[IBL] Ballot items

[Joel Roberts]

 The interchangeability of LF/RF and that of 1B/3B or 2B/3B/SS are entirely different animals.
 For 1B and 3B, there are many 1B who could not possibly play 3B, both because of arm strength and also the fact that many 1B are LH throwers, who can't effectively play other IF positions. (There have been a handful of LH 2B in the past century and no LH SS or 3B.)
For 2B/3B/SS these are all very different positions with difficult skill sets and there are many cases of 2B who cannot effectively play 3B or SS or 3B who can't play in the middle infield. There are even SS who can't really play 2B because they can't do the pivot.
But for LF and RF, I am hard pressed to think of any LF who couldn't effectively play in RF or vice-versa. Teams do make an affirmative decision as to play players in one or the other, often because they want the rangiest corner OF in LF or the best arm in RF. But these decisions would be reflected already in range and arm ratings. There are also park-specific reasons MLB teams play players in LF or RF but that is outside the scope of our model.
I could see a proposal to allow CF to play LF/RF but that's a different proposal.
I am still swayed by the argument that if a real MLB team had a LF and no RF and traded for another LF, they would almost certainly just move one to RF without a second thought. This proposal is therefore in line with how baseball is already played.
The argument that Sean made about the data already being aggregated for the ratings, so the starts should be as well, is also compelling.
    On Wednesday 28 August 2024 at 10:46:37 am GMT-4, Michael Kenlan via Members <members at lists.ibl.org> wrote:  
 
 7) I'm opposed to LF/RF crossover because it's a slippery slope and where do we draw the line? What about CF getting LF/RF starts? What about 1B/3B interchangeability? What about SS getting 2B/3B starts? What about my guy who played 2B last year but not this year; surely he still can. Manager's discretion on where to field them, right?
Ultimately the changing landscape of player positions is just part of the puzzle and I would not change it.
Mike

On Tuesday, August 27, 2024, 12:02, Russell Peltz via Members <members at lists.ibl.org> wrote:

My thoughts on some of the ballot items:

01) I'm in favor of having the option to allow a team a waiver priority exemption if results 
will be late due to extraordinary factors out of the team's control.  Currently there is no
mechanism for the Commissioner to approve games being played late, even when it would benefit
the league for games to be played in the proper order with correct usage and injury information.

02) In my experience, players with a large number of injury days get penalized excessively when
they get injured multiple times.  This would partially mitigate that while not removing all of 
the risk of playing them.

03) One of the biggest unrealistic aspects of our game, and an exploit, is letting a pitcher
pitch almost an entire game while fatigued to get him usage.  We've had pitchers throw complete
games while giving up 35 runs (moment of silence for Sun-Woo Kim, 2002).  That was bad enough
back then, but in today's MLB most pitchers are not even allowed to go over 100 pitches.
I think some sort of hard limit is needed to prevent this unrealistic abuse, and allowing 
pitchers to go through the lineup one time while fatigued would be a good limit while still 
allowing some flexibility for a guy who gets fatigued early.  Even if he gave up 6 earned runs
in the first nine batters, he would still be allowed to go through the lineup a second time if
you want.  In real life he would probably be yanked immediately.

04) I've always thought having limits +/- 25% would make more sense than 75% and 133%.
Incidentally in the case of full time starting pitchers, +33% is excessive and this would
mitigate it somewhat.

05) I'm in favor. Removing a starter after he goes through the lineup twice is pretty
normal manager behavior these days, so we should be able to do that without using up
a pitcher start.

07) I'm leaning toward yes on this one.  There isn't much difference between playing LF and
RF.  I can't imagine a team with two left fielders being forced to trade one because they
need a right fielder.  They would just move one of the guys.  I do think our fielding rating
system should take into account where the guy actually played, though.  For example, if 
someone played full time in LF and very little in RF, their RF range rating should be a 
grade or two lower.

08) Yes yes yes. Concurrent injuries should not be added together.  A player with more than
one injury does not have to wait for one to heal before the other one starts to heal.

09) I'm leaning no on this one.  Draft tiers were designed to rank how often teams have been
in contention, and winning a Wild Card spot definitely separates a team from those that have
not.  Wild Card teams are often stronger than at least one division winner. I might support
a similar rule if it counted Wild Card losers as 1/2 of a playoff spot, or if we had a
more granular point system giving more points for the further into the playoffs a team gets.

Thanks for reading this far.

-Rusty



  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ibl.org/pipermail/members/attachments/20240828/dd288067/attachment.htm>