For those whose teams are falling out of contention for 2013 playoff spots: if you are like me, your mind immediately drifts to next year and you start thinking about next year. So what better time to consider upgrading your Scoresheet experience? I have some openings in a perpetual salary cap league that is heading into its first offseason. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking that standard keeper leagues seem to get a little boring, then this might be a perfect fit for you.
I’d like to start with the reasons why I don’t play in standard keeper-format leagues. I played in those types of leagues for a decade and I just always felt that something seemed to be missing. The most obvious thing that was missing was player movement among elite players. Elite players would be drafted and then stay on the same team year after year after year. It felt like 1950s era baseball – a time when players could be retained indefinitely - at the owner’s discretion. It was a time when the lower-level teams had very little chance of winning and middle-tier teams only occasionally made it to the World Series. Think of the American League from 1947 – 1964, when only 3 different AL teams went to the World Series: the Yankees (15 times), Indians (twice), and the White Sox (once). In 18 years, the Athletics, Red Sox, Senators, Browns/Orioles, and Tigers didn’t go to even one World Series!
For me, watching the same teams win year-after-year without making ANY risky moves – or by continually trading picks from “next year” to stock up “this year” was mind-numbing and zero fun for me. There had to be a more interesting way to set up a league. Formats that encourage draft-and-hoard strategies held no appeal for me. I wanted something challenging.
I wanted a league where:
#1 - players cannot be held forever
#2 - you can’t trade 2014 picks for 2013 picks and follow that up by trading 2015 picks to replace the 2014 picks you traded away a year earlier.
#3 – you can choose how much turnover your team would have between seasons and plan accordingly
#4 – there is some deeper thought required – something where talent level isn’t the end-all, be-all factor in every decision.
So how do you accomplish all that?
First, replace the draft process with an auction system. Second, add a salary cap limit that reduces the ability of a team to accumulate elite players and encourages a level playing field. Third, implement a salary contract system that forces top players into free agency within a certain number of years. Fourth, eliminate the subjective keeper limits that dictate a lot of the year-to-year strategy elements. For example, in a standard keeper league, you would probably never consider keeping a middle reliever like Craig Stammen because using the keeper slot is the equivalent of using a Round 13 pick to keep him. So you naturally want your “keepers” to be your 13 best players. But what if all that changed and the real question became “which players are the best value?” rather than “which players have the most talent?” What if the real question in deciding whether to keep a player like Stammen revolved around his salary not his quantitative stats? That’s far closer to the kind of questions that real MLB general managers face.
That’s it. With just those few changes you’ve created a league where you have decisions that are far more comparable to the decisions faced by real MLB general managers. It is a far more mentally-engaging format. Honestly, it’s not for everyone. But if you’ve ever found yourself getting bored with your league, then this might be a way to boost your interest level.
The league is finishing up its first season. A few owners have let me know that they won’t be returning next year. They liked the format, but were bowing out for other reasons. So I have some existing rosters available that will become available after the World Series. One team is headlined by Clayton Kershaw. Another has Robinson Cano. As you can see, these rosters aren’t completely devoid of talent. In fact, one is actually leading its division right now.
After the season is complete, each team will have to make decisions on every player on its roster. These decisions aren’t as simple as keeping the best players and trashing the rest. You might choose to keep 20 players. You might choose to keep 5 players. You can cut almost everyone if you want and start with a nearly blank canvas. Or you can keep the roster mostly intact and drop just a few players who aren’t worth the salaries it would cost to keep them and then replace them in free agency (or maybe re-sign the same player but for a lower salary?)
Again, this isn’t for everyone. But if you’re the kind of fan who follows the roster moves made by your favorite team’s GM as closely as you follow the on-the-field performances, then I think you’ll find this format very rewarding in comparison to “normal” leagues.
Send a quick e-mail to
mb0566@yahoo.com if you think you might be interested and I will gladly get into the details of how it works.
Roster cut decisions will be due at the end of November, so there is still enough time to get acclimated before having to finalize those decisions.