2020 Amendment Proposals
August 6, 2019
Voting Deadline: August 20, 2019
Yes votes required to pass = 10

Results



1. Progressive consecutive contract inflation Fail 6-10
a. 1st contract: +5/8/9
b. 2nd contract: +10/13/14
c. 3rd contract: +15/18/19
d. All length of contracts (1,2,3 year) count as a ‘contract’ (e.g. three consecutive one-year contracts
would be written at +5, +10, and +15)
e. When a player goes to auction, the contract number resets to ‘1st contract’
f. Implementation: 2021
g. All existing contracts prior to implementation (2020 and before) are ‘1st contracts’

2. Service Time Fail 6-10
a. Service time = number of years under contract (this excludes years player is acquired via auction)
b. No multi-year contracts after 6 years of service time
c. Players must become FA’s after 6 years
d. Only one-year contracts allowed after FA year
e. Implementation: 2021
f. Service time prior to 2021 will NOT be counted

3. Increase contract inflation Fail 4-12
a. All contracts: +7/10/11
b. Implementation: 2021

4. Rookies Limit Fail 6-10
a. Six rookie limit on rosters at any time
b. Implementation: 2021

5. Roster Change Pass 10-6
a. Eliminate 3 open OF positions (keep one)
b. Replace with LF/CF/RF
c. Implementation: 2021

6. Increase Minimum IP Fail 9-7
a. Increase Min IP from 25 to 35
b. Implementation: 2020

7. Games Started Minimum Fail 7-9
a. A minimum of 5 games must be started by pitchers per week
b. If the minimum is not met, WHIP & ERA cannot be won
c. If both teams do not meet the minimum, WHIP & ERA result in a tie
d. Implementation: 2020

I am strongly in favor of moving to a LF / CF / RF and OF alignment. I think it adds more realism to roster construction.

I am also in favor of putting a six rookie limit on rosters. I believe that is more than enough to help rebuild a team while preventing the worst effects of such an effort and requiring players to meet some minimum standard of competitiveness.

I am opposed to increasing the innings pitched minimum or making changes to the number of games started required per week. I simply don't see the point, as I've already proven in the past that an all bullpen strategy is simply not valid for remaining competitive. If we're going to address issues related to pitching, I believe our efforts would better be directed at resolving the problem with W being one of the most random categories possible in fantasy baseball. The variance from week to week, even among very good pitching teams, makes it an utterly ridiculous stat.

As for contract structures, I think we're looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I don't believe that cycling players through the auction system has intrinsic value. Our salary structure already weights players towards the middle class, as we don't get the first few production players from young players as cheaply as MLB teams do (the MLB minimum) and we tend to not go quite as bonkers on yearly value at the high end as the big market clubs do. The league average MLB payroll in 2019 is $105 million, which is basically Texas or Cincinnati. Both of these teams have at least one player making up 20% - 25% of their payroll, which is something we simply don't have in RBL, where Freddie Freeman is our most expensive player at $47, or 18%, and $30+, or 11.5%, players are extremely rare with just two in 2019. I think that escalating contracts without also providing means to retain cheap young talent to balance (as MLB does), is going to create issues.

Beyond all that, I like my guys. I get invested in the players on my team and I find that having Bregman and Acuna came up with the Wolfdogs and can stay here for a long time makes me more inclined to follow those players in real games. Developing an attachment to players increases my enjoy

And what would the goal be anyway? Are we looking for competitive balance? Good managers are going to rise to the top, regardless of the system. This year is on pace to have the lowest aW% for the top team since division play began by 25+ points. 11 teams are over .500 and within at least 2.5 games of a playoff spot with four weeks to go. That has never happened before. The NFL would dream about this kind of parity. Beyond that, we have one new manager who won the league after coming in midway through the season and is still highly competitive (Tom) and another who after a two year rebuild is in fantastic position to compete next year (Frank). Both of these managers have xW%, zW%, and pW% much higher than their aW%, indicating that they're very strong teams. Then there's Josh, who came in to a mediocre team last year and with half a season of rebuilding and one fantastic auction has been right in the thick of things in the most competitive division in RBL this year.

To put it simply, what exactly is the point of adjusting the contract structure right now? It looks to me like we're in a golden age for the league.

Going further, it feels like a personal affront that I sat and watched other teams benefit from acquiring good young talent and then retain those players for nearly a decade. Now that I have players of that caliber (and especially with Acuna, who is as close to Trout as any player has ever come in terms of team impact), suddenly retaining players for a long time is a problem. I built up my team to be competitive through the current system and now that I'm finally there, the league wants to pull the rug out from under me. That's a bitter pill that I'm honestly not sure I can swallow.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the concept of adjusting our contract structure, but there has to be a positive purpose for doing so. Maybe we transition more fully to a dynasty league and implement a minor league system, rookie / years of service / arbitration pay scale, and change to a free agency system where teams submit contract bids for years and dollars the largest overall value is awarded the player. I don't know, but I'm definitely open to discussing those. This tweaking just to deny teams that have rebuilt the ability to retain the players they've invested in rubs me the wrong way and I'm a hard no on it.

Oh, hell, I don't know . . . Convince me.

Well, George, I think the crux of the argument is that regardless of one's feelings on keepers and whether having the present contract system does not allow enough players into the auction it is (1) Unfair to make such a significant change to the rules mid-stream that inevitably helps some owners and hurts others, and (2) it does not really seem to be hurting the competitiveness of the league (though Nick and Matt seem to have done quite well, at least other owners have done well too)

Basically, George, I'm down with 4 through 7.

4. This would actually solve some of the issues people contend are problematic. And it can be automated at Fantrax. However, I don't expect it will pass because we don't pass things when they go against the personal (or potential) benefit of owners. This league is much like Congress: we talk about what's good for 'society' but vote parochially.

5. I just think this one is cool and adds more strategy. Me like.

6. & 7. Requiring more innings pitched (or GS, which I actually prefer) ensures that tanking teams don't win ratios based on a handful of keeper SP's. I really don't see any negatives here.

Btw, I completely ignored 1 through 3 because what's the point? That stuff will never pass.

Here’s the real issue for me.

We have a salary cap of $260, supposedly. Teams that have a lot of talent should start to run up against that cap. And we see that - and those folks have to draft a bunch of $1 guys at the end of the draft to fill out their roster.

And then within weeks, they flip those $1 guys for a $30+ guy they never could have afforded at auction.

That’s why I am in support of #4, as I think it will help a little to mitigate this issue.

Do the other teams benefit from that trade? Sure. A lot of times those $1 prospects turn into gold later in the season or in the season after.

But here’s my simple assertion - those other teams could have just drafted the prospects in the auction, instead of spending $25+ on a player they had no intention of retaining for even a half season. Then, those $25+ players would actually have their salary set to a real market value (the price contending teams can afford who are interested in their services for a whole year). And the rebuilding teams are still rebuilding with the prospects they are getting from auction or FA pickup.

#1-3 don’t really address this issue. #4 helps but doesn’t hit at the root cause. That’s why I continue to believe the best solution is some form of in-season cap.

I may still vote for #2 or #3. #3 appeals to me because of Andrew’s point in GroupMe that expansion added $260x4 to the available money in this closed system. A slightly higher escalation rate might help to balance out that addition.

I plucked these number from a discussion a few years a go and added the new data. This is the average number of keepers per team:

2009: 10.786
2010: 11.786
2011: 12.071
2012: 11.429
2013: 12.786
2014: 12.375
2015: 12.938
2016: 13.500
2017: 14.437
2018: 14.750
2019: 15.187

SLOTerp wrote:I plucked these number from a discussion a few years a go and added the new data. This is the average number of keepers per team:

2009: 10.786
2010: 11.786
2011: 12.071
2012: 11.429
2013: 12.786
2014: 12.375
2015: 12.938
2016: 13.500
2017: 14.437
2018: 14.750
2019: 15.187

That's crazy. I'd be interested to know the amount of money spent in buyouts by year. In case anyone has time to volunteer.

I got $21 in buy-outs this year. Probably will have 20 keepers.

freeman3 wrote:I got $21 in buy-outs this year. Probably will have 20 keepers.

20 Keepers! You are a collector!