Baseball is back, probably.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

Hey there all! Looks like we're going to have some form of baseball back in about 3 weeks. How about we do a quick roll call to make sure everyone is aware and on board. Would everyone please reply to this thread, so we know that you are aware and in for whatever we get for MLB in 2020.

Information on Covid adaptations to gameplay once we figure out what's going on. Fortunately, we all have the social distancing thing nailed.

[White Sox GM (Aidan)]

White Sox are present and fully in skip fantasy in 2020 mode

[Diamondbacks GM (Ethan)]

I’m here and I’ll do whatever.

Personally, with a truncated season, I’d be in favor of playing this season “for free” and rolling our fee/prize money to next year to make 2021 where we have a bigger pot since the chances of baseball in 2022 look small as well thanks to the likelihood of a strike. But, I’ll do whatever

[Mariners GM (Nick J)]

Mariners are here and so ready for anything.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

I'm in.

I've already brought up the suggestion of expanding the playoffs this year. I think it's a fair way to mitigate some of the randomness sure to happen

I like Ethan's suggestion, but maybe not for free. Maybe half of the prize money for this year? It would be kind of awful to be the winner this year and yet be the only league winner ever to get no reward. Next year could still be a bigger pot, just 1.5x the normal amount

[Deleted]

I'm in for whatever

[Braves GM (Dustin)]

I'm in. My only suggestion would be that protected players do not acrue service time this season.

[Nationals GM (Preston)]

I’m in.

I like “play three teams in one week” if we can make it work.

I’m also pro-fee/winnings, but flexible to reduced.

Protection is an interesting one. I’d say reduce to 30 games for a loss of a protection year; 50%, which I realize is more than the <33% in a normal year, but it should have a bit more heft prorated, imo, to be worthwhile and feel like you got the value. I think normal signed contracts should remain consistent with every player burning a year.

[Rays GM (Donavan)]

Rays are in, don't care how many teams we take on each week, or the prize pool. Just want the baseball back, so I get my baseball fix.

[Former Phillies GM (Fred)]

I am in. I know we will have a pro rated system in place for service time since that is what the boss has already suggested but I disagree. Let’s play this season for fun since it is so crazy and short and just start in 2021 with the same contract status that wasn’t in place for 2020. Just my .02 but I know what will happen.

[Blue Jays GM (Michael)]

Jays are here

[Former Orioles GM (Bill)]

Here and fine w/ whatever.

[Brewers GM (Kevin)]

I'm in favor of playing this season with all of the prize money being distributed as normal. I like the idea of having multiple opponents in a single week, if possible. Could be interesting to even award points based off that (i.e. with 4 other opponents, the overall winner gets 4 pts, second place gets 3 pts, third gets 2 pts, fourth gets 1 pt, fifth gets skunked). Then playoff seeding could be based on overall accrued points. I know this could be incredibly complicated and not potentially incompatible with Fantrax.

As far as the contract issue, my idea is that we could add new "freeze" tags. Maybe 2-3 per team. So kind of like a franchise tag, but essentially the team could choose a few players to have the exact same contract next year as they had this year. That way you can either lock in protection years or retain a player with an expiring contract at the same salary.

Ultimately I'm flexible with how the actual format plays out and defer to the best judgement of the CO.

[Former Dodgers GM (Andrew)]

I’m in. I like idea of having full payouts in place. But I think we should look at this as kind of “Bonus Baseball” in the sense that we’re lucky to even have this much of a season and I believe the contracts should just roll over to next season since trades and stuff were made based on the idea that we’d have like a full year of certain players.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

I don't think FA contracts should remain in place. Otherwise, we could have a lopsided FA next year, where all the teams who had cap this year feast on any good players left.

Also, it's not fair to any owners with albatross contracts who are waiting for that to be over. At the VERY least, we'd need one free buyout for those owners.

Put me on record in favor of protected players not counting this year. I think everyone else needs to count (and I say that as someone who will lose their entire bullpen, who were on one year deals)

[Red Sox GM (John)]

Red Sox are here and fine with whatever. I do like the idea of making the 2020 pot 50% and rolling the additional money forward in some way

[Tigers GM (Jason)]

We’re here and ready for baseball. Personally, I would prefer prize money to remain in tact. I would also be strongly against a contract freeze (even though we do have a lot of expiring contracts) — if we are going to have a fantasy baseball season, contract status should be reflected on that. Though, aligning with what Dan said, we wouldn’t be against protected players contracts staying put in some capacity.

Also really like the idea of multiple matchups per week, to get the most out of this season.

Ultimately we’re flexible and okay with whatever the league/CO decides.

Play ball!

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

I'm in obviously.

[Royals GM (Mac - Retired)]

I’m back for another shitty year


Payouts for winning? What’s that?

[Former Athletics GM (Das)]

I'm in.