<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi all -</div><div><br></div><div>I have enjoyed and appreciated all the thoughts and comments. For the little it is worth with so much uncertainty, I wanted to note one point of agreement with, and one question about, what Sean wrote:</div><div><br></div><div>Sean wrote: "
I think whichever direction we go we have to give owners the ability to opt-out if they aren't interested."</div><div><br></div><div>I agree with that.</div><div><br></div><div>Sean wrote: "Teams that sit out the 2021 season would retain all of their players on their roster without usage requirements."</div><div><br></div><div>The question, I think, only indirectly relates to that. I am assuming that no matter what happens going forward, we are playing this IBL season under binding usage requirements. That is, we will lose in advance the next draft (whenever that may be) anyone who does not make usage or exceeds 133% during this IBL season.</div><div><br></div><div>I am not advocating one way or another for that assumption. Perhaps there are good arguments, pro and con. I just wanted to confirm as playing under a binding usage regime would be different than under a regime where -- if no MLB games are played this year -- we'd make rostering choices in advance of the next draft without regard to this IBL year's usage. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Thanks much</div><div><br></div><div>- David (oxy)<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 5:54 PM Russell Peltz <<a href="mailto:peltz38@gmail.com">peltz38@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>I thought of a couple other things.</div><div><br></div><div>One is that we have precedent for abbreviated MLB seasons. MLB played about 115 games in 1994 and about 144 in 1995 due to a player strike, and the 1994 playoffs were not played at all.</div><div>In both cases, the IBL played a full 162 game season with playoffs.</div><div><br></div><div>My other thought was an additional possibility for playing if MLB 2020 is not played -- we could create cards based on 2020 projections (ZIPS, Steamer, some other projection system or a combination of systems).</div><div>Then our season would be sort of a "what if" scenario, more closely simulating what might have happened had the season been played.</div><div><br></div><div>-Rusty</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 2:27 PM Sean Sweda <<a href="mailto:sweda@ibl.org" target="_blank">sweda@ibl.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">I've been thinking a lot about how to handle no 2020 MLB. The solution I <br>
would propose looks something like this:<br>
<br>
<br>
The 2021 IBL season would be played with 2020 cards (2019 MLB). Owners <br>
would decide whether they want to participate or sit out the season. I <br>
think whichever direction we go we have to give owners the ability to <br>
opt-out if they aren't interested. In the end, we need people who are <br>
motivated to play their games if we want to meet our deadlines.<br>
<br>
Teams that sit out the 2021 season would retain all of their players on <br>
their roster without usage requirements. Teams that sit out the season can <br>
still sign free agents and make trades. If a team that sits out the 2021 <br>
season trades a player away during the season they may not re-acquire that <br>
player until the start of the 2023 season. This is explicitly to <br>
discourage player "rentals" during 2021.<br>
<br>
The 2021 season would not be a full 162 game schedule. Perhaps a series of <br>
short "sprints" of round-robin play to win spots in the postseason? I'm <br>
not really sure what the best solution looks like, it depends a lot on how <br>
many teams are playing. The goal would be to implement a schedule that <br>
increases the role of randomness.<br>
<br>
We would also come up with some single season rule changes for 2021 that <br>
make it easier to compete. Perhaps teams that did not make the playoffs in <br>
2020 would be allowed to designate a certain number of players as "usage <br>
immune", meaning they could go under/over our usage thresholds and still be <br>
retained. Perhaps these teams would also be allowed a higher max cap on <br>
usage (currently 150%) so they could abuse short sample size players to a <br>
larger degree. The key principle for these rule changes would be to give <br>
the teams that didn't have as many good 2020 cards a better chance to win <br>
games in 2021.<br>
<br>
<br>
The reason why I think this is the way to go is that it maintains the "this <br>
year" vs. "the future" balance that underpins our league structure. Any <br>
season played with ephemeral rosters (e.g. re-draft the players for a <br>
single season) is going to break that fundamental dynamic because those <br>
teams have no future. In my view we need a resolution for 2021 that <br>
maintains a functional market for both buyers and sellers throughout both <br>
the 2020 and 2021 seasons.<br>
<br>
Anyway that's a rough sketch of the idea. I haven't wanted to get too far <br>
into the weeds on this stuff because there are still so many unknowns. <br>
FWIW, I think no 2020 MLB is actually a less thorny issue than a very <br>
abbreviated 2020 MLB.<br>
<br>
Sean<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>
</blockquote></div>