New League Structure Discussion
Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:05 pm
So, I'm starting to get the itch to manage a team again (didn't even last a whole real life year). However, there are simply too many things I don't like about the Brewster to come back here. Now, that's not a knock on the Brewster. It's a fine league. The problems I think it has are ones the almost every league runs into.
I do not intend to start and will not debate here. These are my feelings. If you disagree, that's fine. I am not trying to piss on the Brewster here.
I am delineating my thoughts so that my proposed league structure makes sense. This is an attempt to see if I can come up with an alternative that works, and asking for feedback on that model as to its plausibility.
Player demands:
The Brewster is a capped league and the game file settings for demands are much lower than what the engine is making the players ask for. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the very specific settings the Brewster has for financials, or if OOTP simply doesn't do this well. But I simply don't have an interest in a system where players routinely ask for 35% plus of the cap space in AAV. That's bonkers in my mind. This is the reason I left, and until it's fixed, I won't be back in the Brewster. I'm just going to assume OOTP can't work with the Brewster cap settings and try to come up with a different idea.
Contract Manipulation:
This league, and every other, is rife with players in AAA who should be in the bigs, as teams wait for development or simply don't want to start an arb clock because they aren't currently competitive. I hate this.
Tanking:
The Brewster is actually one of the best leagues I've ever been in in this regard, but it still happens sometimes, and there's a simple solution to fix it.
A Huge Ratings Spread:
Every person I know who has commished a long standing league notes that ratings creep happens. They also all note that there is a lot of pressure to "juice" the draft, as everyone wants a shiny new toy or two each season. Your last draft was abysmal and ideally wouldn't happen, but it's closer to reality than the ones you had been getting. There have been real life drafts where no one picked in the first round made it. They are exceedingly rare, but they happen. What's unrealistic about your last draft is that you will likely have very few of those pumpkins in your later rounds bump, because your ratings bloat creates little room for it. However, there have NEVER been real life drafts where the entire first round projects to be hall of famers, like the ones you'd been having. The Brewster drafts are a tricky animal due to the myriad of ways players enter the league, the overall ratings spread, which makes middling players look really unappetizing, and a ton of other factors. Regardless, I'd prefer a league with a more narrow band of talent at the top level, and only a few huge outliers if any (generational talents, etc.
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Okay, so with those key issues pointed out, I'll start with my league outline. I'd like to hear any responses pertaininng to the feasibility of implementing this in OOTP. First off, we'll tackle something most people will immediately have concerns with.
No Cap:
The idea here is to create a more natural supply and demand. Caps really force an artificial lowering of player salaries overall, but they also tend to make high end player salaries elevate. This is because it is way more valuable to get 8 wins out of one player than to get 8 wins out of 4 players. When you have a cap, and have to think about signing four guys or one guy, the market moves towards very expensive superstars and cheap middling talent.
But of course everyone wondering about the inherent fairness of big market versus small market in an uncapped league. Revenue tends to snowball, so uncapped leagues get out of hand fast. The solution? VERY AGGRESSIVE revenue sharing. I'd like a system where say if the top team spends 200 mil, the median team is at 185, and the bottom could spend 185 if they wanted. Being able to spend more is a team's reward for winning and keeping their FI and FL up. But I want everyone to be able to spend enough to compete. So you give everyone max market size, and make sure it stays there. I haven't messed with the revenue sharing settings ever, but this seems possible if you do the math right.
Salary Floor:
In the above scenario, I would set a salary floor at 170 mil. That may seem high, but the idea is to prevent tanking. Sure, a team could still sign players to one year bloated contracts to get to the floor. But they can't hoard cash. And people will probably tend to look for good ways to spend money if they know they have to spend it. If you don't spend to the floor you lose a pick for each 5 mil you are under, starting with rd1. Now, you may point out that for a bad team, and with min salaries so low, it may be hard to make the floor.
Pay For Current Performance, Not Past:
My league will do what current baseball owners don't want, and what the greedy older players in charge of the union are too big of shitholes to demand. The min contract is going way up. Probably 2 or 3 mil. At 2 mil, you've got a min salary for a 26 man roster of 52 mil. At 3 mil it's 78. That's still around half the salary floor. These numbers are all fuzzy at this point, but you get the idea. Secondly, arbitration starts after any part of two seasons, full stop. You get more arb years, and I'd like to see top players making 8-10 mil by their second arb year. Say 6 years of arb total. Any player who is eligible for arbitration can sign a max length deal, which is probably 6 for FA's and 6 + (num arb years remaining - 3) for arb eligible players (so you can buy out all of arb plus some). The idea is to make people decide whether they want to gamble on a player maintaining a level of performance on a longer deal, or risk a 30 mil arb contract. Just like real life.
Minor Leaguers are in the Union:
All minor leaguers have the right to challenge for a promotion. If they believe they are having their service time manipulated, they can appeal to an independent arbitrator panel. If that panel finds that a player is toiling in AAA and there is no reason other than the big league club not wanting to win games or start and arb clock, the player immediately is granted free agency. (So yes, I will set up an anonymous snitching and review system).
Some degree of fog of war on stats:
I'm really leaning towards stats only. You'll have the generic scouting descriptions about players, and their amateur stats to make decisions on drafting, but being able to see the ratings causes so many problems and headaches and influences contracts in unrealistic ways. I'd love to have potential ratings that disappear once a player plays x number of minor league games, but that's not an option. Potential only is an option, but I really don't want to see potential ratings on older players. I want decisions based on performance, and analysis of performance.
Participation:
I think the PP system is fun, and the writing aspect of the Brewster and the rich history that creates is what makes it great. But writing can be a chore. I will have some kind of participation requirement, but I don't want as much tracking and work. And the PP system is maybe a bit overpowered. At minimum there will be a forum activity requirement and some sort of reward system.
The point of all this is to create a league where winning is about using your assets wisely, more than anything else. I want to minimize strategies that game the system, like the time honored blow it up and rebuild. That will always work, but I'd like it to be less attractive. I'd rather GMs focus on roster construction.
Depending on how much I give a crap, I may start putting a league file together soon. But I'd like some feedback. Some version of this is the league I'll be making most likely someday. Thanks for your consideration.
I do not intend to start and will not debate here. These are my feelings. If you disagree, that's fine. I am not trying to piss on the Brewster here.
I am delineating my thoughts so that my proposed league structure makes sense. This is an attempt to see if I can come up with an alternative that works, and asking for feedback on that model as to its plausibility.
Player demands:
The Brewster is a capped league and the game file settings for demands are much lower than what the engine is making the players ask for. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the very specific settings the Brewster has for financials, or if OOTP simply doesn't do this well. But I simply don't have an interest in a system where players routinely ask for 35% plus of the cap space in AAV. That's bonkers in my mind. This is the reason I left, and until it's fixed, I won't be back in the Brewster. I'm just going to assume OOTP can't work with the Brewster cap settings and try to come up with a different idea.
Contract Manipulation:
This league, and every other, is rife with players in AAA who should be in the bigs, as teams wait for development or simply don't want to start an arb clock because they aren't currently competitive. I hate this.
Tanking:
The Brewster is actually one of the best leagues I've ever been in in this regard, but it still happens sometimes, and there's a simple solution to fix it.
A Huge Ratings Spread:
Every person I know who has commished a long standing league notes that ratings creep happens. They also all note that there is a lot of pressure to "juice" the draft, as everyone wants a shiny new toy or two each season. Your last draft was abysmal and ideally wouldn't happen, but it's closer to reality than the ones you had been getting. There have been real life drafts where no one picked in the first round made it. They are exceedingly rare, but they happen. What's unrealistic about your last draft is that you will likely have very few of those pumpkins in your later rounds bump, because your ratings bloat creates little room for it. However, there have NEVER been real life drafts where the entire first round projects to be hall of famers, like the ones you'd been having. The Brewster drafts are a tricky animal due to the myriad of ways players enter the league, the overall ratings spread, which makes middling players look really unappetizing, and a ton of other factors. Regardless, I'd prefer a league with a more narrow band of talent at the top level, and only a few huge outliers if any (generational talents, etc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, so with those key issues pointed out, I'll start with my league outline. I'd like to hear any responses pertaininng to the feasibility of implementing this in OOTP. First off, we'll tackle something most people will immediately have concerns with.
No Cap:
The idea here is to create a more natural supply and demand. Caps really force an artificial lowering of player salaries overall, but they also tend to make high end player salaries elevate. This is because it is way more valuable to get 8 wins out of one player than to get 8 wins out of 4 players. When you have a cap, and have to think about signing four guys or one guy, the market moves towards very expensive superstars and cheap middling talent.
But of course everyone wondering about the inherent fairness of big market versus small market in an uncapped league. Revenue tends to snowball, so uncapped leagues get out of hand fast. The solution? VERY AGGRESSIVE revenue sharing. I'd like a system where say if the top team spends 200 mil, the median team is at 185, and the bottom could spend 185 if they wanted. Being able to spend more is a team's reward for winning and keeping their FI and FL up. But I want everyone to be able to spend enough to compete. So you give everyone max market size, and make sure it stays there. I haven't messed with the revenue sharing settings ever, but this seems possible if you do the math right.
Salary Floor:
In the above scenario, I would set a salary floor at 170 mil. That may seem high, but the idea is to prevent tanking. Sure, a team could still sign players to one year bloated contracts to get to the floor. But they can't hoard cash. And people will probably tend to look for good ways to spend money if they know they have to spend it. If you don't spend to the floor you lose a pick for each 5 mil you are under, starting with rd1. Now, you may point out that for a bad team, and with min salaries so low, it may be hard to make the floor.
Pay For Current Performance, Not Past:
My league will do what current baseball owners don't want, and what the greedy older players in charge of the union are too big of shitholes to demand. The min contract is going way up. Probably 2 or 3 mil. At 2 mil, you've got a min salary for a 26 man roster of 52 mil. At 3 mil it's 78. That's still around half the salary floor. These numbers are all fuzzy at this point, but you get the idea. Secondly, arbitration starts after any part of two seasons, full stop. You get more arb years, and I'd like to see top players making 8-10 mil by their second arb year. Say 6 years of arb total. Any player who is eligible for arbitration can sign a max length deal, which is probably 6 for FA's and 6 + (num arb years remaining - 3) for arb eligible players (so you can buy out all of arb plus some). The idea is to make people decide whether they want to gamble on a player maintaining a level of performance on a longer deal, or risk a 30 mil arb contract. Just like real life.
Minor Leaguers are in the Union:
All minor leaguers have the right to challenge for a promotion. If they believe they are having their service time manipulated, they can appeal to an independent arbitrator panel. If that panel finds that a player is toiling in AAA and there is no reason other than the big league club not wanting to win games or start and arb clock, the player immediately is granted free agency. (So yes, I will set up an anonymous snitching and review system).
Some degree of fog of war on stats:
I'm really leaning towards stats only. You'll have the generic scouting descriptions about players, and their amateur stats to make decisions on drafting, but being able to see the ratings causes so many problems and headaches and influences contracts in unrealistic ways. I'd love to have potential ratings that disappear once a player plays x number of minor league games, but that's not an option. Potential only is an option, but I really don't want to see potential ratings on older players. I want decisions based on performance, and analysis of performance.
Participation:
I think the PP system is fun, and the writing aspect of the Brewster and the rich history that creates is what makes it great. But writing can be a chore. I will have some kind of participation requirement, but I don't want as much tracking and work. And the PP system is maybe a bit overpowered. At minimum there will be a forum activity requirement and some sort of reward system.
The point of all this is to create a league where winning is about using your assets wisely, more than anything else. I want to minimize strategies that game the system, like the time honored blow it up and rebuild. That will always work, but I'd like it to be less attractive. I'd rather GMs focus on roster construction.
Depending on how much I give a crap, I may start putting a league file together soon. But I'd like some feedback. Some version of this is the league I'll be making most likely someday. Thanks for your consideration.
