Get rid of divisions? No, I like them. If I were in Matt's division I might vote differently...so I would be amenable to kind of rotation of divisions but if no else cares then I don't.

Minimum ABs and IPs. Yes. Artificial strategies are annoying.

FAAB- No. -Not worth the headache.

Holds and Saves as new Category-- No. Devalues closers, guys can load up on holds guys on the cheap and compete.

Move keepers decision to one week until draft. Yes. A lot of players' roles are not fixed until late in the spring, so gives a little more time to figure that out.

nightskyre wrote:
5. Move the keeper deadline to one week before the auction.

No. I also mostly don't care, but as someone who didn't make the playoffs, it was pretty frustrating to spend so long holding on to players just so others couldn't pick them up for the minimum and keep them. I don't feel like it benefits anyone to move it up.

Andrew, this is the deadline to designate your keepers for the upcoming year and has nothing to do with in-season dynamics. I think there is some confusion here.

Sharur wrote:When I do OBP calculations for the stats, I use the proxy of AB+BB, and BB are displayed with AB in the matchup stats.

If it needs to be manual, I would suggest that the rule be something to the effect of the opposing owner 'challenging' their opponent for failing to meet the minimum, which would be the only time you'd actually check.

Since you're already using a proxy for PA's why not just use AB's as your proxy? AB's are transparent and easily found - no need for complexities.

It appears that this amendment might have legs so how about some numbers? I would argue for 100 on the low end and 200 on the high. We might have caught a few teams at the tail end of last season with the higher number, those who were stashing minor leaguers (Sluggers & Sauce come to mind).

Side note: I was reading an article about fantasy football leagues that penalize last place. One league makes the loser sit for the SAT and publicize the score!

1. Eliminate divisions

No. I voted against divisions, but I thought they improved the excitement of the regular season. I also really don't think we should scrap it after just one year.

2. Set minimum AB's.

Yes. I assume there would be a follow up vote. I'd vote for the minimum to be very low.

3. FAAB

Yes.

4. Saves\Holds

No. This is the one I feel most strongly about. Holds are the dumbest stat ever. Yes, even dumber than saves. I don't think this improves the league at all. It's not even an official MLB statistic!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold_%28baseball%29

5. Move the keeper deadline to one week before the auction.

No. Hard enough to squeeze in auction prep already. One less week of knowing the keeper lists? No thanks.

On the several comments about division realignment:

I plan on keeping the same divisions this year. Next year we can realign with a simple geographic shuffling (to pull Josh back east), performance criteria, your parachute color, or whatever (or even not at all, which may actually be ideal in fostering rivalries*).

Speaking of divisions… Matt, do you have your division names picked out or are you happy with the current ones? I do recall saying the champ can re-name them as I was not entirely sold on the ones I chose. They did grow on me, though.

* Phhppttttppppttttt to Ryan.

I'm not sure the FAAB amendment is entirely clear, so let me both provide some numbers and an example.

First, the system only affects a small number of transactions. There were about 60 waiver acquisitions last year out of over 800 acquisitions in total. Thus, over 90% of the acquisitions (free-agents and minor league claims) will not be affected at all. I'm also guessing that most of those waiver acquisitions were uncontested.

The status quo is a waiver priority list wherein you move to the back of the line each time you make a waiver claim. As it so happened, early in the season a player named Zach Greinke was dropped (you may have heard of him) to the waiver wire. He was picked up by that team fortunate enough to be in the first waiver position, the Cool E's (you may have heard of them). The E's get Greinke via luck.

Fair? If you don't think so, then how about this…

After Greinke is dropped, every other team has an opportunity to get him by submitting a blind bid from a pre-set budget. This budget serves this and ONLY this purpose - to bid on waived players. If a budget is used up, you can still get waived players by bidding $0, albeit you're not likely to get many valuable ones. I would have been more than happy to bid my entire budget for Greinke.

Now does that sound fair? Would you have bid on Greinke?

One more reminder: This has nothing to do with your acquisition limit nor the auction carryover. You will still get 50+ acquisitions.

Since you're already using a proxy for PA's why not just use AB's as your proxy? AB's are transparent and easily found - no need for complexities.

Because it doesn't work. AB+BB gets the majority of PAs taken care of. Outside of that there's just reached on error and HBP. HBP do vary by player, but only a few players have high enough totals for that to be impactful (and I'd include them if I could find the numbers, to be fair). ROE, as far as I know, isn't something that correlates with any particular skill, so they're even less significant (though, again, I'd include them if I could).

Anyway, why include BBs? First, unlike HBP, they are displayed, so I can, and it's more accurate. Second, unlike those other non-AB cases, they vary greatly player to player (and RBL team to RBL team), and have a dramatic impact on a player's and team's OBP. Third, specifically regarding the rule, I see no reason to punish a team that rostered, oh, I don't know, Joey Votto, for his tendency to walk. It's not as if he's less of a full-time player because of it. Sure, it would only come up if the team is skirting the line, but that line is going to be drawn somewhere, and if anyone ever does skirt it, they should only be punished for violating the spirit we're aiming at. Walks are legitimate instances of playing time and aren't the spirit we're aiming at.

It appears that this amendment might have legs so how about some numbers? I would argue for 100 on the low end and 200 on the high. We might have caught a few teams at the tail end of last season with the higher number, those who were stashing minor leaguers (Sluggers & Sauce come to mind).

Did you not see the numbers I already posted? 200 is definitely too high if you're talking ABs rather than AB+BB. Personally, I'd go no higher than 100 AB+BB, and would vote against the amendment if it went any higher.

4. Saves\Holds

No. This is the one I feel most strongly about. Holds are the dumbest stat ever. Yes, even dumber than saves. I don't think this improves the league at all. It's not even an official MLB statistic!

Undeniably true that Holds are dumb (dumber than Saves is debatable), but in this case I think the stupidity washes a bit. We already have reliever value from Saves, this would just expand it in a way that doesn't force you to decide which kind of reliever you're interested in. Shutdowns vs. Meltdowns, or Brad's G+ suggestion of W+HD+SV, would both be preferable, but since they aren't an option, I think this is the best we can do to clear the SV supply problem. We've got a 16 team league, and there's 30 closers. That just doesn't seem good.

Ok, I can agree with AB+walks as the criteria. I'm also fine with an initial barrier of 100 which can then be adjusted in the future if we feel it needs to be.

Since it's a good idea to lock in numbers, how about IP? I think 10 is too low as just two good starts will get you over the 10 IP threshold. 20 or 30 seems reasonable.

It might well be time to shake up the Saves category and adding holds seems a good way to do it. As is, it's a category that you either go all in on or boot. Adding holds makes it a much more fertile area for strategic drafting and roster maintenance. It's now commonly used in the fantasy game and I'm not such a luddite (my attachment to Redscape withstanding) that I can't recognize the benefit. The effect on SP's will be quite interesting though I'll keep my own opinions close to the vest for competitive reasons. Besides, we'll all have a year to adjust to the change.

SLOTerp wrote:Side note: I was reading an article about fantasy football leagues that penalize last place. One league makes the loser sit for the SAT and publicize the score!

That is hilarious. I vote for that.

George, did you get the email about discussion at Google+? We're not leaving here but discussion there has been very productive. There's things I don't like about it but for some reason it must be conducive to generating debate.

Anyway, drop in when you get a chance. And make sure you turn off notifications, otherwise you'll get too much email.

SLOTerp wrote:George, did you get the email about discussion at Google+? We're not leaving here but discussion there has been very productive. There's things I don't like about it but for some reason it must be conducive to generating debate.

Anyway, drop in when you get a chance. And make sure you turn off notifications, otherwise you'll get too much email.

I'm trying, but the 'moderator' hasn't 'approved' my 'request'.

I'm sure this is an effort to stifle dissent.

Somebody approved you.

As for participating, you are welcome to present your views as long as they are not counter to those coming from the commissioner's office.

1. Eliminate divisions. Yes. The teams with the best records play in the playoffs.

2. Set minimum AB's. No.

3. Institute the FAAB system. No

4. Replace the Saves category with Saves/Holds (2015). Yes

5. Move the keeper deadline to one week before the auction. Yes