Minimums Penalty

[cleguardiansmike]

Thought I would post this for discussion at least.  Others may feel differently, but I do think there should be some stiffer penalties for missing weekly AB or IP minimums.  Currently the penalties come in the form of forfeiting categories in that specific matchup.  While I think those penalties should remain, the problem is most of the time, the folks that are missing these minimums are teams that are rebuilding anyway.  So the only thing the current penalty does is help them get a better pick.  The only way for there to be a true penalty is if it's tied to future value - i.e. draft picks.  

My proposal:

Every manager gets a certain number of 'free passes' per year.  We can vote on the number of that.  My initial thought was 3, but even that may be too high.  I'm thinking 2 is still more than fair.  This would cover a manager if all of the sudden they had 3 starters and 2 relievers go down to injury on the same week.  So if a manager misses minimums 2 total weeks or less, their draft picks would be unaffected.  If they miss 3 or more, all of their current draft picks would be dropped a single slot every week they miss.  So if 3 weekly minimums were missed and they currently have the 1.01, their pick would move down to 1.02 at the end of the year.  If they miss 4, their pick would move down 1.03 and so on.  Again, this would effect all of their picks (including picks they traded for during the season), not just their 1st rounder.

A couple caveats:
I would argue that we don't enforce this rule for the 1st full season of a new manager transition.  The new manager shouldn't be punished or forced to make panicked moves because an old manager left the team in rough shape.

I would also argue that even if approved I would suggest this rule change to take effect starting next season since this season is already underway.

Bottom line, the minimums are low and easy to meet, even if you decide to sell off and mostly gut your team.  Most won't even notice it, but I think it could help disincentive tanking and inactivity.  I'm happy to work with whoever is administering the draft to keep track of any teams that would need to be slotted down throughout the year (maybe even in a proboards post that is continually updated throughout the year?).

[rangers]

Seems reasonable and well thought out. Too bad we can’t have relegation

[KeithTorGM]

The Wrexham Rangers DOES have a ring to it

[Phillies]

I appreciate that there is dialogue on this. League activity has been low overall imo. Having the responsibility to maintain a functioning lineup could help with this.

Pretty much all leagues, particularly deep ones like ours, face these issues at various points.

[Arizona D'backs (Sean)]

I am on board with this change. It's enough to make a difference but not so much it will be crippling to a club.

[Cincinnati Reds - Chris]

Are there examples of teams who were tanking?

I know of one last year where a stud bat was left on the bench for an extended period of time and the team was a bottom 5 team. If that team was to meet AB Mins. every week, is that not considered tanking?

[cleguardiansmike]

Apr 15, 2024 18:51:57 GMT -5 Cincinnati Reds - Chris said:

Are there examples of teams who were tanking?

I know of one last year where a stud bat was left on the bench for an extended period of time and the team was a bottom 5 team. If that team was to meet AB Mins. every week, is that not considered tanking?

That seems like tanking to me, but whether or not the league should allow it is another question entirely.  It would be tough policing and enforcing a hard and fast rule that looks at who each manager is starting and who they're benching.  At least this rule suggestion would be a binary yes/no and would be easy to track...

[St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew)]

Sorry Chris, I should have read this before replying to your PM.

I agree entirely, I would suggest four weeks grace, from the 5th week missed that team's first round pick (if they have it) is dropped one place per round missed (ie: miss 5 rounds you drop 5 places).

The problem then arises if that team doesn't own it's first round pick. That's the challenge we have hit in past years when we discuss penalties for missing.

[St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew)]

Tanking is a whole separate issue but I agree we need some sort of hard and fast rule to stop it if/when it happens.

[cleguardiansmike]

Apr 15, 2024 19:20:17 GMT -5 St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew) said:

Sorry Chris, I should have read this before replying to your PM.

I agree entirely, I would suggest four weeks grace, from the 5th week missed that team's first round pick (if they have it) is dropped one place per round missed (ie: miss 5 rounds you drop 5 places).

The problem then arises if that team doesn't own it's first round pick. That's the challenge we have hit in past years when we discuss penalties for missing.

Yeah, I thought about that as well.  I'm guessing that most teams that are missing minimums are going to have most of their picks as well due to being in a rebuild.  But you're right that won't always be the case.  I think you can alleviate that issue a bit by including every pick the offending manager owns and not just using their 1st round pick.  It would especially be important to include picks the manager traded for as well.

Sure the offending manager may decide to trade their picks, but being effectively forced to trade draft picks is maybe it's own form of punishment as well.

[St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew)]

I've looked through the rosters of those that are missing minimums and looked through the available players in the FA pool on Fantrax and wonder whether we need to either :

A - drop our minimum AB/IP limits
or
B - drop our rosters from 40 man to 35 or 30

I do understand that teams can trade to acquire players but I feel whilst we have every team with a 40 man roster there simply isn't enough real life players to go around. Whilst I am not going to sell the farm to contend I want to contend this year. As such, I can't see me trading away any of my guys to help a bottom team fill their roster and meet minimums.

Do we have any other thoughts / opinions from those we have not heard from yet ? either way, penalties or a solution won't be applied until 2025 as I don't think it's fair to change rules mid season but it's something I wouldn't mind working out this season so that whatever changes we make, everyone has a full off-season to make necessary trades / changes / drops / etc.

[brettgile04]

Just out of curiosity how many teams have been missing minimums in the 1st couple weeks?

[doubleupagus]

Apr 19, 2024 10:47:05 GMT -5 brettgile04 said:

Just out of curiosity how many teams have been missing minimums in the 1st couple weeks?

I've had opponents miss minimums in each of the first two weeks, one hitting and the other pitching, although the hitting one in the first week may have been a miscalculation based on the prorated extended period.

[St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew)]

Three in round 2 and I think three in the first round too.

[Halejon/Nationals GM]

I'm sure people will complain that reducing the roster size hurts active players but not sure what choice there is. The value that you could get for empty AB's is so low that they just get hoarded over time. Gotta flush them out somehow if we're talking pick penalties or else it's penalizing the teams that have fallen out the bottom one way or the other (trade a pick or lose a pick).

I was trying to think of a way to make this league more fun for people who have inherited teams in need of a deep rebuild, as while I'm sure it's satisfying it's a long hard grind in a league like this and we have had some churn of people who were initially very enthusiastic and then ran up against the bone-bleached picked-over carcass that is the waiver wire. What if we voted at the end of the year for the 1-2 most improved teams and awarded them a mil in cap or something?

[Cincinnati Reds - Chris]

Apr 19, 2024 10:47:05 GMT -5 brettgile04 said:

Just out of curiosity how many teams have been missing minimums in the 1st couple weeks?

3 in Week 1
4 in Week 2


Of those, 3 teams have missed Minimums in both the first 2 weeks.

[Cincinnati Reds - Chris]

Apr 18, 2024 19:02:23 GMT -5 St. Louis Cardinals (Andrew) said:

I've looked through the rosters of those that are missing minimums and looked through the available players in the FA pool on Fantrax and wonder whether we need to either :

A - drop our minimum AB/IP limits
or
B - drop our rosters from 40 man to 35 or 30

I do understand that teams can trade to acquire players but I feel whilst we have every team with a 40 man roster there simply isn't enough real life players to go around. Whilst I am not going to sell the farm to contend I want to contend this year. As such, I can't see me trading away any of my guys to help a bottom team fill their roster and meet minimums.

Do we have any other thoughts / opinions from those we have not heard from yet ? either way, penalties or a solution won't be applied until 2025 as I don't think it's fair to change rules mid season but it's something I wouldn't mind working out this season so that whatever changes we make, everyone has a full off-season to make necessary trades / changes / drops / etc.

This was one of the reasons I suggested reducing the 40 man roster.

Instead of going extreme and looking at a 30 man roster, why not look at a 35 man roster.

Also, thoughts on this. Incrementally dropping our roster numbers down from 40 to 35. Each team must drop 1 player from their 40 man roster over a one or two week period who has played in MLB this year until we get to 35. Thus slowly replenishing the Free agent pool with players who aren't prospects

[doubleupagus]

If you could give me a good (or even a bad) reason to drop Patrick Corbin, especially maybe without penalty, I'd do it in a heartbeat. He'd give someone some regular innings, even if his numbers would give an owner an aneurysm.

My major problem is that of the 40 guys on my MLB roster, 10 are in the minors and 3 more are on the DL (excluding the five others I have on the actual IL). My pitching isn't in a hard state, but I'm essentially one or two injuries to regulars from being in a really tough spot wrt minimum ABs.

I'd welcome any move that would shake loose some platoon type players for pickup. I can't blame owners who have these guys stashed, but it does make it hard.

[Cincinnati Reds - Chris]

And we could make it where players who are dropped during the drop phase are immune from the 50% penalty.

[tbrays]

If teams wanted to make miniumums they could.
1) Teams can pick up players off the waiver wire. I've picked up many good players over the years off the waiver wire. The WW is barren now, but it takes persistence and some measure of planning. Not making minimums is a lack of activity or planning to field an active roster.
2) GMs can trade for players that provide ABs or IPs. Lower tier players wouldn't require much capital in return on a trade.

The problem is no one wants to win. We have de-incentivized winning. The worse you do, the better pick you get in the draft, the more IFA money you get. The better your ranking on our team prospect rankings list.
If a team is doing poorly, the best way to get that number one pick is to leave your active roster as empty as possible.

When we jumped to a 40-man roster, I could field about 26 active players which was a challenge the first year. It forced me to add depth off the waiver wire and trades. I'm not keen on the fact that a few years later we would consider reverting back. It takes time to adapt to these changes, and build a team with this structure in mind.

I thought the league minimums implementation was a good idea. It would cap the level of tanking.
I am not in favour of making changes to the 40-man now, less so in-season.

I do appreciate the premise that Chris and Andrew are making, and I fully understand the reasoning behind it. There are a lot of teams not making minimums and not fielding active rosters, with few trades or transactions to attempt to counteract it. I think that is purposeful though. Like plug and play, and hope that the team does bad enough or isn't active in order to get best IFA spot/draft pick.