We'll be putting out a minor update on Monday, March 17th.

The update consists of 3 items.

Early Season Position Player Fatigue
The first is we will be expanding the early season dampening period for position players from 10 games to 15 games. This will help with the early season extra inning games and/or early season massive blowouts. We've also slanted the model a bit to provide even more leeway the first few games of the season. This impacts all leagues immediately, so leagues that happen to be in their first 15 games on Monday will see 1 game in which their fatigue shifts in a nonstandard manner (going up a little more than it should).

Tournament of Champions
The next change is we will be removing the automatic game of rest issued in between rounds of the Tournament of Champions. This will NOT impact TOCs that have started play as of Monday's update. Teams that eliminate their opponent in fewer games than their next round's opponent will continue to get games of rest. For example, if Team A sweeps its opponent in 3 games but its next round opponent takes all 5 games to advance, then Team A still receives 2 games of rest.

Defensive Replacement Hierarchy Usage
We've made a modification to how the defensive hierarchy works. For most of you, you won't even notice this.

When the manager looks for defensive replacements, he will scan the hierarchy for the desired position. Starting at the top of the hierarchy, as soon as he finds an available player, that player will enter as the def rep. If he continues down the chart and encounters the current player in the game, he will realize no def rep is needed.

For example, let's say Derek Jeter is the current shortstop in the game. In the team's defensive hierarchy, Adam Everett is listed #1 at SS, then Angel Berroa at #2, then Derek Jeter at #3 and then Alex Gonzalez at #4. It's the 8th inning and time for a def replacement. The manager scans the chart and sees that Everett has already been used as a PH. He then notices that Berroa is available. He'll use Berroa as the def rep at SS even though Berroa is an inferior defensive SS compared to Jeter.

Taking that example a different way, let's say that Everett and Berroa had both been used. The manger then moves down the hierarchy and notices that the #3 def rep is Jeter who is the current player. He then determines no def rep is necessary even though the #4 player is superior to Jeter defensively.

Put another way, the manger now follows the def rep hierarchy exactly how it's configured.

Wrap Up
That covers the 3 changes. All 3 are based on feedback we've received via support tickets or discussed in forum threads.

We continue to work on a much more significant update coming later this Spring. The update focuses on progressive league play but also includes many other great features. We'll make a more formal announcement regarding the details when we get closer to testing time.

Thanks and good luck in all your leagues!