2023 PROPOSALS – VOTING RESULTS

Proposal: Teams are allowed to keep up to a maximum of 5 Draft & Develop prospects, on top of their Rule 5 cuts, as indicated in IV>C>3.

• Tier 1 teams have all their undrafted players returned to them and do not have to cut to 40 Carded Players
• Tier 2 teams have their choice of their undrafted players returned to them but are not allowed to exceed 40 Carded Players
• Tier 3 teams are allowed to choose 3 of their undrafted players returned to them and are not allowed to exceed 40 Carded

This allows Tier 1 teams to roster extra players in the offseason that they would be cutting anyway after the annual draft. Meanwhile, Tier 3 teams cut to 27 carded players, make only 1 pick during the Rule 5 Draft, and are returned 3 players max, and would go into the annual draft with only 31 players, penalizing them into spending 7 of their picks just to get to the minimum roster.  The change in this rule will provide a level playing field, making it fair for all the teams, as well as provide more depth for the annual draft, which is limited in its carded player depth as it is.

Proposal: Teams in all tiers will have their choice of their Rule 5 undrafted carded players returned up to a maximum of 38 carded players.  After the Rule 5 draft, there is no roster limit enforced, until after the Annual Draft.

This will go into effect for the 2024-2025 Off Season. 

Proposal: Adjust the threshold needed for the regular season to match that needed to appear in the postseason thus eliminating multiple thresholds to be tracked:

• Position Players with at least 75 PA during the MLB season who do not at least reach 50% of their MLB usage during the MWBL Regular are released.
• Pitchers with at least 20 IPs during the MLB season who do not at least reach 50% of their MLB batters faced during the MWBL Regular Season are released.
  
• Additionally, this would require teams to use more of their players or lose them to free agency in a manner more closely resembling modern MLB rosters.

This would go into effect for Usage during the 2024 Season to determine Free Agents after the 2024 Season.

Proposal: 

• If (2) teams tie for the 8th spot, with the best head-to-head record will act as the home team for game 163. If they are tied, then the current tiebreakers will be used to determine the home team.

• If (3) or more teams are tied for the 8th spot we will revert to the current tiebreaker rules for who gets in rather than run multiple game 163’s.

The winner of game 163 will be awarded the 8th final playoff spot but will enter the playoffs without any rest days.

This would go into effect for the 2024 Season. 

Group A- 25 balls each
Group B- 13 balls each
Group C- 8 balls each
Group D- 4 balls each
Group E- no longer in the lottery

Why The Commissioner’s Office is changing it: We half the number of balls for Groups C, D & E from the group before it, but Group B only has 4 fewer balls, thus not giving Group A much of an advantage when compared to the other groups. It’s hard enough to rebuild, but never getting the #1 pick when you are routinely the worst team, makes it even harder to rebuild from. This provides Group A more of an opportunity to gain the #1 spot than previously and eliminate Group E in the process. Just because you miss the playoffs, you shouldn’t be compensated with potential lottery picks.  There are 14 teams in each league.  8 make the playoffs leaving 6 on the outside.  4 will receive lottery balls, so instead of 1 team on the outside, there will now be two.  In the 2023 season, the 5th worst team in each league won over 70 games

This will go into effect for the 2025 Lottery & Draft. 

(2) 930 Innocuous Player Playoff Threshold

930 innocuous players do not need to meet PA thresholds to appear or start in playoffs; however, they can be downgraded unless the player receives 75 MWBL PA

• Catchers’ arms: For every (up to) 10 PA below the minimum 75, their throw rating will be lowered by 1 to a maximum of 5 rating losses 
  • Example: 
    • 74 PA 4 arm adjusted to a 3 arm
    • 64 PA 2 arm adjusted to a 0 arm
    • 3 PA 1 arm adjusted to a -4 arm
• Steal Success: For every (up to) 10 PA below the minimum 75, their steal success was lowered by 1 (no maximum rating loss) 
  • Example: 
    • 74 PA 34 success rating adjusted to a 33 rating
    • 44 PA 32 success rating adjusted to a 28 rating
    • 5 PA 36 success rating adjusted to a 29 rating 

Why The Commissioner’s Office is changing it: This will allow 930 players to compete in the postseason without requiring a threshold, but also prevent a team from rostering or trading for a stealing or catching specialist just to have them sit on the bench until the postseason.

This will go into effect for the 2024 Playoffs.