Moneyball Baseball League Chat

Sounds great, thanks Phil.

Here is where we all stand in terms of our salary caps and who is left to sign:

Owner | Salary Cap Remaining | Players left to sign | Arbitration decisions | Cap Per Player
Oldmansmith | $29,716,005.00 | 3 | 7 | $2,971,600.50
Ggyppie | $20,159,900.00 | 3 | 4 | $2,879,985.71
sociophil | $11,435,000.00 | 5 | 3 | $1,429,375.00
mykbr1 | $23,958,000.00 | 9 | 3 | $1,996,500.00
EvilSpock | $5,700,900.00 | 0 | 1 | $5,700,900.00
chilliards | $31,660,385.00 | 5 | 4 | $3,517,820.56
dharmabums | $22,351,050.00 | 0 | 5 | $4,470,210.00
baseballcfo | $18,445,000.00 | 2 | 3 | $3,689,000.00
Paul Long | $12,231,250.00 | 3 | 6 | $1,359,027.78
Paul J Kiggins | $19,154,000.00 | 5 | 4 | $2,128,222.22
TeamNasty | $19,232,500.00 | 0 | 7 | $2,747,500.00
madal | $12,548,650.00 | 2 | 1 | $4,182,883.33

So I guess it's no secret that I'm probably going to go over the salary cap.

I happen to have more than enough relieve pitchers so I'm more than happy to trade one of them for a player with a low salary, as close to $500,000 as possible. Here is the list of players I'm willing to trade:

Andrew Chafin ($4.5M for 2 yrs)
Ryan Tepera ($2.4M for 1 yr)
Adam Ottavino ($2.75M for 2 yrs)
Ryan Helsley ($4.215M for 3.5 yrs)
Cionel Perez ($4.05M for 3 yrs)
Jason Adam ($3.8M for 3.5 yrs)

Please PM me if you are interested. I promise to keep a close eye on my messages.

The Cape Bear Cubbies are claiming back 1B/OF Frank Schwindel off waivers and adding him to roster this year. This now brings my team to 36 total players.

Phil please add Frank to roster
Thank you
Paul

"I still have five picks, so I could potentially filibuster the FA signing period until after the cards are released, so there is that option. I may not have to do that since this draft is SOOOO SLOWWW! "

Phil et al: I think we also badly need to toughen up the rules for the pacing of the draft. Regardless of whether gamesmanship is going on, the impact of the delays are unfair, unpleasant, and unnecessary, and we need to finish the draft before the cards come out. I would propose:

1. Starting the draft with 6 player nominations rather than 4, or even doubling it to 8...
2. Shortening the draft clock for the winning bid from 24 to 12 hours...
3. Creating an expectation that teams will bid within 1 hour of it becoming their turn unless it falls during a certain sleep period (10p-6a Eastern?), or to post on the league chat thread why they will be delayed and when they can reasonably commit to nominating a player (this is really the barest minimum that we should all be doing), and
4. Create a penalty for failing to comply with #3 (can't upbid on the current slate of players?).

Just my 2c.

I'd like to see a "white flag rule". For instance, oldman and I were bidding on Moran. After his last bid, I was done. Under this type of rule, I could post stating I'm done. If after a couple more hours (time to be decided) no one else jumps in, he goes to oldman instead of waiting a full 24 hours.

Frankly I like the pace of free agency--not everything in life needs to go 100 MPH.

Teamnasty, can you give examples of delays that are unfair, unpleasant and unnecessary? I don't see any of these, and would like to know what you are seeing differently.

Madal, I like your white flag proposal and would support some iteration of that.

The delays are too many to mention. There is great variety in terms of response timing when people are up for bid. Often, half a day or more goes by and meanwhile several teams below in the rank order have bid on their players, effectively out of turn. I think when you are up, you should have to bid promptly rather than wait to see who others bid first. The main thing is that we are at risk of having the draft go past the card release date. Some iteration of my proposals , even watered down, is needed IMO to beat the card release clock and to ensure the fairness of people bidding in order when they are supposed to.

Also, shortening the draft would allow us to return to our busy lives in quicker fashion. As of now, it's really long and drawn out, and extends into people's vacations and work trips. I think we should generally work to speed things up so that the draft is confined to a more manageable time frame that competes less with other, more important demands on all of our time.

"I still have five picks, so I could potentially filibuster the FA signing period until after the cards are released, so there is that option. I may not have to do that since this draft is SOOOO SLOWWW! "

Phil et al: I think we also badly need to toughen up the rules for the pacing of the draft. Regardless of whether gamesmanship is going on, the impact of the delays are unfair, unpleasant, and unnecessary, and we need to finish the draft before the cards come out. I would propose:

1. Starting the draft with 6 player nominations rather than 4, or even doubling it to 8...
2. Shortening the draft clock for the winning bid from 24 to 12 hours...
3. Creating an expectation that teams will bid within 1 hour of it becoming their turn unless it falls during a certain sleep period (10p-6a Eastern?), or to post on the league chat thread why they will be delayed and when they can reasonably commit to nominating a player (this is really the barest minimum that we should all be doing), and
4. Create a penalty for failing to comply with #3 (can't upbid on the current slate of players?).

Just my 2c.

I'm not against encouraging people to make their bids and upbids as timely as possible although this draft isn't taking any longer than last year's, just more free agents to sign. I think shortening the draft clock would make it tough for Chris who works nights but we'll see what he says. Your 3rd and 4th suggestions are too harsh in my opinion. Anyone working would have a tough time bidding within an hour wouldn't they? I'm retired so I could probably do it but it would be unfair for people who can't to be penalized.

Again, as the newbie I have limited experience with the league but I think abandoning the 24 hour clock is a bad idea. The pace of the draft makes it workable for both the "busy" and the "idle". I like knowing that if I'm having a busy day at work or whatever I don't have to interrupt that constantly to check on my bids.

If you want to speed it up, simply increase the number of players we're bidding on. Bid on 8 at a time and you will cut the duration of the draft by 1/3 versus having 6 ongoing nominations.

I don't like the white flag rule, because everyone needs to waive it. Who's to say someone doesn't want to jump in late on a player even if they weren't driving the bidding initially?

As for the idea that too many are too slow to nominate, I haven't been bothered by that. But if a majority are bothered by it, we could have a "default" election in the event a agreed-upon time limit isn't met. Simply sort the entire FA pool by WAR, and if a timely election isn't made, throw up the highest ranked player remaining. The question is, what's a reasonable period of time? I don't know, but in my opinion it's way more than an hour.