Suggestions for 2014

[Tucker (Padres GM)]

I just don't know where the players are going to come from. I'm going to stick with P's. I count 6 teams with at least 20 P's and another 2 with 19. that's basically 2 teams worth of pitchers. Now most of the teams are competing, why would they want to deal their depth?

We will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Ben (Rays GM)]

Unfortunately, like Tucker and Max have alluded to, it's a zero sum game. There's a finite number of big league players, and when you have a league as big as this one, there's no margin of error - 30 teams using 25 players each could potentially use every single MLB player, and lots of the contending teams carry more than 25, which necessarily leaves other teams with fewer. Unlike in real life, you can't just call a player up from the minors and decide to start him. And while it's true that there are some free agents out there that would solve the problem for some teams, it's not enough to solve the problem for everyone. Many of these players aren't even eligible for free agency because they haven't completed a year of service yet (maybe that's something we need to change, i don't know). With the AL and NL separated on Yahoo, there's not even a comprehensive way to find these players.

Maybe instead of penalizing teams for not playing full lineups there might be a way to reward teams for doing so. Positive reinforcement tends to be more effective. Give teams an incentive to find those free agents and they'll make much more of an effort to do so. I'm not sure what that incentive would be though - maybe landmark season PA and IP totals that unlock certain benefits?

[Tucker (Padres GM)]

Ben, the only issue I see with the landmark numbers is that you're rewarding teams for competing again. The teams with the most P's will hit those numbers easily, the middle teams will hit them some time, and the last few will be the ones who miss out on it. You'd have to make the number small enough that a team of reserves would hit it, but at that point, is it worth it to do it?

[Ben (Rays GM)]

True, so what about a points system where you get a point every week for each player who gets at least one appearance? So if you have a full 9 player lineup and a full 11 player pitching staff, assuming everybody gets into at least one game, you can get 20 points per week. At the end of the season, 22 weeks is a total of 440 points. We could reward teams for hitting 325, 350, 375, 400, and 425 points on the season. Less than 325 means that you averaged 5 players per week who failed to get into a single game (which, let's be honest, is pretty unacceptable).

I'm still not sure what the rewards would be. However, it would be great if we could somehow find a reward that would mean more to lower teams than to higher teams.

[Ben (Rays GM)]

Maybe we could attach it to the redshirt tag? If you get to 425 points, you get to use five redshirts the following season. If you only get to 350, you only get two.

I'm really just throwing ideas out there and seeing what sticks.

[Tucker (Padres GM)]

Rather than taking redshirt tags away, why not something like non playoff bonus teams who hit that number get an extra redshirt. The playoff teams obviously will make the number, they get the discount, shouldn't get to double dip.

Still just ideas

[Ben (Rays GM)]

Extra redshirts could work. Wouldn't want to go as high as five extras though.

Another thought that would help lower teams more than higher teams is that the points could earn you additional compensation draft picks. Like, take out rounds 7 and 8 and create a round 2A and 3A . To get a round 2A pick you have to reach 350 points. To get a round 3A pick you have to reach 400. Draft order within these rounds would be the same as the draft order for the other rounds, so teams with lower records would pick sooner.

[Deleted]

I like Tucker's discount idea, but that's about it. Comp picks (similar to the way MLB is now handing small market clubs/small payroll teams the extra early picks) could perhaps work.