We’ve always looked at Tout Wars as an incubator for new ideas about how to play fantasy baseball. The game is a living thing, and we take seriously a responsibility to try out new rules that we think have an opportunity to be of use in other leagues.
After a far ranging rules talk among league participants by email and on this website last fall, we decided this year to clarify some previously enacted rules and introduce one significant new wrinkle: The Swingman.
Starting this season, in all three leagues, we’re converting the fifth outfielder slot into a place for any player on the team’s roster, playing any position, including pitcher. Hitters will contribute as hitters, pitchers as pitchers. Micah Owings contributions will come from the mound, not the batters box.
Moves too and fron the Swingman position can be made according to the weekly and in-week rules elaborated on in the Constitution.
While this move was made in part to address the tightness of rosters in Tout AL and Tout NL—a situation which will ease some in 2013, when the major leagues turn to a 15 and 15 alignment, and Tout NL loses a team, so that both TW only leagues have 12 teams—we’ve decided to go ahead with the experiment. In some ways it will be most interesting to see how it works in TW Mixed, where roster depth will give teams many different weapons to use at Swingman.
[Tout Mixed owner Derek Carty writes about the Swingman at Baseball Prospectus. (Public intro, sub required for the rest.) Law Michaels wrote about the Swingman at KFFL.]
The main tweak to the rules involved our injury compensation system. In the past teams could release a player who was on the 60-Day DL and recover all his draft day price as FAAB up until the All Star break, and half thereafter, but this caused problems when clearly hurt players weren’t moved to the 60-Day list for bookkeeping reasons. (The 60-Day rule was a tweak of the former rule, which required a player to be “out for the season,” but the imprecision of that term caused problems.
So, we try again. Starting in 2012, Tout Wars teams may redeem any player who goes on the DL, while he is on the DL. So, 7-Day, 15-Day and 60-Day lists give teams a chance to jettison a player and receive compensation (which may be used the second FAAB period after the redemption). One proviso: The team that redeems a player and wants to buy him back must spend at least the amount that they received as compensation.
The other changes for this year can be seen there as well, in red.
One of the biggest discussion items was whether Tout Wars needed the yearly penalties (we like to call them incentives) that were introduced before the 2011 season, and which will come into play for the first time this year. These include docking FAAB budgets the following season for teams that fall below certain points threshholds and and setting the reserve round order based on the previous year’s results. Many Tout Warriors didn’t feel these incentives were necessary for the leagues to get their  full attention.
The members of the LLC talked this over at length and decided not to change things this year for a few reasons. First off, we think these mild incentives to do better offer a reward for teams that play the game better. That’s far more important than penalizing teams that have a bad year, something all of us have experienced.
Second, the benefits are mild.
Last year’s first reserve round in the NL: Simon Castro, Mat Gamel, Matt Guerrier, John Lannan, Peter Moylan, Carlos Silva, Emilio Bonifacio, Jason Bourgious, Wade LeBlanc, Matt Boggs, Esmil Rogers, Lance Lynn, Tony Abreu.
Picking seventh was clearly a benefit. (NOTE: The original post indicated that Starlin Castro was the first pick on reserve, but he was not. The correction is incorporated here.)
Thirdly, we want to give this a chance to work. We understand the discomfit, but we think the incentives will enrich the game, by forcing teams to consider their strategies in different ways based on their FAAB and draft situation.
And if they turn out to hurt the game, we can do away with them. But we suspect that in the long run, based on actual experiences in other leagues, that everyone will grow to appreciate the way they improve the game.
I checked twice, but I haven’t asked Mike G. Simon makes a whole lot more sense. Thanks.
I asked Mike and he confirms Simon Castro was his pick. I’ve corrected the post.
Are you sure the first pick was Starlin Castro; I think it might have been Simon Castro. If so, the first pick wasn’t worth a whole lot!