This Ain't Aruba Bitch

There are a few things we need to get settled as soon as possible:

 

Date of Draft - some people have to fly in and others have to ... make plans and stuff

Auction or Draft - it seems as if we have a majority of people who either support an auction or atleast are ambivalent so it looks like we'll go with an auction.  By auction are people fine with the basic $260 budget?

Blow it up?? - I have a feeling this is going to be a breaking point issue. While I could go either way it seems from the 6/10 person poll that some people don't agree. 

# of Keepers from last year - hasn't been discussed much

 

There are obviously things that we need to work out after this but we really need to get the initial stuff worked out - if only the first two before February. 

Any who is or isn't reading this blog?  There haven't been more than 8 votes on any of the polls so atleast 2 people are not reading or don't care. Please comment so I/we know you are reading this atleast once a week.

Keepers poll

Should we start from scratch regarding keepers, voiding all rights from last year?
	strong yes
	weak yes
	weak no
	strong no
	i will kill you if you take tim lincecum from me
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Projections

Through advanced statistical straw polling at Pub Trivia, I have determined none of my platforms will go very far in the auction-contract primary election. My advisors have decided to withdraw to the battleground state of stat categories. So talk amongst yourselves about contracts and cost-of-living adjustments to value until we move to stats. I reserve the right to run 527-style ads on behalf of particular policy issues.

Repentance

All those bad things I said about Maroney this season? I take it all back.

Thugs on the Wire

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/what-do-real-thugs-think-of-the-wire/

Pretty interesting stuff

 

Is anyone else reading this? We still have 2 people left to vote on auction/draft. It seems as if most people are atleast not against an auction. Following MCart's idea to move one step at a time to avoid bickering and a clusterfuck of ideas, we should probably talk about how to deal with keepers/contracts etc.

 

I assume everyone knows how an auction works and if they dont its easy enough to look up ($260 at the start of the season blah blah).

 

My proposal is that we dont weight the keepers from this year and you get to keep 4, 3 1-year contracts and 1 2-year contract.  These holdover keepers have no value whatsoever in the first year and your single 2 year keeper is priced (in the 2nd year) at the average of the 20 highest priced players. You keep Arod for 2 years, year 1 is free, year 2 is say $30. 

 

Contracts are all dealt with at the end of the season so they dont effect intraseason trading and at the end of the year you keep 6 guys, 2 4-year contracts and 4 1-year contracts.  (These #s could be changed, they just seemed fairly easy to start).

 

Thats my modest proposal. Please beat me up as you see fit.

Lewis Fortner

Holy shit, it's Lewis Fortner's long lost brother. Someone tell him that he has a twin!

2 people left to vote

Auction or Snakedraft
	Auction
	Draft
	Either
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Wire

BTW, new Wire episodes go on free OnDemand the Monday before air (so six days early). I dunno if that's totally common knowledge.

wire odyssey

it is very very difficult for my head to process mcnulty with a british accent. someone else please attest to this.

The Wire

Finished the first two episodes last night. I wont ruin it but lets just say McNulty is back.

back

i guess time will tell, but i make a solemn promise to a) manage my teams and b) read the message board. hopefully work is going to be less of a black whole into which all of my time is deposited, or failing that i will learn how to post from buenos s aires. i am comfortable submitting to whatever sanctions exist for leaving a football team adrift and never reading the message board - perhaps buying lots of beer at the draft? i'm withholding public comment on any sort of rule change and focusing on dnot finishing last.

Sub Prime Mortgaged Future

Kenny Williams is looking to be the next Countrywide with the way hes betting that the future doesn't matter. I have no problem with Swisher, i actually kind of like him and his contract isn't that bad (4 yrs left for about 26 million) but he traded the entire farm system for it. Hes already traded for Gio Gonzalez twice and Ryan Sweeney is ok but not that great. The issue here is Fautino De Los Santos. BP has him as the Sox ONLY 5-star prospect. Gio Gonzalez was one of the few (if not only) 4-star prospect so hes traded two of our best pitching prospects when the team has no pitching future.

Also, with Swisher likely to play LF and Dye at RF and nobody to play center (CQ probably) that means theres a log jam at 3B. There needs to be a Crede trade ASAP. Ideally a trade that gets rid of Crede and Uribe.

God, the I hate Kenny Williams.

http://tinyurl.com/25fx43 - Fan Graphs of Swisher

Call me a Federalist

Some responses to Czap:

(1) "Like Carter, I would like to keep the season simple."

• That was not my point. I am not worried about how much time I spend on the league. What I want is a set of rules that does not lock in rosters in March because the in-season transaction rules are too complex.

(2) "The point is to reward good management/drafting. The key, I think, to keeping things fluid, both in terms of dealing and in terms of the standings from year to year, is to seriously restrict the number of keepers."

• That these two sentences are diametrically opposed to one another seems so obvious as to not require extended comment.

(3) "I would expect free agency to work as it usually does. No contracts. No cap. No money moving around. Just an auction to build our teams instead of a draft."

• This would seem to prevent a team from retaining a player signed as a free agent for the next season (no contract to resign?). Czap, I take it that such an outcome would not bother you, but it bothers me greatly. As you put it, the point is to reward good management: It is equally important to recognize value during the season as during the draft/auction.

(4) "I think people should throw whatever they want on the agenda."

• Whatever. This will degenerate into nothingness, at which point a decision will be railroaded through by the plurality that shouts the loudest. Can we at least try to frame the debate? It seems to me that we should table any discussion of keepers (or analogously, long term contracts) and focus first on the decision whether to have a draft or auction. Once we make that choice, we can structure the system to reflect the subsidiary decision on keepers.

My Auction & Keeper Plan

I don't support democratic elitism, although I am tempted to these days, so I think people should throw whatever they want on the agenda. Once commonalities/factions develop, then we can develop working groups to develop more coherent and consensual proposals. I also want to put my "plan" out here because I'm pretty sure it is different from and unpopular with the others who want an auction.

Like Carter, I would like to keep the season simple. I devote too much time to our league as it is, so I'm not all that geeked out about replicating the real world of baseball with salary caps, trading of money, contracts, etc. Well, a secret part of me does kind of like such a notion but practicality steers me away. We could always create a second league along the lines of Mo's "Three True Outcomes" for those who want to go that route.

Auction
I want to do an auction simply because I think it would be more fun, less random, and reward preparation. I'm fairly convinced doing an auction will ensure that I finish last in the league, but it's worth the risk. I like the element of competition it injects to the drafting process and the additional strategizing (for one day) it enables. Can I get someone to overpay for Weeks (no)? Will I overpay for Willy Taveras (yes)? Once the teams are put together, I would expect free agency to work as it usually does. No contracts. No cap. No money moving around. Just an auction to build our teams instead of a draft.

Keepers
I'll throw it out there again. I don't understand why people want to key keepers to draft position, value, etc. I think we should let everyone keep a small amount of players. Say 3. If you keep someone, they are no longer in the talent pool and it doesn't cost anything. If we do a draft, you don't need to save any slots to keep them. if we do an auction, no deduction of whatever the "value" of the player is from your auction cash (and no need to perform COLA adjustments each season). If people don't like the idea that whoever gets ARod gets to keep him forever, then we could set a time limit. The point is to reward good management/drafting. The key, I think, to keeping things fluid, both in terms of dealing and in terms of the standings from year to year, is to seriously restrict the number of keepers.

Blowing things up.
Why blow up ownership this year? Because changing the draft, keeper, or stat system (and I want changes in all three) is serious business which ought to be bargained over in good faith. I think people are less likely to do that if they already have strategies in mind based on last season or who they currently own and might like to keep. If people are really up in arms over this, perhaps we could give everyone one legacy keeper. If we change to auction, I think we really do need to have every player available for the sake of a perfect market.

Call me a flat taxer. I want a simple league. I don't want to simulate MLB in all dimensions (although I lean this way when it comes to stats).

I do not support an auction

For reasons I can barely fathom, I am dead set against an auction system. I just seems needlessly complex.

FIRST, I worry that it will stulify the league, especially during the season. Last year, we basically had several teams go through the motions for several months. If in-season transactions become even more complex, won't the ACTUAL SEASON become even more boring. An auction may be more fun than a draft in March, but at what cost? Moacir's post from March 23, 2007 states: "Hopefully with a 40-man roster, there won't be tons of mid-season acquisition..." Why is that something for which we should express hope? I think it would be a travesty if we turned this league into the NFL of fantasy baseball. In order to win me over to an auction system, someone needs to develop a workable plan for in-season transactions.

SECOND, I am rather satisfied with the current system. The draft is fun. The pre-draft Winter Meeting, at which a number of trades were made last year, was even better. Trades are relatively easy to complete during the season. Rookies and suprise performers are equally available to all. The only real outstanding issue would seem to be the mechanics of the keeper system--How many and at what cost? Those are relatively minor questions that could be easily dealt with after we decide whether to retain the current system or not. Unless others find the current system problematic for reasons not apparent to me, a transition to an auction system simply to make the initial distribution of players "more enjoyable" does not seem worth it.

THIRD, as I noted at the outset, I am strongly opposed to an auction. I am going to need to see a complete, well-reasoned plan before I support one. I hope that those who favor an auction will work together to create a single auction plan that the league as a whole can discuss, rather than several proposals that will simply lead to confusion. Finally, I hope that, unlike last season, whatever the league decides can be made relatively permanent. Player decisions often hinge on future rules; continuing uncertainty will only worsen the league.

Transitioning from Draft to Auction

The transition debate is what I imagine will be the most problematic. All I can say at the outset is that baseball is generally unfair, and if we develop a system that is good enough for this one time transition of a maximum of 70 players (7 keepers x 10 teams), then we'll be all set.

The first problem, though, is to decide what to do about second-year keepers. I, personally, think the "highest available pick the second time around" rule is dumb, and I wouldn't mind rescinding it for something like "his round position jumps 7 rounds the second year." This is a conversation, though, that we need to have TONIGHT. That and to decide whether we will do a draft or auction or auction/draft next year.

Luckily, the second problem—translating draft position into auction prices—can be done outside of a decision on the above problem.

Last month, I proposed taking the league budget b and breaking it down into SUM(x = 1 ; x = 25) xn, thereby using n as a sort of basepoint by which the inverted round of a player is multiplied to figure out his contract price. So a first rounder would cost 27n, a tenth rounder 18n, and so on. However, using the numbers from my head, b = $265 and the league minimum is $1. As such, I propose making n = 1. Hence, someone picked in the last round this year but kept would be under contract for the league minimum. Someone drafted in the first round would cost $27. According to BP's Player Forecast Manager, using the parameters of our league, there are only 8 players worth more than $27—and two of them are between $27 and $28, so it's a pretty good deal for first rounders. Otherwise, it's not a good deal until you start getting into the late teens / twenties, which just means that the keeper market will be scarce in transition.

So next year, seven players from each team would automatically go under contract at prices determined using the a scheme like the one above. Second year keepers would obviously have their round values augmented before it got translated into a price.

Ruleset discussion

I'm going to walk through the ruleset and describe the thinking that's going on.

1. GENERAL

1.1 I've expanded the roster. This is done mostly to avoid in-season acquisitions. Even though many of us in this league live and die by the waiver wire, if we have to start considering salary implications, etc., of every waiver pick up, it becomes a TON of work for someone. I'm willing to play the role of accountant, but I shouldn't have to be doing piles of calculations every week. Hopefully a 40-man roster will help this.

1.2 I suggested in my head a budget of $265: $10 per UC, and $1 per draftee. The league minimum, therefore, is $1. I think it's worthwhile to have bonuses for performance--top five finishers get some kinds of scale of rewards, and we could have other rewards, like, say, for "most-improved" or something.

Also, I think the money should be delivered in two sums so that owners have money with which to play toward the end of the season--say blowing half their budget on late-season acquisitions, at the risk of not being able to keep those players under contract the following year.

1.3 I can imagine that auctioning 400 players would take a whole weekend. As a result, I came up with the idea of two types of players: auctioned contract players and drafted "free" players. The idea is that one drafts players who are young or who are serious reserves--third catchers and the like. Basically like whom you would expect to find on the 40-man of a real team.

2. PLAYER MANAGEMENT

2.1 This part is clearer. Obviously players' status shouldn't change over the course of the year.

2.2 Also clear. In my head, I think there should be a 10% raise for players, but that can be discussed--we could have escalators based on length of contract (10% a year, but a 50% hop in the fourth yeah, say), but I like a blanket 10%, since it makes accounting easier.

2.3 I think that the draft is where we can hide prospects who might not even be in the yahoo system or players who aren't full-time yet, etc. As such, they should be "free" to the owner. After three years, though, the owner has to decide what to do with the player--and if he wants to keep him, then he needs to promote him by putting him under contract (and retroactively paying him $1 for his third year).

I somehow worry, though, that owners will abuse this system and ride players raw for free :) As such, any drafted player can be put under contract by a different owner during the auction. In other words, no drafted player is safe at auction time. That encourages the draft's remaining a place for RESERVES, not starters. Starters should be under contract. That's why, on the flip side, a drafted player can be promoted to UC at ANY time by the owner... So say you draft Papelbon, and he kicks ass. You know he'll be nominated by someone the next year at the auction, so you might as well promote him and put him under contract yourself for $1, thereby avoiding having to auction for him.

3. AUCTION

This should be very clear.

4. SUPPLEMENTAL PLAYER DRAFT

Also clear. I know that the keeper system seems busted (forfeiting your lowest picks, instead of your highest), but considering that any drafted player can be auctioned off the next year, it's unlikely that there will be much value in the draft at any time. I could be wrong.

5. MINI-AUCTION

Hopefully with a 40-man roster, there won't be tons of mid-season acquisition, but if there is, I think this sort of three-day auction is a pretty good way to do things--it's like a waiver wire claim period, but with cash instead of waiver position. I imagine these will get much more exciting during the second half of the season, once the all-star break cash dump is made.

CANDIDATE RULE SET

I've been thinking about this for a while, and here it goes... my candidate for a cash-based auction league. I'm going to not use numbers here, since when I do, everyone always freaks out and focuses more on the numbers than on the ideas ("Howie Kendrick isn't a 13th rounder!").

I'm going to follow this up with a discussion of the ideas that went into this, but I want it out there.

1. GENERAL:

1.1 Our league is a 10-team league with a 40-person roster.

1.2 Every owner receives an equal annual budget in two lump sums: one at the All-Star Break, and one at the end of the season. The owner's budget is supplemented by awards for performance and leftover money.

1.3 Of those players on the roster, 25 are acquired via auction/contract, and 15 via our supplemental reserve draft.

2. PLAYER MANAGEMENT

2.1 Players are either under contract (UC), drafted, or free agents (FA). During the course of a season, the only way a player's status changes is from FA to UC. If a player is UC or drafted at the start of the season, he stays that way until the last day of the season.

2.2 A player becomes under contract from either the auction (FA to UC), promotion (drafted to UC), or in-season acquisition (FA to UC).

2.2.1 The full sum of the contract must be paid. If a player is traded, the trading owners can decide on how the contract is to be paid. If a player is cut, the cutting owner is responsible for the contract in full, unless the player is later picked up by a new owner, who pays a pro-rated sum for the time spent on the new team.

2.2.2 A player can remain UC during the off-season, but the owner must pay the player a raise. Otherwise, the player becomes an FA until the next year's auction/draft.

2.3 A player becomes drafted via the 15-man supplemental player draft.

2.3.1 A drafted player remains on the roster at no cost to the owner for three seasons, unless an owner nominates him during the auction. After three seasons, the player returns to the FA pool unless the owner promotes the player to UC by paying him the league minimum for his third year of service.

2.3.2 Drafted players can be cut and traded like UC players, though the only way for a player's clock to promotion to be reset is to have him be redrafted.

2.3.3 An owner may never have more than 15 drafted players on his team. If an owner acquires a drafted player via trade, and that would put the owner's total over 15, one of the owner's drafted players must be promoted to UC.

2.3.4 An owner may promote a drafted player at any time during the player's service. At that moment, the player becomes a UC with a league minimum contract, paid in full at that season's end.

2.4 Free Agents are everyone else: UC players who don't have their contracts renewed during the off-season, unkept draftees, etc. FAs can be acquired at the auction/draft before the season, or via mini-auction during the season.

3. AUCTION

3.1 The auction takes place before the season begins. Owners announce before the auction what contracts they are renewing for UCs, in order to establish the FA pool (everyone else, which includes drafted players and FAs from the previous year).

3.2 Players can be put on the block at any time by any owner. Bidding starts at the league minimum.

3.3 The auction ends when every owner has 25 UCs (renewed contracts + new acquisitions). (NOTE: though the auction ends with each roster having 25 UCs, over the course of the season that number can change, of course.)

4. SUPPLEMENTAL RESERVE DRAFT

4.1 The draft follows the auction, using the thereby reduced FA pool.

4.2 The draft order is determined by team position at the end of the previous season.

4.3 If an owner is keeping drafted players from the previous two years (who have remained unnominated at an auction), then the owner forfeits the lowest available draft picks for those players.

4.5 The draft ends once every owner has 15 drafted players (kept draftees + new acquisitions) or 40 total players.

5. MINI-AUCTION

5.1 The mini-auction is for acquiring FAs during the course of the season. An owner nominates a player for the league minimum on the yahoo! msg board. Over the next three days, other owners can outbid the nominator by posting higher bids on the board. At the end of three days (using the board's timestamp), the owner with the highest bid signs the player.

5.2 Signing a player, of course, means that there is an extra player on the mini-auction winner's roster. The owner must, then, cut a different player, who maintains his UC or drafted status for the rest of the season.

Another Example - Pete's League

I'll try to comment on the two systems I've described in the past few posts in a more meta post later today, but I just wanted this second example out there. The point here is to have a candidate system--or at least a framework for a candidate system (maybe better described as guiding principles more refined) before the draft. It has become increasingly important to me in terms of everything I do starting with the keeper list this year to know, generally, what will happen next year. I mean, this isn't even whom I should keep, but whom I should even bother drafting.

Pete gave me the rundown of his league on Friday—his NYC league that has the points equation. They have, from my understanding, a salary cap and auction players willy-nilly. I didn't ask about cost-of-living adjustments to contracts, but I imagine there may be some. I was more interested in how his league handled stuff during the season.

He said that, first, trades don't take into account dollar value; you just have to square up the money before the next auction (from what I gathered). Second, there is no free agent acquisition budget. If you pick up a player off waivers, you get him for free. The caveat, however, is that you can't keep him into the next year without submitting him to the draft. A player, in other words, can only be kept if he already has a contract, which means that if a team waives a player and another team picks him up, he can be kept into the new season. Someone who appeared out of the blue, on the other hand, cannot.

Red Sox

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BOSTON—Now that Manny Ramirez has reported to camp and the spring-training opener against Minnesota is in the books, Red Sox fans are turning their attention to the awesome power rumored to dwell within much-touted off-season pitching...