The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

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Which of the options described here do you prefer?

Option 1 - One player, one position
5
83%
Option 2 - One player, two positions, only one active at a time
0
No votes
Option 3 - One player, two positions, can be active at both simultaneously
0
No votes
Option 4 - Two completely separate players
1
17%
 
Total votes : 6

The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby Kevin » Thu Feb 14, 2019 10:07 pm

Alright folks, I'm starting to work on the DTBL player roster for 2019, which means it is definitely time to discuss what to do about Shohei Ohtani and any other dual threat (batter/pitcher) players who may surface in the future. Unfortunately, due to Ohtani succumbing to Tommy John surgery last fall, we don't truly need to make a decision on how to deal with this until next year. But I would imagine any team that is thinking about drafting him this year will want to know what the future might hold.

Because of the unique set of rules we use in this league with fixed position eligibility and weekly transactions, some options for dealing with players who are potential batting and pitching contributors are off the table. So as I see it for our league, there are four possible solutions. I am going to list and describe them here, without offering any personal opinions. I will then reply with my own thoughts in a separate post and encourage you to do the same. Whatever we decide will essentially become the Ohtani Rule, but I'll just refer to this hypothetical batter/pitcher as "The Player".

Option 1: Like every other DTBL player, The Player will have his position determined before the season and will only be eligible to be used at that position for the entirety of the season. However, the owning team will be the one to make that pre-season position determination (in terms of being either a batter or a pitcher, not the freedom to pick the exact position of eligibility). If The Player is not retained by a team for the upcoming season, the commissioner will make this decision.

Option 2: The Player will have eligibility at two different positions: one offensive and one pitching. Each week, the owning team will have the option to use him as either a batter or a pitcher, but not both. He will occupy only one roster spot, regardless of how he is used, keeping the total team roster limits the same as they have always been.

Option 3: The Player will have eligibility at two different positions: one offensive and one pitching. The team that drafts The Player will be able to use him at one or both of the positions every week. Normal roster limits would still apply, so if the owning team chooses to put him on the active roster at one role, but not the other, they will essentially have one more player in an inactive slot than all the other teams.

Option 4: The Player will exist as two separate entities: one a batter and the other a pitcher. Since these would appear as separate players throughout the league site, The Player could very possibly/likely be owned by two different teams. Like all other players, each entity would receive an exact position assignment before the season and could only be used at that spot.
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Re: The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby Kevin » Thu Feb 14, 2019 10:24 pm

Alright, so I actually listed the four options in order of my personal preference. Here are my thoughts on each.

Option 1 - This is the most consistent with our long established league rules. It would also be the easiest for me to implement (well, Option 4 would be pretty easy too). The downside is that the upcoming season would probably be Ohtani's first and last as a hitter in this league because I suspect he will be far more valuable as a pitcher for most of his career. This option probably doesn't make Ohtani as valuable of a commodity as the next two options would, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. You would have this knowledge before selecting him.

Option 2 - If this were a standard league on ESPN or Yahoo, this would probably be the way to go. It gives you the flexibility of using Ohtani in either role, but keeps the rest of the regular roster rules in check. The problem here is that I would need to make pretty significant changes to the functionality of the website to allow for this. Though that is mitigated a bit by the fact that nobody is going to be using Ohtani as a pitcher this year anyway, so I have a year to take care of this.

Option 3 - In addition to giving the owning team a pretty significant advantage by essentially getting two players for the price of one and an extra roster spot to use elsewhere, this would be a very complicated situation for me to code to. I'll need to hear pretty compelling arguments for this option to really be willing to consider it.

Option 4 - I almost decided to leave this one off because I dislike it so much. Ohtani is one player. He shouldn't be rostered by multiple teams. On a positive note, I don't think I would have to make a single change to the website to allow for this.

I definitely want to hear your thoughts, so please vote in the poll and post your opinions here.
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Re: The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby David » Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:43 pm

I think either option 1 or option 4 is fine, though I personally voted for option 4 because this seems like a special case where a player potentially has enough value in both individual areas that it doesn't seem appropriate to completely exclude him from one position or the other for a given season. That said, his value as a batter or as a pitcher may diminish (or, in a case like this season's pitching component, be non-existent) such that the Ohtani-at-the-bat or Ohtani-on-the-mound player might be dropped from the player pool in future seasons. As far as this goes, there are two different skill sets and I don't see an issue from a fantasy perspective in treating them as such.

In my opinion, options 2 and 3 are completely out of the question. Though we've never before (in the DTBL era) had a pitcher/batter with skills as potentially significant in both areas as Ohtani, we have had an unending list of other players (both pitchers and batters) whose value would be higher in a traditional Yahoo-style league where they could be inserted at multiple positions but who is restricted to just the one position in DTBL. I see no reason why Ohtani should be a special case and be allowed for use as a "double-player" just because his two positions happen to be P and DH.
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Re: The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby Marc » Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:28 am

I think option 1 is the way to go with our league.

We never have allowed position flexibility. It's always been 1 player at 1 position. I don't see a point in changing that just because a player hits and pitches. I think we would have to open position flexibility to all players (allow Machado to be both SS and 3B - as one example), and that seems like a lot of work for Kevin.

I'm really against having 2 Ohtanis in the league. No other player is cloned. Don't want to start that now
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Re: The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby Mike » Fri Feb 22, 2019 9:51 am

I do think Option 1 is the best way to go as well, as it matches the already existing rules of the league.

I think if we really wanted him to be a 2-way player, Option 4 would be the only way to do it that stays close to the spirit of the league rules. If we gave Ohtani positional flexibility, where he's one Ohtani that can both pitch and hit, we'd have to open up positional flexibility for everyone else.

I think you *could* clone Ohtani if you really wanted to, as he's such a unique player in being truly skilled at both hitting and pitching (I don't think anyone is clamoring for Matt Davidson, pitcher, for instance). But, Option 1 is the least disruptive to the league structure as a whole. Make Ohtani one player, and let his owner decide before the season starts whether he bats or pitches, with that decision carrying over to a new owner if Ohtani is traded in the middle of a season.
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Re: The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby Marc » Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:40 pm

I see Ohtani has been added as an OF. Since he pretty much will just be UTIL and (I think?) he has not played any position in the majors, would it be possible for whoever drafts him to choose if he is a 1B or an OF?
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Re: The long anticipated Shohei Ohtani thread

Postby Kevin » Wed Feb 27, 2019 9:03 pm

Marc wrote:I see Ohtani has been added as an OF. Since he pretty much will just be UTIL and (I think?) he has not played any position in the majors, would it be possible for whoever drafts him to choose if he is a 1B or an OF?


In my add/drop post, I mentioned that the reason why I put him at OF is because it was the non-pitching field position he played most recently, in Japan, five years ago. So due to those very unusual and unique circumstances, I would be willing to allow the drafting team to make the 1B/OF determination (before the season starts). 1B is the position with the highest average PAR by a fairly comfortable margin, so particular roster construction notwithstanding, I would think most people would find Ohtani to be a better value at OF. I can see why you might feel differently though. I definitely won't allow him to be placed at *any* position. 1B or OF only. This likely won't be an issue after 2019 since I suspect he'll be a pitcher for the remainder of his DTBL career.
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