IFA

[St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew)]

Hey all,

As the regular season has ended, I think it is time to open up discussion about the future of IFA cash and IFA players.

My initial thoughts are that I would like one year of no new IFA cash allocation but same current bidding style so that those with cash can use their cash or trade it for other assets. Usually this takes up about $200M in IFA cash so it leaves us with less IFA cash needing to be bought out through draft picks and permanent cap. My preference for compensation would be permanent cap otherwise too many added picks compromise the value of draft picks that have been bought / sold with an expected value that would be significantly diminished if we bought out IFA with picks. But that’s a conversation for another day.

One option would be to incorporate IFA kids into our 2024/25 offseason draft (end of next season) and maybe look to push the draft back to Feb 2025 (?) so we know who has signed and where. The draft doesn't impact our season so there's no problem if it runs past opening day into the start of the season. The other option that jumps to mind is an IFA Draft, same order as FYPD. Possibly two rounds.

Options as I see it :
1. Leave it as it is
2. Start migration towards incorporating IFA kids into our own draft - specifics to be ironed out ie: compensations for IFA cash
3. Our own IFA draft - allows FYPD to remain in November with FYPD draft (say two rounds ?) in March
4. ?

Let the discussion begin. Just interested in thoughts / ideas / opinions at this stage. ALL thoughts / ideas / opinions are valued.

[Cincinnati Reds - Chris]

I'm fine with no new allocation of IFA $. If we were to dole out 2023 IFA $ it would add a lot more to the system and thus not flush out the remaining balance of IFA that is left.

I'm fine with either permanent cap, picks or a combination of both as compensation for remaining IFA $

Option #2 would be interesting incorporating IFA kids into the draft. Offering an wrinkle mingling domestic & IFA kids together and seeing if you wanna play it safe with college kids, less safe with HS kids, or even more risky with IFA kids. I'm not sure if moving the draft 3/4 months ahead to February or March would lead to a dead zone for the league with nothing happening, or if that's a good thing giving people a break from the league.

Option #3 would also be interesting having a 2 round draft. Based off how many IFA kids usually get bid on in the initial wave, I think 2 rounds is the best number.
Also interesting is people will now have IFA picks they can trade. A small negative aspect to consider is the trading of IFA picks and Draft picks may have the odd messy situation where people don't specify if it was an IFA Pick or Draft pick traded that may cause Administrative confusion. A positive would be giving us something interesting happening during Spring Training.

I'm pretty flexible or open for discussion on these options.

[cleguardiansmike]

I'm curious, why are we considering changing the system at all? Is there something wrong/broken about it I'm not aware of? Or it just generally disliked?

[Cincinnati Reds - Chris]

Aug 22, 2023 11:15:05 GMT -5 cleguardiansmike said:

I'm curious, why are we considering changing the system at all? Is there something wrong/broken about it I'm not aware of? Or it just generally disliked?

There was talk in MLB to do away with the IFA system and have an International or World draft, so we were gonna follow suit here. It never materialized in MLB, but we kept talking about it here.

Plus it was a lot of work maintaining a ledger of who has how much IFA. I stopped doing it, then Cody (Astros) was doing it and then he stopped.

[cleguardiansmike]

Aug 22, 2023 11:41:18 GMT -5 Cincinnati Reds - Chris said:

Aug 22, 2023 11:15:05 GMT -5 cleguardiansmike said:

I'm curious, why are we considering changing the system at all? Is there something wrong/broken about it I'm not aware of? Or it just generally disliked?

There was talk in MLB to do away with the IFA system and have an International or World draft, so we were gonna follow suit here. It never materialized in MLB, but we kept talking about it here.

Plus it was a lot of work maintaining a ledger of who has how much IFA. I stopped doing it, then Cody (Astros) was doing it and then he stopped.

That makes sense, appreciate the history.

[BrewCrewGM]

Chris laid out something some months ago detailing how much IFA would equal to what round pick, and more importantly, that the draft compensation be spread out over at least three years, maybe four, so as to not create a bunch of premium bonus picks in one draft, thus devaluing the picks that come after.

It’d probably be more simple for the compensation to be a combo of permanent cap and picks, so that drafts are less affected.

[Ian (Baltimore)]

I’d be down to convert it when the playoffs have ended. That way we can also distribute IFA picks if we went the direction of having 2 drafts (easier to track than everyone’s IFA$). Doing a conversion of Cap/Picks for 1 year is an easy 1 and done.

One thing we will have to find out is how we want to handle guys that come up in the DSL that have good seasons. Would they just be eligible for claims unlike previously you had to wait a year or they were IFA bids?

I would be in favor of just claims like any other prospect throughout the year after a draft.

[doubleupagus]

My thoughts:

1. First and foremost, I'd prefer not to change the November draft. It's a highlight of the end of the season and a main reason to keep paying attention after those of us to don't make the playoffs are no longer playing every day.

2. My distinct preference is to convert to Cap rather than picks. Picks have value (although I really wish someone would tell me what that value is) and sticking comp picks in there (even over years) is complicated and messy. Convert IFA to Cap, it's clean, get it done and over with.

3. While I like the IFA system we have, I understand why it is out of favour. Since we need some way to get IFAs into the system, I'd be in favour of a draft. Two or three rounds in February should do it. Not a fan of mixing it in with the Rule 4 draft, mainly because I like the FYP draft in November.

If we go with an IFA draft in February, are we going to lump IFAs in with FYPs or will we keep the IFA roster? I'm guessing the latter, given the IFA development time frames, but we should consider it.

[tbrays]

I'm good with the way it is now, but if it is an administrative nightmare, then I get it that it would need to go.
I'm mostly against changing rules without having an awareness that would have changed the decisions that made prior ones.
I'm highly against adding picks specifically in the 2023 draft as supplementary picks as it decreases the picks that came after them. That wouldn't be so bad if one were aware of that devaluation, but this would affect teams unequally as some of have a lot of picks, and others have none.

If it needs to abolished, then a 2 round draft or incorporating into 2024 and after drafts is fine.

[cleguardiansmike]

I'm in agreement that I don't like the idea of mixing in the IFA draft with the rule 4 and pushing it back. Having 2 separate drafts at different times would be fine with me, and would help keep people engaged during the off-season which I think is a bonus.

This is a little out of the box, but we have if we a 'draft' for the IFA draft positions? I know that sounds crazy, but we could do it in the same bidding style as we have for IFAs. Instead of assigning arbitrary values to each pick, the 'market' would decide how valuable these picks are. Someone would make a post for '2024 IFA Draft Pick 1.01' on Proboards, and everyone would have the opportunity to use their current IFA money to bid on the pick. Obviously this would give managers who already have a ton of IFA money a huge leg up in this auction since they'd be far more likely to get premium picks.

You could also somehow combine this strategy with the additional cap space idea. If you have a manager who doesn't really want to participate, any leftover IFA money a manager has after the draft pick auction could go towards cap space (with whatever $IFA to hard cap conversion we end up going with)

After that we obviously wouldn't have to do that auction again, and we'd just have 2 separate drafts with the order being selected by standings like the current rule 4 draft is.

[Oakland - John]

My personal preferences would be for permanent cap adjustments and a 2nd draft just for internationals. That would seem to be the least "invasive" method to do away with IFA monies.