Post by Chicago Cubs (Curtis) on Mar 10, 2020 5:53:54 GMT -8
Temporary Changes for the 2020 Season due to COVID-19
Permanent Changes due to COVID-19
Permanent Changes to the JBL arranged prior to COVID-19:
Lineup Change Period changed from Weekly to Semi-Weekly:
Roster changes are applied semi-weekly, meaning there are 2 lineup periods per week. The first period of the week runs 4 days long (Monday through the end of Thursday’s games), while the second period of the week is 3 days long (Friday through Sunday). Both lineup periods aggregate into a single weekly scoring matchup.
Transactions such as trades, free agency acquisitions, and promotions to the 40 man roster will allow newly-acquired players to be inserted into the scoring lineup for unstarted lineup periods. For example, a trade posted at 1800 Monday after games have begun will be eligible for processing 48 hours on Wednesday 1800. Players changing hands can be inserted into the Friday-Sunday lineup period once moved over in Fantrax.
The benefit I see here is injury management. Gone will be the days of a Monday injury significantly affecting your team’s chances all week. Instead, your injured player will be replaced for the weekend series. This will be a huge relief to playoff contenders especially, and encourage playoff contenders to acquire bench depth for the stretch run, deepening the pool of trade deadline candidates.
Salary Cap Awards Expiring After 10 Years
Good points were made regarding the imbalance that might arise in future years of the league. I can see that if we're able to sustain this as one of the all-time great fantasy leagues (already is in my book!) that teams with 20 consecutive playoff appearances will be much better off than the perpetual rebuilders and teams with high turnover in ownership. I will be adding Constitution language before the season starts to limit each season's playoff rewards to 10 seasons.
Free Agent Calculator Update
The following minimums have been integrated into the Free Agency Calculator, and the file linked above updated to the new location. I have made the Calculator edit-access to all members - there is no more need to download a copy in order to edit (though you are free to do so if you wish). I will retain a separate unlinked Master copy of the file in case of wayward edits.
1 year = $600,000 minimum
2 year = $1,200,000 minimum
3 year = $1,800,000 minimum
4 year = $2,400,000 minimum
5 year = $3,000,000 minimum
The bid point effect of team options has also been updated to make team options deduct a higher amount from the bid point total. Mutual options have been deleted altogether.
Trade Deadline Extension (Shortened season September 5th deadline takes precedent, the following will be implemented in 2021)
The trade deadline will be extended from 1 week behind the MLB’s trade deadline to 2 weeks behind the MLB’s trade deadline.
Retained Salary Obligation Limit Increase
The retained salary obligation limit will be increased from $20 MM to $50 MM to remove constraints on trading and make the league’s largest contracts tradable as those players might approach “twighlight” years.
Ignore postponed/cancelled games when determining lineup lock times: Enabled
Nothing groundbreaking here, I just noticed the option to enable this setting while browsing Fantrax’s league setup pages. If a player’s start time is 4:05 on a Monday and the game is postponed or cancelled you will have the ability to substitute a player later start time game if you wish, instead of that lineup slot locking.
Arbitration Awards Change
TL;DR arbitration awards will change somewhat, with slightly higher awards going to the studs of each position and marginal awards assigned to ~25% more players. Starting pitchers’ values in arbitration will receive a slight boost as deserved.
While processing this season’s arbitration awards I identified a couple of things I feel I can improve in both the time it takes me to assign raises and some gaps in the realism of the awards themselves.
Instead of grouping all hitters by defensive position to assign awards I will be modifying the awards to treat all hitters as one group. The intent of this is to eliminate the need for me to determine which defensive position to assign each player I had been looking up each player to determine the position with the most games started in the prior season), with multi-position eligibility becoming more common. While this sacrifices some realism (no more awarding based on the presumed defensive value each position carries) it reflects our fantasy purposes better as at the end of the week our hitters are judged on offensive output alone.
I will also be restructuring the arbitration award ladder somewhat, as shown below:
Instead of 100% raise being the maximum arbitration award (for the top 3 qualifiers at the position) the awards will be derived from earned value. The formula for determining arbitration award will be earned value (in millions) / 2.5 / 100. 2.5 is a factor that I found appropriate to match the average awards between current rules and the changed arbitration awards. Additionally, all arbitration-elligible players will have a salary capped at $40 MM. While steep, this is a reasonable bound on the absolute generational talent that at least one team in the league will be able to structure around. No player in the JBL’s history has even come close to maxing out arbitration awards each year – the ceiling on this is currently $38.4 MM/year – 6 years of arbitration eligibility finishing in the top 3 at an offensive position multiplied by the minimum starting salary ($600,000 * 2^6 = $38,400,000). This will be applied to all players who generated top 500 earned value (the numerical limit of the Rotowire calculator I use for this exercise) with the 500th earner typically earning around 3% raise. This is a deeper award pool than current use by around 100 players.
I will also be using total Ks instead of K/9 as input to the Rotowire calculator in order to more fairly award SPs for their value relative to RPs. I find that with the K/9 input starters are unfairly devalued in arbitration.
Considerations discussed but not implemented
- The regular season will be composed of 6 (mostly weekly) scoring periods, with the first scoring period being July 23 - August 2nd and all subsequent scoring periods running Monday-Sunday.
- Each team will match up against 3 other teams per week during the JBL regular season for a total of 18 matchups and 18 * 12 = 216 W/L/T opportunities
- The postseason will be 3 weeks long, with the World Series reduced from the normal 2 weeks down to 1, taking the JBL season to the end of the MLB regular season on September 27th.
- The postseason scoring format will be single matchup H2H as normal (no 3 matchup per week H2H setup like the regular season)
[li]QS are replaced with IP as a scoring category. The team with more IP at the end of the scoring period wins that category, regardless of performance - SP weekly games started minimum and weekly relief appearances minimum are replaced with a total (SP + RP) pitching staff 20 IP minimum
- Games needed from current season for a player to qualify at a hitting position will be reduced from 10 to 5
- Starts needed from current season for a player to qualify as a starter will be reduced from 5 to 3
- Relief appearances needed from current season for a player to qualify as a reliever will be reduced from 5 to 3
- Trade deadline extended to September 5th at midnight PST. Both JBL owners must post on the trades forum showing acceptance for trades to count per the deadline. Note that Playoffs begin on September 7th, so this gives me an opportunity to process all deadline deals
- Players choosing to opt out of the 2020 MLB season will not count towards their JBL team's 2020 salary cap. These players should be moved to their JBL team's 60-day DL and have their salary deducted from the "retained salary obligation" section of the spreadsheet. This salary obligation will not count towards the $50 MM net limit on retained salary obligations. A transaction thread has been posted here with all players officially opted out of the 2020 MLB season.
- If the MLB's 60 game regular season is not completed for any reason, the 2020 JBL results will be null and void. In this outcome no official standings will be recorded in the league's archives, no salary raises will be awarded, and we will all be very sad until next season. This will count as a season towards diminishing salary cap awards however. No arbitration raises will be awarded to those eligible players. 2020 contracts will expire as normal, and player options will process as normal with 2019 statistics used to determine if a player declines or accepts the applicable option.
Permanent Changes due to COVID-19
- Minor league roster permanently expanded from 60 to 80 player limit starting 8/3/2020
Permanent Changes to the JBL arranged prior to COVID-19:
Lineup Change Period changed from Weekly to Semi-Weekly:
Roster changes are applied semi-weekly, meaning there are 2 lineup periods per week. The first period of the week runs 4 days long (Monday through the end of Thursday’s games), while the second period of the week is 3 days long (Friday through Sunday). Both lineup periods aggregate into a single weekly scoring matchup.
Transactions such as trades, free agency acquisitions, and promotions to the 40 man roster will allow newly-acquired players to be inserted into the scoring lineup for unstarted lineup periods. For example, a trade posted at 1800 Monday after games have begun will be eligible for processing 48 hours on Wednesday 1800. Players changing hands can be inserted into the Friday-Sunday lineup period once moved over in Fantrax.
The benefit I see here is injury management. Gone will be the days of a Monday injury significantly affecting your team’s chances all week. Instead, your injured player will be replaced for the weekend series. This will be a huge relief to playoff contenders especially, and encourage playoff contenders to acquire bench depth for the stretch run, deepening the pool of trade deadline candidates.
Salary Cap Awards Expiring After 10 Years
Good points were made regarding the imbalance that might arise in future years of the league. I can see that if we're able to sustain this as one of the all-time great fantasy leagues (already is in my book!) that teams with 20 consecutive playoff appearances will be much better off than the perpetual rebuilders and teams with high turnover in ownership. I will be adding Constitution language before the season starts to limit each season's playoff rewards to 10 seasons.
Free Agent Calculator Update
The following minimums have been integrated into the Free Agency Calculator, and the file linked above updated to the new location. I have made the Calculator edit-access to all members - there is no more need to download a copy in order to edit (though you are free to do so if you wish). I will retain a separate unlinked Master copy of the file in case of wayward edits.
1 year = $600,000 minimum
2 year = $1,200,000 minimum
3 year = $1,800,000 minimum
4 year = $2,400,000 minimum
5 year = $3,000,000 minimum
The bid point effect of team options has also been updated to make team options deduct a higher amount from the bid point total. Mutual options have been deleted altogether.
Trade Deadline Extension (Shortened season September 5th deadline takes precedent, the following will be implemented in 2021)
The trade deadline will be extended from 1 week behind the MLB’s trade deadline to 2 weeks behind the MLB’s trade deadline.
Retained Salary Obligation Limit Increase
The retained salary obligation limit will be increased from $20 MM to $50 MM to remove constraints on trading and make the league’s largest contracts tradable as those players might approach “twighlight” years.
Ignore postponed/cancelled games when determining lineup lock times: Enabled
Nothing groundbreaking here, I just noticed the option to enable this setting while browsing Fantrax’s league setup pages. If a player’s start time is 4:05 on a Monday and the game is postponed or cancelled you will have the ability to substitute a player later start time game if you wish, instead of that lineup slot locking.
Arbitration Awards Change
TL;DR arbitration awards will change somewhat, with slightly higher awards going to the studs of each position and marginal awards assigned to ~25% more players. Starting pitchers’ values in arbitration will receive a slight boost as deserved.
While processing this season’s arbitration awards I identified a couple of things I feel I can improve in both the time it takes me to assign raises and some gaps in the realism of the awards themselves.
Instead of grouping all hitters by defensive position to assign awards I will be modifying the awards to treat all hitters as one group. The intent of this is to eliminate the need for me to determine which defensive position to assign each player I had been looking up each player to determine the position with the most games started in the prior season), with multi-position eligibility becoming more common. While this sacrifices some realism (no more awarding based on the presumed defensive value each position carries) it reflects our fantasy purposes better as at the end of the week our hitters are judged on offensive output alone.
I will also be restructuring the arbitration award ladder somewhat, as shown below:
Instead of 100% raise being the maximum arbitration award (for the top 3 qualifiers at the position) the awards will be derived from earned value. The formula for determining arbitration award will be earned value (in millions) / 2.5 / 100. 2.5 is a factor that I found appropriate to match the average awards between current rules and the changed arbitration awards. Additionally, all arbitration-elligible players will have a salary capped at $40 MM. While steep, this is a reasonable bound on the absolute generational talent that at least one team in the league will be able to structure around. No player in the JBL’s history has even come close to maxing out arbitration awards each year – the ceiling on this is currently $38.4 MM/year – 6 years of arbitration eligibility finishing in the top 3 at an offensive position multiplied by the minimum starting salary ($600,000 * 2^6 = $38,400,000). This will be applied to all players who generated top 500 earned value (the numerical limit of the Rotowire calculator I use for this exercise) with the 500th earner typically earning around 3% raise. This is a deeper award pool than current use by around 100 players.
I will also be using total Ks instead of K/9 as input to the Rotowire calculator in order to more fairly award SPs for their value relative to RPs. I find that with the K/9 input starters are unfairly devalued in arbitration.
Considerations discussed but not implemented
- Expansion beyond 8 playoff teams
- Changes to Free Agency beyond salary minimums as a function of contract length
- Playoff awards for salary cap increases expiring after 5 years