Or just give up, say "screw it" and drop the team.

I really dont think anything should change as far as the draft.

Inverting the draft order for the top 20 is troublesome to me. Doing so creates a worse problem than the one it solves. If this rule were in place, then the last place team would presumably actually be the worst. They should have the 1st pick, but they end up with the 20th which will not be a player on the same level as the #1. And a decent team gets the unfair advantage of the #1 pick. This will result in keeping the poor teams down.

How many worlds really have the bad tankers? I honestly dont know. Now, if it works how I think it will, private worlds will be able to get rid of these guys anyhow. If you know you will be booted, you wont tank. Rebuilding is fine. It happens in real life, and is fine in HBD.

Depends on what you call "bad tankers". I think a guy who could win 82 and wins 68 is a "bad tanker". And worlds are full of them. They're "rebuilding". A team that could win 82 might win 86 and sneak into the playoffs with effort/couple of breaks. Or, when they're 37-39, they can fold up the tent and win 68. Too many win 68.

Molotov Cocktails- the Original Anti-Tanking Idea.

At the end of the day, owners will game whatever system that's out there. I've got a tanker(the one detailed earler) hiding behind "I've never had the worst record". And he hasn't. But the difference between picks 1 and 3 is neglible. Forcing tankers to try to come in 10th to get first pick(and 11th will land them 16th pick) might convince them that it's not worth it. And the team with the worst record, who'll pick 10th, might get the idea that being exceptionally bad isn't such a great idea and do a little something to not be the absolute worst.

I like inverting the non playoff teams. Or a lottery system. The problem/difference between baseball and this is when you draft a guy you can see what his potential is. There is a number attached to it. In r/l you can see the kid has skills, but there isnt a number attached to it. I would love to see a lottery or inverting the non playoff teams.

A lottery has plenty of potential downsides. Most notably that the owners have absolutely no control(or idea how it's determined) of their fate.

Inverting the non-playoff teams is better but there are legitimately bad teams out there. Whether it's because of injury, bad decisions or just superior competition, some teams are not capable of making a playoff run. That's not to say they can't win 60+ but they just don't have the talent to get over the hump. The legit weak will remain weak along with the tanker weak. And the tanker weak know how to get better using the IFA process.

You have no idea how a lottery is determined? Really?

I like the lottery because non-playoff teams get treated equal No "advantage" to being 32nd vs 13th.

There's no system that will convince the idiot that thinks spending $100 for a crack at a World Series in the 5th season is the way to go. But, at least this randomizes the reward from 1st to 19th pick, and anything in between.

IFAs are not a tanker reward, in my opinion. Anyone can have that budget, anyone can potentially see the star. You could have a $120M player budget and still have the guns to go after IFAs.

Yeah, I know how a lottery works. Do you trust WifS, the site with 7 game series in the middle of the season, schedules that force you to play 6 interleague games against one team and has never corrected the player number codes, to be able to handle a fair lottery? Or, like me, do you think the same 3 teams would win each year?

I'm hoping they can cope with a random number generator.

Or, at least, there is entertainment value in a "the draft lottery is RIGGED!!!" thread started by Arlen.

I just think that tinkering with the draft is a dangerous slope. I think we can agree that a cap on prospect payroll would effectively end the monopolization of the IFA market, I believe that should be set at $25M. That leaves enough room for 1-2 big time IFA signings an enough over to sign all of your draft picks, assuming they go conservative and sign slot guys (and if you are rebuilding, there is no reason to pursue anyone but slot guys).

As for the draft problem, it is a simple fix, give the commish the ability to remove any owner who is deemed tanking. The only problem I see from this is commissioners abusing the privilege/getting power hungry and removing someone who is rebuilding, but is mistaken for tanking. All in all, I am inclined to believe that commissioners would be the righteous ones and not abuse their power to remove anyone without a discussion with the unruly owner first, but that me just be wishful thinking.

Removing the owner = closing the barn door after the horse is out.

Draft lottery = horse SHOULD stay in the barn.

IFA, again, has nothing to do with win/loss record.

I'm against capping the IFA budget but I think it would solve some of the problem. My biggest complaint against capping it is that it is possible to build a very good team with a low payroll. Forcing owners to "waste" cap money isn't a good thing. If a guy can win 90 with a 40m budget, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling him that the extra 20m is just going to waste.

I don't really think it's hard to see the difference between tanking and rebuilding. There are a lot of warning signs. I think it's much easier to tank and go unnoticed than it is to rebuild and be called out as a tanker.

I hope they don't ever decide to penalize transferring budget...I'm just not a good enough budget-setter to deal with that. I always end up transferring a million here or there because I either end up needing money to promote players or need extra cash to sign prospects.

I realize that there are some truly bad teams that are trying to get better. Perhaps having a lottery for the bottom ten teams to get the 1-10 draft positions, and then a separate lottery for teams #11-20. All top ten picks are pretty valuable assets, so I don't think dropping to the 10 spot as the worst team is that much of a penalty.

The problem is there for nontankers as well. All non-playoff teams have an incentive to lose. Even the good owners who are paying attention know that losing will help them in the long run if they know they will miss the playoffs. If we put in a lottery, this incentive would disappear.

As for the 40m team that can win 90, I don't think those teams should drive the logic for everyone else. I bet there are far more teams losing semi-intentionally than there are cheap teams that can compete. You can only compete with a superlow payroll for a season or two at the most. If we set the cap at 30m (which is still very high) then the 40m team would still have to spend 60m on payroll. With 60m on payroll, there are plenty of other worthwhile categories to spend your money on.