Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Welcome to the new Money Ball Baseball League (MBBL)! This will be our chat thread and official public forum. It’s on this thread that we should have all rules discussions, votes, trash talk, and trades. I will start separate threads for the initial draft and future free agent signings. Here are the links to our league rules and to the league spreadsheet. I have made a few minor clarifications to the rules, the only significant change being the inclusion of the stadium choice as part of the initial draft.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lKjb_-RIB4EOxPtXdbN8t25pBvUUQ5jYzUH0kT2-OEg/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TSeJ_mhSKq9szVan4qaQf2hTtpzmNm0pCtgTVCrFbZg/edit?usp=sharing

Would everyone please PM me your contact information asap?

When the cards are released I will randomize the draft order and contact everyone to set up a start date for our initial draft.

The first season will operate just like every other keeper league on SOM with the following exception, after the draft each manager will have to submit contract offers for each player on their newly formed team. The relevant rules here are in Article I, Article II, and Article IX of the league rules. You will want to review them before drafting. The spreadsheet includes a list of over 1300 MLB players Cot’s service time for this year, as years of control are an important consideration when drafting.

There is serious strategy involved in the initial draft that is missing from traditional SOM keeper drafts. The salary and contract rules change the calculation on who to draft, and when. There is an advantage to drafting players with little service time as you can control them for up to 6 years. For example, Bo Bichette, who has 0.1 year of service time (rounded up to 1 year) will have a card this year at $680,000 ($0.68) that can be controlled for the next six years including the current season. If you drafted Bichette you could conceivably control him for six years for just over $11,000,000 according the salary rules without signing him to a long term contract.

If you drafted Mookie Betts, who is in his last year of arbitration, at $10,190,000 you could extend him for five or more years at $10,190,000 a year (I doubt the league average for the top 25% of right fielders would exceed this amount). If you do not extend him he becomes a free agent at the end of the season.

On the other hand, you may have a high priced veteran like Paul Goldschmidt with a 2020 salary of $8,000,000 ($8.00) who, with 9 years of service time, would be a free agent at the end of the two 2020 seasons.
You will want to think about who is under control, who is worth extending, and who you are willing to let go after one season when drafting.

We will explore the concept of free agency between the first and second seasons.
If you have any questions about the rules, or think you have identified problems or contradictions, let me know so that we can clear them up prior to the draft.

Thanks for signing on to this experiment, and Play Ball!

Phil

If I draft Bo Bichette ($4.44,1 yr service) and Lewis Brinson ($0.50, 2 yr service) and wish to keep both for next year, what will their salaries be next year? And hypothetically, if Bichette's SOMO price is $8.0 for the 2020 card and Brinson remains at $.50m, what would their salaries be the 3rd season? I think I get the concept of players with more than 6 years of service and contract extensions but can't wrap my head around the salary structure for the younger players who are ineligible for extensions.

If a player has 6 or fewer years of service time you can resign them for either the salary listed in Article IX ($0.70 for Brinson in your example) or resign them at their current salary if it is higher ($4.44 for Bichette).

If the player has 3 or more years of service time you can use the contract extension rule to negotiate their salary. In the case of your Bichette example at $8 mil you would have to "buy out" his arbitration years by signing him to a four years extension at $8 million per year.

If SOM gives a young player a high initial price in our inaugural draft, as in your Bichette example, you will be stuck with that price for the duration of their control (3 more years for Bichette in your example), or you can release them in hopes of resigning as a free agent at a lower price.

NOTE ON THIS EXAMPLE: Bichette falls into a small group of draft eligible players with 2 or fewer years of service time. who, under the contract rules, can be resigned at the league minimum salary or their current salary, which ever is higher.

The implication for the draft is that a player like Ronald Acuna with 2 years of service time and priced at $9.03 in the 2019 card set, will probably cost no less than $9.03 for the duration of his control years.

sociophil wrote:If a player has 6 or fewer years of service time you can resign them for either the salary listed in Article IX ($0.70 for Brinson in your example) or resign them at their current salary if it is higher ($4.44 for Bichette).

If the player has 3 or more years of service time you can use the contract extension rule to negotiate their salary. In the case of your Bichette example at $8 mil you would have to "buy out" his arbitration years by signing him to a four years extension at $8 million per year.

If SOM gives a young player a high initial price in our inaugural draft, as in your Bichette example, you will be stuck with that price for the duration of their control (3 more years for Bichette in your example), or you can release them in hopes of resigning as a free agent at a lower price.

The implication for the draft is that a player like Ronald Acuna with 2 years of service time and priced at $9.03 in the 2019 card set, will probably cost no less than $9.03 for the duration of his control years.

So, here's another example: Gary Sanchez started out in 2016 at a SOM salary of $9.33, but then dropped off to $4.76 in 2017 and $1.14 in 2018. So say we started in 2016 and I drafted Sanchez and resigned him for the next 2 years, I would be paying him $9.33 for each of those three seasons, regardless of the SOM pricing in 2017 and 2018. Is this correct?

so just to be clear..we are starting with 2019 cards and using the "Regular cards" not"unleashed" set.....correct

paul j kiggins wrote:so just to be clear..we are starting with 2019 cards and using the "Regular cards" not"unleashed" set.....correct

Article II .02 "Only those players who were issued SOMO cards this year (2020 for 2019 season) are eligible for the inaugural draft. Unleashed cards are not permitted for the inaugural draft."

dharma,

in your Sanchez example. Yes, you'd be paying the $9M (if you extended him back then) even if his SOM value was lower. Hence Phil's comment about not simply releasing players with bad contracts. at least that's how I see it.

dharmabums: So, here's another example: Gary Sanchez started out in 2016 at a SOM salary of $9.33, but then dropped off to $4.76 in 2017 and $1.14 in 2018. So say we started in 2016 and I drafted Sanchez and resigned him for the next 2 years, I would be paying him $9.33 for each of those three seasons, regardless of the SOM pricing in 2017 and 2018. Is this correct?

That is correct, however it depends on his service time at the time of the draft. If you draft a player with 3-5 years of service time then they are arbitration eligible the following year if you choose not to extend their contract.

paul j kiggins: so just to be clear..we are starting with 2019 cards and using the "Regular cards" not"unleashed" set.....correct

That is correct. Oldmansmith2 has cited the appropriate rule.

Paul_Long71: n your Sanchez example. Yes, you'd be paying the $9M (if you extended him back then) even if his SOM value was lower. Hence Phil's comment about not simply releasing players with bad contracts. at least that's how I see it.

The issues you are all observing are a function of the initial draft rules. Without having a full on rotisserie style bidding draft, I had to come up with a way of setting an initial salary structure on the league, and I thought using SOM prices would be an adequate solution. After the draft, each of us will have to make a decision about contract extensions for the players on our rosters as described in Article I of the rules. The rules, as written, essentially force us to extend drafted players or we are essentially signing them to one year contracts for the season. Players with 5 or fewer years of service time would be under team control for the duration of their service time.

I have looked at the rules again and here is how contract scenarios will play out after the draft.

1: Players with 6 or more years of service time can be offered contract extensions at their current SOM salary for any number of years. If you do not offer a contract extension you are deemed to have signed the player to a one year contract and he will become a free agent at the end of the year. For example, if you draft Mike Trout, who has 9 years of service time, at $10.03 mil you can extend him for a decade at that price if you so choose. If you do not sign a contract extension with Mike Trout, not only are you a fool, but he will become a free agent at the end of the year. This is pretty straight forward.

2: Arbitration eligible players with 3-5 years of service time at the time of the draft can be extended for four years at their current SOM salary. This is considered to be a contract "buy out" of the players arbitration years. For example, Alex Bregman has 4 years of service time so if you drafted him you could "buy out" his arb years by signing him to a four year extension at $10.81 mil per year. With these arb eligible players, though, you have the option of waiting on the contract extension because they are still under control. If you waited until the end of the season, Bregman would be eligible for arbitration next year and you would have to use the arb rules in Article IX Section 10 to determine his salary. If he has a crappy year you would have to pay the "major league salary based on service time ($3 mil) or the salary established for his SOMO card for the following (2020) season, whichever is higher". In this case you would be hoping that his SOM price is less than the current $10.81.

3: For players with 2 or few years of service time we may have a problem. They are not arb eligible until their fourth year of service time (rounded up), so they can be resigned on a 1 year contract next season using the contract rules. For a player like Ronald Acuna, who has 2 years of service time (rounded up) that means being stuck with this year's salary for at two years.

I hope this clarifies the salary rules after the draft. I know they are Byzantine.

Phil

Hope you are a patient man Phil lol I think I understand everything except the players with little service. Gonna give you a scenario with my understanding of each step and would appreciate if you can tell me if I'm correct. I draft Bichette and am essentially assuming his current contract at SOMO price of $4.44. He has 1 year of service so ineligible for extension or arbitration but I retain control. We play 1st season and the cap hit is the $4.44. Next year he will have 2 years in but still not extension eligible. Let's say his SOMO price for the 2020 card is now $6.44. His salary for season 2 will still be only $4.44 correct? Finally we get to season 3 and now his SOMO price is $8.44. Bichette will have 3 years of service making him eligible for arbitration but also eligible for contract extension. I can let things remain the same in which case His salary will again be 4.44 but at the end of year he will go to arbitration where his salary could potentially be more than the current 8.44, correct? Or I can sign him to a 4 year extension at $8.44 per year, is this also right? Thanks and sorry if this is covering the same ground.

This is correct!