Expansion Talk - Part 2

[Naps (Jason)]

Hey Im Jason, some of you know me on WP as the Indians. I'll be the 15th team in this league. Any good suggestions for a team name PM me. Also, you can YIM me, I'm rtcrules. Thanks for letting me join.

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

Hey, Jason.

If you can't come up w/ anything, I guess you can always take a page from I'm Not Creative. ;D

[prhood]

Welcome Jason.

What is the procedure going to be for the expansion team to acquire players?

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

The simplest way would probably be to reuse the draft system we had last year. Additionally, maybe we could do a mandatory release of a certain number of players into the FA pool so that there would be a decent number of solid players to be drafted on top of what's already there.

Anyway, I need to send out a league email so that all the team owners will return for the new season and also for this discussion.

Meanwhile, I'd also like to see if I can find that last expansion owner somewhere...

[prhood]

I'd have no problem with the existing teams paring down to a core of, say, 12 players and then an expansion draft no the order of "lose 1 - keep 1". That way no one team should lose more than 3-4 players. It may not have to be even that many once the expansion team gets a solid core.

[Naps (Jason)]

How many teams will be picking in this expansion draft?

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

Depending on the scope of the expansion draft we're doing *and* whether we will keep the regular FA draft separate (and using last year's system), we may want to limit the expansion draft to just the 2 new expansion teams that did not get a chance to add any players back in Sept last year -- or we may allow the other 2 slightly older expansion teams just 1 or 2 picks at some points during the expansion draft.

If we do keep the expansion draft separate from the regular FA draft, the expansion draft will probably not include any of the regular FAs, but will only include currently rostered players.

Please keep in mind that the regular FA draft will also go a long way to benefiting the weaker teams, especially the expansion teams, if we keep the same system as last year.

Alternatively, we may want to keep things simpler and just have the expansion draft eligible players dumped into the regular FA draft pool, and just let the regular FA draft system from last year do its thing. I think this should work well enough though we may still want to do the "lose 1, keep 1" thing for expansion draft eligible players for each old team.

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

BTW, it might be useful for everyone to review the previous discussion thread on this subject over here before continuing w/ this discussion:

htfbaseball.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=rulestalk&action=display&thread=1140042748

[prhood]

I think we should try and keep this as simple as possible (for guys like me who have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time).

Why not:

1. have the original teams (12 - excluding the 2 added in the 2006 expansion ) retain a maximum of 15 non-Fa players. Teams could keep fewer than 15 should they so desire.

2. provide the 2 teams from 2006 expansion with the option to retain fewer than 15 players if they so desire

3. Hold a 25 round draft with each "keeper"' representing a draft pick. If I decide to retain the 15 players permitted, I would not draft until round 16 unless I can acquire an earlier draft pick prior to the draft. (trading should also cease during the draft itself)

[The Birds (Davey Johnson)]

I like the Hound's suggestion. This will release a lot of good players/prospects into the draft pool. This combined with the handful of top free agents available will allow the expansion teams to be competitive quickly, and will also make the draft meaningful and interesting for all as everyone needs to add at least 10 players to complete their teams.

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

That sounds similar to what we did for the regular FA draft last year, except that the 12 original teams would be required to strip down to a max of 15 keepers, instead of upto 25 keepers.

I'm fine w/ that although it probably lends an advantage to the teams w/ more of their talent focused on just a small handful of stud players vs those who are more spread out and more dependent on youngsters and such.

Aside from expansion, one other thing I'd like to propose for this year is a further reduction/correction in the (inflated) value of RPs, especially if we will indeed adopt this approach for a combo expansion/regular draft for this year. Seems like a good time to do it so we don't need to worry about overvaluing RPs for the future as we prepare for this draft. What I would propose is to reduce the value of both Saves and Holds to a net value of 0.333 pt, instead of 0.5 pt, per save/hold while keeping the penalty for blown save/hold at -1. That means a closer would need ~3 saves to break even against 1 blown save -- and same for setup RPs. Our previous setup of 0.5 pt per save/hold was probably giving too many closers and setup RPs the equivalent bonus points (for W, L, Saves, Holds, etc) of a rare ace SP like Johann Santana or Maddux, Pedro or Randy Johnson (in their primes).

And if we make this reduction/correction to the value of RPs, I suspect things will be more interesting w/ tighter races too since it'll make the pitching aspect a bit less predictable -- you won't be able to rely on a strong bullpen (and the use of SP-eligible RPs) quite as much as before.

What do y'all think about that? I'm not really married to the idea of this further reduction in RP value, but thought I should bring it up now under the circumstance, if the rest of the league feel inclined. I'd prefer not to wait til after expansion to consider such a change.

[The Birds (Davey Johnson)]

Regarding the reduction/correction in the (inflated) value of RPs, I've always disliked the huge penalty for blown saves/holds, especially since it is often combined with a loss at the same time. However, it was a necessary evil due to the high value of saves and holds. If we are to lower the value of saves and holds, we should lower the penalty for blown saves/holds proportionally, e.g., 0.333/-0.666, 0.3/-0.6, 0.25/-0.5, etc.

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

That sounds like a sensible compromise/solution to RP value. Maybe we can go w/ 0.3 for saves/holds and -0.6 for blown saves/holds.

A top closer that goes something like 44 for 49 in save opps would get 44*.3 - 5*.6 = 10.2 pts on top of whatever other points. Assuming the closer breaks even on W-L, which probably averages out that way, then that would be equiv to an SP going roughly 20-10, which sounds reasonable. A top setup RP that gets say 30 holds and maybe 3 saves while blowing maybe 5 would get 33*.3 - 5*.6 = 6.9 pts on top of whatever other points. Assuming the setup RP has a solid W-L of maybe +2 or +3, which seems probable enough for a truly good setup RP, then that would also be close/equiv to the top closer above wrt these bonus points.

[grid]

I'm down for whatever.

[Former MaybeNextYear (Chad)]

I like Hounds idea of keeping it simple. As far as the RP stats.....it doesn't really matter to me, just as long as we know before the draft.

[Former Sneaker Pimps (Graham)]

Sounds peachy.

[jpr99]

I"m game for whatever makes it easiest for everyone

[Old BIG WOOD (Adam)]

no big deal for me.

[SultansOfSquat (Man)]

Ok. Looks like all the team owners have finally rejoined the league and signed up on Yahoo. I will make one last effort to recruit that final expansion owner before we move forward later this week.

If I cannot find another expansion owner before we move forward, is everyone ok w/ us reserving 1 empty expansion team in Yahoo just like we did last year (for 4 teams) for further recruiting consideration?

[prhood]

OK with me.