Winter Draft Expansion- 2 Rounds?

I think that's a great observation. I MLBSA, trading- especially for a rebuilding team desiring prospects- is much, much easier than it is here, largely because teams have so many more resources at their disposal.


JIm

I think Jason is right on here. In theory, having more tradeable pieces beyond your 26-30 usable roster should create more trade options, but I just don't think it will.

The biggest driver for trade activity is having a lot of active GMs.

Yes. You have made your thoughts very clear on that. If you could keep them from overtaking every single thread, it would be appreciated.

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Ian, I have to disagree with your take. In MLBSA, reserve rosters are currently 65 players. While I wouldn't advocate here for the 10 rounds of the Summer Draft that they have there, it also means almost every team has a ton of young players in their reserves. GMs are a lot more willing to give up young talent to push them over the top, because they still have talent to fall back upon.

Here, a lot of teams (myself included) have as few as 4-5 quality prospects on their entire reserve, so they don't want to part with them regardless of whether they are contending or not.

Saying "active GMs" is the primary factor isn't very accurate. My trade activity has dropped off significantly, simply because I get tired of fighting for even modest returns. And you've got multiple GMs like JeffR in Oakland who are very good and "active", but they are also not active on the trade front.

Sorry Ian, but I think "active GMs" is a little bit of a copout that overlooks some bigger picture things we could improve.


JIm

We could always make a Round 2 of the Winter have a different standard. Like let it be only guys who just lost Draft eligibility and would be first time free agents for us. Say guys who just completed their 2nd year in the majors and turned 26.

Or only guys that are half-eligible for free agency. Like they're only 24 but just played 2 years in the majors (think college juniors and seniors who go in the 9th round in the MLB Draft and actually make good). They would be eligible for the Winter Draft anyways, but this might be fun to make teams draft some useable types and not just 17 year old Latinx kids.

I agree. When I first joined MLBSA I traded away every major league piece that wasn't tied down and I found it easier to do because teams were more willing to part with a couple decent pieces because they weren't the only ones they had. And actually I targeted the B and B- type prospects the most in these trades. I wanted to procure a very large stable of arms and bats so I had some hit-or-miss wiggle room instead of just putting all my hopes into a few big name prospects. And because teams had a very large number of these types of prospects, they were more willing to part with 2 in a deal. Or with 2nd and 3rd round picks because they had 6 or 7 more picks still.

If you have 10 picks in 10 rounds, you're going to be more willing to trade 2 or 3 of them because you'll still have plenty.

Now if you wanted to change it so we got 6 rounds every Summer and 2 in the Winter, and then instead of adding a 40-man roster with options just do a different version of Sean's "after 5 years of ownership they start to accrue service time" and change it to "4 years for anyone drafted at 20 years of age or more, 6 years for players drafted at 19 years of age or younger". MLB uses something similar to decide when players must be added to the 40. It's not a blanket time for all players. Then for the next two years add roster spots to each team and make it 68 when this Summer Draft starts and 75 after the next and keep it at 75 or 80 or something, you'd get quite a fucking bit of roster movement. Teams could still decide when they want to use players without it being a constraint, but they would still have to make a lot of decisions when it comes to the backend of their roster.

I agree with both sides of this statement.

Drafting is fun, you want more GM involvement, participation and potential for trading then you need an incentive to stay involved.

I agree larger reserve rosters do not generate trades, but why do you need larger reserve rosters just because we add draft picks?  MLBSA shows more draft picks definitely promotes trade activity, and again using that as a guide, having larger reserve rosters can be a waste of time.  I bet half the reserve rosters are either waiver fodder or 4A players which can be easily found in FA.  Tight roster limits with more draft picks could drive waivers and limit stashing which could also increase trade possibilities.

I think people trade and pay for talent regardless. GMs are selective about which prospects they trade for. GM's generally want to move more prospects than are wanted by the rest of the league.
I think larger reserve rosters just promotes stashing, and mainly not by choice. Most guys will just sit on rosters longer before being waived.

The goal of the league should be to have large enough rosters that GMs feel like they can afford to invest in development while also feeling the pressure to promote players (or release them). Ways you can do that is with a clock or with more draft rounds. You have to apply pressure to the resources in order for them to have value.

Our draft has always been too small. You can see that because teams that were able to up the pick count year after year have been more successful and haven't had to make emergency deals very often. At our current roster size, we should be picking approximately 7 players a year. This number allows teams to trade prospects as resources and then restock their farm system quickly. This also forces decisions on trading prospects and picks if your developmental roster is full or near full.

The goal of this league is to have fun and to keep it simple. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to improve. I feel like this is the same mentality that I was talking about last year, only on different issues.

We are heading to a place where the only answer is a flat cap. We are trying not to limit resources. We want winning to matter for something more than bragging rights. More resources for winning is a great way to do that and it emulates real life. The more outlandish free agent prices then the more likely we need to remove monetary advantage from our fun model. I said it in my other post and I'll say it again. We should not be the league with 14 people having a good time and 14 others who are basically just keeping a seat warm.

Take the suggestions. Come up with some changes that move us in a better direction. Let's be less concerned about keeping our toys for ourselves and more concerned about making sure everyone has toys to play with.

5 rounds summer, 2 rounds winter, all summer picks are up for trade, all winter picks have ntc's. Simple rules. Adds building resources to each team. Makes sure that all teams pick 2 players a year. Remove the draft pick cap. If someone wants to make 12 picks in the summer, so fucking be it.

Let's choose to make the choices tougher. Let's close loopholes and make the game more strait-forward. We should want these things for everyone. GIVE EVERYONE MORE TOYS!

To be fair to Jason, I also have a history of this behavior.