by kimkrichbaum2 » Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:39 am
I am confident enough in the league I am willing to join. There is a lot about the concept I like. I am not so concerned about roster dumping, the NBA style draft choices which reduce the incentive to lose, will help. In the case or a manager who is leaving the league, I believe the commissioner has the right to veto trades that are blatantly unfair, and I trust he or they will do so.
But there is still one potential danger I would like to see addressed. I think that part of our current structure could lead to a lot of managers leaving over time, which will be doubly hard in this league. Specifically, I think that we are drafting and keeping such a high percentage of the player base, both carded players, and prospects, that if an individual has a bad initial draft, it could take five years of fairly successful maneuvering to get back in contention. Now given the divisional system they could always luck into winning a weak division, but it is likely to take a loooong time to turn a lousy team into a good one.
The reason is that in normal keeper drafts, there are a certain amount of "surprises". Guys who a year earlier, no one would have thought was a keeper or a prospect, who are then available in the draft. Guys like Randy Wells, Garrett Jones, McGehee. Or surprises who have cards from the year before, like Feldman, Piniero, Reynolds, Miguel Montero. These are the players that allow owners with a rough first draft to recover, maybe not in a year, but in two or three. But if we have such complete coverage with the amount of players we draft, the amount we keep, and the amount of prospects we have, than all these guys, or at least most will already be drafted, And there will be fewer surprises and less significant ones, leaving to a lack of opportunities to turn your team around quickly. In a way it will be just like MLB, where Kansas City will not become a juggernaut without years of effort and some luck. There is something good about rewarding long term effort and planning,
But I fear in a Strat League that managers are not that patient, and once they realize there is little opportunity to actually improve their teams in the short run, they will leave.
We could change this situation in several ways, One, I think 35 players is too many to have on our rosters, I think we should stick with 30, so there are more players left over who may be next year's surprises. Also I think we should limit keepers to 20, or even 15, rather than 25, leaving enough opportunity for the bottom teams to equalize themselves, and for the top dogs to have to make tough priority decisions. And also possibly limiting the number of prospect picks to 2 per year rather than 4. (This is the change I am least excited about, I like having a good number of players from the minors, but I would change it if it meant bringing balance to the league,)
Currently in a 12 team league there are about 410 cared players not chosen. In a 24 team league with 35 players on roster, there will only be 50, with 30 players on a roster there will be 170.
Currently in a 12 team league if teams keep the maximum, there are 360 players kept, keeping 25 in a 24 team league there will be 600, with 20 there will be 480.
I think part of the idea of this league, is that there will be a shallower talent base, but I think we need to make sure there is enough left over, to give a chance that a manger can improve the quality of their team in a reasonable length of time.