OFF THE WALL
OPENING DAY ?
Once again MLB turns its back on their fans by beginning the 2024 regular season on foreign soil. Not that there is anything wrong with playing games in Korea or any other country ... just NOT the regular season. Make them part of Spring Training.
Players will miss valuable time ramping up for the regular season, and fans will miss out on attending 2 games.
As a result, the Dodger / Padres series on March 20-21 in Korea, will NOT count. as part of the Full Slate Fantasy season.
THE YAMAMOTO SWEEPSTAKES
As owners prepare their rosters for the upcoming Competitive Balance Drafts, the one question many owners will be considering is, "will there be an available player, who is worth the risk of going low" with their protected list.
This year, that player could be Dodger SP Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And, to a much lesser extent, Cubs SP Shoto Imanaga and Giants OF Jung Hoo Lee.
Because Asian players - specifically Japan and South Korea - are ineligible for the First Year Player Draft, they present an interesting wrinkle for the CBDs.
The Dodgers gave Yamamoto a massive contract which made him the 5th highest paid pitcher in baseball. So, he should be considered one of the best 5 SP's in Fantasy Baseball ... right? Not so fast.
First, he has yet to throw a pitch in a MLB game. Second, is he really going to be THAT good?
When the Yankees signed Masahiro Tanaka to a 7-yr / $155 million deal in 2014, he also became the 5th highest paid SP in MLB. During his 7 year career he never topped 200 IP's and never won more than 14 games. His career ERA was 3.74 with a 17.5 WAR. And, his career was plagued by arm problems that began in his first season.
So ... are you going to be one of the owners who risk it all for the latest Golden Goose?
THE COMPETITIVE
BALANCE DRAFTS
Full Slate (including the former FanBall) has always tried to emulate the experience of managing a Major League Baseball team.
The one obstacle we have always faced is not dissimilar to that of the "real" game ... competitive balance.
MLB has been reluctant to adopt any sort of (hard) salary cap to help make all teams competitive. The rich are always going to be rich, and the poor will likely finish below .500.
That same lack of parity exists in FullSlate. We have tinkered with the draft system to try to give all teams a fair shot at making the playoffs.
First, (old) ReStocking style where each league's owners would vote on a Protected List. While it may have made a couple valuable players available in the first couple rounds, the strong teams would always vote high and still protect their core. And these "strong" teams were drafting right along side the other teams.
The hope with the recently adopted Competitive Balance Draft is that weaker teams could release a larger number of players and be able to draft more often in the early rounds.
To clarify the process... an owner may release as many or as few players from their full 40-man roster as they wish. And, owners will draft until they have a full 40-man roster: 32-actve, 3-man IR and 5-man MLR.
While the draft order is set to the inverse of the 2023 standings, when owners draft goes according to who protected the fewest players.
An appropriate analogy might be - each owner having a bucket - some fuller than others. The owner with the least in his bucket will draft until their bucket reaches the level of the next owner(s), then those owners join in the draft. Each owner will join the draft when their level is reached until all owners are participating.
FullSlate will again poll owners this Spring to see if we continue with the CBD or revert to the old style. Or, perhaps maybe we find a better system?