Idea for discussion

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

We take our currently frozen league and leave it frozen; set it aside, and move everything over to 2021 as if 2020 never happened.

Use our current rosters and change every players contract to a 1 year deal. Then play out this season with those rosters as a starting point to get this season going. Allow free drops for any player that opts-out, only allow 1yr deals for any free agents, reopen trading, and play the multiple match-ups per week schedule.

After this season, we revert to playing our frozen league and nothing done in this season would carry over.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

Alternately we adhere as closely to the rules as possible. All MLB contracts burn a year, including players who opt out. Protected players who meet the requirement for pitching or hitting burn a year. Those that don't retain the year of protection.

Due to players getting COVID-19 or opting out of the season, GMs will have the option to renew any ONE player in the off-season, with an expiring contract after 2020, who doesn't play in 2020 for COVID-related reasons (M Leake, I Desmond, Felix Hernandez, etc) for one year for the same contract they have for 2020. To be clear, if a contracted player misses the season because of TJ surgery, he may not be renewed in the same way. This year One player with a free agent contract ending after 2020 can be renewed as well.

There will be no need this year to adhere to the 40 man roster. All players on your 50 man roster are eligible to play.

There will be an unlimited Covid related IL and $10M of one time extra free agent money for each team will made available. This is for 2020 1 year contracts only. You may work with your own cap room OR designate Covid funds for a 1 year FA signing. This must be specified in your contract offer when you make it during FA bidding.

Trade deadline is pushed back a month and FA will continue through the playoffs due to the impossibility of predicting or preparing for Covid related cases.

I'm sure we missed something, but feel free to digest this and make suggestions. I will post a poll in a couple of days and we'll vote as a league.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

Dan has been kind enough to prepare this for the schedule.

"Here are two proposals for our schedule, taken from what we now know of the MLB schedule (assuming one still happens despite all the positive tests happening)

This year, if we still use a 4-week playoff, I personally want to propose expanding the playoffs. We all know that luck is going to play a bigger role in this season than any prior year. While there wouldn't be any bye weeks in this proposal, we'd have over half the league (16 of 30 teams) with a shot at the world series in this weird year.

(If, however, you'd rather stick with the current playoff system, you can still do that with the expanded schedule option)

The downside to this schedule is that we'd end up playing 4 game weeks rather than the 3 I initially was hoping for, with a final regular season week of 5 games.

Alternatively, we could shrink the number of teams in the playoffs to 4 per league, with only one wildcard. I, personally, am not a fan of this plan, but it would allow for a longer regular season, playing less games per week (alternating 3 and 4).

I've attached proposed schedules for each scenario in this dropbox folder.

I leave the rest to you, although I'm open to edits"

I will post this as a poll as well.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

The plan is to retain normal AL/NL East, West, and Central divisions. I had floated the idea of mirroring MLB this year and merging into 3 total divisions, East/West/Central with the NL and AL playing together. This didn't receive much support in the CO discussions to be perfectly honest, but I still love it, so I thought I'd float it here as well. I can add it to the poll if the idea receives preliminary support.

[Nationals GM (Preston)]

Thanks for the work everyone. I’m on board with whatever the majority decides, if it’s being open to feedback.

My preference is for this league year to count. I’d prefer a longer regular season and the shorter playoff schedule. (I’d prefer to erase some of the volatility of individual playoff matchups with the slightly less volatile multiple weekly matchups in an extra regular season week.) I’m also open to a roto regular season.

I like the contract proposal as I understood it. Players signed to contracts burn a year, unless they opt out (for one player per team). Maybe I missed it quickly, but how would protected players be impacted? I’m still pro-prorated service time, just with a higher threshold (perhaps 30-40 games, 20 innings, 6+ starts), which I think is a bit of a middle ground versus either no loss of protection or a completely prorated protected season (20 or so games, 10 or so innings, 4 or so starts).

I like the extra COVID Cap Cushion.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

The proposal does not include prorating the season. Normal qualifying year rules apply in the proposal as planned.

[Rays GM (Donavan)]

Let’s set a poll or 2, and get a decision made.

I see only 2 real alternatives-

1. Pretend 2020 never happened, freeze all contracts

2. Run 2020 as best we can, multiple match-ups per week, normal play-offs, all contracts continue to play out as if a full year, covid related issues are treated like an injury.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

Both options are set to have multiple weekly matchups. The only question is the playoffs format and thus primarily 3 or 4 matchups per week.

[Nationals GM (Preston)]

Jul 15, 2020 13:29:26 GMT -8 Former Twins GM (Robin) said:

The proposal does not include prorating the season. Normal qualifying year rules apply in the proposal as planned.

Got it. Personally fine with that.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

I don't think I'm in favor of completely rolling over 2020 contracts into 2021. I'm sure others did this too, but I intentionally signed a bunch of players to 1 year deals. There are some I wouldn't mind keeping, and others who I only wanted for 2020.

In the end, I'll echo others and say that whatever the majority wants, I'm cool with. But I'd prefer for the season to count, if only for that reason.

Rob's idea of combining divisions like the real league is interesting, but the reason I ultimately don't care for it is because of league imbalance. In normal seasons, each team in the AL and NL essentially plays the same schedule, only difference being playing inside the division an extra time and 3 interleague matchups differing by team based on last year's position. That changes if we focused on East/Central/West this year. The NL West has traditionally been a powerhouse, so is it fair to the AL West to be compared to the other AL teams if they have to play that gauntlet of teams? The NL East looked pretty beastly up and down by my early projection modeling, and the AL East looked top-heavy. Is it fair that the AL East gets a tougher schedule than most of the rest of the AL while the NL East teams get an easier schedule than their fellow NL teams? Unless we guarantee 2 teams from each division make the playoffs, I don't like it for parity reasons.

However, that said, if it appeals to enough people, I'll figure out the schedule.

[Rays GM (Donavan)]

I think if we play 2020, then contracts are honored (despite the short season), not rolled over (and I, like Dan have contracts that I would like to roll over). We have tags, and everyone is in the same situation, and those contracts wouldn't have rolled over if a normal season was played, so they were going to be tagged or free agents anyhow.

Love the powerhouse discussion (but cant remember when the NL last won the WS)......JOKING (think it was 2017, or 2016).....

Agree that the playoffs should remain unchanged to what they normally are.

Starting to get excited just wondering who my first week opponents are (and how many opponents), this might even be more fun than normal (where you can occasionally win without changing your line-up for a week), with 3-4 opponents we are going to have to make critical calls on starting a pitcher on Sunday, that might win a contest because you need the SO's, but lose another because he might blow out your ERA or WHIP.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

Jul 15, 2020 20:30:36 GMT -8 Rays GM (Donavan) said:

Love the powerhouse discussion (but cant remember when the NL last won the WS)......JOKING (think it was 2017, or 2016).....

One reason for this is that the best team in the AL has an easier path to the world series, whereas the NL representative hasn't always been the objective best team in the league due to greater parity/density at the top. The Angels and the Blue Jays have been great teams, and among the best in the league overall. But they would've statistically been harder pressed to end up in the world series in the NL.

Just saying

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

We can use the roll over frozen plan with the option of allowing all teams to pick and choose which contracts to burn a year and which to keep.

[Diamondbacks GM (Ethan)]

Personally, I think it’s time to make the decision rather than wait a few days for a poll. We should try and wrap this up by Sunday.

I don’t really care HOW we do it, I just care that we do it.

[Deleted]

I'm in favor of what Amy's All-star league is doing and it's pretty close to another league I'm in. GMs choose whats best for their club, freeze or don't freeze. For tags, just roll them over as in All-star we don't use tags but we did away with the Qualifying Offers for 2020. I don't have access as I'm on my phone or I'd copy and paste All-star stuff. All PP players get free pass this year.
We didn't do a vote (wanted to though) because time was running out and we wanted to get something tossed together.

Schedule/playoff... I have no preference as long as it's H2H and there is one.


Seems like everyone would be a winner that way. If Hollar needs help with spreadsheet stuff I can help as I set up All-star league.

[Royals GM (Mac - Retired)]

Jul 15, 2020 20:39:45 GMT -8 Rockies GM (Dan) said:

Jul 15, 2020 20:30:36 GMT -8 Rays GM (Donavan) said:

Love the powerhouse discussion (but cant remember when the NL last won the WS)......JOKING (think it was 2017, or 2016).....

One reason for this is that the best team in the AL has an easier path to the world series, whereas the NL representative hasn't always been the objective best team in the league due to greater parity/density at the top. The Angels and the Blue Jays have been great teams, and among the best in the league overall. But they would've statistically been harder pressed to end up in the world series in the NL.

Just saying

Ouch for the NL teams. You still have to go to the playoff against top team from your division, it’s just the NL cant finish or finishes before the final push 😉. Doesn’t matter how easy the path is to the final game, it comes down to the final AL team has been put together (top to bottom) better than the top NL team. And it shows in the results in the finals

Just saying

[Former Dodgers GM (Andrew)]

I think giving teams the option to freeze some contracts is a good idea. But I don’t think we should have to freeze our entire teams in that scenario. I think it would be fair to give each team the option of freezing up to three of their players contracts, But being able to do this for any player and not just players who opt out due to COVID concerns. My reasoning for this is that I think it will help the most with competitive balance and is a good middle ground.

[Former Orioles GM (Bill)]

I'll do whatever is agreed to as stated before, but prefer sticking to regular rules as much as possible and not freezing the whole thing. Will admit this is for selfish reasons as I don't really want to carry over all my penalties and whatnot. Was hoping for just one year of awfulness/constraints after joining up this off-season, don't really want to carry all that to 2021.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

Jul 16, 2020 6:54:27 GMT -8 Royals GM (Mac - Retired) said:

Ouch for the NL teams. You still have to go to the playoff against top team from your division, it’s just the NL cant finish or finishes before the final push 😉. Doesn’t matter how easy the path is to the final game, it comes down to the final AL team has been put together (top to bottom) better than the top NL team. And it shows in the results in the finals

Just saying

I never said the Blue Jays or Angels didn't deserve to win.

It removes nothing from the brilliance of those teams to say that they had an easier road to the finals than NL teams. Take last year - I think Pat would agree with me that he was not the most dominant team in the NL start to finish (that would be the Giants). He just got hot at the right time against the right teams. Mike was the best team in the league and deserved to win, but the AL field was weaker comparatively, to the point my simulation gave him a 65% chance to make the world series by the middle of the season (something I don't post on the boards).

I'm not saying that the best AL teams aren't as good as the best NL teams, but the middle of the pack is where the imbalance has been. Once you get past the first 2 or 3 amazing AL teams, the rest historically haven't been as good as the NL. If you think I'm making that up, look at the roto standings from prior seasons - a lot of the time, the NL has 7 or 8 of the top 10 roto teams

[Pirates GM (Hollar)]

Personally, I'm pessimistic about this season finishing, and therefore I'm in favor of protected players not using a year of protection regardless of what happens this year, and teams being able to choose if a player on a defined contract uses a year or not this season.

Whatever people want to do for playing this year works for me. It seems like we're likely to have a crapshoot.