NA/Out Slots

Ottoneu Fantasy Baseball
1

For Teams in Season #2 and Beyond…

In the Yahoo Baseball Dynasty leagues I run (4 of them), I carry over NA and IL eligible guys separately so that we can keep our max 30 (without the NA/IL guys counting against that).

Here, there is no distinction between NA, MLB, 40 man roster players. That’s good in the sense that you can pick which NA guys you want to keep.

But, to encourage teams developing farm systems, and to encourage competition among drafting/retainining/trading for prospects (and not letting 1-2 teams monopolize this, as right now, I see some teams heavy on prospects and some teams with no MiLB players) and ensuring there is talent on the waiver for MLB FA’s, I’d propose having dedicated NA slots (that don’t count against our roster limits, more on that in a moment).

Now, I get it, in the offseason, there are no designations (NA or MLB), but what if we did this:

  1. From end of the season to January 31, no limits on adds. Teams can be at 50 if they want to be (and some will over 40 b/c IL eligible guys are no longer reflected as such). So no change there (I read all the arguments pro and con against adding players, but I think teams can load up as they want, as this encourages non-playoff teams to be active and get better)

  2. January 31, teams must cut to 40 man rosters. So also no change there.

  3. BUT and, here’s change #1: “out” designations won’t count against the 40. We currently have IL guys labeled as Out. Ok, let’s work with that.

What if we expand IL to allow “outs” + IL guys BUT no one else – right now you can put active guys in there too (but let’s not allow that).

When managers place players designated as “out” in those IL slots, the eligible roster/players kept should be reduced by the player moved into the IL slot. Guys like Jake DeGrom are definitely IL. MLB teams can keep those guys, so why can’t we?

see e.g.: Rangers Transfer Jacob deGrom To 60-Day Injured List - MLB Trade Rumors

By placing DeGrom on the 60 day IL, it freed up a space on the TEX 40 man and I don’t think DeGrom comes back to take that spot between the offseason and the begin of play (as he’ll be re-designated 60 day IL on March 25 or so without a corresponding move from the Rangers)

  1. So after teams move “out” eligible guys to IL and otherwise trim down to 40 or less, then, we draft.

  2. After we draft, we’ll find that we have 30 active player roster spots and 10 MiLB spots. Only NA players can be in MiLB/NA spots. If you have 31 active players, you’re “over roster” and are frozen (same message we get now). So our NA and MiLB guys should be labeled NA in our system and we should be able to slot them into the NA/MiLB slot (currently it shows MiLB but anyone can move in there and you don’t have to have anyone in those slots)

I think this keeps our dynasty management (keeping IL guys we’ve kept all year) and farm systems in better shape. Let’s us keep our NA guys and develop them, and let’s us retain IL guys (just as the big league clubs do).

If at any time an “out” becomes active, then the system will make that team “illegal” and bar moves just like an overlimit team.

-N

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There’s a manual solution to what you’re describing already available via commissioner tools:

  1. Allow each team to designate the 60 day IL players for removal from their 40 man rosters and record on some Google Sheet or whatever;
  2. Commish removes from the roster, places them on the restricted last, and reduces salary caps;
  3. People go into the auction with free rosters spots but less cash; and
  4. Following the auction, the commish moves them back onto the rosters.

It’s a lot of tedious work for minimal benefit, IMHO. But there are the tools available to commissioners to do what you’re describing if a league wanted to. I don’t see any reason to change the base game, though.

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Yeah, my idea not only does away with the tedious work for individual commishes, but it also has additional benefits.

  1. it mimicks real life IL (which doesn’t cost a roster spot for a prior IL player – though, my proposed system is still admittedly imperfect);
  2. it bolsters teams’ long term farm systems (and maybe long term staying power or replacement viability) by encouraging the rostering of players in NA spots (reserving 10 of those). Maybe it can be adjusted to 5, or 6 or 8 or 15. (would be cool to have that additional level of customization).
  3. reduces teams’ ability to hoard 10 RPs b/c they’ll only have 30 MLB roster spots

I’ve been asking Yahoo to charge me so I can customize (and save myself a ton of time!)

anyway, would be cool for Ottoneu to be out ahead on this, that’s all…

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You should post it as a Wishlist item to see if it gets any traction, but I would be very surprised if it’s acted upon for main/vanilla Ottoneu. And I wouldn’t be in favor of the game making this change.

5

A few thoughts:

  1. I think you have two ideas going on here: offseason IL/NA and limiting teams to 30 active players in season. At least that’s what I read, I think? I’ll respond to both though.

  2. you mention a couple times that offseason IL would replicate what real teams do but I’m 99% sure that’s wrong. For example, if you look at the rangers 40 man right now, degrom is NOT on the 60 day (40-Man Roster | Texas Rangers). That’s because there’s no 60-day in the offseason. It gets reinstated closer to opening day at which time (assuming the rangers need a roster spot) they’ll put degrom on the 60 day and replace him. Otherwise, during the offseason, he needs to be on the roster and using a spot. Marlins with Alcantara are another example. The current Ottoneu structure (you have to get to a legal 40 before the season) mimics MLB. What you’re proposing wouldn’t.

  3. I think the 30 active would hurt rebuilding/long-term planning pretty badly. Contending teams needing to jettison prospects, injured guys, etc to get immediate production is really good for rebuilders. It helps create the market that allows teams to rebuild. I play in a dynasty league with 15 MiLB spots and one of the challenges is that the contenders want to swap prospects for upgrades but the limitation on MLB players (29) means you can’t add, you can only upgrade. In Ottoneu I can trade two prospects for an MLB bat and improve my team without giving up any MLB talent in relying on. With your proposal, if my guys are in MiLB spots I can’t trade them for MLB players without making cuts, which increases the cost of the trade for the contender, decreasing the return for the rebuilder.

Just my immediate reactions…

3 Likes
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You’re right @chy924. I double checked and looked up TEX’ roster and the 40 man rule. I see the rationale behind there being no offseason IL (guys could get healthy over the winter and be ready for ST, and if otherwise, teams would pack 60 day ILs at the end of the reg. season so as to allow them to add more Rule 5 eligible players to shield them).

So, that leaves me with just the MiLB/NA carryovers desire/wish/argument.

We know that Rule5 Draft eligible players have to be added to the 40 man to protect them, but the vast majority of remaining hundreds of MiLB players in each farm system stay protected. Why? they’re under contract.

We don’t have that same luxury. We’re treating our farm system as all Rule 5 eligible: “Protect them” or lose them. Meaning its a revolving door super duper mini-farm.

Pre-draft, I’d like us to have a protectable farm (of up to 10 players, maybe its 5 NA/MiLB players, commissioners select the number) that don’t count against our number cap (but do count against our $$ cap).

Post draft, I’d like to see 10 dedictated MiLB slots + 30 additional MLB or MiLB (giving you the option of carrying more than the 10 MiLB eligible players)

I’d also like to cut down on our active/starting rosters (or the ability to customize). I don’t need 5 OF nor 5 RPs (this isn’t an OF/RP focused plaform, is it? Though I was in a “punter” league once [ :nauseated_face:])

As for your example about having to cut a MLB player if you trade two MiLB players for a MLB one. That’s right. That would happen. But you would know that before you made the deal and would have a plan. That plan could be to cut an underpeforming MLB player or to trade a MLB player + a MiLB eligible one to open up a MLB slot, or to have two trades going down at the same time. Or maybe my plan (above) defeats your plan (of using MiLB players as trade bait for active players – which isn’t a bad plan, just not my plan).

In Yahoo, the situation is similar (and I’ve played Yahoo for well over a decade without issue). If you trade two MiLB slotted players for one or two players, you have to make room for the incoming player or the trade won’t process. So you have to make drops to your active roster to facilitate the incoming MLB or MiLB player (I wish MiLB player trades for MiLB players could slot directly into the MiLB slots, but they don’t). What we do in there is keep a few NAs on our active roster and then swap those guys in and out of MiLB slots when we trade them (so they’re traded from our active roster).

Anyway, if the idea here is to mimic MLB, we need a slightly bigger and protectable farm. If the idea isn’t to mimic MLB but just to have fantasy fun, then I need an even bigger, and more protectable farm.

GIVE ME FARM or GIVE ME…

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It sounds like what you want/need is something like a 5MiLB system that a number of leagues use (5MiLB system for already existing league - #8 by runfolk has some info, but if you search this community for 5MiLB you’ll find more). Some leagues also do 10 or 15 MiLB. A word of warning: doing 5MiLB (or 10 or 15 or whatever) changes the economics of the league such that player values are not the same as other leagues. It also makes your league ineligible for the Ottoneu Prestige League, if that is something you are interested in. One of my leagues uses 5MiLB and it’s fine, but I definitely prefer leagues without. All up to your taste.

As for the flex on roster spots (fewer or no 5th OF or whatever), Ottoneu was pretty specifically designed to mimic MLB roster building, and MLB rosters typically carry 5 OF and at least 5 RP (I would argue they carry 5 actual RP and then 2-3 guys they are willing to throw out in mop-up duty or a game that isn’t as important) plus a bunch of others on the 40-man roster as depth/future value. That’s not an area I would expect to see customization.

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Just to chime on supplemental MiLB rosters… they are one of those things that sound great in the abstract, but the consequences on the economics of the league renders them undesirable, IMHO. I’ve played in several and found them to be more disruptive to the point where I’m no longer interested in joining a league with one.

The “vanilla” Ottoneu rules are pretty great. It’s kind of like why 90 feet between bases rather than 60 or 100? The reason is that it just works. There are various ways to create a league with alternative rules (now defined as being non-OPL eligible), but I wouldn’t recommend any alternative rule set.

Ottoneu is a quasi-dynasty league. If you’re interested in a true dynasty, then you might be happier with a different format all together. I don’t think that tweaking the rules to increase the player universe makes for a better experience. But that’s just opinion, YMMV.

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I appreciate all the comments/feedback. :+1:

…but, for my leagues, I’d sure like some Ottoneu permitted Commissioner customization (to add MILB dedicated slots without commissioners having to carry them over separately from the draft). I’ll keep lobbying Yahoo to do this as well (as there, you can only keep 30, even if you have 30 active and 10 MiLB guys, so at least Ottoneu is already better than Yahoo in that regard).

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You should just join this league.

Thanks

1 Like
11

The “restricted player list” function can replicate exactly what I wanted to do…so I think I’m all good anyway!