Only carded players eligible for drafting?

Posted on behalf of Mike R.:

Proposal: Starting with the 2007 draft, only carded players may be drafted.

Rationale:
1. Taking a flier on a minor league stud prospect is cheap right now, and most don't pan out.
2. The ones that do, rob high-quality, long term star performers from future drafts.
3. Strat-o-Matic now cards players that have as few as 25+ AB and 20+ IP, so most future stars will get a limited card about 1 year before they hit the big time (i.e. Hermida, Zimmerman, King Felix) (Delmon Young notwithstanding)
4. It would even the playing field for scouting players, for those managers that don't feel compelled to follow Double A baseball rosters and preseason prognosticators.
5. It would add value, and excitement to the first few rounds of the draft.
6. You still can retain current carded players on your roster that won't have a card for the future year ( i.e. B.J Upton, Trevor Hoffman, Rocco Baldeli), but if they don't get retained, nobody can draft them again until they actually get another card.

I know we talked at length about this topic when we converted to retention, and agreed on the no-holds-barred approach. After three years, the league as a whole has done a very good job of syphoning off the best young talent available, including those that are just breaking in as top Rookie prospects. This proposal would allow us to keep the retention number at 18, yet give everyone a more even shot at the young studs, and add more excitement to the draft, especially the first round.

Anybody that follows Lamanna's Baseball Bulletin, or SOMWorld sees that regardless of the retention math, most leagues limit draftable players to carded players. In these leagues, Felix Hernandez is a lead-pipe lock as the first pick in the draft, and there is a huge scramble to try and acquire such a top pitching prospect. In the I75 League this year, three of the top 5 in Lamanna's Rookie Card list are already gone, including #1 King Felix (congrats to the Warriors on that pick, BTW).

So I say, get your uncarded stud prospects this season and then let's close the loophole, for the good of the league!

Convention info

We're staying at 2566 Bear Creek Court, Kissimmee Fl 34747. See pretty pictures here.

Collecting arrival times to help coordinate transportation here:

Thursday
Grid: Arriving in Orlando in evening

Friday
Ken : Arriving Orlando, Northwest FL 432 at 9:28 a.m.
Dave/Garth: Arriving Orlando, American FL 600 at 9:43 a.m., renting car
Gary/Andrew: Arriving Orlando, USAirways FL 1159 at 11:03 a.m., renting car
Steve Hart: Arriving Orlando by car, 11:45 a.m. at ballpark
Jamie: Arriving in Fort Lauderdale about 3 p.m. and driving to Orlando
Mike Wilson: Arriving about 10:39 p.m. on Northwest FL 958
Phil and Mike R: Arriving very late Friday night in Tampa

Saturday
Steve Bizek/Keith/Christian -- by car about 3 p.m.
Homer -- by car about 8 p.m.

Three four-team divisions?

Posting on behalf of Dave:

The idea is to convert our league to a three-division format. This would hopefully resolve two of our league's problems: our current highly unbalanced schedule that fosters competitive imbalance and our annual problem of the playoffs dragging on far too long.

Here are the highlights:

-- We would have three four-team divisions, with the three divisions champs and one wild card (the second-place team with the best overall record) reaching the playoffs.

-- The playoffs would be two rounds rather than three, so they should be done by Nov. 15 at the latest.

-- The season would remain 160 games and run March through October, but the number of games played per month would vary between 18, 19 and 25 games (plus a shortened 12-game October that will allow us to jump-start the playoffs before the end of the month).

-- Teams would play each of their three division rivals a total of 16 times (four 4-game series).

-- Teams would play each of ther eight non-division rivals a total of 14 times (two 7-game series).

-- This breakdown is only slightly unbalanced and much more equitable that our current set-up (20 games vs. division rivals and only 10 vs. non-division).

Retain fewer players?

Posting on behalf of Jamie:

Now that we've drafted a couple of years with expanded rosters, I'd like to constrict the retained players a bit, perhaps to 14 instead of 18. It doesn't take much time to ponder the upcoming draft before it becomes obvious how much talent has already been sucked out of it. I'm a big fan of retention, but lowering the retention roster would help goose the draft a bit and also create more strategy as managers decide whether to keep the AA prospect who might still be a year away from really helping or hold onto that No. 3 starting pitcher.

It might also assist the team with a little less talent to get better quicker. Since we've all stated a certain level of concern about maintaining a level of parity, this might assist the pursuit of that goal.