Hi everybody. Hope you are having a good Memorial Day holiday. I have a normal workday (or as close to normal as college professors get) here in Italy.
I wanted to try to synthesize my conclusions after weeks of thinking about the best way to improve the regulations and restrictions for the Wider Rotation and Platoon League for a second season in case there is a critical mass of people who want it to continue.
Here, based on what some of you have suggested or seemed to be trying to accomplish by other means, is what I have come up with:
Keep the $100 million salary cap.
End the minimum PA/AB and IP levels, and push the maximums up to 550 for PAs and 250 for IP.
End the minimum salary levels, but push the maximum salary levels up to $7 million for position players and $8 million for pitchers.
End the maximum batting average and minimum ERA levels (in other words, any batting average or ERA is now allowed) but KEEP the OPS and WHIP restrictions where they are. Keep also the HR/9 restriction where it is.
WW and trades still allowed within the parameters of the league theme.
Finally, and this might be the biggest innovation:
No cash infusion later, but instead, at the start of the season you pick 6/4 average AAA (real names). These players ONLY would not be subject to the theme league restrictions. BUT - teams may only bring up a maximum of 3 position players and 1 pitcher, or 2 position players and 2 pitchers out of those. AND you cannot move them to your roster until game 110 (before the transaction deadline).
What this means is: you play 110 games with players you drafted, but have chosen, wisely one hopes, 6 position players and 2 pitchers whom you can decide will be more useful than the players you have chosen after 110 games. You can bring up the 3/1 or 2/2 and the others have to remain. Now, you have around 10 games before the transaction deadline at that point to decide that you want to bring back the original draftees that you sent to AAA or instead to get the AAA remaining, sending back one or more of those you just called up.
In other words, once the transaction deadline hits, you will still have a minimum of 3/1 or 2/2 AAA players and whatever originally drafted player you sent to AAA, and are stuck with the AAA you called up. From game 120 on, that is your final roster, either the original 25 leaving all the AAA in limbo as it were, or else the mix of no more than 3 position players and 1 pitcher or 2 position players and 2 pitchers that you called up from AAA, sending down of course an equivalent number of those who played the first 110 games with you.
I realize that this allows for some gaming. We will all be looking for people with 110 good games and with 52 good games in terms of PAs and IPs. But I don't it is such an exact science and in any case I think that this is even somewhat realistic as many RL baseball teams do send players down and bring players up between two-thirds and three-quarters of the way into the season.
Anyway, these are my solutions to expanding significantly the pool of players, creating greater possibilities of excellent hitters and pitchers playing in the league while still making it necessary to use a whole team of 25, since the maximums don't really allow for just 8 starters and 6 pitchers. The AAA rule does the work of the cash infusion in a less confusing, more realistic way I think.
If everyone wants to express their view that is encouraged. But we can't write the rules one haphazard comment at a time. I would call for first, any of you who want to commit to a second year to first say so in the Theme League Forum set up for this league, and then to vote yes or no on these proposals. If there is a critical mass (say at least 10) who want to continue, let's do it, and if these pass with a simple majority of those they can be the rules. If you know you won't continue or don't think you know yet, I would say please do add your comments on these but not your vote for how it will work next season.
If these don't pass, we can re-open the floor to other ideas, but these should be formulated in a comprehensive way as I have tried to do here, since one little piece means having to re-adjust the whole board and doing that by committee is hard.
One last thing: I am letting all of my OL teams finish their seasons. Some with a shot at the post-season, others not. I won't create any more. I am not likely to join any other theme leagues, though I may make an exception for pfattkatt's new league. But the rest of my theme league teams, some not yet having started, will play out.
I want to move into progressives as my main WIS activity. I find them already much more rewarding. I will keep this league up as long as enough of you or others want to join it, as a commitment to something I started. After the second season, if there is one, I will be happy to have other people run it instead of me if anyone wants to, and if not but there is still interest I will keep doing it.
But I have found that a lot of the things that we have tried to do here, and that npjcajun and dhemry you, and others, have tried to accomplish with theme leagues, making rules to get more players that are either ordinary, and even part-time a chance to be on rosters and in lineups and bullpens and rotations, and more real stars who the $80 million salary cap leave out or who are overwhelmed by the advantage given by the SIM to anti-HR deadball era pitching, happens naturally and automatically in progressive leagues, along with other advantages like following the same team over time.
So you want to see Carl Yasztremski, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle ? Or you wish there were a place for Joe Pepitone, Rick Burleson, Luis Sojo, or Bernie Carbo ?
They all play for years in progressives, and their performances are usually closer to what they did or what we would expect from real life.
Just a point.
Have a great holiday.
italyprof