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Post by mozeknows (Mets Head of OMG) on Jun 26, 2020 18:32:57 GMT -5
Hey all,
This thread will act as a central location to submit your ideas for the upcoming, shortened MLB season. A lot of ideas have been bounced around in main chat, but it is good to get them all in one place so we may proceed in as effective a manner as possible. Please reply to this thread with your ideas from now until Sunday, July 5th, 2020.
What we know:
Matchups:
1. 60 games over 66 days translates to 8 weeks of "Regular Season" and 2 weeks for "Playoffs", assuming the full season is played.
2. ESPN will not be offering a built-in option for multiple matchups per week, but we are capable of manually entering the team win totals each week, which would serve the same purpose.
Contracts/Rosters/Draft:
3. Most of our rosters MLB and MiLB are full. Three people currently (as of 06-26-2020) have <20 MiLBers and only one person at the moment does not have a full MLB roster.
3a. In the shortened season, it is expected that a smaller, but not insignificant number of MiLBers will graduate to MLB based on our thresholds (300 AB/100 IP/50 IP)
3b. I did the math and 37% of all MLB deals in here are 1-year deals for the 2020 season. We have 131 players in this category with six or more on every team.
4. Actual MLB players will have the option to opt out for 2020, players could experience weird absences based off illness and isolation orders, and (despite how sad it is to type) we may wind up with a season that is cancelled mid-way through regardless of anything else that happens.
5. MLB had a shortened, 5-Round Amateur draft this year and it is likely there will be no MiLB season as we know it for players to accrue stats.
There are lots of moving pieces at this point because our chats/discussions have been largely informal. With your replies to this post we move a step closer to starting up our league again in earnest. Thank you guys for your help. I assume we are all very excited and thankful to be moving towards a resumption of play, and that just means we have to sort of a few of the unique challenges presented by this season.
Thank you, guys,
-LMs
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Post by mozeknows (Mets Head of OMG) on Jun 28, 2020 17:33:34 GMT -5
I think the best way to look at the 2020 season is to plan with the best case scenario in mind, but also develop contingency plans for if/when something unforeseen happens:
Best Case Scenario: MLB plays a full-as-can-be 60 game regular season with high to very high/perfect player participation (meaning no one except high-risk players sit out).
-This would be the best case scenario. We would get in a whole season, but would most likely need to adopt some kind of temporary scoring change (not in points per statistic, but in W-L record). A proposed scoring change idea I like in this scenario is having multiple "match ups" per week. We could have for example, every team receive 13 wins/losses a week based where they score relative to each other team. We could also perhaps have each team face two other teams per week in a true H2H2H/2H style, but that idea I think would have to involve creating a schedule based on that concept (which is something I am willing to explore, but I imagine may not be worth the hassle to create with 14 teams trying to do the math).
Even in this best case scenario with a full season a playoffs, we will still have an abundance of 2021 MiLB draft picks for the amount of space on our collective MiLB rosters. If we figure that in only 60 games, the number of prospects we might expect to graduate will be about 1/3rd what it usually is for 162 games, then that also means we will have much less space for our new picks and to trade MLBers for MiLBers in the winter of 2020-21. The idea of expanding our Minor League roster has been floated before, and if applied after our 2020 season is over, would definitely decrease the effects of the "roster jams" many of us could find ourselves in.
Additionally, even in a best case scenario, not every player is going to play. We'll have to decide how our fantasy league will handle if a player sits out in regards to our contracts. It is my own opinion that in a best case scenario or any scenario where at least some games are played, we should have all contracts work as usual, so all one year players return to FA after the 60 game 2020 season and all 2+ year players have their contract length decreased by one year, like always.
However, we need to consider or be ready for there to be a shortened-on-the-back-end season due to outside baseball real-life events. In the event of say, 40 games being played and then MLB suspends play, do we still move contracts over? If we carry over contracts from 2020 to 2021, the 131 (currently signed) one year players would still be 1 year players for the same amount in 2021. If we carry over 2020 contracts, how will we handle players who pass our 300/100/50 graduation threshold before the season is suspended? It is my opinion that whether or not all 60 games are played, any currently rostered MiLBer's stats should still count towards their MLB AB/IP total.
If we decide to carry over all contracts, and essentially put our league on hold for this season, would we then also do a one year redraft league? How would it be scored? I am not personally in favor of this option, but it is better than nothing if that's what the group wants. I am hopeful MLB will have a full 60 game season and that all our star players will play, but if the reality is such that we reach a point where all competitiveness in 2020 is lost, it could be good to explore other options for play/
There may be more, but honestly I have been sitting here too long, so those are my thoughts for now
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Post by Red Sox GM (Max) on Jun 29, 2020 4:51:09 GMT -5
Moze I appreciate all the thought you put into all of this, but in my opinion there are too many variables/questions/what ifs. It seems like the easier scenario is to freeze everything over and play a regular season in 2021. Yes it would be a long offseason, but we are already dealing with it as is. I’d say 50% shot season gets cancelled midway, I mean the US has been recording record highs for cases the past few days and who knows it could effect 2021, but in my opinion this seems like the best option. Either way, will play with what the majority decides
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Post by mozeknows (Mets Head of OMG) on Jun 29, 2020 12:27:04 GMT -5
Moze I appreciate all the thought you put into all of this, but in my opinion there are too many variables/questions/what ifs. It seems like the easier scenario is to freeze everything over and play a regular season in 2021. Yes it would be a long offseason, but we are already dealing with it as is. I’d say 50% shot season gets cancelled midway, I mean the US has been recording record highs for cases the past few days and who knows it could effect 2021, but in my opinion this seems like the best option. Either way, will play with what the majority decides Thank you. There are a ton of variables with this odd season, and I am not opposed to freezing/carrying over 2020 contracts to 2021. I think that would be the safest option for 2020 and the best option for our league to remain as normal as possible for the 2021 season.
The questions/comments I would pose in that scenario are: - Will we have any type of league for the 2020 season? What kind of league would it be? I would personally be interested in doing a redraft with multiple W-L per week, if we carry over/freeze contracts.
-We still may have MiLB graduations if there are any IRL MLB games played in which our prospects accrue ABs/IPs. Will we have them graduate to MLB contracts or carry them over in a freeze as specs? -If we carry over all 2020 prospects into 2021 as prospects, then we will surely need to expand MiLB rosters to have a 2021 MiLB draft.
-If we carry over/freeze MLB contracts, I imagine we lose out on doing RFA/FA this winter. On that note, if I'm choosing whether to have RFA/FA or expand MiLB, my choice is clear and loudly in support the latter.
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Post by Royals GM (Brandon) on Jun 30, 2020 13:46:32 GMT -5
I agree with Max. I will be very surprised if the season goes all 60 games.
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Post by Dodgers GM (Matt) on Jul 4, 2020 18:44:06 GMT -5
With so many players sitting out, with a shortened season, with a different schedule, and all of the factors in play this year, I think the best option for our dynasty is to freeze all contracts. We could play out this season either with our rosters and still do adds and drops throughout the year, but once we get to graduation week we revert to rosters as of now. Another option is we could do a straight redraft and just completely take a break from our dynasty. I just don’t see how counting this year as a contract year is beneficial to the integrity of our league. As far as minor league graduations go, I think we could just continue those as normal and require a drop during grad week. This makes room to still hold a minor league draft next offseason. Another option would be to just hold them back too.I also think we could increase the MiLB roster limit to 25 or so. Just some thoughts for next season as we get closer to a restart.
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Post by seeyalaterdylan (Orioles GM) on Jul 5, 2020 0:49:33 GMT -5
I agree with everyone as far as freezing contracts. I suppose the top question to come from that would be do we do a season with our current rosters and just revert back, or do we just punt this year with our normal teams and do a separate draft?
I’m fine either way. I have a different league that opted for the second option, but that was partly because money was involved.
One flaw of just using our rosters would be how we handle our cap. If Mike Trout doesn’t play this year I guess I’d just drop him and use the cap space for this year to try to fill out my roster? It’s basically flattening everyone’s contracts into one year temporarily.
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Post by Dodgers GM (Matt) on Jul 5, 2020 20:07:13 GMT -5
or do we just punt this year with our normal teams and do a separate draft? I’m fine either way. I have a different league that opted for the second option, but that was partly because money was involved. My other league is doing this too. I am fine with either option. |
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Post by mozeknows (Mets Head of OMG) on Jul 5, 2020 22:03:39 GMT -5
At this point I, too, think freezing and carrying contracts over is the best thing for the league. I am open to either conducting a season with our current rosters or doing a redraft to determine our 2021 MiLB Draft Pick Slot. The questions with that, that come to mind:
Do we prefer to do a redraft or use our current rosters?
Like Dylan and Matthew brought up, if we use our current rosters, would we Freeze Contracts Now and revert rosters to their current construction after the season? We would make space for MiLB graduations with MLB drops during Grad Week.
If we do a redraft, how would we conduct the draft? Something Rob mentioned earlier as an idea in chat was the idea to "...do a sort of slow draft over the week before.". I think that could be fun, too.
I was brainstorming ideas for how to create the order of our 2021 Minor League Draft. Here's what I had before: -If the season is played in part, and suspended/cancelled before 60 games, we would use the reversed order of the standings as if we were playing a total points league.
-If the season is played in full, and we get just 10 weeks of matchups, we would have to adjust our playoff format to if we stick with only two weeks of playoffs. We could have two-three playoff brackets where the Championship Bracket teams compete for the 2020 Dynasty 88 Championship and the Consolation Bracket (one or two) would be competing for the 2021 MiLB 1.x Draft Slot. I think it is easiest to illustrate with an example:
Total points/H2H record standings through Imaginary 8 Week Regular Season: 1. Mariners
2. Padres 3. White Sox 4. Angels 5. Cubs 6. Brewers 7. Blue Jays 8. Pirates 9. Twins 10. Cardinals 11. Diamondbacks 12. Marlins 13. Phillies 14. Tebows
Based on the imaginary standings above: 1. The 2020 Championship Bracket would be a two week long matchup scored with Total Points (for example) among the Mariners, Padres, White Sox, Angels, Cubs, and Brewers. In the 2021 MiLB Draft Order, the winner of the two-week Matchup would get the 9th pick, 2nd place the 10th pick, 3rd place the 11th pick, and so on. The best teams get the worst picks, makes sense.
2. The 2020 Ohtani Bowl Bracket could be broken into two Pool A and Pool B or kept as one.
a. If kept as one, we would have a two week long matchup among all eight 7th-14th place teams scored with Total Points (for example). In the 2021 MiLB Draft Order, the winner would get the first pick, 2nd places gets 2nd pick, 3rd place gets 3rd pick and so on to 8th place getting the 8th pick.
b. If broken in two, we would have a two week long matchup among the Blue Jays, Pirates, Twins, and Cardinals in Pool A. In the 2021 MiLB Draft Order, the winner of Pool A would get the 5th pick, 2nd place the 6th pick, 3rd place the 7th pick, and 4th place the 8th pick. Pool B would be the same, only among the DBacks, Marlins, Phillies, and Tebows. The winner of Pool B would get the 1st pick, 2nd place gets the 2nd pick, 3rd place gets the third pick, and 4th place gets the 4th pick.
Only after I typed all that out do I realize we could also simply have 7 weeks of Regular Season and use our traditional Playoff Format for the final three weeks. Though with that idea, I would hate for MLB to have 9 weeks worth of games and then have to shut down and we lose out on the most important week of the season. If that were to happen, would we use the reverse order of total season points through 9 weeks? I imagine so.
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Post by thewelt15 on Jul 6, 2020 9:54:00 GMT -5
Hey All!
I have my first kid due in a week so wont have time for too much input on this years season formatting but once we begin I will be fully active. Wanted to give my few thoughts but ultimately I am open to however the group lands for this season.
-Freezing rosters makes the most sense.
-Drafting new teams sounds fun! With such a short season why not challenge ourselves and do something totally different.
-a 2 week playoff is more favorable. The regular season is likely to be decided by an array of tiebreakers so if we can have even 1-week longer of a regular-season it will help alleviate the need for tie breakers
-MiLB rosters is the most challenging issue. Expanding minor league rosters temporarily (1 year), allowing for early graduations and limiting the minor league draft this season to 4-5 rounds are all ways to help.
Excited to have any fantasy baseball this year!
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Post by Giants GM (Rob) on Jul 9, 2020 16:02:24 GMT -5
Hey all,
Apologies for not participating in this discussion earlier.
I'll summarize some of the above discussion as I understand it and add some of my own commentary:
I think there are three major issues: (1) the schedule/scoring; (2) contracts; and (3) rosters.
SCHEDULE/SCORING
There are three options available to us: (1) H2H scoring with multiple matchups per week; (2) points per week; and (3) most points overall.
(1) H2H scoring with multiple matchups per week
In this scenario we'd play multiple teams per week, which would be used to establish playoff seeding. While the length of the playoffs and number of weekly matchups is up for debate, this scenario is obviously the most similar to what we normally do. However, it does raise some concerns about how fair the schedules will be and the impacts of teams not keeping setting their lineups etc. I think that this option could have the most negative unintended consequences.
(2) Points per week
First, I'm not sure if this can be automated, so it may take some work on our end. The way this could work is that each team effectively plays everyone else each week and at the end of the week teams are awarded points based on how many points they scored relative to everyone else (e.g., team with most points gets 14 points, second place gets 13, last gets 1, etc.). This ensures that schedules are balanced and, if the season ends early, the standings will have some value. Personally, this is my preferred format.
(3) Most points overall
This is the most straightforward option in which the standings would simply be based on overall points scored.
NOTE: Options (2) and (3) could be modified to include playoffs in which, for example, the top 4 teams only compete against each other the last two weeks, thereby balancing the value of regular season standings with the excitement of playoffs. Personally, I'd probably opt to not include playoffs in either format, but those are options. Certainly, given the likelihood that the season ends prematurely, we should have a way to crown a champion and determine draft order.
CONTRACTS
There are two options: Either we freeze contracts and start with our current rosters at some point in the future or we treat this year like a regular year. If we freeze contracts, then it preserves the integrity of the league (whatever that means to each of us) and avoids many of the pitfalls discussed above and in chat. The downside to freezing rosters is that it eliminates the fun of RFA and free agency this fall, which is my favorite part of the whole year. I'm happy to proceed under either format, except that I strongly oppose freezing the contracts and graduating prospects based on PA/IP in 2020--doing so would significantly penalize teams that structured their contracts and draft for the short term and to work in unison. Basically, as long as we either "skip" 2020 or play 2020, I'm happy, but I don't want to split the difference.
ROSTERS
There are a couple roster issues:(1) 2020 rosters; (2) MLB roster size; and (3) MILB roster size.
2020 Rosters
First, if we don't freeze our contracts, obviously we'll be using those rosters for the 2020 season; however, if we freeze the contracts, which is pretty heavily supported, we can either use our current rosters as a starting place (we can figure out contract implications after if we go this route) or redraft. I think a semi-slow redraft the week before the season would be fun, but using our current rosters as a starting place, subject to roster transactions that would only apply to 2020, would be fun and require pretty minimal work. I think some people have strongly opposed doing a redraft (Jhonny?).
If we freeze contracts, but use our current rosters as a starting point I'd propose that we run the 2020 season on a different platform so that we don't screw up all our ESPN rosters. I'd also be open to using FAAB or waivers, rather than proboards to bid on players, given the strangeness of the season.
MLB Roster Expansion
Now that MLB is up to 26 players, I think we should be too. I think we should make this change effective immediately.
MILB Roster Expansion
Regardless of how we handle contracts, there has generally been support to expand the MILB rosters. If specs do not graduate this year, it is likely necessary to expand MILB rosters, otherwise the draft will be a complete cluster. Regardless of how we treat contracts, I think expanding the rosters to 23 players effective whenever the rosters unfreeze (or now) and then expand by 1 each year until the MILB roster is the same size as the MLB roster.
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Post by Reds GM (Rich) on Jul 10, 2020 17:42:34 GMT -5
I would like to see us freeze everything for this year on ESPN and PB. Startup a new free league on ESPN and just use the rosters we have to start and just have a free waiver wire to pick up and drop players to finish out this year for some fun.
We have talked about adding spots to MILB roster in the past so if we add 5 to make it 25 that will allow us to add players this offseason. In November we can talk about how to handle the rest of offseason. I think this will insure the integrity of what we have been working toward and still give people something to at least look forward to for the rest of the year and give us something to talk about.
Just a thought
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Post by Dodgers GM (Matt) on Jul 10, 2020 18:42:15 GMT -5
CONTRACTS There are two options: Either we freeze contracts and start with our current rosters at some point in the future or we treat this year like a regular year. If we freeze contracts, then it preserves the integrity of the league (whatever that means to each of us) and avoids many of the pitfalls discussed above and in chat. The downside to freezing rosters is that it eliminates the fun of RFA and free agency this fall, which is my favorite part of the whole year. I'm happy to proceed under either format, except that I strongly oppose freezing the contracts and graduating prospects based on PA/IP in 2020--doing so would significantly penalize teams that structured their contracts and draft for the short term and to work in unison. Basically, as long as we either "skip" 2020 or play 2020, I'm happy, but I don't want to split the difference.
ROSTERS There are a couple roster issues:(1) 2020 rosters; (2) MLB roster size; and (3) MILB roster size. 2020 Rosters First, if we don't freeze our contracts, obviously we'll be using those rosters for the 2020 season; however, if we freeze the contracts, which is pretty heavily supported, we can either use our current rosters as a starting place (we can figure out contract implications after if we go this route) or redraft. I think a semi-slow redraft the week before the season would be fun, but using our current rosters as a starting place, subject to roster transactions that would only apply to 2020, would be fun and require pretty minimal work. I think some people have strongly opposed doing a redraft (Jhonny?). If we freeze contracts, but use our current rosters as a starting point I'd propose that we run the 2020 season on a different platform so that we don't screw up all our ESPN rosters. I'd also be open to using FAAB or waivers, rather than proboards to bid on players, given the strangeness of the season. MLB Roster Expansion Now that MLB is up to 26 players, I think we should be too. I think we should make this change effective immediately. MILB Roster Expansion Regardless of how we handle contracts, there has generally been support to expand the MILB rosters. If specs do not graduate this year, it is likely necessary to expand MILB rosters, otherwise the draft will be a complete cluster. Regardless of how we treat contracts, I think expanding the rosters to 23 players effective whenever the rosters unfreeze (or now) and then expand by 1 each year until the MILB roster is the same size as the MLB roster.
I like a lot of the points Rob brought up- I am going to add my thoughts on each of the bolded sections. On the first one, I agree that it would not really be fair to freeze contracts and still force graduations. My opinion on graduations was mixed before, but i now think we should freeze that too. Second, a slower redraft league might be a fun, I like that a lot. We had some success with the all time team draft that a few of us participated in earlier in quarantine, and with the "Team a Day in May" challenge that Moze set up. I think it would be a good way to get everyone engaged in the league again before we resume the season. I am also not opposed to simply using our current rosters and setting up a temporary waiver wire like Rich suggested below. Third, this is not specific to coronavirus but I agree we should enact this change to reflect MLB. Fourth, This seems like the perfect time to expand MiLB rosters, with new specs coming in next February to join the ones that would have graduated under normal circumstances. Expanding a few slots and maybe shortening the 2021 draft by a round or two could be an option, just mentioning a possibility(I believe Chris said this above). I think the plan to expand to 23 and incrementally increase in the following years is interesting and might help control the growth of the minor leagues instead of expanding to 25(26?) all at once. However, it then might make sense to hold a 4, 5, or maybe 6 round draft next winter. Just wanted to add this to the discussion before we get to voting! Thanks to everyone who posted in the forum over the last week or two. |
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