waiting for good projections or stashing in minors ideas

ok, but options are just buying more minor league years... so when do you have to pay the first option? age 22?? im simplifying, but ok. if you decide its age 22 plus 3 options. then ok everyone on active roster by 25, or released.

I think its much less subjective. follow the realism. when a player is added to 40 man roster in real life, it triggers an event. guy is on real life 40 man, and receives a Zips projection, you have 1 "option" to decide.

I feel like we’ve had this discussion for a few years running and there doesn’t seem to be a real evaluation of how many players are really affected by this idea. Last year, I tried to go back in the drafts over the past couple of years to recreate what options/rule 5 might look like (with the ideas being thrown about) in a couple divisions, and it was just more work for some junk players. Like the GOP, I can’t show any of my work, but it took me a lot of time for absolutely no payoff. I saw maybe 5 players that would really be guys who should have been called up (Ronald Acuna stuck out like a sore thumb) but owners would rather sign an average FA to get by and try to get a better team around those guys later...which like Joe alludes to is exactly how MLB teams operate. I think there are MLB caliber players on everyone’s reserve roster, but the system we use a) doesn’t injure guys to the extent MLB players are or for the season, which would necessitate more callups b) closely packs player projections so close that it can be easier to pick up a FA for $1.1m rather than burn a year on a guy who *might* be better later so as to save $$ down the line, c) our player projections are static, where MLB teams may see a dude who is tearing up AA ball and thinks he can be the key to a Championship Run; we are stuck with how that dude was viewed by Dan Sz in December in his Mom’s basement that is overrun with felines d) we have 1/3 of the teams who are likely to finish with less than 70 wins, so what’s the incentive to bring a GUY up. Oh, and, if you want a FA who is decent, he needs a 2 year+ deal, which might effectively block you from wanting to give a prospect a shot even if he has ok Zips b/c you’re already paying the FA (like with my team - I sIgned Jedd Gyorko b/c he had a marginally better projection than Isan Diaz, now I may be blocking Diaz) One advantage I can see with our system should be that every win does earn you more payroll down the line, so it should be in everyone’s best interests to fight for wins, although we have seen teams take advantage of that too.

TL,DR - let’s focus our/my energy elsewhere

EDIT — I realize what I wrote wasn’t very clear. The Rule 5/options stuff was a lot of work for very minimal change in guys who anyone would want. The Acuna note was that there were maybe 5 players who were clear MLB players being stashed in the minors. I think Bregman was another.

I've actually gone on record saying I would be in favor of completely getting rid of the CE system and saying you get your guys for 6 years then they are free agents. But then letting those teams be automatically entered into the bidding war. But now that we have open T1 bidding that's not as much of a thing. Still helps for the other 95% of the players though.

I'm not a fan of teams getting to keep players throughout their most productive years with the player never getting the option to test the waters. When you look at CE numbers (which have gotten better under Ian's system) and what players make in free agency, there is a very small number of players that would sign a CE between their 5th and 6th year.

oh, I could get behind something like this..  if you stash a player in the minors after they have been added to an MLB roster, you forfeit any contract extension beyond year 6.
or some thing like that.   exact words would have to be fleshed out.   

Ohhhh....now we are cooking with fire!

I’m much more in favor of limiting control time for a player than I am of telling a GM who they have to roster. Conner’s idea is certainly more reality based. We can look at the often referenced Gregory Polanco as a RL example of which players tend to sign extension and when. We can also look at Gregory as fine example of the risk/reward that comes with offering that exetension early in a player’s career.

heheh I love that you guys have adopted the narrative that a rule that asks you to make a decision on a player who is 25 years old or has been in the minors for 6 years is Forcing you to manage your team a certain way.
its REALISM! Y'all love realism!!

Not in favor of Sean's proposal.

I think any rule that causes people from being able to draft the way they want, because the rules favor another way, is a flawed rule. A rule like that definitely favors owners who like to draft older players than owners who like to draft younger players with possibly higher upside.

If a drafts a 1st round kid that doesn't sign and instead goes to college, then that eats into 3 of a possible 5 years of a team's pre-mandatory use. Then that player better become useable by their third year after being drafted again or you're going to start to lose years of useable control.

And what happens if you don't use them? Do you have to pay their salary despite having no intention of using them that year?

Rules that specifically target one specific type of owner is discriminatory and makes the league less fun for them. And yes, I am one of them.

I agree that player movement adds more fun, but serious question... why are people so gung ho on trying to tell others how to manage their own team? People act like its hurting the league when its not. On a list of 20 things that may be hurting the league, this doesn't even land in the Top 10.

It would be interesting to see look at each team, see how they built their rosters, and figure out which strategy produces the most wins. I know Connor is one of the most active people here. He's constantly trading and reshaping his roster. Is it a coincidence that he's constantly one of the better teams?

I'll likely end up with a 90+ win team in 2020. I have drafted 6 players on my current roster. 6 out of 26. The majority of my team was built through trades and free agents. Granted, some of my best players were "home-grown" players that I drafted (Devers, Dahl, Tucker, Hader, Urias... and then Bracho, who I traded away once, then traded for later on). But isn't that how MLB teams should be built? Draft your core, then trade/sign players to fill in the holes?

Anyway, to say that the only way to build a team is to "draft and wait" is pure garbage. If you do that, you'll never have a good team because you won't be able to fill all of your holes (that's what she said). But if you try to buy yourself a good team through trades and FA, you'll never have sustained success. You have to have a combination of both, and figuring our what players to keep and which ones to move on from is a large part of the fun.

All that said, I like player movement, too. And I stand by my statement that the only real way to foster player movement is through player options/Rule V. Yeah, a Rule V draft only moves role players around, but those are the guys who move around in RL anyway. How many stars change teams in real life, either through trade or FA? 5'ish a year? I think we have the same number of stars changing teams here, though I could be wrong. The options will force teams to use players maybe a year or two before they want to. It will force player movement through trades. You have a stud SS ready to come up who is out of options, but you have another stud SS signed to a veteran deal for the next 3 years? Either you play one out of position or you trade one. You can't keep that stud rookie on your reserve roster until the veteran's contract runs out. You have a bunch of role players whose options are running out? Either risk losing them in the Rule V, or trade them now for whatever you can get.

I personally love the Rule V draft. Ever year in MLBSA, I plan on filling out my bench and/or my bullpen with some cheap players. I've actually found some decent role players through the Rule V that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to get otherwise.

Now, I don't think we will get options nor a Rule V draft in NSBL, because the committee would have to change everything about how they run things. It would be an immense amount of work, and I wouldn't want to ask them to do that. I'm ok with that.

But, there really isn't any other way. I think this conversation needs to start and stop with "Do we want options and a Rule V?" If we do, let's do it. If we don't, let's shutter this.