2011 rules changes?

[Jackal Jeff]

I was just looking at the homepage and saw the part about 4 potential rules changes for next season. I would like to comment on each...

1- Draft lottery: totally against this. The worst team NEEDS the top pick to draft or use as trade fodder to get better. Having to wait to do trades until after a lottery so you knew how good a pick is will push back fall trades as well.

2- Re-alignment to 3 divisions per league: I prefer the current 6 team divisions. Having more divisions will dilute the number of in-division games and slowly make them less meaningful. I see no advantage to more divisions.

3- Inter-league play: I have no real problem with this except again it will dilute those all important divisional games and might cause usage issues with NL teams that only need PAs from 8 players per game rather than 9 (assuming we would need a DH when at AL teams)

4- As to using usage for a 163rd game I will reserve comment until I see this "unique" idea

[QUACKER_man]

Further clarification of the upcoming ballot topics .....

1. The full Draft Lottery suggestion will be outlined prior to the posting of the ballot.

2. Omitted from the earlier posting is that re-alignment would be determined 'randomly' as NO decision on which teams should be aligned together would ever be reached.

3. NO interleage play would be scheduled during the last 2 months of play. Additionally, teams would only play teams in one division each year (i.e. - May as home team and July as away team).

4. The 'unique' format for utilizing statistics for a ML-style, regular season Tie-Breaker game, would be to compile statistics of ONLY the human managed team at each site. This method would permit EXACT monitoring of player usage for the 163rd game. However, only the boxscores of the 3 sites (as in All BUNT playoff games) would be the determining factor in the winner of the game.

[firebirddave]

Here are some of my thoughts in response to Jeff's thoughts:

Jeff says: Draft lottery: totally against this. The worst team NEEDS the top pick to draft or use as trade fodder to get better. Having to wait to do trades until after a lottery so you knew how good a pick is will push back fall trades as well.

While I am not necessarily in faovor of the lottery. I disagree that the team that finishes last one season is definitely going to also be bad the next year. Players who had off years one year may be having a career season the next and prospects obtained earlier may blossom. Every year there are teams that go from last to first or at least to making the playoffs and it almost never is the result of them having the first pick in the draft (though that certainly helps).

Jeff says: Re-alignment to 3 divisions per league: I prefer the current 6 team divisions. Having more divisions will dilute the number of in-division games and slowly make them less meaningful. I see no advantage to more divisions.

I agree completely with Jeff on this one.

Jeff says: Inter-league play: I have no real problem with this except again it will dilute those all important divisional games and might cause usage issues with NL teams that only need PAs from 8 players per game rather than 9 (assuming we would need a DH when at AL teams)

I prefer the world series to be between 2 teams that never faced each other during the regular season. Therefore, I am against interleague play. Still, if it happens I won't cry too much.

Jeff says: As to using usage for a 163rd game I will reserve comment until I see this "unique" idea.

I am opposed to this because the one game playoff for division title should allow managers to use their best players except for a starting pitcher who does not have enough rest. If the managers have to worry about overuse, they may have to field an inferior lineup and that would be a shame at least and would certainly not reflect how a real playoff in baseball would work. Could you imagine if the Tigers and Twins managers had to rest their best players for the tie breaker because they didn't want to lose them to overuse? While counting the game as a 163rd game is how mlb does it, they do not worry about overuse so it has no other impact on the teams.

Thse are my thougts, what are yours?