Catchers

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Padres
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Catchers

Post by Padres »

I remember we had some discussion about requiring two Catchers on every team's roster but I don't remeber ever resolving it. So I would like to consider implementing the following rule for this season:

GMs must keep at least 25 eligible players (on the DMB disk and still a member of a MLB organization) on the active roster at all times, and at least two of those players must be have defensive ratings as a catcher.

Thoughts?
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Post by Cardinals »

I'm not sure we should force somebody to carry two catchers. One yes, two, I'm not so sure of.
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Post by Rangers »

Actually, Jim, we did address the catcher part. But my thought is that I'd vote against that part. As I told Jake last year, the only reason you'd do that is because your catcher can get fatigued. But that doesn't mean that you have to need to carry a second catcher all of the time. In the past I've carried a second guy for periods and not for periods, and my starting catcher could get enough rest. Even Jake relented on this point. His point was that it was more realistic to carry two, since every major league team carries two. As we've talked about, we don't have in-game injuries, which is why major league teams try to avoid having only one catcher on the roster at any given time. And we cannot simulate every aspect of the major leagues. We do a lot of little things differently from real life because they are practical in our application. In my opinion, we need to stay away from making rules for the purpose of making rules, and saying that you have to have two catchers at all times is arbitrary and unnecessary.

On the 25 players, I'm fine with saying that guys have to have 25 players who are in the database. I am not fine with saying that they have to have 25 players who are on the database and not injured, without having some sort of leeway. On the surface this sounds pretty harmless, but some of us have experienced having six, seven, eight, nine of our players injured at the same time. And for a team trying to build a roster, forcing them to have all of those extra players just for the sake of appearance (who's watching?) can actually be about as crippling as anything we could do to them. I've been there, and if we're going to keep our rosters so small, telling a team that is trying to build assets that they have to toss out, say, eight or half or more of their 15 assets with which they are trying to grow their team seems really unfair to me, and these are the guys who already are at great disadvantages because they or someone else put them way behind the JBs and Nates in a league where free agency and salary caps don't bring the good teams back to the pack. We're already telling them that ten of those spots have to be first and second year players.

If we want to have a 25 man minimum and continue to have some lower number (which should include nine position players, I agree on that) of healthy players so that they will play fair and competitive games, I can support that. But while we want to make our games representative and fair, we're in the process of making it harder and harder for building teams to do what guys like Jagger and Jim and Martin and I have done, which is to inherit pretty poor rosters and turn them into competitive teams. The ability to actually do that is key in our league, as it's often the only hope for a new GM, and let me assure you, wiping out a third of a guy's prospects (and, again, half or more of his nondraft prospects, which is really where you do damage in building) when he's trying to build like that is at best a serious kick to the stomach.

As an aside to all of this, would someone tell me why - besides the fact that it's the way that Bren has always done it - we force people to have ten draft slots? This has always seemed to me like a case of having a rule for the sake of having a rule. I've never been in a league, other than IBC spin-offs, where we had this sort of restriction, and every league I've ever been in has drafts. Our GMs take the draft seriously enough as is. Especially if we're tightening down the active roster, why do we need to confine GMs so much? We have the best set of GMs that I've ever been involved with in a league. Why can't we just let them do their thing?
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Post by Nationals »

I am not in favor of forcing GMs to carry players for the sake of carrying players. Brett has pretty much outlined the issues I had with the requirement of having two catchers. However, we should try to ensure that there are 25 active players on each roster--it's more than reasonable.
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Post by Astros »

If a team doesn't want to carry a catcher, its only going to bite them in the butt. I know I played Shawn early in the year when his catchers were all hurt and he played Kouzmanoff at catcher and had a ton of passed balls. So all that not having a catcher is going to do is hurt their chances of winning. I think the only cases you'll find of a team not having a catcher is like last year with Shawn, when both his were hurt but due back within a week and he didn't want to lose a roster spot.

BP I think what you've brought up should be a whole nother topic because thats a lot more important than forcing a team to carry catchers
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Post by Padres »

BTW - I am convinced that this is a dead, i.e., resolved issue.
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