Rule question - 1st year player draft

[Generals GM (Pete)]

And one more thing to consider, the way the salary caps and hits are structured in this league. You basically can trade off all your major leaguers, and now that team has a low salary and you basically allow them each year a new pool of money to bid outlandish bonus amounts on prospects, and that spend gets wiped away each year.

So essentially those teams not only get the best prospects via high bids but also and the best 1st year players via draft as a reward for finishing last place.

Again, not a bad strategy, as a still new owner I may have to rethink my strategy of trying to build a competing team.

[Deleted]

The points you mention seem to help the bottom teams, so we are in support of them, as that's how GMs can gradually build competitive clubs. Then when they do, they will be picking late, as the good teams do now, and all that quality they acquired will become expensive. It's called balance and parity.

[Greenville Drive GM (Matt)]

Aug 21, 2014 13:48:44 GMT -5 Generals GM (Pete) said:

Again, didnt mean to stir the pot. This subject was debated heavily in another league, Gopher Ball, and the decision was made not to change to reverse standings. That league is different in that there is no draft, you are just tied to your real life team and can take as many draft players each year as you like. Not advocating going that way at all.

I personally dont like the order tied to reverse standings because as mentioned it rewards teams for either tanking (which is hard to police) or taking a rebuilding approach. Rebuidling or stacking your team with minors is fine and a great strategy, but why should that reward you with a higher draft pick then some who is playing to win. It is not that you dont have the capacity to try to win, because you could trade for major leaguers and compete, it is that you have made it your choice.

This is not real life with ticket sales or a money league where you are penalized. A lot of dynasty players just like to focus on minor leaguers, again, great strategy but why should you get a higher pick?

Not sure of the best suggestion, but what about just a snake draft? And if it were me, I would have the first round, first pick, start with the first place team and go down from there. Since this is not a money league, why not reward the winners? And by snaking it through an even number of rounds it evens out in theory.

I understand the methodology somewhat behind what you're saying, but teams do this all the time. Teams sell off for prospects/picks continuously and can build pieces that can be easily flipped later. Couple some savvy moves with mediocre players (not those that will allow them to be competing for a playoff spot) and building a farm, and you can combine moving prospects for MLBers, a clean budget to pay FAs, and turn it around quickly. I went from full-scale rebuild (what some may consider 'tanking') in another league and I'm on track to make the playoffs a season later after building quickly, some good FA moves, and doing little things for that one season to buy and sell. 

Had I not had valuable picks in that scenario, I'm barely struggling to hang on at 3-4th in my division for the next 3-4 seasons at least. That's just one example of a league similar to this, but I've seen it done a good bit. There's always sellers, and so a team that sells off and builds minors for even a short amount of time, could then flip those at the deadline (after sucking for half a year as I did) for solid MLBers from sellers. If there was a strict tanking rule, I wouldn't have been able to accomplish that and turn a cellar dweller/average team into a contender in a season. I would've been the Atlanta Hawks every year, solid but never going to compete with the big guys.

Just my .02. There's 30 members without a perfect way to hold accountability for all, and to me reverse order is the best way to help rebuilders compete more quickly and accelerate those changes in the standings.

[Deleted]

Aug 21, 2014 12:25:27 GMT -5 Javelinas GM (Scott) said:

Aug 21, 2014 7:30:24 GMT -5 @ringb39 said:

Just a question, but why would I want to sell a potentially useful developmental piece that may be useful when my team is viable for a crappy mlb piece when it isn't?

Seems beyond retarded from a strategic standpoint. And by "seems" I mean it would be completely stupid and a waste of resources.

One of my pet peeves is when people, during a civil discussion, either lack the intellect required to debate or further the discussion OR are just simply too lazy to properly lay out reasoning for why or why not.

Rebuttal:

1) As Tim points out, nobody would be advocating change occur this year.
2) Please explain how you plan to start 55 players on 18 positions.
3) No one would require you to trade your "useful development piece". The decision would be yours and yours alone. If drafting 21st and keeping your prospects is a better strategy than keeping enough useful ML to compete in the consolation playoffs and get a better draft pick, then by all means. 


Some feel not having a complete roster is tanking. I offered one possible solution. Many leagues have a minimum requirement of 18 active ML players just for this very reason. Personally, I'm not opposed to keeping things the way they are. I'd just prefer discussions be more thoughtful.

Or I just am on vacation with a horrid internet connection, doing this from my phone, and didn't think your idea had enough merit to give it further discussion.

I feel like I have a good grasp on MILB players. I don't expect 55 quality MLB'ers from my current MILB roster. As a Padres fan I'd think you'd get that. Most of their roster is currently failing relatively highly regarded prospects.

[Deleted]

That said, I don't think tanking is all that big of a deal, at least from a trade standpoint. Real life teams do it all the time. The advantage they have in hiding it is they can bring up an Ed Lucas, Marwin Gonzalez, or other sub-replacement level guy to fill the spot. We're at the mercy of who is on an active MLB roster.

If you are benching guys or skipping starts of guys that you'll be retaining going forward, that is a problem that needs penalized.

[Javelinas GM (Scott)]

Fair enough Brandon. I just prefer more thoughtful responses like the one Matt(Drive) gave. And again, am perfectly happy to keep things as they are. A consolation playoff has worked well in a football keeper league im in and keeps more teams engaged the last several weeks. As for it not having merit, I respectfully disagree. Doesn't mean it's the correct idea for the league but it's certainly an idea.

As for the Padres roster, I think that's more true of the hitters than the pitchers. The Padres have a real problem with player development and hopefully AJ Preller can solve that problem. They brought in Welke as a big start, although he's more a talent identifier than a talent developer.

[Deleted]

Agreed, although there are some flameouts on the pitching side as well. I have a lot of guys that I like, but I can't even feel 100% on guys like Stephenson or Bradley being stars like I did preseason. IMO prospecting is more of a scattershot operation than sniping. I want a ton of guys in the hopper rather than being forced to move several for players that won't be more than fill ins.

[Deleted]

Aug 21, 2014 13:56:01 GMT -5 Generals GM (Pete) said:

And one more thing to consider, the way the salary caps and hits are structured in this league. You basically can trade off all your major leaguers, and now that team has a low salary and you basically allow them each year a new pool of money to bid outlandish bonus amounts on prospects, and that spend gets wiped away each year.

So essentially those teams not only get the best prospects via high bids but also and the best 1st year players via draft as a reward for finishing last place.

Again, not a bad strategy, as a still new owner I may have to rethink my strategy of trying to build a competing team.

I'll be very quick in my response here:

Prospects don't always pan out. There is risk involved. And when you load up on prospects, you're throwing away season after season after season until they not only come up to the majors but become sufficient enough contributors to help out your team, if that ever happens (because we all know a good deal of prospects don't live up to their potential). Risk is involved

[Generals GM (Pete)]

Aug 23, 2014 8:59:30 GMT -5 @bubbashrimp222 said:

Aug 21, 2014 13:56:01 GMT -5 Generals GM (Pete) said:

And one more thing to consider, the way the salary caps and hits are structured in this league. You basically can trade off all your major leaguers, and now that team has a low salary and you basically allow them each year a new pool of money to bid outlandish bonus amounts on prospects, and that spend gets wiped away each year.

So essentially those teams not only get the best prospects via high bids but also and the best 1st year players via draft as a reward for finishing last place.

Again, not a bad strategy, as a still new owner I may have to rethink my strategy of trying to build a competing team.

I'll be very quick in my response here:

Prospects don't always pan out. There is risk involved. And when you load up on prospects, you're throwing away season after season after season until they not only come up to the majors but become sufficient enough contributors to help out your team, if that ever happens (because we all know a good deal of prospects don't live up to their potential). Risk is involved

Of course prospects don't always pan out, neither do major leaguers due to risk of injury, that isn't the point.  The point is that teams that choose to load up on minor leaguers and do not have enough major leaguers to fill a line up have made that choice, which is totally fine, the point is if that is what they have chosen to do, then why should they get rewarded with both the highest draft picks and an automatic reset of salary cap to bid extremely high on prospects.  Again, if this was a money league or real life and throwing away a season or two means more than just a free league to focus on minor leaguers.  In a free league, not everyone always plays to win.  I would guess that anyone of those teams that have all or most minor leaguers could trade them for good major leaguers and compete if they chose to, but again, they didn't.  It is a strategy and probably a good one long term, but I don't think it should be rewarded.

Like I said, I am a new owner, so I am not advocating a change, I am fine playing within the rules that are established.  My original question was around sitting stud pitchers to potentially improve draft positions.

[Deleted]

Sitting "stud pitchers" is tanking. Making a commitment to go young by trading away pricey MLB vets and emphasizing minor league talent is a completely different things. Done in fantasy all the time; even done often in the majors.

Also, all prospects do not have to "make it" for the strategy to be a success... just an appropriate percentage of them (if they are good enough). Still, even combining draft picks and prospects acquired in trade, this sort of rebuilding approach takes time, sometimes three or four years to fruition.

The alternative of rewarding first place/first division clubs with early draft picks makes developing bottom division clubs, creating perpetual bottom dwellers.

Not sure how a league that is striving to keep its owners can even consider giving the top team(s) the earliest picks. There has to be an incentive to future success -- bottom teams gradually improving and the talent on upper level teams gradually getting too expensive to keep.

Again, that's how leagues achieve balance over the long term.

[Deleted]

I don't think you have to give the top teams the top picks to get at generals point. You could still put all the playoff teams with the worst picks. And then do something different with the non-playoff teams. Whether its straight lotto or Javelinas idea of a consolation playoff or whatever other idea people come up with.

His point is still pretty fair though. There's no reason to reward teams for getting rid of all their major leaguers, which is what the current rule does now. Its not like those teams are actually the worst teams going forward. Rattlers and Marlins are actually two of the better teams going forward. So the current system doesn't really help the perpetual bottom dwellers any more than some of the other suggestions, because a lot of good teams will get top picks in the current system -- because the current system isn't at all about what team is crap, it's just about who doesn't have major leaguers. You can have a ton of talent and value on your team and still get the top pick in this system. As general's points out all it does is reward teams for not trying to win this year and punish those teams that do. That does seem like an odd incentive to have in the system. If teams want to sell off and get prospects for the major leaguers as part of a rebuild, that's fine, but there isn't a good reason to give them a high pick in addition for it. What the current system does is make it harder for teams that don't want to gut themselves, but aren't playoff caliber, to rebuild without tearing everything down.  I don't know that we should try and make it so rebuilding requires a total gutting of your team.  That'll probably result in a bunch of perpetual lower middle dwellers, where the only reason they aren't bottom dwellers is because some teams just don't even carry any major leaguers.  Even if you don't like Generals solution, his point is still pretty valid and perhaps there's another way to get at his concern.

[Deleted]

I would of tried acquiring major league talent at the trade deadline but alot of the deals I wanted and even tried to make werent possible because of me bidding 113 million for tanaka and then my prospects had a few go over the limit so had to pay them 500k and then had to even trade Madison Bumgarner just to stay under the cap but I started every guy as soon as they were called up to the majors honestly.