Rules Vote Results

2025 RULES VOTE RESULTS

		#1	#2	#3
Team	Owner	CI	WD	SC
Beach Bums	Brian	B	A	A
Destroyers	Jeff Snyder	B	A	A
Hummers	Tyler/Scott's	B	A	B
Lumber	Larry	B	A	A
Oysters	JR/Corey	B	B	B
Pythons	Al/Eric	B	A	B
Reapers	Aiden	B	A	A
Slim & Bones	Steve/Jack	B	A	A
Stingrays	Merv/Mike	B	A	B
The Outsiders	Jeff C	B	A	A
Trash Talkers	John/Johnny	B	A	A
Venom	Jeff Myers	B	A	A
	Option A	0	11	8
	Option B	12	1	4

VOTE 1 (CI)

Catcher Interference Scoring

In 2017 we added catcher interference for a batter with a score of +1. It was not a common occurrence, averaging about 30-40 times per season. It was a bit of a pain to track/score, but we managed. When the league went to Fantrax in 2022, it was still more Commish work as Fantrax was not tracking it. I had to manually adjust scores and research every box score.

To my relief, Fantrax started tracking the stat in 2024 and scored it automatically. Overall, the number of catcher interference has more than doubled in MLB to an all time high of 100 times in 2024. For some reason, when I created the 2025 Fantrax league it now considers using the catcher interference stat for a batter a "Premium Feature". This is the only premium feature we would have, It would cost us almost $150 for the league to upgrade to a Fantrax premium league.

While catcher interference may have happened 100 times last year in MLB, a brief scan of last year shows it was used less than 20 times in our league. I have a hard time justifying taking money away from the league prize fund by spending money to accomodate a single limited use stat. The only other alternative is going back to the Commish tracking every boxscore and manually adjusting player scores. I have no desire to go back to that archaic process.

RULE VOTE 1

A) Pay the Fantrax premium league upgrade cost and keep using the catcher interference +1 batter scoring.

B) Eliminate the catcher interference batter scoring.

VOTE 2 (WD)

Weekday Mon-Thu Scoring

In 2023, we voted 8-4 to change how we score the weekday Mon-Thu games. We currently use the best 2 games Mon-Thu. It has been suggested we go back to the previous rule of using the average of a player's best two M-Th games.

The main reason for the change in 2023 was feedback that the single game average of two games tends to minimize the impact of players/teams who have a good weekday. Opponent matchups and number of games available can also impact a team on a best 2 games vs a 2 game average. The weekday scores have been higher, team/player points races more competitive with players/teams being rewarded more appropriately for a big week as desired.

The ongoing concern with the change to 2 best games is when a team has a bad weekday or their opponent had an amazing weekday. Teams feel they have little chance to come back for weekly total points. That scenario did play out on a weekly basis and left owners frustrated.

For reference, here is a breakdown of how the 2024 weekday matchups went:

--18 week season, 6 fantasy M-Th games per week, total 108 total M-Th games

--35 times a team won M-Th by 25+ points

--28 times a team won M-Th by 25+ points and won weekly total

--7 times a team lost M-Th by 25+ points and came back to win weekly total

A team down 25+ M-Th does come back to win weekly total, while seemingly rewarding the better teams and better players. The vast majority of time a 25+ M-Th win means a weekly total win, the cause of frustration with the current rule.

NOTE:

Another impact of potentially going back to the 2 game average is how it will affect live scoring on Fantrax. Accurate live scoring on Fantrax has been one of the best received changes we have ever made. Currently, I only have to move M-Th games not used to the reserve status. This process takes a minimal amount of time each week and live scoring is correct on Fantrax once daily updates are completed. There is no way to do weekday averages on Fantrax. Previously I just made a manual adjustment to a team's weekday total. Fantrax weekly live scoring was not accurate. The only alternative to the Fantrax live scoring inaccuracies is for me to manually change every single player M-Th scores. That is not something I can do, way too time consuming.

RULE VOTE 2

A) Keep the current M-Th weekday best 2 games

B) Change to M-Th best 2 game average.

VOTE 3 (SC)

MLB Official Scoring Changes

MLB official scoring changes has been a growing issue for years for a variety of reasons. Teams and players are able to petition the league for an official scoring change. Official score changes are happening more than ever. In 2024 there were 229 official MLB scoring changes. Of those, 40 affected players in our fantasy league. In those changes, one change affected a win/loss, one change affected a top/bottom 6, one change affected a sidepot. All of the other changes only affected player and team totals. In previous years, the changes had a similar limited impact to win/loss and top 6.

Fantrax does automatically update our league scores with any official MLB changes. Some score changes happen within a day or two. Some changes can take up to a week before they are posted by MLB and adjusted by Fantrax.

It has been proposed we stop using official MLB score changes. The proposal is to only use scores as they are posted initially after a game is completed. Any official MLB scoring changes announced days later would not be used. This proposal is due to the delay in processing official MLB score changes. Owners do not like the fact that the results of a fantasy game could be changed days or even a week later. The delay could present even more difficulties during the playoffs.

While the delay in posting scoring changes can be frustrating, we are still using accurate and correct updated MLB scores. If I lost a game due to an official MLB score change a few days later (and I probably have), I may initially be disappointed. Since we used correct MLB scores I would surely feel we did the right thing in being accurate. That has always been my goal as a Commish.

To be clear, this proposal is to knowingly use incorrect MLB scores. If any team were to lose a game they shouldn't have because we used incorrect MLB stats, I just don't know how to reconcile that. My mind as a Commish and competitor just can't see how using incorrect stats is for the better.

NOTE:

Just like Vote 2 proposal, eliminating official MLB scoring changes will make Fantrax live scoring incorrect. There is no way to turn off scoring changes on Fantrax, making scoring not accurate until adjusted. I would have to track things, remove the official score change adjustments, and communicate changes. This would be more labor intensive then the current process where Fantrax does most of the work.