Minimum Innings

[Oakland Athletics]

So we have analyzed the minimum innings for this year. There are some different factors that play in to this equation. As you know our minimum innings is set at 35 IP. We are proposing to adjust this to 32 IP. It’s a small adjustment but one we feel may be necessary. The minimum inning requirement was failed to reach 36 times. That number is far to high for our liking. 10 different owners failed to reach the requirement at some point. Two of those owners only missed the requirement once. We feel that some of the owners made little effort to reach the innings requirement, they did not try to add pitching through free agency or use their minors. These teams were a bit to inactive. Now with that being said we also feel like the 10-day DL has made it tougher getting this requirement. But also starting pitchers seem to not being going as deep into games. If the the limit was at 32 innings this past season 19 of those 36 teams that missed the limit would have reached the limit. We feel like his slight adjustment would help account for injuries and starters having shorter outings while also keeping a great emphasis on starting pitching and not changing the rules to a great degree. Teams that made little effort to reach the minimum need to make a better effort to reach the requirement in the future. I have always reached the minimum requirement, and at one point this season I had 7 pitchers on the DL. It was a struggle to get there, but I made an effort and got there.

[Deleted]

Just an idea from a small co manager but what about adding another P spot in Yahoo?
Some thoughts behind my suggestion is having one additional P would add a few IP each week to either the old amount of 35 or the new amount of 32. A P spot would allow a team to use it for a SP or RP. Another idea is I personally find it easier to locate a FA RP than a FA SP simply because a lot of owners target SPs over RPs.

[Deleted]

(This is written at 2 AM so apologies for poor writing quality and any errors).

I heavily object to both the suggested change and gepetto's suggestion as well. I am not biased in this regard- I, of all people, from a selfish point of view should want this change, considering that I lost many games in which I failed to meet the minimum. Hell, I had to stream a 6.32 ERA this week just so I would be guaranteed to hit the minimum- IN THE PLAYOFFS. I am saying this just so you guys think that this is not for my personal gain.

I object to this change because I believe that it is fundamentally unfair to change a category or anything related to that, something that is the BASIS for many decisions we've done for the past 2 years, right before our third season. I say this because I do not think it is fair to penalize people that operated under the assumption that the innings limit would be abnormally high, something I noticed as soon as this league began and undoubtedly others did as well. People had to draft, trade, and use cap knowing that they had to have a certain number of pitchers to meet the minimum. I'm not sure if changing it from 35 to 32 would have made a major impact, but it COULD have.

A true story is that in the middle of the season, frustrated by the fact that I had not hit the minimum YET AGAIN, I pondered making this very post that Oakland made. A few weeks ago. However, I realized that I was doing this for my own personal game and not what I stand for.

I admit that this change is partly based on principle. That being said, I don't think this makes it any less valid. I truly believe that there is a slippery slope to these kinds of changes. You'll notice that I objected to the DL increase for this very reason, but it's very different to increase the DL slots than to make a change with scoring (and this, while not being a category by itself, IS related to scoring). I find it convincing evidence that Gepetto already is suggesting something even MORE drastic than the current innings minimum decrease. First DL slots, then innings minimum, then changing roster slots, what's next?

I very aware that adaptability is important for a league. But I think that the warning about changing something such as this needs to be heeded even more in a dynasty when people are making decisions NOW that will have effects many years in the future. It would be one thing if this was a redraft and everyone was on the same ground for next year- in that case, you would not hear ONE thing from me for changes like this. This is why major changes to "dynasty" type of things, like the NFL/MLB, require the vast majority of owner approval (sometimes major deals between players and owners).

These types of changes (perhaps not one in particular) have a chance of benefitting some teams and not others. I think what would be right for these types of votes is for ALL owners to have to agree. DL slots? Maybe not. But changing something that directly impacts scoring? YES!!!

Like I said, the principles/slippery slope argument is only part. I think that it's important to keep in mind, specifically for this change, that a lot of people who didn't make the minimum were tanking or just didn't properly prepare (like me). I would like to see how many competing teams that PLANNED to compete this year were affected.

I can personally say that I took into account the steep innings minimum when planning for this year; I decided to build my team to compete for NEXT year and with that, I did not load up on the number of starts I needed to last offseason and during trading. It turned out that I ended up competing and was appropriately punished by losing a lot of games down the stretch. I find this to be completely natural.

I have some other thoughts but need to get to sleep. I hope I got across the gist of what I'm trying to say.

[Oakland Athletics]

Thanks for your thoughts and concerns Atlanta.

Just know that this isn’t something me and Gray discussed for our own personal gain we analyzed this to see how we could make this better. In two seasons neither me or Gray have missed the innings requirement. But I would say that 4 our if those 10 teams were really good teams/very active owners that were just unfortunate with injuries, postponements, And wha not and that’s not including you even though I think you’ve done I nice job on this league, but I did think you could have made a better effort to add a pitcher.

Rain outs was anther thing that was rampant this year so that didn’t help the situation. I remember early in the season, like April or May seeing a stat that there had already been as many rainouts or postponements as the year before, that’s crazy. I don’t know what’s up with this weather but it seems like it rains constantly where I’m from lol.

I completely see your point of view and I appreciate you viewing thing from a perspective that wouldn’t necessarily benefit you, but something you believe in. FYI you only missed the innings limit twice, 32.1 and 31.1. So again that 32 mark would set the precedent as basically making 50% of those people that missed actually reach it. There will still be a strong emphasis on starting pitching, I don’t think we should add another pitching slot I did think that would bad idea.

We will see how everyone feels about this but I do feel it hurt the quality of our league this year and I don’t want that to happen again. Maybe we could even just make it a 2 inning adjustment to 33. I did feel 32 was the absolute most I woul even consider because if teams can’t reach that they aren’t making an effort. I genuinely saw teams make an effort but fall just short of 35 though.

[Deleted]

Is the innings requirement a Yahoo thing or a choice, I know back in the early 2000's Yahoo had a thing where they gave you let's say 3000 innings and you ran your team with that each week you would use however many and hoped that through proper management you would have enough by seasons end. I thin that's all they offered so I was just wondering if this was a forced thing or not.

[Deleted]

I vote to hold the 35 IP minimum unchanged. It really doesn't take much effort to hit the minimum even with injuries. I admit that it's higher than a lot of other leagues, but there are plenty of arms available to reach it.

[Oakland Athletics]

Sept 9, 2018 9:11:15 GMT -5 @paul said:

Is the innings requirement a Yahoo thing or a choice, I know back in the early 2000's Yahoo had a thing where they gave you let's say 3000 innings and you ran your team with that each week you would use however many and hoped that through proper management you would have enough by seasons end. I thin that's all they offered so I was just wondering if this was a forced thing or not.

It’s a choice

[Deleted]

Oakland, your point of view makes sense. I just really do think that even if the rule isn't working as intended, it's not league-breaking, and has been a premise that we've all operated on for 2 years. I would still be opposed to making the change, but I don't think anything drastic is going to happen if we do decide to do it.

What do you think about my suggestion on making changes to scoring have a high threshold for being amended, like 80-90% of owner?

[Oakland Athletics]

Sept 9, 2018 20:01:22 GMT -5 @braves said:

Oakland, your point of view makes sense. I just really do think that even if the rule isn't working as intended, it's not league-breaking, and has been a premise that we've all operated on for 2 years. I would still be opposed to making the change, but I don't think anything drastic is going to happen if we do decide to do it.

What do you think about my suggestion on making changes to scoring have a high threshold for being amended, like 80-90% of owner?

Well we discuss rule adjustments here first to just weigh our options if it’s a good or bad idea, If there are multiple people with legitimate concerns I wouldn’t even put it up for a vote. If it seems like a lot of people believe it’s a good idea or some don’t have a strong opinion then at that point yeah I would put to a vote and see what happens, but I think a two thirds vote, 66-67% is good.

[Oakland Athletics]

We will see what others have to say about this possible adjustment. I’m interested to know what people will say.

[Deleted]

Choice,that's good, not sure how indepth your study is (knowing you guys probably pretty indepth) but I would think if you feel more teams would benefit from even a few innings less and therefore make the games more competitive then it seems like a good idea to me.Whether it's 3 innings or 2 innings.

[Deleted]

Seems close enough not to make too big of a difference, 32 should work

[Deleted]

A lower amount could be helpful especially if your counting on the sunday start and get a rainout would stink to lose weeks worth of points

[Deleted]

Being starter heavy I am in agreement with Atlanta and KC team was built for that and 35 shouldn't be hard to get, but with the stuff Tampa Bay is pulling with these "openers" and all this pitch count and 3 times through the lineup it appears the sport is moving to less and less, so although I'm opposed it seems like it's a good idea.

[Deleted]

I can't say honestly that I built my team around the pitching limits. I usually like to have 5 starters and figured that would be good enough to hit the limit because I never really had a problem with it previously.

I am a little bit indifferent on the subject but if I had to choose I would say yes, change it. The game is ever changing and if it makes the league more competitive I am all for it.