - this provides the control factor beyond the randomness of how much cash you have left at the time the player comes up.
• If no team offered a bid/bonus, tiebreakers continue as normal
• If one team offered a bid/bonus, that team gets the player
• If two or more teams offered a bid/bonus, the team that bid the highest dollar amount gets the player
• If the highest bid comes from a tie between two or more teams, those teams with the highest bid continue with the remainder of the tiebreakers...all other teams out of the running for this player.
• If a team wins out via the bid/bonus, they pay the cash that they listed.
• I'm not sure if that cash bonus counts later on in the tiebreaker of cap space (actually I think it does because the rule is "cap space" left, not team total salary - and I think the bonus would count against the cap), but regardless, that cash is gone - even in Phase Two
• Teams that lose out to higher bids keep their cash for future use (for Phase Two or the regular season).

Thoughts?

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - More control in the Startup Draft: basing order of player awards on draft rank

I still like draft rank as an optional draft list piece and that's another reason it's the last tiebreaker before randomness. A team could skip ranking altogether or maybe just rank the top 10 (it's not advisable, since even a #40 rank beats out no rank). Another option that might give some teams a bit of added control in a blind draft for their roster construction is using draft ranks to determine the order of player awards.

Currently we award players in the order of most popular picks
Then award in order of descending salary

This tries to ensure that all teams have an early equal shot at the most-listed players and for the most expensive players in that grouping (presumably the best players).

But one complaint I get each year is maybe the top-ranked player on your draft list was only picked by 2 or 3 teams...by the time we get to him we've perhaps awarded 125 other players and your only hope here is that by random luck you have the most cap space left.

What if:
We started by pulling out all the players given a #1 rank in draft lists - this might be 5-16 different players pulled out for the first award - and thus the teams giving these players a #1 rank has a better shot than a random draw or the randomness of other awards.  All other tiebreakers would be in play, but before too many awards are made, that #1 draft rank holds greater weight.

There are some other levels to this like maybe picking out ranks #1-2.  Or awarding until each team gets their highest remaining rank (For example, do all the #1 ranks - then for teams without a player yet, pull all their #2 ranked players and award them - then all #3s for teams without a player - and so on).  But on a basic level, should we look at something like this?

Comments?

Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - Multiweek Redistribution Draft

Once upon a time I did each redistribution draft by hand.  So when draft lists were submitted and results weren't posted until 2-3-4 weeks later, I needed all that time.

Then I automated the award process - but posting was still a lot of manual copy-and-paste.  So it still took a couple weeks and I did a "slow reveal" of 2-3 leagues per day.

Now it's all relatively automatic.  I'm able to collect and post in about the same time as it takes for weekly transactions.

Question -
No major format change proposed here (reverse order of finish for draft order - teams get 3 players all at one time per round - 5 total rounds), but would you like the opportunity to post one round per week and then redo the remainder of your list before we do the next round?

So:

• Everyone submits their full list as we do now
• Week 1 - we award players in the first round and post, then reopen the list.
• Teams could choose to redo Rounds 2-5.  Or just keep the list the way it was and live with it.  Or if they missed the deadline for the initial list they could jump back in for the remainder.
• Repeat posting individual weeks and reopening the list

This gives each team more control over their roster
Lets them adjust their position and salary needs based on what they already got or which players already taken by other teams
Lets them set the list and go on vacation for a month if they wish

I think it benefits all teams - but does it swing too far in taking some of the advantages of the poorly-finishing teams and their early position in each round?

In 2014

• We finalized Carryover choices on January 26 (this was delayed largely due to the number or orphans I had to work through
• Draft lists were due February 9
• Draft results were posted February 16
• 6 weeks of pre-season free agency and trades began February 23

This was maybe the latest in a long time that I posted draft results - usually we've started free agency about the first week of February.  I don't miss all of that time - it's usually a slow period - but probably another week or two of transactions would be better.

As long as we don't repeat the late carryover choices and keep it in December we'd go back to submitting the first draft list in early January  (Tentative 2015 schedule had been trade deadlines 12/6/14 and 12/27/14, carryovers by January 11, draft list due Feb 1) and could then have 5 weeks of posting results.  I did enjoy the extra time this year for all of January to look at prospects, but could deal with the earlier dates.

This would take some changes in the website to allow for list changes between weeks and I can't be sure right now that I will have the time for that this year, but it's a thought for at least the future if not immediately next season.

Comments?