IBC

I think its great that the ExCo is going to update our IBC Charter and I think now, after a decade, would be a great a time to change some rules and give the league a nice kick in the ass.

The new playoff format is coming in the MLB, maybe this year but 2013 at the latest. Are we going to do this as well? I think we should, and I think we should start it in 2012 even the league waits another year. The extra playoff place and eventual one game playoff could add a lot of excitement. Putting more teams in playoff contention should also increase league activity. How many seasons in a row now has the trade deadline market been flooded with sellers? This should create more buyers. It's worth considering.

Houston is moving to the AL. I wish we could also do this earlier but I think the scheduling nightmare that would ensue wouldn't be worth the trouble.

And here's my outside the box idea -

IBC Winter Madness

An offseason tournament in February where every game must be played H2H. It's winner-takes-all and the entry fee is your 3rd round pick for the next draft. So we play in February, but the winner doesn't receive his winnings until the picks are released in July. This way we never have to worry about the picks being traded by their owners and their values are still sort of unknown since you can only guess where a team will finish the next season.

So it's optional, and anyone who wants in can offer their pick up to get in. The entered teams are seeded based on previous years record (world series participants are automatic 1 and 2 seeds) and we play a 3 game series. After the first series, eliminated teams can get back in with their 2nd round pick. We re-seed and play a 5 game series. Losers are out, winners move on, and we play 5 game series until we are left with two teams who play a 7 game series for all the picks. No deals, winner takes all.

I know it sounds crazy, but what could drum up activity in the league more than JB winning this thing and taking home 12 3rd rounders and 8 2nd rounders and suddenly having 20 more trade chips. Or someone like me winning it and then immediately dealing all the picks in July to JB for like a journeyman reliever and 36 yo DH.

We could add more wrinkles to make it more interesting. I know gambling draft picks isn't very lifelike, but for a league like this it could be an awesome wrinkle, and completely optional.

*cough*free agency*cough*

yea, I don't think people would like that, but leagues with contracts are pretty fun

Since we mimic the MLB, we'll definitely be expanding the playoffs. It looks like it's going to be for 2012 in the MLB, but it might wait till '13 when the Astros finally move. That said, if the majority of the league wants to expand it this year, and MLB doesn't, then it's certainly something we can look at. I think it'll actually help our league out more than the MLB.

With the Astros, you're dead on. That will just have to wait until 2013.

As for the tournament, winter leagues were always a fun way to kill time, but interest usually petered out. Would you want to use the season disc or the last year's projection disc? We'll be pretty lucky to even have the majority of ZiPS teams done by February, let alone have the disc ready to use. I really hope it gets released on time this year so that April isn't such a pain in the ass.

Gambling the draft picks is going to get a resounding no from me. It's just too easy for the rich to get richer in that. It would be a good way to just get excited for the season and practice playing H2H, and I'm perfectly fine with having some sort of tournament... just not for draft picks.

I agree with JP on the picks. My team would get slaughtered in a tournament, and a 3rd rounder is pretty valuable to me. If you want to give incentive to participate, maybe banners on team pages for winter league championships?

Concur with posts from above. As much as I like gambling, I am not throwing in a 3rd round pick...rather throw in a one dollar bill.

I believe we did a winter league tournament back around 2005. It is true that winter league activity always peters out fast. I don't know the feasibility of this but I figure I'll throw it out as an alternative.

Franchise all time teams. You pick 25 guys from the history of your franchise, one season, so I'd pick 1968 Bob Gibson as one of my SP, whereas Gabe would pick 1998 Sammy Sosa, 2003 Mark Prior and anyone but Dusty Baker as his manager. We could do a 32 team h2h random tournament. We could do a fast season. I don't know I'm just throwing this out there. Let's say winner gets an untradeable sandwich pick between the first and second, runner up gets a sandwich pick between 2nd and 3rd.

I'm still against any type of picks being added/dealt or anything. But I also don't think that's very feasible either, unless you want to build projections for each of those players.

That said, it might be more feasible to build an all-time IBC franchise team. I'd have to look into it (or somebody else can), but I'd think importing/exporting projections between databases to build a best-of your franchise team would probably be more fun. And more fair. I'd have Tanyon Sturzte from my '02 Expos team in my bullpen. The good old carry-over days.

Cardinals wrote:I believe we did a winter league tournament back around 2005. It is true that winter league activity always peters out fast. I don't know the feasibility of this but I figure I'll throw it out as an alternative.

Franchise all time teams. You pick 25 guys from the history of your franchise, one season, so I'd pick 1968 Bob Gibson as one of my SP, whereas Gabe would pick 1998 Sammy Sosa, 2003 Mark Prior and anyone but Dusty Baker as his manager. We could do a 32 team h2h random tournament. We could do a fast season. I don't know I'm just throwing this out there. Let's say winner gets an untradeable sandwich pick between the first and second, runner up gets a sandwich pick between 2nd and 3rd.

I would be down for that.

I like JP's idea more than mine, plus it is a lot more fair. I get to start Stan Musial in my scenario whereas someone like Dan has to start Jeff Conine

I like the All-Time team idea a little bit more, guys have changed hands so often that we could end up with some pretty heavily duplicated teams and that would be less fun. I kind of like the pick gambling idea, but what if we instead had a sliding scale so that better teams have to give up higher picks (say top 6 teams give up 1st rounders, next 6 second rounders, next 6 third rounders, next 6 4th rounders, next 6 5th rounders). Probably just get a bunch of shitty picks but it could make the thing more interesting.

The idea of the draft, in every sport, is to give the worse teams a chance to rebuild, in the spirit of creating parity. Gambling the draft picks is pretty much the opposite of that. Gabe, you've been one of my favorite GM's throughout our 9.9 years as a league, but draft pick gambling is one of the most godawful suggestions I've heard in those 9.9 years.

But that's just my $.02.

The most awful suggestion in IBC History will always be JP suggesting we let you come back.

Well fuck you too. Pardon me if I think institutionalizing giving a draft advantage to better teams to be a bad idea. That's a hell of a thing to say to someone who did as much for the league as I did and who put up with as much shit as I did. Your idea stunk. Worse, it would be bad for the league. Period.

Nice to see Bren still can't take a joke. Feels like old times, I think Die Hard summed it up best

"Just like fucking Saigon, eh slick?"

If it's a joke, my apologies. I'm a little touchy right now. I've deliberately laid low since I rejoined because it would be nice to try and start over to some degree with you guys. I finally start joining the discussion again and that's the greeting I get. Granted, my post wasn't ideal, but it wasn't meant in any spite. getting that response really pissed me the fuck off, obviously. If it was meant in jest, I apologize, though I'd appreciate it if you guys eased off a bit. Being 'just another GM' is something I'm still adjusting too and geting defensive immediately as Commish/ExCo was pretty much my default for most of the 7-8 years I was in those roles.
If it wasn't a joke, see my previous post.

I can also see it being easy for a lot of members to immediately get hyper-defensive against me immediately as well given that history, so I ask y'all to keep that in mind as well. I'm just a regular GM looking to have fun. We've been around as a league for just shy of 10 years. Folks change a lot in 10 years. I know all of you have and i know I have. Though I still think the Yankees can suck it.

Bren- your time might be better spent attempting to turnaround that shite team of yours...

Happy New Year Bitches!

I didn't think Gabe was joking at first either. I made a bowl of popcorn last night and waited for the shit storm. Never happened... Happy drafting y'all!

Phillies wrote:I didn't think Gabe was joking at first either. I made a bowl of popcorn last night and waited for the shit storm. Never happened... Happy drafting y'all!

Plain, Buttered, Kettle or Cheese?

Buttered, duh.

come on that was funny

I laughed