Gopherball Decision Time

[Cleveland Guardians (NickL)]

Greetings. Gopherball has some new volunteers to help out the current administration. Russ (KCR), Brian (SFG) and Nick (CLE) have all committed to splitting up duties with Ashley (TOR) to make it so it does not fall onto one individual.
Some discussion has taken place about how to move forward. Here are the two proposals as of now. None of these details are set in stone and further talks and debates about rules will certainly take place.

Option 1:
Stay as a 30 team league. We currently have 15 active owners and each owner will take 2 teams, 1 NL and 1 AL. We do have two potential owners on a waiting list if anyone only wants to control 1 team. Teams would continue to sign the draft picks/international free agents of their assigned franchise. 

Option 2:
Contract. Go to 20-24 teams. We would have to have a few volunteers foster franchises until we can find new owners. There would be a 3-4 round slow draft (mid-summer?) for rookies/ifa's. 

With either option, we are looking to likely reduce major league rosters from 30 to 25, and looking to drastically reduce minor league rosters from 50 to 30 or 35.
With either option we are planning to make one salary cap number across the board, eliminating tiers. Also, tags (starting in 2023) will be reduced (1RFA+1Franchise+1Flex? or 2Flex?).
Player pools will be increased in both scenarios hopefully making more opportunities for rebuilding teams.
Many of the ideas are negotiable, any additional ideas can be heard. If anyone else would like to help out with some admin duties please speak up.

So let us know what you think.

Own 2 teams or contract?

[Arizona Diamondbacks GM(Dom)]

Prefer to contract.

[Los Angeles Dodgers GM(Bob)]

I'm good either way.

I like the decreasing Minors and making cap equal and tags equal

[Tampa Bay Rays GM(Lee Bulldog)]

As one of the original members of this league, it was set up to mimick MLB, thus the draft choices to the MLB team, same with international signings. I am opposed to any draft, and would prefer the bidding we do, so anyone can win anyone that is a FA. I am in favor of cutting the minors to about 25/30. I would prefer owning two teams rather than cutting the size of the league, although I'm not in favor of owning 2 teams, but will.

As for the tags, not opposed to making everyone even in cap and tags, but a minimum of 3 tags, maybe more like 4 or 5. Also opposed to limiting the majors roster, as it is difficult enough to make a team with 30, 12 on the bench.

My thoughts.... Yes, I am old school, but that was better baseball also. I'd rather watch a no hitter than a 12 - 10 home run barrage.

Open for discussion.

[Astros GM (Cruson)]

I like the 30, but will work with anything

[NY Mets GM (Rick)]

First of all, I am totally against reducing the minor league rosters. I (the Mets) am in the middle of a major rebuild and it would definitely hurt me to have cut/trade 20 or so minor league players.

As for owning two teams or contracting, I don't really have an objection to which route we take. My only concern, is are we going to have enough time to get everything accomplished before the start of the season that we need to?

We nee to make a decision and start moving forward.

[Oakland Athletics GM(Franchi)]

I would rather contract. I'm not really a fan of owning two teams in one league.

I don't like drastically changing roster sizes overnight. I have been here for a long time building up my team and to just lose about 25 roster spots abruptly just doesn't really seem right. If we are going to cut roster sizes it should be over time. Maybe cutting 5/10 per year. Some people in here have built up teams with the current rules in mind, so to change things dramatically isn't really fair to them.

Seems like the plan is to completely change the league. With salary caps, roster sizes, tags, draft picks. Which I'm not really sure why that's a thing? I thought the issue was that we couldn't get enough owners in here to fill up open teams. Not sure how completely changing the rules is going to help our current problem.

Happy to discuss anything further.

[Chicago Cubs GM]

I’m in favor of contracting to as many active owners we have. 15-20 it’s fine.

Let’s do something about minimum salaries being .4 for pre FA in real life. Even players that go super 2 status have a .4 salary here. If it was set up to mimic real life then salaries should be fixed. This would incentivize trading.

My salary cap is one of the highest and I had kris Bryant for .4 for 4 years? that’s just broken

[Philadelphia Phillies GM(Bob)]

I am willing to go either way

Kind of like keeping 30 but no trading between teams owned by same owner

[Cleveland Guardians (NickL)]

Man, it’s good to see the activity. Keep the votes and discussion coming, there have been good points made by all. Again, nothing in the proposals are set in stone, just ideas to give us the jumpstart that we need.

Franchi is right, we don’t need to reinvent the league overnight (I know I was the one to use the word “drastically”). Having lost literally half the league over the last two seasons we will have to decide on adjustments moving forward.

Once we settle on 30 teams or contraction, we can start pecking away at the other aspects. Please stay tuned as the discussions continue. What we do need is for everyone to remain committed, as we can’t afford to be losing anyone else. Please continue to be good to each other.

[Toronto Blue Jays GM (Ashley)]

Just throwing this out there, but if teams are contracted, remaining active teams have the right to at least two players that are on their teams in real life at their real-life salaries. That benefits the teams and gives them two players that could become building blocks for active teams. Example, if the team is contracted that owns Fernando Tatis Jr. - the Padres could add him at his real-life salary. If cap space doesn't allow it, the player could then be traded to another team, encouraging trading.

[Chicago Cubs GM]

With that being said, Ashley, I’d be in favor to having equal salary caps. This would prevent a team like mine from gobbling up big salaries players.

[NY Mets GM (Rick)]

Or better yet, hold a contraction draft

[Los Angeles Dodgers GM(Bob)]

Id prefer we keep it simple. Contract and have a draft.

Or operate 2 teams with same rules

More I think about it, I prefer to contract

[NY Mets GM (Rick)]

A decision needs to be made ASAP, we will have a lot to do, in a short period of time either direction we go. Most leagues are we into the off-season schedule.