Summer - Winter Keeper League - SEASON 31 - LOADING TEAMS

This has been a thoughtful discussion, although we still need 2 more YES votes for the amendment to pass.

My takeaways from recent comments are:
1. There are a wide variety of views as to what is appropriate in planning for success after the current card set
2. Dave has "earned" that #1 pick based on his record in the 2021 card set, so any rule change should become effective with the 2022 card set
3. Other teams have already feasted on his bench bums, so why penalize his opponents in the remaining games by making them earn their victories?

I agree with #1 and will continue to go in and out of rebuilding cycles to try to deal with the vagaries of MLB player performance and my own skill (or lack of skill) at spotting future talent. I will, however, always field my best possible squad, even if I then let HAL manage them from day to day in the down cycle.

I also agree with #2. While I don't like the choices Dave made with his team, he could still reasonably argue that they were not explicitly banned under the current league rules. I'm open to suggestions about how to "improve" roster management in any easily enforceable manner.

As to #3, I'm not sure it's that big a deal. Even with his top 3 guys on the field now, Dave's $91 mil roster total is still the lowest in the league. Poorly funded teams are still gonna lose most of their games against well funded teams.

We have had a mature and professional discussion that included calling out Dave directly to which he responded appropriately (in my opinion) by bringing his 'best' players up and starting them. As Terry summarized above, we are trying to arrive at the best organizational league framework to move forward with.

Oldmansmith2 has mentioned having 'better' criteria for how roster management from year to year is accomplished without tanking. To me, this is very uncertain even if I feel that Dave's roster management went too far. As an aside, I will point out that Dave's roster management has been for the full, current SWKL cycle that included the recent Summer season. Dave's team went 116-46 with a team salary of ~$163M in Winter 2022 (1 year ago) followed by 47-115 with a team salary of ~$83M in Summer 2022 (six months ago). These were two different card sets. But, a solid core of his team was kept at the same time he did a full pivot to a rebuilding stance including the plan to acquire the #1 pick in our upcoming drafts by virtue of his team's severe losing records (presently 19-71). It is not clear to me when it was appropriate for us to have noticed this or what kind of league rules would stop it. As I mentioned before, that it took us >75% of the combined seasons to notice and call it out is a failure. But, a failure in what way? I don't know what kind of rules could have stopped it or when we would have stopped it (before last season's 47 - 115 seemingly).

Dave's motivation from some of his remarks is a desire to win (he's our most successful manager historically with two three-peats in ~10 seasons - JF has been the long standing star of SWKL). But, Dave also comments on what he views is questionable team / roster management by others that is essentially tanking in his opinion. I think I (denorien) am one of the culprits with my unconventional drafting and very few asymmetrical trades. Dave suggests that the best player should be drafted in our FA drafts to validate appropriate competitiveness (as an example) if we're going to accuse him of managing his team unfairly.

I think we need more perspectives from the league than just the few of us who have commented so far. In particular, we need Dave to weigh in on his reasoning. But, also play some Devil's advocate to discuss how we can develop rules for this kind of team management if three or four managers (out of 12) might be doing it at the same time. Maybe Dave doesn't think anything needs to change and having two or three teams vying for 120 losses is an acceptable possibility?

The uncertainty you mention is exactly what I'm trying to stop by having it clearly in the rules that tanking will not be tolerated. Maybe by uncertainty you mean how are we going to recognize that tanking is going on when as you say there are more than one way to tank. Not sure, I'll let you clarify. But definitely that's what I was trying to do with the rule change suggestion -- remove all doubt on how tanking to get better draft picks is looked upon in this league. The one thing that's not getting much discussion is something I've brought up, that tanking is clearly against stratomatic policy under penalty of them banning a player if it doesn't stop.

The uncertainty you mention is exactly what I'm trying to stop by having it clearly in the rules that tanking will not be tolerated. Maybe by uncertainty you mean how are we going to recognize that tanking is going on when as you say there are more than one way to tank. Not sure, I'll let you clarify. But definitely that's what I was trying to do with the rule change suggestion -- remove all doubt on how tanking to get better draft picks is looked upon in this league. The one thing that's not getting much discussion is something I've brought up, that tanking is clearly against stratomatic policy under penalty of them banning a player if it doesn't stop.

Unless I am mistaken, SOM regarding tanking only applies to normal leagues and not keeper leagues for the most part. I think that say one had Siri and Freeman and was losing and then drops those players from 25-28 man roster, that is what SOM is referring to, dropping your best players. SOM does not know your 40 man roster to determine a fair play policy for keeper leagues.

As far as what a keeper league can do, only thing that comes to mind is that all players with a salary more than x.xx (perhaps 5.00 or 4.00) must be on your 25-28 man roster at all times, unless injured and then put back on once injury is over. I know some teams have more players at a position that 4.00 or 5.00, so some stipulation probably needed here.

As far as what a keeper league can do, only thing that comes to mind is that all players with a salary more than x.xx (perhaps 5.00 or 4.00) must be on your 25-28 man roster at all times, unless injured and then put back on once injury is over. I know some teams have more players at a position that 4.00 or 5.00, so some stipulation probably needed here.

Yes, something like that might work as far as who is on a roster. There is also the question of who is in the starting lineups or the starting rotation. Perhaps if lineups and rotations are actively managed, then they must be organized with the obvious intent of winning. Otherwise, they should not be actively managed, and the lineups and rotations should be blank, with HAL making the in-season decisions.

Fair Play policy

Please be respectful of your league-mates throughout the season so that all may have a pleasant environment in which to play. The following behavior will not be tolerated:
Tanking. You may not intentionally throw games, under any circumstances.
Salary dumping. You may not jettison talent from your team, hold a "fire sale", or otherwise make wholesale changes to your roster that reduces the overall salary value of your team.
Collusion. You may not conspire with another manager, by making trades or by changing your team settings when playing against that team, to achieve any sort of anti-competitive goal, e.g. to help a team win, or to gang up on another team.
Offensive language. You may not communicate with other managers in a manner that they could find offensive.
If you violate any of the above rules, at our discretion, Strat-O-Matic.com will seize control of your team and you will not be eligible for a refund. Repeat offenses will result in a ban from ever playing the game again.

Here is the fair play policy. The example you give of dropping Siri and Freeman in an autodraft league is salary dumping. My guess is that at some point in the history of keeper leagues someone realized that teams should be able to trade off star players for future value and that would not be considered to be the same as salary dumping. The rule that you see in most keeper leagues about there being no particular rules about roster dumping was made to address this. As far as the rest of the fair play policy (tanking, collusion, offensive language) not applying to keeper leagues, I would have to disagree. Could a league be formed where all the owners agreed to allow tanking, collusion, and bad language? I suppose there could but that's not the case here. Anyways I'll take denorien's suggestion and let others give their opinions on the subject.

Trying to stop uncertainty is impossible.The more rules that are applied ,the more rules there are to be broken and stretched. This is not a social networking site , we can’t apply logarithmic censors on rosters and player settings , we do not have the technology and I prayer no one has the time or inclination to personally audit eleven managers and their rosters. The “ four team”
solution should do the trick , and if more than four teams begin throwing games then I guess a damn near majority of our owners would be OK with tanking , in which case what the hell are we talking about

Since I'm the new guy in this league, I will try not to offend anyone. My apologies if I do.

A) The suggestion of requiring managers to place all players with a salary of 4/5 mil on their active SOM rosters, to stop tanking or reduce tanking is disturbing and totally unrealistic

B) I have 2 players over 5 mil in the FA pool. Abreu and Seager. I'm not tanking (currently 42-48) in my division. They are there because they both suck!! Their cards are good but their results are mediocre. Abreu is hitting .133 with O HR and Seager is hitting .188 plus I was losing consistently. So I dropped them, Swanson is doing much better at short and I don't need Abreu. Next years card should be better. All my starters are above 200 BA. without them.

C) We need to allow a roster or 28 instead of waiting until game 132 to do it. The die has been cast for most teams by game 132 and is no help to teams out of the race. If you want to help struggling teams, give us the two extra players from the start of the season.

D) I have played 37 out of my 40 players so far this season. I'm constantly adjusting my team to fit my opponent. All the players not on my SOM roster are hitting below .200 except for Carlson and they are there because of their production not because of tanking. Seager was brought up today because of injuries and will go back down in 4 games.

E) Just to clarify I was 6 games behind Dave in the race for the #1 draft pick before the Winter Season started.

F) I vote NO on the Lottery as I feel it will create another can of worms - Draft picks should be determined by combined won/loss records of the two seasons with the hope that fair play will prevail. That is the only way bottom dwellers can ever catch up to the top dogs with the Highest player salaries.

Just my thoughts - Best of luck to all the rest of the Winter season

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

* * * TO BE EFFECTIVE WITH THE 2022 CARD SET * * *

During the 1st round of any annual free agent draft or supplemental draft, the draft order of the first 4 picks will be determined by lottery.

tcochran - YES
jflatour99 - YES
lakeviewdave - YES
willmurr - YES
oldmansmith - YES
Ironwill - YES
kihoover - YES

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

* * * TO BE EFFECTIVE WITH THE 2022 CARD SET * * *

During the 1st round of any annual free agent draft or supplemental draft, the draft order of the first 4 picks will be determined by lottery.

tcochran - YES
jflatour99 - YES
lakeviewdave - YES
willmurr - YES
oldmansmith - YES
Ironwill - YES
kihoover - YES
coachteel924 - NO

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

* * * TO BE EFFECTIVE WITH THE 2022 CARD SET * * *

During the 1st round of any annual free agent draft or supplemental draft, the draft order of the first 4 picks will be determined by lottery.

tcochran - YES
jflatour99 - YES
lakeviewdave - YES
willmurr - YES
oldmansmith - YES
Ironwill - YES
kihoover - YES
coachteel924 - NO
denorien - NO

We have seven YES.

A couple details to be clear about. Draft picks are frequently traded.

1. When will the draft pick lotteries occur in relation to the drafts being held (more or less)? Days in advance; hours in advance?
2. Are we introducing any kind of trade freeze pertaining to draft picks as part of this process?
3. Will 'contingent' trades involving draft picks be allowed? Eg. XYZ trade that includes a 'lottery' draft pick before the lottery which adjusts or is canceled depending on the outcome of the lottery?