New 2020 Season Suggestion

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

Hey guys!

After getting 29 votes on the poll on whether or not to have a 2020 season, we were at 15-14.  I'm definitely not comfortable moving forward with a season when nearly half the league has voted no.  

Consequently, I have a new suggestion for what to do for 2020.  It will preserve our current league structure without impacting all-time records, bring some competition to play for this year, and add something fun for us to do this summer instead of just skipping fantasy baseball entirely.  


2020 Proposal

--Setup

• 2020 Redraft League.  Will host two 15-team redraft leagues on ESPN (AL and NL *Houston is in the AL).  This gives us more time to decide Fantrax vs. ESPN.
• The scoring will be roto on each league (no head to head matchups, just nine weeks of accumulating points).  The highest scoring team wins each league.  We keep our current point accumulation structure the same.  
• Due to the volatility of players this season and the difficulty of filling out 30 rosters with viable players, each 15-team league will have the entire league's player pool (i.e. the Rangers and the Nationals could both own Mike Trout). 
• We hold a draft online in the next two weeks for two separate 15-team leagues.  Teams would draft 26-man rosters.  Anyone not drafted can be added during the season if you drop a player off your roster just like a regular redraft league.   

--Awards

• In order to set a 2021 Amateur draft and MiLB Draft order (because we won't have an official season in 2020), we are competing for draft position in this redraft league.  The team with the highest point total of all 30 teams would get the 1st pick in the 2021 Amateur Draft and MiLB Draft.  The team with the highest point total in the league of the non-winner would get the 2nd pick.  Then, whoever of both second place finishers had the highest total would get the 3rd pick, the other second place finisher gets the 4th pick, and so on.  This increases the competition in each league so teams don't get buried in the scramble of 30 teams all in one roto league.
• The top 5 teams in each league would get a salary cap bonus for the following season (1st place in each league gets $5m, 2nd place gets $4m, 3rd place gets $3m, 4th place gets $2m, and 5th place gets $1m).
• The bottom 5 teams in each league would get a salary cap penalty for the following season (15th place gets $-5m, 14th place gets $-4m, 13th place gets $-3m, 12th place gets $-2m, 11th place gets $-1m).

--Impact on Dynasty Rosters

• All contracts will simply be rolled over to 2021.
• No service time will be accrued for any players.
• We will hold our 2020 Amateur Draft as normal towards the end of this summer.
• There will be no free agency this off-season (except for new International Free Agents).

AL Finish	Draft Position in 2021	Salary Cap Bonus in 2021	NL Finish	Draft Position in 2021	Salary Cap Bonus in 2021
1st	1st or 2nd	$5m in 2021	1st	1st or 2nd	$5m in 2021
2nd	3rd or 4th	$4m in 2021	2nd	3rd or 4th	$4m in 2021
3rd	5th or 6th	$3m in 2021	3rd	5th or 6th	$3m in 2021
4th	7th or 8th	$2m in 2021	4th	7th or 8th	$2m in 2021
5th	9th or 10th	$1m in 2021	5th	9th or 10th	$1m in 2021
6th	11th or 12th	n/a	6th	11th or 12th	n/a
7th	13th or 14th	n/a	7th	13th or 14th	n/a
8th	15th or 16th	n/a	8th	15th or 16th	n/a
9th	17th or 18th	n/a	9th	17th or 18th	n/a
10th	19th or 20th	n/a	10th	19th or 20th	n/a
11th	21st or 22nd	$-1m in 2021	11th	21st or 22nd	$-1m in 2021
12th	23rd or 24th	$-2m in 2021	12th	23rd or 24th	$-2m in 2021
13th	25th or 26th	$-3m in 2021	13th	25th or 26th	$-3m in 2021
14th	27th or 28th	$-4m in 2021	14th	27th or 28th	$-4m in 2021
15th	29th or 30th	$-5m in 2021	15th	29th or 30th	$-5m in 2021

Let me know your thoughts!  Open to suggestions, but we need to move quickly on this if we're going to do anything this year.  

Thanks!

Alex

[Padres GM (Denver)]

I’d rather just not have baseball.

[Astros GM (Will)]

I think a league for fun is a good idea, but I hate that the stakes are actually kind of high in this plan.

I would prefer to skip 2020 draft, add a round to next years draft at the end (or even just stick it in the middle of the draft after any round). The free league can play for draft order of the supplemental round. Teams can opt out of the for-fun league and all teams who opted out will be placed randomly to fill the rest of the round. All players in 2020 and 2021 draft pool are eligible for 2021 amateur draft.

Stakes are much lower but there is some consequence to playing.

Also, I hate the idea of taking away cap space in a for fun league.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

It’s insane to tie cap to finishes... at least the loss of cap. I also think no matter what the outcome, this isn’t good for the future of the league.
You have playoff and World Series mainstays that now will have an equal shot as the bottom dwellers to get a top pick, something teams like the Cubs, Yankees and Padres desperately need would probably end up going to Houston or Colorado.

Half the league voted to not have a season, and if that’s the side we want to roll with (even though we were 15-14 in favor of a season) I would say that we just need to look at not having a season.

I’m here for a dynasty league, not a redraft, so I don’t want one taking 5M from my team and sticking me with pick 28 when I’m a bottom 5 team in the league.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

I’m also against skipping the draft this year. The order is based on a season that’s been played so we should still have our draft. I don’t know what the best plan for next years draft would be, I guess just not having one since contracts aren’t rolling at all.

We could go based on the post FA predictions, or everyone could pick a 26 man roster and we just run it through MLB the show.

Non of those are ideal options but I don’t really know. I’m just not putting the future of my team into a redraft league.

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

Listen to Kyle

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

Jul 7, 2020 18:17:45 GMT -5 Nationals GM (Tim) said:

Listen to Kyle

That’s also my suggestion

[Astros GM (Will)]

1) Skip 2020 Amateur Draft
2) Skip 2021 MiLB Draft
3) 2021 Amateur Draft will be July/Aug 2021 (same schedule as normal)
4) 2021 Amateur Draft will have players from 2020 and 2021 Rule IV eligible plus 2020 J2 eligible players. (I really don't see this is as big of a deal to have a 'deeper' talent pool because we all have the same tiered access to the talent pool.)
5) 2021 Amateur Draft uses the carried over draft picks that we are tracking for 2020
6) Add supplemental rounds with draft order for these rounds determined by the "for-fun" league (higher finish = higher pick). Let's say do one Supp-Round after the first three rounds and one after the last round, so we have a total of 8 draft rounds plus our normal compensation rounds.
7) Make supplemental rounds untradable.
8) Teams can opt out of the 'for-fun' league and be slotted at the end of the supplemental rounds. Or maybe do Middle Round for opt-ins and Final Round for opt-outs. As someone who is planning to opt out, I don't mind this expense.

Draft Round Sequence:
- Round 1/Comp A
- Round 2/Comp B
- Round 3/Comp C
--- Supplemental - Middle Round
- Round 4
- Round 5
- Round 6
--- Supplemental - Final Round

This helps people like Mike gain entry back into the draft, gives people something to play for if they want that this year, doesn't force us to do a 200+ player draft in 2020 when there were only 160 players drafted this year in the Rule 4, let's owners not worry about baseball research during a pandemic if they don't want to deal with that, etc. etc. etc.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

I don’t understand the push to eliminate the draft this year. We played the season that impacts this draft so we should be able to (and open to) draft.

As for the “incentive” to play in the one season league: I don’t really get that either. Again, half the league voted to not play at all so our thought process shifts to having a redraft season that you get a xth rounder if you compete and a lower round pick if you don’t? I guess I just don’t understand. You could have a season for fun but I find the “incentive” very useless.

I guess I’m the odd man out for suggesting we push back next years draft to 2022 instead of this years to 2021, but I honestly think it makes more sense (I don’t have a first rounder or even a second for that matter) but this season was already determined and having something to keep us busy and distracted that fits what we assumed was coming makes sense to me.

Oh well I guess. I tend to not have very strong opinions due to this being fantasy baseball and all, but I feel like a lot of the ideas just hold backwards components. Yes I know coming up with ideas isn’t easy but I feel like the suggestions I made in groupme aren’t being heard and I think they hold some validity.

But let’s give an upper hand to playoff mainstays. It’ll be great for the competitive balance of the league.

[Royals GM (Bill)]

I think we should definitely draft as scheduled. It is the only true dynasty impacting activity that we’ll have for this season and it will keep interest in the league at a higher level. Also combining the drafts penalizes the rebuilding teams and gives an advantage to the teams that are already stacked. Rather than having top picks in two smaller pools, rebuilders now get one and the top teams have the opportunity to get a much better prospect...one that would also go to a weaker team in a normal year.

I say let’s not over complicate things. A 60 game ( if we’re lucky) fun league, should not have an impact on a dynasty league that has almost 10 years of continuity.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

So having a draft with this year’s talent and next year’s doesn’t help the contending teams any more than it helps the rebuilding teams. In fact there are several contending teams that already traded off a chunk of their picks to rebuilding teams. The fact is that every team would have access to the talent and every pick has an increase in value.

My suggestion is we ignore the 2020 season. We act as though we’re still in March waiting for the season to start. The contracts don’t progress and we don’t have any drafts. Hopefully there will be a 2021 season and we’ll start that season and have our amateur draft as normally scheduled and then have the MiLB draft in the offseason as normal.

Having those drafts now makes things complicated since we won’t have a new draft order. Having them now like Denver suggested and then pushing off the 2021 Amateur draft will put us in a situation where we’ll either have to have a draft with two years worth of talent involved or we’ll have a situation where two amateur drafts will be based off 1 draft order.

My suggestion is the easiest way of handling things. We had already gone thru an entire offseason and we were on the footsteps of a season. There’s no reason to over complicate things. This is the best way to try to keep things as fair as possible. It won’t be perfect as some teams will benefit and some won’t. However it’s the closest thing we have to making things even and fair for everyone.

[Astros GM (Will)]

Jul 8, 2020 7:36:23 GMT -5 Royals GM (Bill) said:

Also combining the drafts penalizes the rebuilding teams and gives an advantage to the teams that are already stacked. Rather than having top picks in two smaller pools, rebuilders now get one and the top teams have the opportunity to get a much better prospect.

And the players in the second round are slightly better and the third round, etc, it’s not a snake draft where top teams get to hog the best players at the turn. Not to mention there has been an entire offseason of trading of draft picks so not all top teams will get to benefit from a deeper pool.

Also, again - you guys want to have a 200 player BK draft when there was only 160 players drafted?

[Royals GM (Bill)]

Completely disagree that combining the drafts has no impact. Let’s say the top 8 picks in each draft are elite. Bottom feeders get an elite talent in each draft adding 2 potentially top 100 prospects. Contenders are picking from back end of first round.

Combine the drafts and bottom feeders get 1 elite prospect instead of 2 and contenders benefit by getting the equivalent of a mid first round talent.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

Elite? You're talking about a group of guys that have lost a year of development. Next year's draftees will have lost a year as well and possibly more. I think the talent that would available is overstated and in fact would be closer to a regular draft in terms of overall talent.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

Any way that you push off a draft this year to combine player pools helps the higher end teams... no way around that.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

Jul 8, 2020 9:18:18 GMT -5 Astros GM (Will) said:

Jul 8, 2020 7:36:23 GMT -5 Royals GM (Bill) said:

Also combining the drafts penalizes the rebuilding teams and gives an advantage to the teams that are already stacked. Rather than having top picks in two smaller pools, rebuilders now get one and the top teams have the opportunity to get a much better prospect.

And the players in the second round are slightly better and the third round, etc, it’s not a snake draft where top teams get to hog the best players at the turn. Not to mention there has been an entire offseason of trading of draft picks so not all top teams will get to benefit from a deeper pool.

Also, again - you guys want to have a 200 player BK draft when there was only 160 players drafted?

So then theres 2 rounds of first round talent, then the third is second round talent etc.

Teams that traded draft picks assuming a regular draft are screwed in each round due to missing out on double talent. If I traded out of pick 1.1 (Torkleson) because I knew I’d have a top 5 pick in 2021 to replace him, but now I’m losing out on two first rounds of talent.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

You're not the only one. Think bigger picture instead of about just your team. What is the easiest and most fair way of handling things? Any other solution is more complicated and there would be teams that would benefit way more than what I suggested. The only other suggestion I've heard that would be close to fair but is slightly more complicated is Nik's suggestion in the groupme.

We have to stop thinking about our own teams and think about the league as a whole and what is the easiest most fair way of handling things.

[Astros GM (Will)]

Jul 8, 2020 9:21:14 GMT -5 Royals GM (Bill) said:

Completely disagree that combining the drafts has no impact. Let’s say the top 8 picks in each draft are elite. Bottom feeders get an elite talent in each draft adding 2 potentially top 100 prospects. Contenders are picking from back end of first round.

Combine the drafts and bottom feeders get 1 elite prospect instead of 2 and contenders benefit by getting the equivalent of a mid first round talent.

But in this scenario we still haven’t played a single season with our rosters, so then why should rebuilding teams get two straight years of top picks? Just playing devils advocate for your hypothetical scenario here.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

Jul 8, 2020 10:41:24 GMT -5 D'backs GM (Kyle) said:

You're not the only one. Think bigger picture instead of about just your team. What is the easiest and most fair way of handling things? Any other solution is more complicated and there would be teams that would benefit way more than what I suggested. The only other suggestion I've heard that would be close to fair but is slightly more complicated is Nik's suggestion in the groupme.

We have to stop thinking about our own teams and think about the league as a whole and what is the easiest most fair way of handling things.

I’m not even really thinking of my team. I have my base and plan set and it doesn’t involve the draft but it was the best example I could come up with.

Pushing the draft out of this season is the worst possible option that we could go with.

Have the 2020 draft, and then we move our amateur drafts to the offseason so that we don’t put 2 years of playing in one draft. Amat draft would be between end of season and start of FA, also gives time to see players adjustment to higher level of ball.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

That’s Nik’s suggestion. You’d know that if you didn’t leave the groupme for some reason. The one problem with that is it would require getting rid of the MiLB draft.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

Jul 8, 2020 10:58:41 GMT -5 D'backs GM (Kyle) said:

That’s Nik’s suggestion. You’d know that if you didn’t leave the groupme for some reason. The one problem with that is it would require getting rid of the MiLB draft.

Sorry, being in the groupme isn’t a league requirement and I’m starting to phase groupme our with my other leagues moving to discord.

And the MILB draft is mostly fliers anyway, we could move the combine the two and do them at that point.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

Both drafts are just fliers if you really look at how picks end up working out.

[Padres GM (Denver)]

So then combining the two is a viable option

[Royals GM (Bill)]

Yes of course elite. Are you seriously suggesting that guys like Torkelson, Martin, Lacey are going to become random prospects? And they aren’t missing a year of development. Most will be reporting to camp for instructionals. You could argue that their development would accelerate due to access to better coaching in an environment where they’re not riding a bus to the wilds. Teams were certainly not paying these guys discounted bonuses due to the fear of what they would become stiffs without game time

[Royals GM (Bill)]

All scenarios are hypothetical by definition. Be that as it may, of course rebuilding teams get the best pick every year. Drafts are designed to help the have nots get better by giving them the best chance to add new talent. A rebuilding team will always get the first picks.

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

I posted this in the GroupMe but since one of you left it, and others don’t check it, I’ll post it here.

I prefer Kyle’s plan but to expand on Nik’s idea, we could schedule the 2020 draft tentatively for February or March of 2021. By then, we should have a better idea of where we are at with the virus. We’ll know if there’s a season on the horizon for 2021. If there’s not, we can adjust accordingly.

Upon the start of the 2020 draft, 2021 draft picks become available to trade.

We can then consolidate the 2021 amateur draft and MiLB draft into 1 draft that happens in November or December 2021. The draft order will be determined by the results of the 2021 standings.

Expand the number of rounds to say, 10 (I just picked a number), and make picks in rounds 7-10 untradeable (somewhat keeping in line with what we do with MiLB draft picks).

It’s important to keep in mind that both 2020 and 2021 amateur drafts will have a severely limited player pool than in the previous years.

Under this plan, we would no longer have two separate drafts.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

Royals GM (Bill), where do we get the 2021 draft order from in your scenario?

[Nationals GM (Tim)]

Possible 2021-2022 timeline

January 2, 2021- Start of Free Agency
March 1 - Start of 2020 Amateur Draft (2021 draft picks become available to trade)
March 26 ish - MLB season begins (hopefully)
August 1 - Trade Deadline
October 1 - Offseason Trading Opens
October 25 - Trading Closes
October 31- Team Off-season Decisions are due (Tags, ARB Decisions, Options, etc.)
November 1 - Rosters rolled over to 2022
November 15 - Start of Am/MiLB draft
January 2, 2022- Start of Free Agency

[Royals GM (Bill)]

2021 order could be based upon power rankings (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Will do this in the pst) or could be a repeat os the 2020 order since it looks like FA will be frozen. Can imagine that the 2020 draft would have much impact on this season, had it been played and if player clocks don’t advance then team strength should be mostly unchanged. The intent would continue to be to give an advantage to the bottom teams do that they can one day compete.

[D'backs GM (Kyle)]

So your solution is to use Will's algorithm or to repeat the 2020 draft order.

Will's projections are based on a season that never happened. Things change during a season and teams do worse or better. It would be an arbitrary source to use.

Using the 2020 draft order would mean contending teams like BAL & WAS would have top 5 picks. Other contending teams like my own would have higher picks then they probably should. Then there are the teams like NYY and CHW that would have lower draft picks then what they should have for 2021.

As I stated before, the goal should be to find the easiest and fairest possible solution. Neither of those options would be fair.