AFBL Forum
Winter Meetings => Topics and Ideas Discussion => Topic started by: mstreeter06 on March 29, 2015, 05:06:14 pm
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This has always been an interesting discussion in previous Winter Meetings as I bring it back up. I'd love to get to 24 franchises at some point which has been my ultimate goal for the size of our league. I'm all for going with what the majority of the league is feeling for the direction and timeframe for expansion.
I feel as though there are several different routes and options for this we need decide on...
First, is whether to stagger the 4 expansion franchises into two waves of 2 teams or to add 4 franchises all at once like in 2017.
Second, would be the timeframe to expand... 2027, 2030, 2035, or even further out?
Third, would be the process of the future expansion draft where to use a similar procedure like in 2017 or tweak it?
Discuss your thoughts and opinions below. There won't be poll yet since this topic will take some time to discuss and decide on the best course of action as a league. Thanks guys!
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What would the playoff implications be of moving to 24 teams?
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What would the playoff implications be of moving to 24 teams?
Good question... maybe add a 5th playoff team in each league?
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I would prefer 2030 at the earliest for expansion. As for methodology - I liked 15 players from each team to get drafted. But would not limit it to one per team per round. If round 1 sees 15 players from team x taken then nobody else can be chosen from that team the rest of the draft.
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Same thing as always for me....
We need to go a few seasons without losing any owners. These owners need to be active and aren't regularly missing exports. Any expansion must obviously have enough ready to go owners to cover the slots.
I'd also like to have a set of rules drawn up at least two seasons prior to the expansion draft. I think the previous expansion was extremely rocky and some owners may not have been properly prepared for it.
I'm all for expansion happening whenever as long as the league remains strong.
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never
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I agree on the set rules on how we are going to expand. A plan we can always use in the future for any kind of expansion/contraction.
How much turnover has their been recently, Matt?
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How much turnover has their been recently, Matt?
Not much turnover and I don't foresee any GMs stepping away or going MIA anytime soon.
Brian (NM) joined us in 2022, Dave (WA) joined us in 2023, and Jason (CA) joined us in 2023.
I would like to see a full 4 seasons of zero turnover before we expand like has been expressed in the past. I think if we continue with the group we have for the next several seasons, I would push for expansion in 2030 but likely not earlier. This would give us plenty of time to hammer out the procedures out and have a clearer plan than in 2017 plus allow the future GMs a chance to join the league in votes/participation until expansion occurs.
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Same thing as always for me....
We need to go a few seasons without losing any owners. These owners need to be active and aren't regularly missing exports. Any expansion must obviously have enough ready to go owners to cover the slots.
I'd also like to have a set of rules drawn up at least two seasons prior to the expansion draft. I think the previous expansion was extremely rocky and some owners may not have been properly prepared for it.
I'm all for expansion happening whenever as long as the league remains strong.
I second this
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never
never as well. the last draft gutted my team of any depth
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Same thing as always for me....
We need to go a few seasons without losing any owners. These owners need to be active and aren't regularly missing exports. Any expansion must obviously have enough ready to go owners to cover the slots.
I'd also like to have a set of rules drawn up at least two seasons prior to the expansion draft. I think the previous expansion was extremely rocky and some owners may not have been properly prepared for it.
I'm all for expansion happening whenever as long as the league remains strong.
I second this
Agree
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Expansion is one of those things that I've never actually participated in online and I've been playing since OOTP 3. I was a co-commish for awhile back in the OOTP 5-6.5 era and briefly ran the league when the commished stepped down. From that perspective owner turnover would be my #1 concern....I always felt that some guys (as in team owners) feel like lifers (or at least feel like they plan to have a long career in the league) and then some owners gave me a feeling as soon as their current cycle is over and they need to go from win now to rebuild mode they suddenly become less active and slip away from their team and the league.
I think the timing of expansion would need to be when Matt feels like he has a large enough pool of lifers/long career guys...and possibly also timed with the migration to the latest version of the game at the time so that overall OOTP interest is at a higher point.
From a player standpoint I think expansion can be nice addition to the league (if timed right of course). As far as the expansion of how many playoff teams there will be. I like for it to feel like a accomplishment just to make the playoffs. If I remember correctly when I rejoined the NPBL after a two year or so hiatus...my second year my team made the playoffs with a 80-82 record. We ended up making the FF title game almost making the NPBL title round. It was fun at the time...but looking back....I don't think a sub-.500 team should be a playoff team. I like in the AFBL it feels like more of a accomplishment to make the playoffs. I hope that if we ever expand we don't water down the playoffs too much.
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I would prefer 2030 at the earliest for expansion. As for methodology - I liked 15 players from each team to get drafted. But would not limit it to one per team per round. If round 1 sees 15 players from team x taken then nobody else can be chosen from that team the rest of the draft.
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We wouldn't need to lose that many.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 15 players, that would be 75 per expansion franchise.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 10 players, that would be 50 per expansion franchise.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 8 players, that would be 40 per expansion franchise.
There is a sizable free agent pool at the moment that could be used to help fill the minor leagues.
One interesting thing you can do in OOTP that you couldn't do in 6.5 when the NPBL expanded is create the expansion teams a few years early.
So, for example, say the target is to add 4 teams in 2030....
In 2026, create the expansion clubs as unaffiliated minor league teams in a Rookie League. Let them participate in the draft (might be tricky, you'd most likely have to do this manually) and claim free agents.
In 2027, move those squads up a level to A-ball and create a R-league team for them to use. Promotions/Demotions would have to be handled manually by the commish since you cannot link squads as far as I know unless they share a parent major league club (and they wouldn't yet). They draft more players and claim more free agents.
In 2028 move them to AA. Now the organization has AA, A and R-league teams.
In 2029 move them to AAA. Now you have all levels except a big league squad.
In 2030, add the parent clubs... now the minor league teams can be officially linked in-game so Matt has to do less movement.
You could do a much shorter Expansion draft, because these teams would have 4 or 5 drafts under their belts as well as years of FA claims. All you'd need to do is get them 20-30 players, which could be done with each team only losing 4-6 players.
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I would prefer 2030 at the earliest for expansion. As for methodology - I liked 15 players from each team to get drafted. But would not limit it to one per team per round. If round 1 sees 15 players from team x taken then nobody else can be chosen from that team the rest of the draft.
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We wouldn't need to lose that many.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 15 players, that would be 75 per expansion franchise.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 10 players, that would be 50 per expansion franchise.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 8 players, that would be 40 per expansion franchise.
There is a sizable free agent pool at the moment that could be used to help fill the minor leagues.
One interesting thing you can do in OOTP that you couldn't do in 6.5 when the NPBL expanded is create the expansion teams a few years early.
So, for example, say the target is to add 4 teams in 2030....
In 2026, create the expansion clubs as unaffiliated minor league teams in a Rookie League. Let them participate in the draft (might be tricky, you'd most likely have to do this manually) and claim free agents.
In 2027, move those squads up a level to A-ball and create a R-league team for them to use. Promotions/Demotions would have to be handled manually by the commish since you cannot link squads as far as I know unless they share a parent major league club (and they wouldn't yet). They draft more players and claim more free agents.
In 2028 move them to AA. Now the organization has AA, A and R-league teams.
In 2029 move them to AAA. Now you have all levels except a big league squad.
In 2030, add the parent clubs... now the minor league teams can be officially linked in-game so Matt has to do less movement.
You could do a much shorter Expansion draft, because these teams would have 4 or 5 drafts under their belts as well as years of FA claims. All you'd need to do is get them 20-30 players, which could be done with each team only losing 4-6 players.
Oh that's an interesting idea. This is really similar to what I had in mind for that Independent League idea I had a few seasons ago in terms of letting the future expansion franchises gain some history without killing the current league. I'll have to do some testing in a test league with our setup.
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I would prefer 2030 at the earliest for expansion. As for methodology - I liked 15 players from each team to get drafted. But would not limit it to one per team per round. If round 1 sees 15 players from team x taken then nobody else can be chosen from that team the rest of the draft.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
We wouldn't need to lose that many.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 15 players, that would be 75 per expansion franchise.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 10 players, that would be 50 per expansion franchise.
If each of the 20 existing clubs lost 8 players, that would be 40 per expansion franchise.
There is a sizable free agent pool at the moment that could be used to help fill the minor leagues.
One interesting thing you can do in OOTP that you couldn't do in 6.5 when the NPBL expanded is create the expansion teams a few years early.
So, for example, say the target is to add 4 teams in 2030....
In 2026, create the expansion clubs as unaffiliated minor league teams in a Rookie League. Let them participate in the draft (might be tricky, you'd most likely have to do this manually) and claim free agents.
In 2027, move those squads up a level to A-ball and create a R-league team for them to use. Promotions/Demotions would have to be handled manually by the commish since you cannot link squads as far as I know unless they share a parent major league club (and they wouldn't yet). They draft more players and claim more free agents.
In 2028 move them to AA. Now the organization has AA, A and R-league teams.
In 2029 move them to AAA. Now you have all levels except a big league squad.
In 2030, add the parent clubs... now the minor league teams can be officially linked in-game so Matt has to do less movement.
You could do a much shorter Expansion draft, because these teams would have 4 or 5 drafts under their belts as well as years of FA claims. All you'd need to do is get them 20-30 players, which could be done with each team only losing 4-6 players.
Great idea - was a lazy post I never bothered with the math, was more a concept - while I did not really benefit from the first pick in each round of the expansion draft I did not like limiting the picks to one per team per round...
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well out of the last exapantion we lost now 3 of 4 owners right with VA being the only one left? I think we should give it till our next upgrade to expand, personaly i dont want a draft now as I have NO depth in my minors I say 2030 at earlyest but only if new owners are commited to staying
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We have typically been finishing a full AFBL season in roughly 10 real life weeks. My plan would be to upgrade to OOTP17 next year assuming OOTP continues their new release a year pattern. This would be close to lining up with 2030 for us (likely late 2028 or early 2029) when OOTP17 is released which would be my ideal time frame for expansion to get us to 24 franchises (my ideal number for the foreseeable future).
This will be an ongoing discussion over the 2024 season and beyond while the league and commish work on any potential expansion details.
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I'm indifferent to expansion. The last expansion didn't seem to go well for the expansion teams. With no financials the player attrition rate is horribly in favor of the best teams. Very low turnover.
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I want to continue this discussion about expansion. I would like to get to 24 teams at some point in the next 10 years. I think 2030 is a good target year for expansion since it would line up with OOTP17.
Any thoughts, opinions, suggestions on this for this Winter Meeting?
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Any thoughts, opinions, suggestions on this for this Winter Meeting?
Worst idea ever. After living an expansion on this league, I hate them. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring as hell and zero benefits imo
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No to expansion
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Colorado's vote would be yes to expansion for the 2030 season.
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Voting no.
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Yes but Not till we move to new viesion or have least 2 seasons of no new owners, It is hard expantion on current teams but if there was more depth player trades most people could regain that depth I have a shit ton that I could move.
With it taking a long time to bulid in this league because of no FA we need people who are going to stay around so if we do choose expantion try and bring owners in a year early to be apart of the league get them involved so we can find out if that want to stay.
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As always, 20 healthy owners over a set period of time is a must. Any expansion needs to be more organized than the previous one was. I think the rules need to be set at least two full seasons in advance and they have to be iron-clad, tight rules. No offense to you, Matt, but the last expansion didn't go over all the well in my opinion because of the lax rules. I'll vote yes to expansion with stipulations.
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i vote no on keeping to vote no on this.... no expansion, no annual no votes, just no no no no
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at the time, i would vote no to expansion but not sure about if i'd change on that down the road. i was kind of thinking yes but when i read above 3 of 4 left already it made me reconsider. i'd go no right now.
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I'm a no to expansion, but also won't cry or leave if it gets in. The bit about 3 of the previous 4 expansion GMs having elft is also a pointer. But, if we maintain 18 of the same 20 GMs between now and the final deciding time for expansion I'd be OK with it, if planned correctly.
What I definitely don't want is expansion teams drafting in our rookie league before they're actually in the league.
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As always, 20 healthy owners over a set period of time is a must. Any expansion needs to be more organized than the previous one was. I think the rules need to be set at least two full seasons in advance and they have to be iron-clad, tight rules. No offense to you, Matt, but the last expansion didn't go over all the well in my opinion because of the lax rules. I'll vote yes to expansion with stipulations.
No offense taken. I completely agree that any future expansion would need to be done much better.
It seems that expansion is not close and at least a decade away in the game if it happens at all.
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Going to say No on expansion.
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No for me as well.
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I vote yes.
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I'll vote no. Don't think the talent pool can sustain expansion at this point. We have to fix that and then give a couple of seasons to build up more talent for the new owners. So it'd be like a double talent growth if we started now. Maybe that help with the dispersion draft. Maybe that clusters things up too much.
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Expansion is definitely off the table until at least 2035 in my opinion judging by those who have posted their votes and concerns which are all certainly valid. I do want to get to 24 eventually but agree that we need to make sure the league is stable plus our current 20 franchises can handle expanding before we begin any concrete plans.
This topic will remain open to discussion as we continue to 2025 and beyond so please continue to post your thoughts and opinions.
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I think it should help that as the feeders are expanded teams should be able to build up more talent and that could make it more likely in 5 or so seasons that teams could be willing to vote for expanding at some point because they'd have more talent in their organization. So that definitely could be a bonus here.
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I think expanding would have to be paired with chappy's suggestions about expanding the draft pool over time. Talent is thin as it is.
I like the idea of drafting for an expansion team in advance and building up a minor league system.
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No decision at this point and tabled for the future.
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While we work on getting the 2029 Offseason tasks completed, I figure we can discuss a few future ideas for the league..
I wanted to open up the Expansion discussion again to see how the league was feeling as we approach 2030 and OOTP17.
I still would love to get AFBL up to 24 teams at some point (I don't want to rush any future expansion like in 2017) and I think if we do expand, it should be lined with with a current version of OOTP to help attract new owners.
There are lots of great ideas and suggestions in this thread. Any thoughts/suggestions about the topic and/or potential timing from anyone?
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Still no from me. Still feel the downward spin was a direct result of the loss of talent .
Now, if you want to expand without stealing my talent, no problems from me. ;)
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Happy with 20 teams as is, no expansion from me.
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I'd still love to get to 24 teams eventually ;D.
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Would it make sense to just create 4 teams with a complete computer generated players at all levels in a unaffiliated league that runs for a year and then merge it into the AFBL at the end of a year or two ?
Not really an expansion team, but teams that are more competitive right away.
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Would it make sense to just create 4 teams with a complete computer generated players at all levels in a unaffiliated league that runs for a year and then merge it into the AFBL at the end of a year or two ?
Not really an expansion team, but teams that are more competitive right away.
This is something I've had in mind as well as an option. Sort of like an independent league for teams to run alongside of AFBL and whenever the time is right, they can be promoted up or similar. I'm open to something like this or a traditional expansion team if this is something we eventually do as a league.
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We continue to have openings in the league right now. I'm down with 24 but we need to actually go a couple seasons with 20 GMs and then make sure we have enough to cover those additional four teams.
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We continue to have openings in the league right now. I'm down with 24 but we need to actually go a couple seasons with 20 GMs and then make sure we have enough to cover those additional four teams.
I totally agree with this. I'm just planning for the future. 8)
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A no from me on expansion. Especially as we're staying in OOTP 17, vacancies will be harder to fill. Expansion should coincide with the move to 19 (or 21) to ensure a new pool of GMs are available.
My preference is still to never expand - 20 is just a nice number ;)
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Would it make sense to just create 4 teams with a complete computer generated players at all levels in a unaffiliated league that runs for a year and then merge it into the AFBL at the end of a year or two ?
Not really an expansion team, but teams that are more competitive right away.
This is something I've had in mind as well as an option. Sort of like an independent league for teams to run alongside of AFBL and whenever the time is right, they can be promoted up or similar. I'm open to something like this or a traditional expansion team if this is something we eventually do as a league.
This is still something that's on my mind and that I've finally had a chance to test/play with in a test AFBL world. I'm toying with possibility creating an 8-team Independent League that we can let run alongside with CPU control initially so these franchises can develop some history and such. Then when the time is right (maybe when we move to OOTP19?), we promote 4 teams into AFBL. After that we can either have the new AFBL teams stay as is or do some sort of expansion / free agent draft. Thoughts?
This of course is long-term planning and such.
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hard no
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Would it make sense to just create 4 teams with a complete computer generated players at all levels in a unaffiliated league that runs for a year and then merge it into the AFBL at the end of a year or two ?
Not really an expansion team, but teams that are more competitive right away.
This is something I've had in mind as well as an option. Sort of like an independent league for teams to run alongside of AFBL and whenever the time is right, they can be promoted up or similar. I'm open to something like this or a traditional expansion team if this is something we eventually do as a league.
This is still something that's on my mind and that I've finally had a chance to test/play with in a test AFBL world. I'm toying with possibility creating an 8-team Independent League that we can let run alongside with CPU control initially so these franchises can develop some history and such. Then when the time is right (maybe when we move to OOTP19?), we promote 4 teams into AFBL. After that we can either have the new AFBL teams stay as is or do some sort of expansion / free agent draft. Thoughts?
This of course is long-term planning and such.
Slightly different, but I think the NYSL has been positive for the NPBL. For those who don't know what that is, the NYSL is a 16-team (originally was 6) independent league filled with players from the FA pool from the NPBL, another online league.
Not only is it more interesting than a FA pool, but it allows players to develop. Bob Gilmore (http://npblbaseball.com/npbl/reports/news/html/players/player_12475.html) is expected to make my 25-man roster this year; he spent a year in the NYSL.
There's no reason a similar league could be the starting place for expansion teams, but even if expansion doesn't happen, it's good to get the guys that would just be sitting in the FA pool some action.
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I agree! ;D