2020 Proposal (First draft)

[Ace]

All changes for this season only.

1. 3 divisions (East, Central, West), play every team in division each week for 6 weeks (54 games) and then 3 weeks of playoffs.

2. Play for 50% of pot ($860) with $600 split between top 8 teams and $260 between 9-16 consolation bracket (have payouts jotted down, will make separate post later).

3. 2021 draft positions based on average of last 2 seasons.

4. Obviously dates for deadlines etc. will be amended to account for the new format.

5. Contracts move on as normal but teams have option of adding 1 year at a reduced rate (will provide more detail in due course). 2020 free agent signees can be dropped at the end of the year with slightly lower than normal penalties.

6. 2020 to count for extension rankings but not at full salary amounts (somewhere between 50% and 60% most likely), will use 3 years of ranks until 2022 season completed (or longer if 2021 strike etc. necessitates).

7. Will increase IL spots to 5 and will reduce games played this season from 10 to 5 in order to qualify at a position.

8. Will trim 5 IP from both the regular season and playoff minimums (currently 20 IP and 30 IP respectively).

9. Will change Quality Start to Quality Appearance (any outing of 5 IP or more with an ERA of 4.5 or less).

10. 5 completed weeks required for any payouts to be awarded (would be 25% of pot) and for 2020 to count for draft positions.

11. 6 weeks = 33% of pot, 7 weeks = 40%, 8 weeks = 50%

12. No payouts would mean contracts were frozen but teams could move on veteran contracts by a year if they preferred. 2020 free agent signees could be dropped without penalty in this instance.

13. 90% of MLB teams must play 54 games or more or else 2020 won't count for extensions.

14. If a player opts out (or misses more than half of the season due to covid complications) then you will receive a 600k cap credit and have the option of tolling their contract.

Please feel free to provide feedback.

[Grant]

Good with me!

[alanv25]

I'm ok with everything if this is how you want to play it. Question: What if MLB players start coming down with covid and one of our teams has several or more players come down with it and they all go to the MLB covid IL. We can only put 5 of them on our IL, so would have to retain more inactive players on the active roster, and instead of being able to pick up active MLB players to try and stay in the race, the roster becomes so thin that they are unable to field a full starting lineup and they drop out of contention. Are we sure that, under the circumstances, with the possibility of a covid outbreak, a 5 player IL is large enough?

[Ace]

I'm ok with everything if this is how you want to play it.  Question: What if MLB players start coming down with covid and one of our teams has several or more players come down with it and they all go to the MLB covid IL.

The element of the unknown and some teams in our league being more affected than others by the unique circumstances is part of the reason we're only playing for half the pot.

In a 30 team league if you have a few key players out you're essentially screwed anyway; not like there is going to be much you can grab off the waiver wire regardless of how large our IL is. The limit is to prevent hoarding of currently injured players who may return this season.

Plus if covid becomes a significant problem then i'm pretty sure MLB will shut things down before we have to worry about it

[SactoSolon]

This is all okay with me.