Adding rounds to the draft

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

How does everyone feel about changing the draft to 5 rounds and adding 2 salary exempt roster spots?

The 8X8 rule would be unchanged, but the 34 max minor leaguer rule would change to 36.

You are voting for this to take effect immediately.

Please leave comments below for further discussion.

[Former Orioles GM (Bill)]

The rationale behind this seems to be that it helps teams rebuild. It helps contending teams at least as much, and in my opinion more, by giving them 2 free slots to hold prospects that are unbound by roster and cap constraints, which are the league’s primary method of creating competition. I have voted no.

[Cardinals GM (John C)]

Feb 25, 2022 5:55:46 GMT -8 Former Orioles GM (Bill) said:

The rationale behind this seems to be that it helps teams rebuild. It helps contending teams at least as much, and in my opinion more, by giving them 2 free slots to hold prospects that are unbound by roster and cap constraints, which are the league’s primary method of creating competition. I have voted no.

^^^ Ditto.

[Padres GM (Amy)]

I feel that this league already makes rebuilding pretty easy. With just two tags, there’s loads of good FAs. After the draft there will be lots more than 60 good specs available. I just finished a draft in All Star where we roster 60 players and there’s still loads of guys I’d love to have and lots of prospects on the Baseballprosoectus top 500 remaining. Rebuilding teams presumably have more money than contending teams and therefore more easy access to pop up prospects. I’ve signed a bunch of players here for 1million, including Ronald Acuna but also tons of other guys. The reason I offered him a million was I wanted him on my 10 man bc I was also probably trying to win. If a rebuilding team not in the same situation had just offered 1.1 (which they easily could have because they didn’t have the money/40 man issue), it would be a different story.
Part of contending strategy is why not flip prospects since there are so many good replacements out there? This would make it more challenging.

[Former Orioles GM (Bill)]

Right, that’s what’s great about the league. Rebuilding is pretty easy. Lots and lots of teams are competitive and no one is more than a year off at anytime from feeling they can be competitive. That’s a good thing. I enjoy rostering prospects as much as anyone, but I fail to see what league issue we are solving with this rule change.

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

This is my first rebuild here and I can honestly say I hate it. I find it by far the most difficult and unrealistic compared to other leagues. Outside of top 50 prospects, there is very little reason to hold on and develop anybody. The combo of available talent and short rosters create trades that are weird. Invite everyone to take a look at the trades linked at bottom of my clubhouse page. There's no real straight forward trade in there (with exception of the one with top 50 specs). Trades have to be bigger, have MOB and prospect pieces, move money etc. After two off-seasons of rebuilding, I now am in a position where I may have to simply cut 5-10 really good prospects just because there's better on the waiver, post-draft. To vote no is declaring high upside, low level prospects (that happen to be not considered elite at the moment) as having very little value. Same for perfectly reasonable AAA, utility types (even bat-first ones). Basically, I'm personally finding the current setup untenable.

[Padres GM (Amy)]

I don’t think that rule changes just need to occur to remedy. I think they can occur to increase enjoyment of a league unless it greatly harms a portion of teams. I feel that there’s enough benefits and ease to rebuilding that we don’t need to protect rebuilding teams.

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

I kind of like being in different leagues that have their own sets of rules. What may work in one league may not work in another. We have tried to set this league up to mimic real life; and in real life, teams have many more minor leaguers than we do. Contenders, re-builders, doesn't matter. I've always observed: The advantage leans to the teams that do the most homework as the size of the minors rosters increases. I could go either way. I don't think it harms anyone either way.

We would only change a rule this quickly with an overwhelming majority of owners agreeing. I wanted to get some more feedback on this idea.

[Nationals GM (Preston)]

I tend to think that all of the rule changes were discussing would need to be implemented beginning next off-season as we have been going about this off-season under a certain set of rules and assumptions.

I’m sympathetic to Beau’s point and agree with the Reds that we’re trying in many regards to mimic real life. As such, teams should be able to accumulate a deeper bench of prospects, in my opinion, without facing unnecessary roster crunches.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

Without putting too much thought into it, more Draft is more interesting. I love the draft and scouting minor leaguers, so it's a no brainer for me. Frankly that's a pretty biased position, but adding a couple draft picks and slots for hoarding high risk players is just more fun.

[Rangers GM (Victor)]

I used to be opposed to adding rounds to the draft, but after going thru my rebuild, I feel I wish I had more roster spots for low level prospects that frankly, take time to flourish. ESPECIALLY now that we have implemented rules on how many prospects we can hold at a time. Before, rebuild teams could literally be a roster full of prospects until they felt they were ready to compete.

If we add rounds, I would like to go ahead and make it 5 roster spots added to the exempt list. I like the 5 rd draft idea as well.

[Marlins GM (Mike J)]

Having been in rebuild mode since I joined the league, I definitely have had to make many prospect cuts I wish I hadn't in order to roster MLB contributors. As Victor mentioned, some players take time in lower levels and for me have become roster crunch casualties. Adding more draft rounds and max minors will make it more interesting for all I feel and not just those possible rebuilding teams. Another positive I think is that more rounds will lessen the non-drafted first-week FA frenzy that occurs with those that still have money left, usually rebuilding teams. This also points to Victor's idea of increasing the exempt list, especially if this is implemented immediately as many have cap strategies planned tightly.

[Former Angels GM (Mike C.)]

no need to add draft, do the same research, throw them out in FA, bid on them.

adding roster spots? teams all don't carry full rosters now. Will only help the most active teams keep more players on roster from actual rebuilding teams, especially new owners,. For those in All Star the top teams have full rosters and they are contenting teams, if you gave them 2 more spots new owners have less to work with in FA to rebuild.  I realized this because I had to rebuild in there and not in here.  This is just a move because more owners are no longer new and rebuilding.

[Former Orioles GM (Bill)]

This measure has passed and was to be immediate, but only 3 rounds have been setup for the draft. What is going on?

[Royals GM (Mac)]

Pat said

We would only change a rule this quickly with an overwhelming majority of owners agreeing
Maybe 14-8 with 8 abstaining isn’t an overwhelming majority

[Former Orioles GM (Bill)]

The original post states "You are voting for this to take effect immediately." It should be put into effect. Immediately.

[Cardinals GM (John C)]

Mar 4, 2022 8:41:16 GMT -8 Former Orioles GM (Bill) said:

The original post states "You are voting for this to take effect immediately." It should be put into effect. Immediately.

Why?

It was stated upthread that in order to change the rule for this year, which is a big change from how this has been done previously, it would need an overwhelming majority.  The outstanding 6 votes could make it so ... or they could make it a tie, or somewhere in between.

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

Mar 4, 2022 13:18:11 GMT -8 Cardinals GM (John C) said:

Mar 4, 2022 8:41:16 GMT -8 Former Orioles GM (Bill) said:

The original post states "You are voting for this to take effect immediately." It should be put into effect. Immediately.

Why?

It was stated upthread that in order to change the rule for this year, which is a big change from how this has been done previously, it would need an overwhelming majority.  The outstanding 6 votes could make it so ... or they could make it a tie, or somewhere in between.

I have agreed with this sentiment 100%. Could actually see this as an exception. The reason is the depth of this draft. It's full of post-covid popup prospects combined with a decent draft class. J2 class looks a bit light though. In AllStar, I got a FV45 in the seventh round. That's unusual. With so much depth, the Spec Week dive will be pretty severe. This could exasperate the effects that have been discussed at length and are the purpose of the proposed amendment.

Brass tax: I'd be fine either way.

[Nationals GM (Preston)]

Would we expand the 10-man for the additional rounds?

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

This passed by a definitional super-majority. I request a serious explanation on why it was not implemented.