Comp Pick Idea

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:25 am

I've brought this up to a few of you, as well as in the ExCo forum, but I wanted to start a league discussion on it.

We need to incentivize guys to win. Last year, there was only one team that finished above .500 and didn't make the playoffs. That's fairly screwy.

Another issue we've been having - guys over 29 seem to have no trade value.

So the thought I had is this: for teams that win over 75 games and do NOT qualify for the ALDS or NLDS (meaning, don't make the playoffs or lose the wild card round), they will receive a sandwich round pick between rounds 2 and 3.

This can do a couple of things. First, it'll give teams that aren't quite as good as the division leaders a bit reason to aim for one of the wild cards, and to be a bit more brazen at the trade deadline. Rather than trade a solid sim player and/or reliever and end up winning 70 games, maybe a team adds a piece or two to try to grab a wild card - and they'll be rewarded with a pick in the 60s for not punting this year.

It would add more value to players that may have had less value in the past. There would be no point in dealing say for example, Matt Holliday, for a third round pick if Jake could get a pick between rounds 2 and 3 for keeping Holliday and trying to get a wild card. Aaron is a pretty perfect example of this. He won 84 games, had a negative run differential, but kept trying to win last year - he grabbed a wild card, knocked out Ken, knocked out me in 4 games, and was a game away from going to the World Series. Once you get into the playoffs, fluky shit happens. It's like that in pretty much every sport.

A lot of you I talked to were pretty enthusiastic about the idea, but I wanted to open it up for a league-wide discussion.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:46 am

I agree with this idea, think its smart to do.

However, one statement you made:

Another issue we've been having - guys over 29 seem to have no trade value.

I dont understand why this is an "issue we've been having"? Market is market. Seems like its more just an issue for teams that have good players over 29? Is that the "we" you're talking about?

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:54 am

Nick can't get any remotely decent offer for Nelson Cruz.
Tullar can't get anything for Kim or Guyer, and they are both in the top 20 projections for OBP. He is a rebuilding team. He is not good.

I could go on and on.

Yankees · Post by **Yankees** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:56 am

I'm for this, too. I also stated to JP, and agree with Nils (holy shit), that it's not that they don't have value, it's just that they're value is incredibly skewed towards those competing...which makes this an even better thing. Are they getting added in after the season? Or would I get one for last year?

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:00 am

Nationals wrote:I'm for this, too. I also stated to JP, and agree with Nils (holy shit), that it's not that they don't have value, it's just that they're value is incredibly skewed towards those competing...which makes this an even better thing. Are they getting added in after the season? Or would I get one for last year?

Well put.

And no, last year's draft has come and gone. I'm not sure when this would be implemented for. I made this thread to gauge league interest since before having more discussions within ExCo about it.

Nationals · Post by **Nationals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:16 am

I'm all for this. Teams should at least be trying to win for the better part of the season. IRL, teams have profitability factors to account for to incentivize winning. We obviously don't have those factors here, so anything that adds more parity in the league is good.

I would be in support of an even larger reward, but perhaps that would be further down the road if this isn't enough of an incentive. I also agree with the above sentiments that increased parity would add value to slightly older players.

As for when it is implemented, I don't think you can base it on even this year's standings since teams have likely already made moves (or not made moves) that would have enabled them to compete for the incentive and we're 1/3 of the way through the season already.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:26 am

We could always implement it to a lesser degree this year, perhaps picks between rds 3 and 4 this year, then goes to between rds 2 and 3 next year?

Phillies · Post by **Phillies** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:43 am

I like this idea. I'd be fine implementing it for this season.

DBacks · Post by **DBacks** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:42 pm

I like the idea but I'm not a big fan of implementing it this season. We're pretty far in at this point and its not an insignificant rule change. I think it's much more fair to everyone, no matter where you are in the standings, if we wait until the 2018 season.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:45 pm

My opinion will depend on whether I grab a WC spot or not

. In all seriousness I do think there's merit to this idea, anything that encourages people to try and win is a good thing

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:47 pm

Do we look at the other end of the spectrum as well and add an NBA-style lottery for top 3 picks?

Rockies · Post by **Rockies** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:49 pm

Lottery systems suck.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:57 pm

Yeah, I agree lotteries suck. And NBA shows it hasnt done anything to prevent tanking, but not sure what could be done otherwise? Maybe teams 75+ wins with no playoffs get guaranteed pick then teams with less than 75 wins but not in bottom 5 we randomly select one or two to also get one of these supplemental picks?

Mets · Post by **Mets** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 1:53 pm

Exactly 1/2 the league is under/over .500 (15/30).

I was thinking that the league may have gotten too top heavy but given the above statement - it seems that parity is about on par.

The issue with the value of veterans in the league actually matches MLB - greater emphasis is placed on defense by most teams and guys like McCutchen, Cruz, Holliday, etc. are not going to be popular by name alone. Most teams are placing greater value on an Inciarte-type than a Nelson Cruz/power bat. Look at what Heyward & Alex Gordon got as an example - compared to what Trumbo and even EE got this past offseason.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 2:00 pm

I support implementing this for 1-2 seasons on a trial basis (assuming a league/ExCo vote), then potentially implementing it permanently via an additional vote.

Nationals · Post by **Nationals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 2:41 pm

Mets wrote:Exactly 1/2 the league is under/over .500 (15/30).

I was thinking that the league may have gotten too top heavy but given the above statement - it seems that parity is about on par.

The issue with the value of veterans in the league actually matches MLB - greater emphasis is placed on defense by most teams and guys like McCutchen, Cruz, Holliday, etc. are not going to be popular by name alone. Most teams are placing greater value on an Inciarte-type than a Nelson Cruz/power bat. Look at what Heyward & Alex Gordon got as an example - compared to what Trumbo and even EE got this past offseason.

First, this isn't a full season yet, so going off of this year's standings isn't super reliable.

If we did look at this year, I don't think the .500 mark is where we need to be paying attention. 7 teams (27%) of the league is under .400.

To put that in perspective, to find 7 teams that finished below .400, you'd have to combine every sub-.400 team in MLB since the end of 2013.

Equally, 7 teams (27%) are over .600 this year. You'd have to dip into the previous decade (2009) to get to 7 teams that finished the year over .600.

To me the goal is to get more teams closer to the .500 mark and not on the ends. Not just making sure half the league has a winning record and half has a losing record.

As for player values, I still believe improving the parity makes that next tier of players more valuable since more teams will have a need.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:04 pm

I guess this begs the question, what is the goal? If we want the league to have more parity, I think we'd have to take much more drastic measures than just giving a few teams a couple picks in the early 60s of the draft. In fact, one might argue that having more parity in the league and getting more value to older players are at odds with one another, as in order for the weaker teams to get better, they need years of good draft picks, a la Bren the last several years. If we are pushing for middle of the road teams to pick up vets to compete instead of continuing rebuild, I dont think that its going to work. Tanking and trying to get a top 5 pick much better way to rebuild than to get the #15 and #61 picks.

Nationals · Post by **Nationals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:08 pm

Well, you'll be rewarded with the pick, but also have a shot at making the playoffs/winning the league. And making the playoffs should be the primary goal, you're just getting a consolation prize if you tried and don't. Like JP said in the earlier post, crazy things can happen once you get there.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:21 pm

I think it all comes down to style. I was always trying to make the playoffs every year (and the league's undervaluing of veterans made it fairly easy for me to build a team of old guys that could win in the high 80's and get a shot), and to be frank I don't know that I had any more rewarding experience than if I'd focused on prospecting all the way until I won last year, but I know I would have been bored with the losing. We have a few GMs in this league that prefer the prospecting angle and really don't care about losing 100 games and are willing to just suck for a few years while they hunt or like Bren they just totally ignore the league except for the draft and are fortunate in their selections.

Until we create a disincentive to lose 100 games 3 years in a row (in real life that is caused by the risk of job loss, I don't think we have enough demand for good replacement GMs to boot anyone for losing but that would certainly be the corollary) we're always going to have more people at the extremes than will happen in real life because the useful players those teams would have in real life get distributed among the upper half of the league. The more I think about it the more I think the pick should be better, maybe between rounds 1 and 2 where there is a better chance of grabbing an impact prospect which really could help those middle class teams go from good to great, 15+31 is probably preferable even to 5 in a lot of draft classes which could make things more fun and encourage people to compete a year or two earlier. It also doesn't necessarily screw up the balance because the GM holding pick 5 probably doesn't have a bad team, just a team that's a few years away (unlike in real life where the team is probably bad). My second two cents.

Phillies · Post by **Phillies** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:55 pm

Leave my guys alone.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 5:59 pm

I think the goal here is to get people to try harder to not suck. We'll have 8 people at the top who won't get picks because they make the LDS. But the tricky thing is, the draft is structured to give the worst teams the best chance of improving. If we make the supplemental picks too valuable, we could end up condemning the bad teams to being bad forever. At the same time, it would be good to see them scrapping for wins, instead of bobbing along at the bottom, feeding wins to the good teams. So maybe we structure it like so:
8 LDS teams: No sandwich picks
Next 8 teams: Sandwich 1/2 Pick
Next 8 teams: Sandwich 2/3 Pick
Bottom 6 teams: No Sandwich Pick

Right now, all 6 of the worst teams are within 9 games of getting a sandwich pick, 4 within 3 games (arguably they'd be closer if they'd had the incentive). It's not likely to get the worst couple teams fighting for a sandwich pick, rather than fighting to get the #1 pick, but those teams who are looking unlikely to get those top 2-3 might see a sandwich pick being worth dropping a pick or two in round 1.
The next 8 teams are all within 7 games of improving their sandwich pick, with 4 within 3 games.

Maybe that's too convoluted, but it's Friday and I'm killing time before I bolt out the door.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:10 pm

*Prepares for tomatoes to be thrown* Bren maybe has a good idea here with the two tiered system.

My thought is that generally teams at the bottom of our league aren't the worst teams (since we don't really have any trash GMs anymore), they're the teams that have decided not to compete for the sake of collecting picks (e.g. Brett P. who has as many WS appearances and worst records in the league as anyone, which is a totally viable strategy under the current rules). Teams have to make a choice between keeping MLB guys and prospects among their 50 roster spots (cue Jag proposing we expand rosters). The teams at the bottom of the standins tend to reserve more of those spots for prospects, and therefore have stronger farm systems so by being at the top of the draft they're actually adding to a strength which makes this idea seem a little more fair to me. I assume these picks wouldn't be tradeable until the offseason correct?

Rockies · Post by **Rockies** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:31 pm

Seems backwards to me. Lets reward those who are already close to contention with an extra pick in the highest supplemental round. I would think we would want to lift that 2nd tier up before the next 8 that almost made it.. but whatever. Usually the goal for parity is to make the worst teams better.

That proposal seems like it will just penalize those who aren't quite there yet making the parity gap larger, not closer.

Rockies · Post by **Rockies** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:38 pm

I get that there should be an incentive to compete.. I think thats a good idea in theory.. but I think if you want to have parity and competition, you need to be helping the teams on the bottom build faster. A rising tide lifts all boats, right?

Nationals · Post by **Nationals** » Fri Jun 02, 2017 7:21 pm

Rockies wrote:Seems backwards to me. Lets reward those who are already close to contention with an extra pick in the highest supplemental round. I would think we would want to lift that 2nd tier up before the next 8 that almost made it.. but whatever. Usually the goal for parity is to make the worst teams better.

That proposal seems like it will just penalize those who aren't quite there yet making the parity gap larger, not closer.

There's always going to be rebuilding teams and they aren't losing that top 5 pick. If the rebuilding teams prefer the 2 picks vs. the early 1st, it's not a long jump to win 75 games. That's still sub-.500. I don't think the point is the stop teams from rebuilding, but to field a more competitive team while rebuilding. Like the fact that there had to be a rule that every team needs an active catcher eligible player is an issue.