Results by team on the 2007 rule vote:

There were a few proposed changes submitted to me that we will vote on. In addition there are a few changes that have been made based upon feedback to me and careful evaluation of these situations.

Changes for 2007:

1                    Currently we require teams to report scores on Saturday for the weekday games, and Monday for all games. Most teams do report weekday scores by Saturday, but some don’t, especially when owners are away on weekends. (This happens frequently in the summer). I have never really given teams a mulligan for not reporting weekday scores on Saturday, as long as I get them all on Monday. The Saturday requirement will be eliminated, but still encouraged.

2                    Rosters are frozen and lineups are currently due Sunday at 9pm. This is often tough for owners working Sunday evenings or away for the weekend as they haven’t had the chance to catch up on player news. We do allow changes to be made if it involves a DL move, as long it is made before the games start on Monday. We will change the roster and lineup deadline to Monday at 12 noon. If there is any games that happen to start before 12noon MST on Monday, roster and lineup changes for those players would have to be made before the game starts. I would still recommend sending in lineups early, as absolutely no late lineups will be accepted. Lineups will be posted Monday evening. This shouldn’t be a big deal, as it is a long week and you will still have lineups before the Monday games are even finished.

3                    Several years ago we eliminated the picked off -1 stat for offense. This was done because many websites did not consistently list picked off in their boxscores. Over the last few years, the picked off stat is now a commonly used stat in boxscores. It is normally listed right next to caught stealing. The picked off -1 stat for offense will be added back into the scoring system.

4                    Last year we changed the pitching scoring system due to the high scoring of pitching staffs in comparison with position players. The adjustments did help, lowering the average week from 18.4 to 14.1. Many owners felt this was too drastic of a change. I compared this total with the average for each position. Here is a breakdown of each positions average week:

1B 15.6            3B 14.8            2B 13.7            SS 14.1            OF 14.3           C 10.8

After evaluating these numbers I feel that pitching points was reduced a little too much in my opinion. I explored many options based upon feedback that I received. Based upon that, here are the changes on pitching scoring for 2007:

Previously the HBP was a -1. The HBP will now be part of the H+BB category, now known as H+BB+HBP. I also added a tier to the scoring chart for this category, as previously there was no 6 point tier. The end result is that the old H+BB tiers will go up by 1 allowed. (i.e. previously 12-13 was the 0 point tier, now 13-14 will be the 0 point tier) This will often be offset by adding the HBP to the category, but still have a chance to lessen the old -1 HBP penalty a bit. The overall affect on pitching scoring will be minimal in my opinion, but some increase will be a result.

The second change is to add a tier to the earned run pitching tier. While we want to give pitching staffs a chance to increase scoring, we don’t want to go back to them being 3-5 points above position players. How many runs a pitching staff allows is still the primary goal in baseball. This is the category we will give teams a chance to increase scoring a bit. Previously there was no 6 point tier in earned runs. We will add an additional tier to the earned run chart. Previously 5-6 earned runs allowed was 0 points. The change will be 6 ER will be the 0 point tier. Five ER will now be 1, 4 will be 2 and so on to the new 6 point tier for 1 ER allowed. The negative tiers are unaffected.

Here are the rule change proposals to be voted on this year:

1          Tiebreaker:    Currently in the event of a tie game the team with home field gets the win. A proposal was made to do away with this. The suggestion is to award both teams a half point in the event of a tie game. The reason being it just doesn’t seem fair that if two teams tie, one team gets a point because of home field, while the other gets zero. Currently if two or more teams tie for the final 8^th position in the top 8, both teams get the bonus point. That rule was changed a few years ago because of the same philosophy. That rule would not be affected as to get a top 8 finish is difficult enough, and if you score in the top half of the league (tie or not) both teams should get the bonus point. The one additional issue is what about playoff games? Awarding a half point for each game can still be used. But there is now a possibility of a 2.5-2.5 tie for the series. You can’t have a tie in a playoff series. There were suggestions such as go to subs, most hits and stuff like that. None of them really made sense. The most logical suggestion was playoff series that ended in a tie would still be decided by the higher seed getting the win. This would still reward the team that had a better regular season and got the higher seed. Yes, this is still “home field” in the playoffs, but you have to break a playoff series tie some way and this seems to be the best option as you are rewarding regular season performance to break the tie.

Vote: Game Tiebreaker
Option A:        Eliminate home field, both teams get a half point in a tie game
Option B:        Keep current rule, home field gets the win

2          Bonus Points:             A proposal was made to change how the weekly bonus points are awarded for league high scores. Currently the top 8 teams get one bonus point each week. The proposal is to award bonus points based on points scored each week as follows:

1^st-5^th Place 2 points                     6^th-10^th Place 1 Point              11^th-16^th Place 0 Points

The reason is the difference from 1^st to 8^th place each week can be pretty significant, and they both get one bonus point. This three tier system would reward the top scoring teams more. The rebuttal is that it may reward top teams to much. You now have a chance of a seven point week and somewhat drastic swings, i.e. you lose 2-3 and finish 11^th, your division rival wins 3-2 and finishes 5^th, and you dropped three points back. This is also a reason for the proposal; you would now have a chance to make up more points in the standings potentially in a week. The last concern is that head to head matchups should still be the biggest factor in standings, not additional bonus points for scoring well.

Vote: Bonus Points
Option A: Use new bonus point system
Option B: Keep current bonus point system

3          Weekly Matchups:    A proposal was made to change how we do the weekly series matchups each week. Currently we have 5 games each week. Currently we use M-Th high game, Fri-Sun games and total points. The new proposal is to go to the best 4 games of the week, and total points. This was proposed so teams would get to use their best four games for each player, and not depending on your players to have one good weekday game followed by a good weekend. It would reward the best overall players more, not just the best weekend players. The change should make sidepots more accurate as the best overall player will win, not just the best weekend player. Overall, the team with the players having the best overall season will be more fairly rewarded.

The new system would work as follows:

Players would use all available games during the entire week. Their best four games for each player would be ranked 1 through 4. Game 1 would be the best game of the week for each player. Game 2 would be the next high score. Game 3 the next high score and game 4 the next high score. Total points would be the total of all 4 games for each player. Teams would then have a boxscore of the 5 games to be compared to each other and determine the winner of each game.

Subs would only be used if a starter did not play in 4 games during the week. The games for subs would only be for days the starter did not play. For example, a starting 1B doesn’t play Fri, Sat & Sun. The corner inf would get to use games on those days, not the entire week. DL moves would be allowed during the week, but it only takes affect for the weekend games. Basically the same Friday roster deadline we currently use. Rosters would remain the same format we currently use. The use of the entire week would eliminate the issues of subs on weekend rainouts for pitching staffs and catchers, as well as rules for use of a doubleheader.

An example of the affect this would have is last years Championship Game. Under the current system the Contributors beat the Victory 3-2 with scores 52-60, 17-17(Victory won on home field), 33-20, 28-19, and 130-116. Under the proposed system, the Contributors would have won 5-0 with scores of 74-73, 48-38, 38-28, 21-16, and 181-155.

There are concerns and opposing views to this proposal. The main concern is that owners enjoy the head to head daily match ups. They enjoy the thrill of getting a win or loss on Thursday and each day on the weekend. You would not know how you did each week until the week is completely done on Sunday. Instead of getting the thrill of knowing how you did 4 times a week, you would just get it once on Sunday after you have sorted through all the scores. Another concern is the accuracy of scoring. Scoring mistakes do happen, and some owners are better than others. If a scoring mistake is agreed upon by both teams, it would affect the entire week, not just a single day. Another concern is that we are straying away from what this league has always been. It has always been a weekend focused league with daily match ups and a winner each day. A change like this will change the dynamics of the league.

Vote: Weekly Matchups
Option A: Use new Weekly Matchups system
Option B: Keep current Weekly Matchups system