July Roundup

Now that we have hit July, I wanted to take a few minutes to go over a handful of different topics.

The Draft

• I want to thank everyone again for their commitment throughout the entire process. 32 rounds whether by auto, list, or making the pick when on the clock, drafting for a month and a half can be a real battle. Even moreso when you might feel the class is weak. That said, everyone did what was asked of them.
• The draft results will either be input into OOTP either tonight (Saturday), tomorrow (Sunday), or at the very latest on Monday depending on 4th of July type weekend scheduling. I am optimistic that I can get it done tonight. This will give everyone a period of time to set low-level rosters, lineups, etc. If you do not have enough to fill out rosters, please hit free-agency to do so prior to the start of the Rookie League season.
• With OOTP22 I am excited about making the draft class even more realistic. While it might just be a small thing, the ability to edit which college or high-school players attend is something that I am at least excited for.

OOTP 22 and Discord

• As has been mentioned in chat and e-mail, we are indeed moving to OOTP22 this off-season. Plan accordingly.
• Discord/Slack: While I am not ready to say we will be permanently moving to Discord this off-season/next year, what I would like to do is give Discord a try later this season. In mid-August for a few few weeks at least, I think it would be best if try to use Discord as much as possible for league communications. While i will continue to use Slack as well for those stragglers, let’s at least give Discord a try to see how we all feel with it.
• This Discord Invite Link will be good for 7-days — if you need further assistance to join now or in the future, contact me (Matt) via Slack and I will assist you. Again, let’s just give it a try and go from there.

International Amateur Free-Agency

• We get our next scouting report on August 1. Let’s tentatively plan to open the IFA Bidding process later that week. I’ll have a more set in stone date as we get closer.
• I have been trying to better replicate the IFA System but continue to run into OOTP roadblocks. An inability to move players to the INTL Complex, an inability to keep demands at a low level when turning off the cap on spending continue to make things extremely difficult to do. With OOTP22 we will continue to look into this moving forward.

More MLB Pro 2022/OOTP 22 Rules Talk

• The “3-Batter Rule” — for the most part has been received well by most in chat. I would join those that are in favor of making this a rule moving forward. I would expect to have this up for some sort of vote here in July.
• The “Extra Inning Rule” — by and large a rule change that most seem to be against in a great deal. The League Office was largely in the middle on this one. We see the advantages that might come about in terms of fatigue, injury, and continuing to mirror real-life** and the “disadvantages” of just being a bit of a weird way to play baseball, gimmicky, and not that much of a solution in terms of shortening games (for us mere minutes vs. potentially much longer real-life baseball timing.) I am not ready to rule one way or the other on this change.
  • **This has come up before when discussing other rule changes. MLB Pro does not need to touch every single MLB change made. In fact, I can guarantee there are plenty of instances and examples where we do not. At the same time, in instances where a change is relatively easy to make via an in-game option and is something that is a big part of everyday baseball, it’s something that I do think we need to really consider making. This does not necessarily speak directly to this rule, but in a general sense of things.
    • If this rule sticks around into the next MLB CBA, my position might change on this.
• Hiring coaches away in OOTP22 — for starters, this is not something that is easy to do. Coaches are relatively happy when in the bigs, when recently hired at any level, or when deep into a contract. After seeing the first 10 choices you might have interest in all tell you they have no desire to leave, I could see teams immediately focusing back on free-agent coaches. I think some of the concerns might be overblown in terms of losing multiple or many coaches in a given off-season.
  • Yes, more rules would need to be made.
  • Yes, it would only be the off-season.
  • Yes, it would only be for MLB positions (for now).
• Base coaches — this is one that might be turned on without a vote. Turning two additional coaches on (remember, this is only an MLB level thing) to give you finer control with both base-running aggressiveness as well as two more coaches to help develop/coach in the bigs is something that makes sense to me. Offer a pair 4-year deals right out of the gate and do not worry about it for years to come. This is one that I think I am pretty strongly in favor of.
• Minor League Shuffling: Yet to be discussed in the #ruleschannel, but some did discuss it in the main chat. It’s something some have called for in the past and I vehemently shutdown. With the bigger more recent minor league changes in MLB that were recently made, perhaps now is the time to do things.
  • In my head, the changes would end up with each of us having a AAA, AA, A+, A, and two rookie league teams. This would end up having a handful of teams having no changes made, some teams having A- teams moved to the Rookie Level and a handful of teams losing a minor league affiliate.
  • We would not go exactly the route of MLB in that our AAA universe for example of the International and Pacific Coast Leagues already have 30 combined teams with 1 team from every organization. This is true for a few levels. The main shuffling would come at the A- and R levels.
  • This is not something I will likely force through. I am happy to listen to more talk on this.
• As always, if things pop up into your head that you want to share with regards to these or any other ideas, please reach out via PM.