Proposals for Rule Changes

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Proposals for rule changes will be allowed to be posted here. The Commissioner and co-commissioners will discuss as to whether the proposal will be brought to a League Vote. No rules changes will occur during the season.

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Hey all. So as we wind down our Initial Free Agency I need to get something off my chest. You all worked to get a legal roster of at least 37 coming out of free agency, and did so within the rules. Thank you for your attention to this rule.

Problem is my idea of the 37 number was to fill your roster with at least 37 players (via keepers and free agent signees) with the cushion to leave a few spots for promoting Minor Leaguers before the season begins to get to a full 40-man roster.

What several of you have done is filled your roster with maybe 34-35 major leaguers and have promoted 1, 2 or 3 minor leaguers to get to the 37 number. This is not how I envisioned the league and roster configuration going. So now if you have only 37, what about the other 3 40-man roster spots?

Just like in MLB, shouldn't we all need to have a complete 40-man roster entering the season? I wanted at least 37 coming out of free agency but I feel many of you have misinterpreted the vision. I say this because I really wanted teams to manage their salary cap budget and have to sign at least 37 players with that cap, not 34 or 35. Certainly gave teams only signing fewer players an advantage over other teams like me who signed 37+, actually 39, within the cap.

Can't change anything for now and 2015 initial free agency, but for 2016 and beyond I propose every team has to come out of Free Agency with at least 37 Major League contracts. Then each team can promote up to 3 minor leaguers to fill the 40-man, or add other free agents or fill spots via trade.

Thoughts? If there's enough discussion and input on this then I will put it up for a league vote.

Thanks.

[Deleted]

I believe that true contracts should count against the cap -- especially those young bucks who's contract is for above the MLB minimum. By not counting their real life contracts, you have left a wide loop hole for owners to manipulate.
Scott

[Deleted]

Personally I don't think that it matter how you fill the spots. In real life minor league players take up the 40 man spots on some teams. I can agree that we need 40 guys to start but not how you go about getting those guys on the roster

[Miami Rays (Michael)]

I agree, everyone must have 40 by a date certain. If they are minor leaguers, so be it.

[Deleted]

I say 40 players by opening day or else you dont start gaining points. 40 man roster can include any player a team owns.....minors or majors. You bring up a minor then you start his clock so there is disadvantage to that too. but real life team 40 man rosters are full of minors

[Deleted]

40 players by a predetermined date (April 01 sounds good) doesn't matter if its 10 minor leagers or 0, as long as you have 40

[Deleted]

Here are my thoughts: I thought the 37 players out of 40 was to leave room for people to sign free agents without having to drop a contract if they so wished. I was one of those people that promoted a MILB to get to 37 however he should start in the majors so my conscious is pretty clear on that one. In the major leagues, you can be on a 40 man roster and your clock has not started yet. However in our league if you're on the 40 that immediately starts there clock and that seems a little unfair as well. I really don't have an opinion on this just want to know so I can better plan for next year. But the 37 out of 40 seems fair to me purely on the basis that it allows us to sign free agents without releasing anyone, and thus incurring a cap penalty for the remainder of the year.

Colin

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts all. I believe we're mostly in agreement that each team should have a complete 40-man roster at some point before season begins. I might argue we look to mid-to-late March because sometimes we get pre-April MLB games (i.e. in Japan, Australia, etc).

Our rules clearly state that if a prospect is at anytime on the 25-man roster (in a starting lineup at least 1 week), then his clock starts
ticking and the following year begins $500,000 salaries. But our rules don't actually state that a prospect's clock starts if he appears on the 40-man roster.

From our Constitution:
"To clarify - A prospect starts his major league contract the year after he crosses the 130 AB/50 IP/20 APP threshold. If a "prospect" ever appears on your 25 man roster, his major league contract starts the following year regardless of whether he surpassed the minimums."

Also:
"**A player with zero as a salary can be optioned off the 40-man roster and back in to the minors only once before crossing the AB/IPP/APP minimum and only once after crossing the minimum. This needs to be monitored as closely as possible by the League Commissioner, co-Commissioners and all owners for integrity of the league and holding up the rules."

So from this second clause I would read it as this. Suppose Syndergaard begins the season on NY Royals 40-man. If he doesn't get moved into a starting lineup (25-man) and is still under 50 IP or 20 appearances, then I guess NY Royals can move him back to the Minors at no penalty AND that clock would not have started ticking, right?

[Miami Rays (Michael)]

Makes sense to me.

[Deleted]

I'm fine with whatever the rule is, and will adjust accordingly, but my thinking is we have a deep bench and this is a weekly league, so lining the bench with platoon guys that smash lefties or any other limited skill won't work in this format, so outside of a couple of extra SP's for the 2 start weeks and a couple of backup relievers. The bench seems like a good spot for a prospect that might contribute at some point

[Cleveland Braves (Drew)]

I am with Colin on the 37. My impression was always that you needed to be at 37 throughout the year (the limit on Fantrax), which leaves flexibility to promote, outright, and sign guys throughout the season without having to release a guy for every player you want to bring up. I signed over the 37 since I don't see any of my guys other than Bethancourt as promotion candidates at the start of the season. I also left a couple spots open because there will inevitably be a couple guys who come roaring out of spring training or win starting jobs, and thus I will want to bid on them during the first week of in-season free agency.

I like the idea of those last 3 spots being flexible based on a manager's strategy. I also feel pretty confident saying that having 6 or 7 spots that are either empty or being taken up by prospects who are not playing is not going to be a winning strategy in this league. Maybe I am just a king of roster manipulation, but in DDI last season I used every single one of my roster spots and outrighted, signed, and dropped guys like crazy in order to get those couple extra points needed to win the league.

I think our problems come if people are ever not filling out their major league lineups and thus influencing the standings.

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Well it's good to see we have a lot of guys who want to make the league the best it can be. Maybe I'm micromanaging too much and the best course of action might be to just leave things as they are. We all have our strategies. Guessing we'll keep discussing this as needed.

[Deleted]

I just feel like if all of us do have complete 40 man rosters, free agency is going to be a dead zone because no one will want to incur penalties unless absolutely necessary.

[Miami Rays (Michael)]

"Penalties"? I understood that dropping a player from the 40-man requires us to carry 25 percent of the annual salary. Are there additional requirements?

[Deleted]

No thats what I'm referring to. And its 50% of the contract the year you release them, and 25% of the contract every year after that the contract was for. Unless that player is signed by another team.

So lets say each of us has a full 40 man roster at the start of the year right? Then each person adds 2 free agents and drops two players worth 500K in order to add those two FA. Lets assume the two players you are releasing have two year contracts. That means that for 2015 you have a penalty of 250K x 2 plus you are also adding whatever you bid on for those two free agents you signed. 

It just seems to me that if we are going up to the max 40 that there is no way to avoid getting penalties on your salary cap unless you never use free agency in season. Which to me doesn't lead to a very active/ exciting league.

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Just to clarify...

It's not ALWAYS 50% that you're responsible when dropping a player. It's 50% if player is dropped during the first year of a contract. Then 25% for any remaining years.

Example: I sign Joe Blow to 2 yr, $8M deal ($4M each season). If I drop him this year I'm responsible for $2M this year and then $1M next year. If he stays on my roster all this year but I drop him during next year, the final year of his contract, then I'm only responsible for $1M (25%).

[Deleted]

Slightly difft note but any chance we can switch to daily lineups? Seems like very active league and daily breeds more activity and can reward guys who are in top of their team??

Sent from the Proboards App

[Miami Rays (Michael)]

Um, I think "penalties" are just the cost of doing business and managing your payroll, which I may have the most remaining.

I would like a daily lineup league, Rich.

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Ugh, the can of worms is opened. Guys, I love daily lineup leagues as much as the other guy. Problem is, that's not how Diamond Duos II, or Diamond Duos I for that matter, was created and designed.

Especially with the fact that we have a once a week FA signing deadline via blind bidding email (Friday nights at Midnight EST), it just doesn't translate to a daily lineup league. As it is now you could get your new FA when I post blind bidding results over the weekend and then have to decide on your lineup before Monday's first game.

Also, some of the league settings are aligned for a weekly lineup which I'm not changing right now. We have a league minimum of 850 IP which you need to strategize on with a weekly lineup, and this actually came into play last year with a team in DD1 who didn't reach 850 IP and wound up getting last place (1 Roto point) in the ERA and WHIP average categories because of that. Daily lineup and this setting also needs to be completely revamped.

Really a discussion for another day, but I appreciate the ideas.

[Miami Rays (Michael)]

No problem for me. I'm not advocating a change. I'm good with our format.

[Deleted]

all good

[Deleted]

I'm probably echoing a lot of sentiments here, so I'll first get the "can of worms" issue out of the way. I, too, enjoy leagues with daily roster moves, however, this league format doesn't support that configuration due to the bidding process Scott previously referenced. Unlike daily ESPN or Yahoo leagues, for example, the inability of individual owners to actively "claim" available free agents on Fantrax kinda makes daily moves a moot point. Besides, the fact this league revolves around weekly lineups was one of the unique deciding factors for my participation, and completely changes the strategy versus leagues with daily roster/lineup moves. If we're seriously gonna consider daily roster moves/lineups, might as well abandon ProBoards altogether and save Scott and Drew the countless hours of monitoring this league requires; there's no feasible way to expect owners will post all daily moves on ProBoards when faced with daily lineup deadlines over a six-month season.

As far as the 37 versus 40-man roster is concerned, I, too, thought the 37-man minimum allowed more flexibility in acquiring free agents. If we're gonna adhere to a strict 40-man roster at the beginning of the season (and all scoring periods, for that matter), then rescind the constitution clause of promoting/demoting minors-eligible players one time before crossing majors thresholds to allow for roster compliance and salary cap flexibility. If you don't have a full complement of 40 guys prior to the start of each weeks' first game, you don't accumulate points for that scoring period, similar to the seasonal minimum pitching requirements. With inevitable injuries and benching due to poor performance, eventually having a 40-man roster of major league players is not a problem for an active owner.

'Course, this is just my opinion; I could be wrong!

[Deleted]

I'm good with everyone needing to run a full 40-man roster, but there has to be an option system (as Scott proposed). I'd propose a simplified version of the real MLB rule, where a player has 3 option years from his initial call-up where he can be shuttled from the 40-man to the minors at will, as long as he's not placed on the active roster. Should be easy to track (only players in their $0 call-up year, $500k Y1, or $500k Y2 would be eligible) you just need a mechanism to mark a guy for the first time he's placed on the active roster.

[Commish Emeritus (Scott)]

Gentlemen, I'm toying with the idea of swapping out a couple categories for next season. The league would of course have to vote on this, and we'd need at least 2/3 to pass (so at least 10 out of 15 teams).

I was thinking we could lose Batting Average on the hitting side, and Wins on the pitching side. For pitching I would MUCH prefer Quality Starts as opposed to Wins but I hate the stat as it is with 6 IP and 3 ER or less. To me a 4.50 ERA isn't "quality." I really wish we had something like Quality Starts+ which I would appreciate a lot more if it was 6 IP and 2 ER or less. I don't know if there's any such stat.

As for hitting, we have OPS which takes OBP and SLG into consideration. Maybe something like Total Bases? There are some newer Sabermetric offensive stats that we could likely find and consider.

Just wanted to throw this idea out there. We have plenty of time to discuss, but any changes in our stat categories would certainly need to be voted on before any offseason business takes place so we know how the setup might be different in 2016. Or we don't change anything and keep the same 6x6. I'm just trying to keep DD2 as fresh as it can be.