Summer - Winter Keeper League - RULE CHANGES?

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

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

A moderately common occurrence in our league is the trading of 'top' draft picks to teams with their own picks near the bottom of the draft. I am not particularly concerned with this. But...

I'd like to know the motivation behind this draft rule change. What are we trying to stop, limit, or control? Roster dumping is a known and legal tactic in the real life professional leagues. We just saw the NBA Nets trade Irving and Durant right up against the deadline. That Irving requested a trade (and maybe Durant did too after Irving left) is immaterial.

Why do we want this change? What does it accomplish for the league and managers?

I firmly believe in the concept of rebuilding -- such as my poor local MLB Tigers have been doing for a couple of years now -- however the idea of benching your best players troubles me. This is legal under our rules, so I did not call out lakeviewdave, however I would like to minimize the likelihood of this happening in the future.

I went to add a free agent when a couple of my guys were injured and was startled to see some quality players at the top of the Strat available players list. I'd like to promote a change to that practice. My thought is that if a number of teams were likely to get that coveted #1 pick, then nobody would feel compelled to race to the bottom.

I've had a lottery rule in each of the last few leagues I've started and everybody seems to be racing for the top, instead of the bottom.

PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

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

A moderately common occurrence in our league is the trading of 'top' draft picks to teams with their own picks near the bottom of the draft. I am not particularly concerned with this. But...

I'd like to know the motivation behind this draft rule change. What are we trying to stop, limit, or control? Roster dumping is a known and legal tactic in the real life professional leagues. We just saw the NBA Nets trade Irving and Durant right up against the deadline. That Irving requested a trade (and maybe Durant did too after Irving left) is immaterial.

Why do we want this change? What does it accomplish for the league and managers?

I firmly believe in the concept of rebuilding -- such as my poor local MLB Tigers have been doing for a couple of years now -- however the idea of benching your best players troubles me. This is legal under our rules, so I did not call out lakeviewdave, however I would like to minimize the likelihood of this happening in the future.

I went to add a free agent when a couple of my guys were injured and was startled to see some quality players at the top of the Strat available players list. I'd like to promote a change to that practice. My thought is that if a number of teams were likely to get that coveted #1 pick, then nobody would feel compelled to race to the bottom.

I've had a lottery rule in each of the last few leagues I've started and everybody seems to be racing for the top, instead of the bottom.

I wrote this to both Terry and Dave privately. But, I now see it is in this topic and public.

It IS against the rules as written by Terry. MLB and the union would not allow it. I also think 365 wouldn't agree with it. Just my opinion.

"10) There are no specific rules against "roster dumping." Owners no longer in a pennant race can use their best judgment in determining the makeup of their team, provided that all general roster size limits are met. However, it is expected that all owners will act in the best interests of the game."

Dave hasn't 'roster dumped' - he's kept all of his best players and simply put them in the minors instead of playing them. They're still on his roster.

"Owners no longer in a pennant race can use their best judgment in determining the makeup of their team..."

Dave has made no roster changes, this year, and had all of his stars down in the minors from opening day. His team salary is ~$36M - fully $60M less than the next lowest. I am not calculating what salary is down in the minors, but I wouldn't be surprised if it approaches $100M. This wasn't a tactic employed after he was no longer in the pennant race, it was a tactic when he was 0 - 0 like everyone else - intended by his own admission to arrange drafting 1st while keeping the strength of his team at the same time.

"it is expected that all owners will act in the best interests of the game."

I am going to interpret this as best interests of the Summer Winter keeper league more so than the game. It is decidedly unfair to the other managers and perverts the level league framework Cochran tries to create and enforce. This tactic is not competitive and is at odds with the best interests of SWKL as it undermines the managers who have lesser teams and deserve to have higher draft picks after poor winning records. It also undermines the other good teams who are competing in good faith and will have to compete with Dave next year when he has both drafted 1st and brought all of his stars back up.

Finally, MLB does not allow teams carte blanche sending players to the minors except for injury / surgery rehab. This is roughly referred to as optioning and there are strict limits pretty much at all times with the most recent rule changes. Mistreatment and unreasonable retaliatory punishment of players is defended by the union and creates a lot of discontent with the rest of the team for management and ownership (which do not exist in our league).

I bet if Terry asked 365 what they think of this, they would say, "It is your league and you can do what you want, but it wouldn't be ok with us."

The desire to win (championships) is a baseline for all managers - all competitors. There is a long history of owners, teams, players, and even fans who want to win at all costs and will do anything to win. Breaking the spirit of competitive fair play isn't ok. There is an equally long history of fixes, ringers, and things like PEDs. Leagues and authorities contend with money / power and struggle to control competitive fair play. Also something that doesn't exist for us in SWKL. And, yet.

What are we going to do?

Roster update to compete, its not clear in the rules and you even stated as much, I would not have setup my team the way it was and possibly even drafted differently, live and learn for future I guess.

Still not addressed - why is not the best player not always being drafted, if being competitive the most important thing? Answer - building for future and not looking to improve for the current year, no different than sitting better players because one is looking for better draft picks and players the following year and beyond.

Have a look at FA pool still plenty of players that were on rosters or could be on rosters that would improve the teams, but no mention of that, I wonder why that is? If your going to call out one person, like you did, call out others as well.

Also, since you brought it up, there is no lottery in C'est La Vie and Deja Vu leagues, not even a whisper about it.

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.

The rule in our league addresses roster dumping not tanking. Most keeper leagues have a form of this rule. It's there to recognize that a keeper league needs to allow managers to trade current talent away for future picks and/or players. That's acceptable and yes everyone does it. However that rule doesn't mean that everything covered under the fair play policy is out the window. Tanking, intentionally throwing games, is still not allowed. Not playing Freeman and Betts is throwing games at least in my opinion. I'm sure lakeviewdave will disagree. It is true that he has not changed his team makeup during the season so he has not violated the collusion section. Good to see that he's stated that he's willing to do whatever the league decides on how it wants to run and voted yes on the lottery. What I'd like to see is some rule that would prevent this from happening going forward. Like I said in my previous post a bottom 4 lottery isn't going to solve the problem if there are people willing to tank to try and get into the bottom four. Finally I just want to say that this post is not meant to be personal in any way to lakeviewdave. Just wanted to give my opinion on tanking in general.

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.

The rule in our league addresses roster dumping not tanking. Most keeper leagues have a form of this rule. It's there to recognize that a keeper league needs to allow managers to trade current talent away for future picks and/or players. That's acceptable and yes everyone does it. However that rule doesn't mean that everything covered under the fair play policy is out the window. Tanking, intentionally throwing games, is still not allowed. Not playing Freeman and Betts is throwing games at least in my opinion. I'm sure lakeviewdave will disagree. It is true that he has not changed his team makeup during the season so he has not violated the collusion section. Good to see that he's stated that he's willing to do whatever the league decides on how it wants to run and voted yes on the lottery. What I'd like to see is some rule that would prevent this from happening going forward. Like I said in my previous post a bottom 4 lottery isn't going to solve the problem if there are people willing to tank to try and get into the bottom four. Finally I just want to say that this post is not meant to be personal in any way to lakeviewdave. Just wanted to give my opinion on tanking in general.

I completely agree with all thé points in that post.

Roster update to compete, its not clear in the rules and you even stated as much, I would not have setup my team the way it was and possibly even drafted differently, live and learn for future I guess.

Still not addressed - why is not the best player not always being drafted, if being competitive the most important thing? Answer - building for future and not looking to improve for the current year, no different than sitting better players because one is looking for better draft picks and players the following year and beyond.

Have a look at FA pool still plenty of players that were on rosters or could be on rosters that would improve the teams, but no mention of that, I wonder why that is? If your going to call out one person, like you did, call out others as well.

Also, since you brought it up, there is no lottery in C'est La Vie and Deja Vu leagues, not even a whisper about it.

I'm not that opposed to the lottery for the first four picks. But, it shouldn't go into effect until (real time) 2024. Dave was 47 - 115 in the Summer season and we've made it halfway through the Winter (Dave, 18 - 69). He's locked up 1st pick in the draft at this stage and it took us >75% of the combined seasons to have a problem with it.

While I do believe it is (was?) wrong, rule changes shouldn't be retribution when we all blew it not calling him out until now.

And, having said that, if the only reason we're considering this draft order lottery is because of Dave finding a 'Fumblerooskie' in our rules he could exploit, the remedy is to be more diligent with our competitiveness enforcement. Not punishing every future 'bad' team with having a 50 - 75% chance of losing the 1st or 2nd pick in the draft.

Again, just my opinions. Dave has earned his #1 draft position, we take it upon ourselves to be more explicit in the competitiveness rules and enforcements, and we leave the draft the way it is.

Dave has brought up the better players. In the interest of fairness he should keep playing the same team he has all year. The Winter Wonders have played all 12 of their games against the weaker version of the Red Oaks. The other 3 teams that are in that division have games remaining with him.

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.

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

"I'm open to suggestions about how to "improve" roster management in any easily enforceable manner."
This is my suggestion. We replace the roster dumping rule with this:
There are no specific rules against "roster dumping." Owners no longer in a pennant race can use their best judgment in determining the makeup of their team, provided that all general roster size limits are met. However managers are expected to adhere to all other things covered in the fair play policy of Stratomatic. In particular, intentionally losing games by not playing good players or other similar methods will not be tolerated.

Like I said in previous posts, if tanking is allowed people can just tank to get into the bottom 4 and that's just as bad if not a worse situation. Let's just make it clear in the rules we're not tanking going forward.