Winter Draft Second Round

Martin Perez is a good example of a need for a 40-man roster, or something similar.

He's been pitching in the majors for several years now. Not well, mind you, but he's thrown lots of innings.

Connor had Perez. His projections were not one of his best 5 starters.

Under current rules, Connor could've held onto Perez forever, waiting for him to turn the corner and get a favorable projection, with no penalty.

Instead, Connor dealt him to me, where I have been using him.

But how many players are out there like Martin Perez, wasting away on someone's reserve roster when they could be useful for another team? Yeah, the other team could trade for the guy, like I got Perez, but Connor could've put an exorbitant price on Perez because there's no incentive to trade him.

With some type of 40-man roster, or some way to get these prospects moving, it fosters player movement. If Connor had been faced with the prospect of losing Perez for nothing in the Rule V, he may have been more likely to move him via trade. Player movement should, theoretically, go up, and it may not even come in the form of Rule V draft picks. It may come in the form of players like Perez, guys who are traded to avoid the team from losing them for nothing.

This probably makes no sense. I'm rambling. Friday brain.

Hate the idea of limiting trading of any summer picks. I assume everyone knew I would feel that way though. Lol.

Any limit on trading picks reduces the enjoyment for me.

I actually agree with you because locking the first does not lower the value of draft picks.  Adding a round just keeps 4 picks trad-able.  My thoughts on locking the 1st was to address a separate issue.  I'd rather add a round without locking any more rounds.  This would just be a good time to institute other safeguards.

A long standing argument was bad teams stay bad because they trade away their top picks.  Maybe we could just add a MLBSA rule of no trading back to back 1's or you can't trade a 1 AND 2 in the same draft.  

Locking 1st round Summer Draft isn't JUST about protecting GMs from themselves. It's also protecting any potential future GMs from being at an additional disadvantage. It's also part of the process of fixing systemic power balance issues. I don't understand why it would be less fun. My proposal gives you the same amount of resources. You have been involved in multiple leagues with deep rosters and deep drafts so you should still find value in having additional picks even if that aren't 1st rounders. If you want a top talent from an incompetent GM, just wait a year and trade for them. It's not going to limit your ability to try to gain advantages in trades. It's going to change the way GMs view draft picks. This will apply to pick swaps and player trades. Everyone will adapt and everyone will still have fun.

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I don't want to go to a 40 man roster. The idea that "any other system is wrong" (paraphrasing) is also just kinda garbage. I understand the argument that for some that part of the fun is the multitude of decisions required to run a team that way. My contention has always been that the 40-man roster system is in place because it's been there for so long, not because it's actually the best way to manage rosters. Simulation baseball in it's more simplistic form doesn't have rosters representing all the minor league levels. We're not managing injuries at all minor league levels. We're running a different league. I truly don't see the need for extra tasks when we don't have an infinite roster size and multiple full rosters to manage.

There HAS to be a system to closes the loophole of GM stashing MLB regulars or stars for fucking FREE! Gregory Polanco sat on Brian's reserve roster for 4 damn years after he became an MLB regular (until he was trade last offseason). For everyone in this league that has ever espoused a sentiment towards wanting to be more realistic, and I mean ever, this is a huge issue. This represents a massive imbalance in resources. MASSIVE. If you're telling me the only way to fix this is with a 40-man roster system, I'll fucking bite the bullet and do the work. I just can't imagine that's the only acceptable option.

Sean, I liked your post until I saw this paragraph. Then I unliked it.

What you and others are advocating is basically fantasy league socialism. Like if Bernie Sanders were our Commissioner instead of Joe. The underlying sentiment is, "I don't like how guys have a ton of talent on their reserve rosters, so we want a rule to re-distribute that talent to us."

Spoiler alert: It's not going to work. The GMs here who have a ton of talent (and I'm not considering myself in that group) are in that position because they are savvy, put in hours doing draft research, and make beneficial trades. If we add some rule or roster provision to make reserve rosters more "liquid", all that's really going to happen is those GMs are going to trade non-essential talent from their rosters to the weaker GMs for more picks and prospects. They aren't going to give up the quality prospects you guys want.

It's like all the business you hear each election cycle about taxing the rich more to make them pay their "fair share." Newsflash: those people are rich because they know how to manage their money, have people hired to protect it for them, and won't hesitate to move it back offshore until conditions improve in the U.S.


The things some of you guys think 40-man rosters are going to do are not actually going to work out the way you think.


JIm

Actually over the last few years, I've been more of a "balance fun vs. realism" type of GM. I think overall, NSBL excels at having a realistic feel and replicating all of the major areas of being a GM, while avoiding parts of the game that would add a ton of extra hours, and not really make it any more fun. That's where I think we're heading with this discussion.

Keep in mind, you would have a hell of a good minor league system if you didn't change your team's direction 2x every season. And it didn't even take a major rule change to pull it off.


Xoxo,

JIm

Jim is right in that not a lot of talent goes in MLBSA's Rule V draft, but I know some players got traded BECAUSE of the 40 man crunch. So even if they aren't going on the draft, they're still moving because of the draft.

Im against any rules that restrict me to run my team. I would argue if we add rounds to the draft that the 1st round pick becomes more valuable in a trade due to the pool being less talented. If you decided to go to the nba rule where you cant trade a 1st round pick 2 years in a row i dont think thats a horrible thing to protect future GMs.

This is the point to take from the rule V discussion because I think this result is what most people realty want, which is more GM involvement and player movement.  It's not the actual need for the draft, its the threat that makes GM's more involved and proactive.  

I think our league does not need all the overhead of 40 man and options to institute a similar effect.  This is a notorious draft and horde league, expanding the reserve roster has created the opposite effect of a 40 man limit.  I think we should not continue to expand rosters if we decide to add a round to either draft.  Real roster limits would probably produce enough of the rule V effect for most players.  Granted it will do nothing for stashing, but I don't believe the quantity is worth any legislation.

I love the ability to keep the stars and franchise players on one team for the length of their career.

I also love having a need for the fringe players, the 5th starters and 4th outfielders, to move around. Make teams make decisions on those guys.

So, if I had my druthers, I would have longer LTC's to keep the stars, and somehow find a way to spur movement for the fringe guys, the Martin Perez's of baseball. The guys who are 30 YO, been moving around the majors for 5 years, but 2nd year in the sim.

Realistic or not, I don't care. To me, that's fun.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong direction.  The top end of the player pool is not the problem, over priced at times but overall pretty well set.  The problem is with the other half of the player pool.  The cost of those players is typically the same as high end talent which means you effectively pay more for less talent than you do for top talent.

yes, thats what I meant.   its about forcing a decision. 
and yes impacting the mid to low end talents. 

players like Ben Gamel should be floating around and cost league minimum not stupid 2 year deals for $3.5 million.

Then I would suggest GMs have to slightly alter their draft strategies. What I have seen is that the majority of GMs only draft high-end prospects that either project as TOR starters, or 5-tool players. The problems with that strategy are:

1. the talent and tools are very raw
2. the prospects are years away from the show; it's like risky investing in futures in the stock market
3. because of 1) and 2), there's a TON of things that can go wrong along the way

Now, contrast that with what I do. I primarily target guys no lower than High-A, and I prefer guys already putting up big numbers at AA. The negative is that I'm less likely to hit on a superstar. But the positives are that I'm picking guys much more likely to actually make the show and contribute.

And if you look at my projected 2020 roster, once again, I don't even need FA to field a good team. Because I'm filling the "fringe" roster spots internally, I can usually be a player for one big FA addition, despite having only a fraction of the cap space of other teams, because I can put it all to one guy, rather than needing to spread it across 6-7 free agents.

This isn't just to blow my own draft strategy- it's not perfect- but it does show that you don't have to waste tons of cap space- or change the NSBL draft rules- just to address "fringe" guys. GMs just need to quit being so damn greedy by insisting on drafting raw, toolsy BA Top-200 guys with every damn pick.


JIm

So to be clear then... you feel there is one way to build a winning team in the league.
If you want to build your team by another method you should expect to not be able to compete. That is what you guys are saying, right?

actually, I'd be fine with reducing the max roster size myself.

if not losing good players for any reason, and a specific style of draft strategy is what the league is about, I honestly don't know why you bother with contracts, salaries and free agency.
Just draft everything, keep forever. Bottom teams go into a draft lottery for Amateur Draft, and then all teams go into free agent draft with teams that narrowly missed playoff getting bump.

I would like to add this, years ago, before I joined the league the first time. Joe and I were chatting in MLBSA about this league... and maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I thought he said he was interested in some changes coming to the NSBL. This is why I keep offering my opinion on possible changes. If it truly is the majority feeling that the league stays exactly the same... then so be it, I'll STFU and I'll draft the way you guys want me to, and I'll play in the shallow pool in free agency where the Twins can afford to play. Thats fine.
I've been operating under the impression that this was a league that was looking at some changes. There is a very large silent contingent of the league, so...