2020 Season Proposals

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

Good morning gents, now that Major League Baseball has made it official, I thought I'd start a thread to throw out some ideas for the upcoming 60 game season.  I've got some proposals on how to compensate for a severely shortened season.

The current league proposed start date is July 23/24th with a proposed end date of September 27th.  That gives 9 full weeks of baseball.  We can allot 6 weeks to regular season play and 3 weeks to post-season play.  My proposals are as follows:

1. This is the one I'd least like to avoid but it should at least be considered.  No season at all.  All contracts/Arbitration years/options/etc would essentially be frozen and carry over to next season.  None of the scoring accumulated this year in real life would change anything with regards to BK.

2. We make 2020 a points rotisserie league, awarding the division winners a playoff spot, and the next 3 highest scoring teams get the 3 remaining spots.  Round 1 (week 7) of the playoffs would have all 6 teams facing off and the 3 highest scoring teams move on to Round 2 (week 8).  The highest scoring team in round 2 (week 8) would move on to the World Series to face the winner of the AL/NL in Round 3 (week 9).

I believe option 2 is the easiest approach in that there aren't multiple schedules to be made.

3. We make a 2 game per week schedule which could get us to a 12 game season.


For example



Week 1 schedule - Nationals vs Braves vs Marlins

Week 1 results - Nationals 300 points, Braves 250 points, Marlins 200 points

Week 1 standings - Nationals 2-0, Braves 1-1, Marlins 0-2



This option will take a lot more leg work to set up and keep track of but it allows for individual weekly matchups which I know we all enjoy.  

With only 3 weeks allotted for playoffs, I think we would have to get creative with our post-season.  If we were to still roll with 6 teams, we'd need 4 weeks of playoffs to get a champion.  So there's a few options.

A. 
Roto style playoff as stated in Option 2.  

B. 
Round 1 would have Seed 3 vs 6 and Seed 4 vs 5
Round 2 would have Seed 1 vs the lowest winning seed and Seed 2 vs the highest winning seed
Round 3 (World Series) would see the 4 remaining teams (2 from each league) face off in the World Series and the highest scoring team would be crowned Champion.  

C.
Something else

I'm sure there are some other alternative proposals I haven't thought of.  What are your thoughts?

As far as arbitration and what not, I'll post on that in a bit.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

I like option 2 and then having a 4 team WS. One of my other leagues is talking about a similar path and I think it makes the most sense and works out the best.
I also would be against freezing of contracts and think ARB numbers should be prorated to a 162 game season. A 60 game season is 37% of a normal season.

Do with my opinion what you will.

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

My Arb suggestion was basically what you just said

[Cardinals GM (Nik)]

My Proposal:

1. We have a 6 week regular season with 3 matchups per week. i.e. STL vs CHI, STL vs CIN, STL vs HOU. This can easily be done via fantrax or excel. This way we still have 18 matchups in the regular season.

2. As for Arb players - extrapolate the 60 game season point total over 162 games and add/subtract delta of some sort. Cody Bellinger over 60 games last season was not Cody Bellinger over 162 games last season so it would be unfair to punish owners of players that are extremely hot for 60 games. Injuries are also going to have a much bigger impact in a 60 game season. Someone that misses 15 games misses 25% of the season instead of ~10%.

3. As for contracts, if we play out the fantasy season then all contracts should roll forward except for players who opt out of the current agreement. Owners of players who voluntarily opt out should be given the option to keep their current contract with no extra service time or roll the contract as if the player played the current year.

4. Playoffs - 3 week H2H in each league. So 6 teams in each league make the playoffs. Week 3 the highest scoring team in the NL is also simultaneously matched up against the highest scoring team in the AL. Highest scoring team wins. In other words, NLCS & ALCS are played the same week as the WS. Highest scoring team of the 4 wins.

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

The scheduling ordeal is our biggest hangup. Being we'll only have seven weeks of play, here's my thoughts:

1. Regular Season. I'm actually in favor of doing a roto league for one year. The top scorer from each division wins the division. The next three highest scorers get the wild cards. Then we don't have to do all the leg work of scheduling. I definitely prefer the fun head-to-head matchups going forward, but in a shortened season, it's kind of like you're in a head-to-head matchup with everyone at once. My vote would be a six week roto scoring for the regular season.

2. Arbitration. The numbers will definitely need to be pro-rated. I'm strongly against allowing teams to choose if they want to have their contracts moved forward or not. It should be everyone or no one. I think we should treat this season as a normal season contractually, especially if we have a season, playoffs, and a champion.

3. Playoffs. Being we only have three playoff weeks, my vote would be for the first week, the top three highest scorers of the six playoff teams in each league advance. The second week, the top scorers in each league advances (of the six total left) to the world series. World Series is as normal.

4. League Scoring. We should move to Fantrax to make this all happen. I'm creating a league now in the case that we do move. This would allow us to work with this shortened season better. It also allows you have all your minor leaguers on your roster, their player pool is so deep. Easier to see who is unowned.

Here's the link to join the new fantrax league -- www.fantrax.com/newui/fantasy/joinLeague.go?leagueId=4jn8fybakbtm3q0t&isSubmit=y

[Pirates GM (Max)]

You can very easily schedule double matchups on Fantrax so if we do go that route it’s simple

Speaking of, I prefer that to roto because of the nature of this being a points league. In h2h categories I think moving to roto doesn’t drastically change the strategy but switching from points to roto does and if we are gonna count the season for contracts then it should be played under rules as close to normal as possible

[Marlins GM (Travis)]

I vote we just skip the season and remove the headache.

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

Jun 29, 2020 14:36:46 GMT -5 Marlins GM (Travis) said:

I vote we just skip the season and remove the headache.

why did call yourself a headache ?

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

My honest opinion is to skip the season. There's too many question marks and variables. How do we handle things if the season gets cancelled during the season? How do we handle trades that are made during that period of time when there was a season to when there isn't? Do we have an amateur draft now? What about the MiLB draft? We would keep the same draft order for MiLB and Amateur draft next year if there isn't a season? How do we handle contracts for players that choose to sit out? How do we handle it if they decided to come back during the season?

I don't see the point of trying to have a BK season when it's short and there's no guarantee it gets finished. There's a lot of question marks when the easiest and most reasonable option is to have no season and roll everything over to 2021.

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

Jun 30, 2020 10:03:18 GMT -5 D'backs GM (Kyle) said:

My honest opinion is to skip the season.

Kyle clearly hates America.

[Cardinals GM (Nik)]

This is a free league, so what's the point of skipping a season?

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

I've added a poll on if we should even have a season. Seems to be the first thing to decide.

[Yankees GM (Jacob)]

In my opinion, we should absolutely have the season. No season would be just as complicated as having a season.

How I think the season should happen:
- Players who opt out of this season, the owner can have a choice to roll their contracts over to next year or just use the year up on his contract (in an attempt to get rid of him quicker).
- I really want to push for staying on ESPN. Seems like a bunch of people are annoyed with Fantrax so far. My solution: let's just play 7 regular season games, with the last 4 weeks for the playoffs.
- Another idea is let's do an American League and National League rotisserie league for 10 weeks, then the champion of both face off for a 1 week world series matchup.

Whatever we decide, I ultimately want to see this season, and free agency in January happen.

Sincerely,
The worst team in the league

[Chris (Former Red Sox GM)]

Who could possibly think we shouldn't have a season? Maybe I'm just way too into Fantasy Baseball........

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

How is not having a season more difficult? All it takes is Alex changing the years on the top of the spreadsheet for each team. Everything else stays the same since there won’t be a BK season.

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

D'backs GM (Kyle) But it would be fun... to play fantasy baseball

[Jake (Former Athletics GM)]

Since it's a free league, I don't see the harm in having a fantasy season if there's baseball played. I wouldn't be shocked if there is no baseball, though. If we have a season and it gets cancelled midway, I think there are a lot of potential issues people are going to have. I like the AL/NL Rotisserie League with a had to head championship idea, if we have a season.

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

What if we had a contingency in the case of cancellation. Example: if the season is cancelled midway through, we simply pretend like the season never happened and roll all contracts over to next year. If the season is full and happens, we count the contracts. MLB players that opt out of the season can have their contracts rolled over.

[Tigers GM (Jon)]

I like Alex’s proposal in his first post

[Mariners GM (Phil)]

I vote no season