I'm probably stirring up old discussions and poking at the roots of the game, but I have a few thoughts about Innoc players.

I ran into a problem with my catchers in one league. One got injured before I could use all his AB's, so I was asked to drop a player to get an innoc catcher which I thought was unfair. Because no other player can catch, I had to. I wanted to drop my other worn out catcher, but commish didn't want me to, feeling this wasn't proper, having only one serviceable catcher (as well as the injured one). He thought this wasn't a realistic way to manage the team. Perhaps. But a realistic team normally doesn't carry three catchers, and a realistic team has access to more than 10 farm team players.

Since there are only a few catchers with more than 400 AB's, a lot of teams have to get 3 mediocre catchers just to fill the AB requirement.

We only have 35 roster spots. I don't want to waste spots with players simply because I don't have enough AB's or innings. Sometimes a prospect has only a few AB's but is not innoc. He is basically useless and sometimes it's a hard decision to keep a useless player on a roster for entire year or not. A player like this should be able to be used as an innoc.

It works both ways. I would think innoc players would be used simply to fill a position, to get enough innings or AB's to fill a season. They shouldn't be considered a valuable commodity. But that's not the case. Sometimes a player is valuable because he's innoc. I bet there's lots of teams that use an innoc pitcher as the fifth starter or long relief. Sheesh, a grade 4, clutch 3.9 isn't really that bad in today's game. So a pitcher with 10 innings gets used for 100.

It works for other positions as well. Somebody like Brian L Hunter is innoc (not the greatest example because he has lots of AB's), but is an excellent pinch runner and defensive replacement. Someone else like this with 10 AB's is actually valuable for that role. I don't think an innoc player should be excellent at anything.

I was thinking of a way to fix this without increasing the roster size. I don't know if the game could handle it, but here it is...
Nobody should start out innoc, but would become innoc as soon as their innings or AB's were used up. It would be kinda like the way platoon players are handled now. When used up, their offensive AND defensive skills would be greatly reduced. They would simply turn into a neutral John Doe player for their position, capable of playing the position without being a significant benefit. Also, an innoc players shouldn't become injured.

To further expand, batters could become platoon innoc. When his vs left AB's were used up, he would become innoc vs left. This would prevent a non-platoon player with only 50 excellent platoon AB's being used for 300 excellent AB's.

This would eliminate all the problems concerning lack of AB's or innings, and would solve the significant platoon factor in the game. I'm not sure what the disadvantages would be. Any thoughts?

PS. Commish allowed me to drop my worn out catcher to get an innoc.

Wayde P.