LTBNL 2021
Playing fake baseball the right way. Since 1989.
The 2024 LTBNL Reserve Draft will be held Sunday night, March 24, at 10:00 EDT.
Please join by Zoom (and turn on video) if you can. You can also use the OnRoto chat room; we'll be in there too. And you can follow along on the handy Reserve Draft Grid. (Click the yellow button below). GroupMe would work as well, if you prefer to just use that.
By my count, there are 19 reserve freezes, meaning that we need to fill 89 spots tonight. If you have a list with 89 names, you are good! If you'd like to move your frozen players to different draft slots, just let me know and I'll update the grid. The sooner you can do that, the better (for me at least).
Feel free to make trades of players and/or draft picks right up until the Reserve Draft starts. I'll update the Grid if necessary. Just make sure all teams have balanced and legal rosters once the trade is done.
Please don't self-transact until after I get the players we pick in the Reserve Draft entered into OnRoto. I'll give the go-ahead when everything's ready. We may be able to open up FAAB prior to Thursday, which would certainly be a first.
Here's the Zoom info for the Reserve Draft:
Topic: LTBNL
Time: Mar 24, 2024 10:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/8451
Meeting ID: 845 1343 7941
Passcode: 208778
On March 23, 2024, members of the League to be Named Later convened in Dayton, Ohio to open the THIRTY-SIXTH SEASON of LTBNL baseball.
The Auction was hosted, for the second year in a row, by the Show Hoffs. Their setup for the Auction is unparalled. Many thanks to Dan for hosting us and putting up with our ridiculousness for six hours. Thanks also for the bagels and coffee. Our reigning champion, Gregory Peckers, provided an awesome DiBella's lunch. The Candy Stripers couldn't be present in person, but sent along some 2024 Topps to open and exchange.
Present in person were The Show Hoffs, Henry Myers, filling in admirably for Dan's Fever, the Rick Shaws, the Sol Train (until their mom had to pick them up), the Doug Outs, Karnold Nowledge, the QuagMyers, and the Peckers.
Our beloved treasurer, Stevie's Wonders, was in Charlotte for Madness, watching North Carolina and Tennesse advance. LTBNL founding member Candy Stripers and newcomer Joey Bag o' Donuts drafted from their stately homes. And the Green Monsters called in for the Auction from a very quiet location near Orlando.
The PICFL called the proceedings to order at about 10:30. A rules change proposal was made to add "designated hitter" as an LTBNL position (in place of the non-super utility spot). It was noted that several players qualified only at DH and were thus eligible to placed only at a UT spot. Discussion ensued, but ultimately the motion failed. For the 19th consecutive year, Steve proposed expanding reserve rosters from 9 to 10. This measure also failed, narrowly. Until next year!
The Pham Rule: Tommy Pham is still looking for work. He is also the only known player to ever be suspended for punching a fellow player due to a fantasy sports dispute. But we digress. The Doug Outs were permitted to freeze Pham at $1 and then sought, under Rule 20.4, to reserve him prior to the Auction. We voted to allow that, but ultimately Doug graciously withdrew his request when it appeared technically impossible to make the appropriate change on FanTrax. Still, the LTBNL voted to amend Rule 20 to clarify that if a team freezes a free agent, the team MUST keep the player on its active roster through the Auction.
We decided to table the question of possibly adding an injured reserve spot to our rosters. It was agreed that a formal proposal would be drafted for later vote via OnRoto poll question.
Rule of Reason position changes were granted for Christopher Morel, Joey Meneses, and Henry Davis. The League Office would then spend the next 4.5 hours trying to figure out how to move players on FanTrax during the Auction.
At 10:51, the Fever threw out the first name, and it was a big one. Ronald Acuna Jr. The Wonders got him for $53 (a hefty but well-deserved raise) and then also selected the last player, Tanner Rainey, at 3:54. With that pick, the Auction concluded.
For the most part, things ran really smoothly and although we had a little bit of a slow start, the middle section of the draft and the end-game would have to be described as brisk. It would have been nice to have been a little clearer before the Auction started on how to move players around on rosters, and it would have been good if the League Office had remembered to move frozen players to reserve before FanTrax barrelled ahead at 10:30 on the nose.
The League Office thanks everyone for being on time and hanging in there for the whole Auction. It was an excellent effort on everyone's part. It was very good to see everyone! Auction Day is always one of the most fun days of the year, and the League Office is very grateful to have somehow assembled such a great group of friends for fake baseball purposes.
The financial state of the LTBNL is strong. That statement remains true even though it's not about the money.
Thanks to Steve, almost everyone is paid up for 2023 and the 2023 winners have been or will shortly be paid. I will post the full financial report here shortly. If you haven't paid, you can do so now via Zelle directly to the Treasury, or via PayPal or Venmo or Apple Pay to the PICFL, who will transfer the funds into the Treasury. Thank you.
Here's a summary of the rules changes we implemented for 2023:
I still need to update the Constitution to reflect these changes, but I'll get to it soon.
The Big Sheet is ready! Please advise the League Office promptly of any errors. Next I'm going to be updating the OnRoto site, and then FanTrax.
The 2023 LTBNL Auction will be held on Saturday, March 25, starting at 10:30 am EDT at the Show Hoffs’ offices in Dayton.
Scott Industrial Systems
4433 Interpoint Blvd
Dayton OH 45424
If you can’t be there in person, let me know. Even though most of us will be present, I’d still like to use FanTrax as we have the last couple of years to manage the Auction.
Going once …
If you won’t have a computer or iPad or something to run the auction software, please let me know as soon as you can.
Freeze lists will be due by Wednesday, March 22 at noon. Please feel free to turn in a tentative list before then if you’d like. I’ll post all the freezes as soon as I can after noon.
If you’ve been following the GroupMe chatter at all, you’ll know that some potential rules changes have been floated, and that we had a Zoom call Tuesday night to discuss further.
Here’s what we came up with.
The Flat Fee Proposal: Arguments were made for an against, but what we ultimately came up with as a proposal to be put to a vote is for a flat fee of $150 to be paid at the beginning of the season (on or before Auction Day). That amount would cover the basic fee and the stats assessment, plus all activate/reserve fees for the whole season. We’d still charge the regular fee for FAAB purchases, waiver claims, and trades.
The Innings Pitched and At-Bats Requirement: There was general agreement that it’s disruptive to the standings and not great in general when teams fail to meet the minimums and get dropped to the bottom of the applicable categories. We decided to propose that a team that does not meet the minimum be fined $50. We also discussed dropping the IP requirement from 950 innings to 900.
September Roster Expansion: The proposal is to mirror the new MLB rule more closely by reducing the number of expansion players permitted from unlimited (nine) to one.
The Shohei Ohtani Dilemma: We should prepare for the possibility that Ohtani winds up in the NL later this season. OnRoto provides two options: treat him as (1) two completely distinct players, Hitter Ohtani and Pitcher Ohtani, who can be on different teams; or (2) as one player owned by just one team in the league.
The plan for now is for discussion on these four proposals to happen between now and March 25, so we can vote quickly, with minimal discussion, on draft day and then get down to bidding. You may be thinking to yourself: “those proposals are OK but it would be better if we did this instead …" To you I say (1) you should have been on the Zoom call! and (2) fine; but let’s discuss modifications to the proposals now rather than on the morning of the auction. Let’s have a consensus going into draft day so we can have quick yes/no votes and then move on.
Thanks everyone! See you in the GroupMe. Enjoy the basketball.
Welp. 2020 kind of sucked. As we were planning for an Auction that never happened, I remember typing into GroupMe, "
That turned out to be true, but really not in the way I was thinking.
We wound up deciding to "mothball" our teams and play roto in 2020 as a one-off season with no freeze lists, a snake draft, relaxed rules, no transaction fees, and probably a bunch of other concessions to COVID-19. Every team started with a blank slate, knowing that their "real" rosters would be held in a state of suspended animation until 2021. We agreed that every team would chip in $25, the prize pool to be donated to a charity of the winner's choosing. We used Fantrax for both the snake draft on July 26.
It went OK, I think. Speaking for myself, I definitely paid less attention to my team on a daily basis. There were plenty of days where I just forgot to set a lineup. But I enjoyed it. It was great to have baseball back on TV, even if a lot of games got postponed and rescheduled along the way. The dumb Manfred rules changes didn't bother me as much as I thought they would. I honestly didn't even mind the DH that much, and I thought the 7-inning doubleheaders were kind of fun.
And then on August 19, we got this:
as there's a drive into deep left by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame.
If memory serves, our pennant race wasn't really very close and Joe won by a lot. I'll post the standings and stats on the 2020 page soon.
Joe has chosen the Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation to receive the bounty of his victory. So far, seven teams have kicked in $25.00, so we'll be sending them $200, counting Joe's contribution. If anyone else wants to chip in -- and it's entirely voluntary -- please send your money to me by the end of the day on Monday, February 22, by either Venmo (@Tom-Myers-22) or Paypal. I'm forwarding all I've collected to Joe after that. Thanks!
Playing fake baseball the right way. Since 1989.
Thanks to everyone for a great Auction, and especially to Steve for hosting and to Arnie for lunch.
II will have the rosters entered into OnRoto soon. Here is a link to our post-Auction rosters in PDF.
The Reserve Draft will be held on Tuesday night, March 26, at 10 p.m., EDT. We will just use the GroupMe app this year, and hopefully avoid some of the technical difficulties of years past. Quags are on the clock!
If you have frozen reserve players, please text or email me the pick numbers you wish to forfeit. if possible, please do this by 7 pm or so on Tuesday night. We'll permit trades up until 7 pm on Tuesday night also. The Reserve Draft Grid will be updated soon with the Wonders-DougOuts correction and the most recent trades.
Thanks again to Steve for his service as League Treasurer. Below is his 2019 Financial Report. If your number in the last column on the right is red, you're a winner! You'll receive a check from the League Treasurer. If that number is black, please be prepared to pay up at the Auction.
I finally updated the Constitution with the several changes we've made over the last few years. Just in time to amend it again! Most of the changes I made were housekeeping cleanups related to our new position requirements (The Davitt Proposal) and the roster size changes that we made when we lost the Astros. I also changed the minimum IP and AB requirements (10.6 & 10.7) and I re-wrote 16.8 to clarify that when a team claims FAAB compensation for a player traded to the AL, that player is automatically released rather than the team needing to release him. As always, let me know if you find any errors.
Here are the three proposals that Joe submitted to the League Office for vote prior to this year's Auction. Proposal No. 1 passed, 7-5. Proposal No. 2 failed, 8-4, and No. 3 failed, 9-3. Thanks for voting.
Proposal No. 1:
Amend Article 4.1 to provide for an “open” or “English” auction, as opposed to our current “around the room” style. Wikipedia defines an English auction as “an open-outcry ascending dynamic auction,” meaning that any team could call out a bid at any time, presuming the team has enough money to bid and an open appropriate roster spot for the subject player, until the player is sold. We’d still go around the room to nominate players, of course, but the “IN” and “OUT” signs would be consigned to the dustbin of history. Teams could jump in and out of the bidding at will.
Proposal No. 2:
Amend Article 21.1 to provide that the In-Season Salary Cap shall be $350 from Opening Day to May 31, $375 from June 1 to the All Star Break, and then $400 for the rest of the season.
Proposal No. 3:
Amend Article 6 to expand the Reserve Draft and Reserve Roster from 9 to 10 players. The extra player would be assigned a salary of $10. If both this Proposal and Proposal No. 2 pass, then $10 would be added to each of the salary cap numbers in Art. 21.1.
Many thanks to Steve for once again preparing our League Financial Report. Please be prepared to settle up at the Auction on Saturday. You can pay your fees via PayPal! Use the link below.
The Green Monsters held on, surviving a late-season challenge from the QuagMyers, to post their second straight title, and sixth overall.
Congratulations to the Gregory Peckers, who won the 2017 Commissioner's Trophy. The Trophy is presented each year to the team that has the best post-All Star Break stats but doesn't finish in the top four. Please feel free to check my work, as these numbers are entered into the spreadsheet by hand.
The final standings are below. You can see the entire worksheet here. (Click on Sheet 1 to see the whole deal).
Here is the official video of KC's dousing for his 2016 Championship, following the 2017 Auction.
Following the 2016 Draft, the Rick Shaws received their second consecutive dousing, and the chocolate shower was administered by the smallest Monster, K.C.'s son Carson. It was a sneak attack; it happened so quickly that I don't think I got a video. I did get some photos, though. Please take note of the demonic glee on the face of young Carson.
Here is Rick getting his first dousing, following his 2014 title.
Following the 2013 Auction at Steve's office, we did a catch-up dousing for the ceremonies we somehow skipped.