91
92
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by profjason -Perhaps as you suggested 105% makes sense? Accomplishes what the intention of the rule change was trying to do, but doesn’t kneecap everyone from getting to 100% overall usage either.
Schwarber in 2024 doesn’t exceed PTL with those rules, even with the massive and unexplained increase in usage vs RHP.
I can get behind this…
And for the record - LOVE the debate and discussion. It’s why I love this league…
Personally, I would rather see us remain at 110%, since I think that gives the full-time players the best chance of staying full-time. However, if the commissioners feel that 110% is too high, then 105% is better than 100%. My initial reaction was to two items. The first is that there is almost no way to reach 100% overall playing time without exceeding 100% on one hand or the other. My other reason was that 110% was a good target, especially if there is an overall limit of 100%. I'm not sure if I'm seeing an argument against 110% beyond the fact that it might let a GM gain a few games by using a player a bit more against the player's preferred handedness. I can understand the realism argument, but in real life, I don't think Dave Roberts is thinking about he might not be able to use Ohtani against some RHP because he might run out of plate appearances against them.
As for Schwarber, I think his imbalance comes from a few things. I believe the Phillies lead off with Schwarber and then have Harper hit 3rd. If a team uses an opener against the Phillies, I'm guessing they are always using a LHP, to try to neutralize Schwarber and Harper. Moreover, I'm guessing that teams also will bring in LHRP to face Schwarber later in the game. Before the 2024 season, Schwarber was a totally different hitter against LHP, although that has changed as he's become very balanced in production against LHP and RHP. But I think these might be some of the reasons that Schwarber is seeing a ton of lefties. In Mutiny, we aren't using openers and I don't know if teams are putting in a LHRP every time Schwarber comes up to bat.
I'm glad we are having this conversation, and I have to admit that it was interesting to take this deep dive into the numbers.
93
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by Scurvy Dogs -94
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by Scurvy Dogs -hmm, this is right. The averages are to simplistic. The variation is so high the 10 games doesn't cover it (I incorrectly thought that gave us enough flexibility).
Obviously having 100% across the board means you cannot get to 100% playing time before going over on one of the splits. This spreadsheet shows the 6.2% buffer from 152 games is not enough to cover the player-to-player variation.
I so appreciate this work! If there is an i-told-you-so moment you will enjoy pointing to this!
Agreed
95
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by Scurvy Dogs -In my opinion the comment that you made that jumps out at me the most is that unless you are very much on top of your usage it’s plausible and in fact probable that no one will be able to get to 100% usage without exceeding at least one of the their splits.
Perhaps as you suggested 105% makes sense? Accomplishes what the intention of the rule change was trying to do, but doesn’t kneecap everyone from getting to 100% overall usage either.
Schwarber in 2024 doesn’t exceed PTL with those rules, even with the massive and unexplained increase in usage vs RHP.
I can get behind this…
And for the record - LOVE the debate and discussion. It’s why I love this league…
96
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by tigersfancj -Obviously having 100% across the board means you cannot get to 100% playing time before going over on one of the splits. This spreadsheet shows the 6.2% buffer from 152 games is not enough to cover the player-to-player variation.
I so appreciate this work! If there is an i-told-you-so moment you will enjoy pointing to this!
97
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by profjason - There's a lot here, but I think it goes to the heart of the question of playing time and limits.@profjason I truly think we’re a lot closer aligned on this than you think.
You could be right that we might be closer, but I would like to suggest, both theoretically and with data, why I think, as a league, we would be better off using 105% or 110% for a playing time limit against LHP and RHP than going down to 100%. And before I get started, I do want to thank you for having this discussion. I believe that discussing these types of changes is a positive for the league.
I also want to state that I fully understand the need for playing time limits and the limitations we have, given how DMB handles players who exceed them. In my second year of using DMB for a fantasy league (back in 1994), a team used Chip Hale against LHP. That season, Hale had 7 PAs against lefties, got 3 hits, had 8 total bases, and had an OPS of 1.571. Needless to say, Hale was a monster that season, and the following season, we put in limits based on handedness. I think some of the differences come from balancing full-time players and those who don't have as many plate appearances. I think I'm more concerned about the full-time players, while some of the commissioners' focus is on players with limited plate appearances. Finally, I do agree that no system can completely address these problems, and no matter what, there will be some imbalance in what we need.
My theoretical argument is that it will be nearly impossible to reach 100% playing time without exceeding 100% against either LHP or RHP. Unless you are micromanaging your team (and I don't think anyone is making daily lineup changes or playing the games live), I believe it will be very difficult to get a player to 100% playing time in total and against LHP and RHP. I made a new spreadsheet (after your example using last season's data with Schwarber), and tried to answer that question. I looked at players with more than 600 PA (my cutoff for being a full-time player), and 57% of them had usage against either LHP or RHP that was 5% or more above their overall usage. Some of these players are platoon players, but I think it also shows that trying to get to 100% balanced is just impossible.
Personally, having a 100% limit on overall PA and then 105% or 110% against LHP and RHP is a better solution. It would allow more full-time players to reach their full PAs without being penalized at some point. Going to 105% or 110% means a team won't need to worry about facing a few more lefties or righties and then getting penalized at the end of the season. I think we all agree that we cannot control what we face as a team, so giving the flexibility to go slightly over against LHP or RHP is beneficial to all teams. If you are concerned about players with fewer PAs, allowing players 5% or 10% more PAs against a particular handedness of pitcher might mean 1 or 2 additional games without a penalty. I'd rather give the benefit of the doubt to the full-time players than worry about a handful of non-penalized PAs for part-time players.
Quote
I firmly believe Kyle Schwarber should be able to play every game and every PA - however Brent chooses to use him. But there isn’t a way in the system to exclude him from PTL.
What your analysis showed is this change is going to impact some people who we all would consider to be a full-time player. What I tried to show is even with the existing rules (due to roster/lineup configurations, year over year variance, some unknown game mechanic, random luck, etc) it’s also true that the existing rules plausibly weren’t sufficient either.
What I don’t want to do is try to manipulate and increase the PTL rules to allow for Schwarber to not be impacted by PTL - which therefore allows a low usage player to be more valuable than they really are. A flat 100% usage impacts everyone exactly the same way. You get to use your players in the sim EXACTLY how they were used in real-life. But random luck, game mechanics, etc might mean that Schwarber doesn’t face RHP the final week of the season.
Ultimately the CO felt comfortable making this change based on the number of ways we’ve increased roster flexibility and the reduction of games on the schedule.
I've attached my spreadsheet, since I do want to address the issue and have us see how the different limits 100%, 105% and 110% impact players. If you go through the AM and AN columns, I have many of my conclusions there. If you change the cell in AN16, you can change the percent that players can go over against LHP and RHP (I have 100% for the total limit, since that's not what we are exploring). Columns U & V show how many PAs a player would be over or under against a handedness if we use 100%, while columns W & X show how many PAs they would be over or under with the extra playing time.
Columns AG & AH show a player's usage when prorated to 100% of their playing time. Columns AI & AJ show what a player's usage would be if they were prorated to 152 games. With columns AG & AH, you can see that every player will be over 100% against either LHP or RHP if they were to reach 100% overall. Based on last year and assuming that full-time players will get 100% of playing time (which might not be the best assumption), we find that 57 will face a penalty (AN63). If we set the handedness limit to 105%, we cut it in half to 28 players (AN68). If the limit is 110%, the number is reduced to 18 (AN73).
If you think prorating is too much and would instead like to use last year's values, we can see the following results. This is for all players and full-time players. I tried to put in a table into here, but that did not work. I have included a screenshot of the results for looking at last year's values. I'm sorry I couldn't have it in the message.
Personally, I think 110% allows full-time players to be full-time players (with only 7 last year facing challenges). By going down to 100%, we have 37 players affected, for a 428% increase in full-time players facing challenges. Of course, some teams will change their usage, so the total numbers are lower, but that has a huge impact. The additional flexibility can be nice, but it means finding subs for 30 additional players who are affected, or dealing with your player not being as good, even though he has the plate appearances overall. If you want to change it to 105% and see how it affects the game, that might be appropriate, as we have a 171% increase in the number of full-time players affected (7 to 19).
Again, I do understand that keeping the limit at 110% or dropping it to 105% means some players who are limited in their playing time get some extra plate appearances against one hand or another. However, they are still limited to 100% overall. They don't get to play anymore with the penalty, but teams have some flexibility to deal with the randomness of who they play and who that player faced in real life. Going to 100% gives you NO flexibility to deal with that randomness. This does acknowledge that some full-time players will be impacted even at 110% (Bobby Witt and Vladdy Junior, I'm looking at you), but it doesn't affect the mass of full-time players.
The argument that making it 100% impacts every team the same way is not a great argument, since making the handedness limit be 110% also impacts every team the same way. I also don't see how the additional flexibility actually addresses the issue. In the end, with a 100% limit on handedness, any player that you want to play to 100% of their overall playing time will be impacted. We know this because that's how math works.
I also don't see a strong argument about why the 110% we used last year didn't work. This solution seems to be still looking for a real problem to solve (unlike the trading money, which allowed teams to be well over the salary cap). This isn't like the Chip Hale example I mentioned at the beginning. And I'm not seeing how allowing a player to be used at 110% of his handedness (with 100% overall) was hurting the league's competitive balance.
Lastly, I don't think we are too far apart, but changing to 100% is overcorrecting for a problem that does not appear to be there. And making that change has a much larger and more profound impact than you are making it to be. Maybe I am missing something here, but I think this change hurts the league overall.
98
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by tigersfancj -So in MLB in 2024 (baseball reference)
119659 RHP ABs / 44028 LHP ABs = 2.72 RHP to LHP
in 2025 (baseball reference)
119065 / 44599 = 2.67 RHP to LHP
in DMB "all database" (somehow database is not all players?)
107809 / 39166 = 2.75 RHP to LHP
in DMB mutiny season
74943 / 27703 = 2.705 RHP to LHP
So my conclusion is that it is just me. I think I try to be as efficient as possible with platoons and that involves not pitching players against their weak side as much as they do in the real world. I can really hunt the good matchups and avoid the bad matchups better than real world managers can because of the flexibility in our rosters.
With the vsRHP to vsLHP ratio being roughly the same in DMB as real world I retract my complaint. Sure, if you have 100% cutoffs then you wont be able to perfectly hit 100% on both sides in the same game but it won't effect that many games and, if anything, advantages very engaged GMs for a few ABs a year.
99
Announcements / Re: 2026 Rule Changes
Last post by Scurvy Dogs -I firmly believe Kyle Schwarber should be able to play every game and every PA - however Brent chooses to use him. But there isn’t a way in the system to exclude him from PTL.
What your analysis showed is this change is going to impact some people who we all would consider to be a full-time player. What I tried to show is even with the existing rules (due to roster/lineup configurations, year over year variance, some unknown game mechanic, random luck, etc) it’s also true that the existing rules plausibly weren’t sufficient either.
What I don’t want to do is try to manipulate and increase the PTL rules to allow for Schwarber to not be impacted by PTL - which therefore allows a low usage player to be more valuable than they really are. A flat 100% usage impacts everyone exactly the same way. You get to use your players in the sim EXACTLY how they were used in real-life. But random luck, game mechanics, etc might mean that Schwarber doesn’t face RHP the final week of the season.
Ultimately the CO felt comfortable making this change based on the number of ways we’ve increased roster flexibility and the reduction of games on the schedule.
100