I have just spent some time reading through some but not all of the discussions about this. I think that what we need is for someone in authority (i.e. Mike) to put out a "straw man" proposal for the owners to take shots at. I offer the following possiblities as my own thoughts.

In general, I agree that we need to solve the dead teams issue. Unfortunately, I think that the 24 to 20 team contraction idea is only a stop-gap. What happens when 4 of those 20 go dead? We can't really contract below 20. Also, I generally have a preference for 24 team leagues as I think they reward good managers more and are closer to the "real" balance of MLB.

If we assume that the game can attract new players, we need to consider what is stopping folks from taking over unmanaged teams -- primarily it is that most of them are very bad, with very little prospect of "rebuilding" in a reasonable time. So, we need to (1) offer an incentive to new or existing owners to take over those teams and (2) make it possible for them to build good teams.

Solving (1) seems easy to me. Offer a substantial (i.e. 50%) discount for the first year of ownership to any owner that takes over an existing team by a given time.

Solving (2) is tricker, but I think that a limited expansion draft would do the trick. (I would prefer an expansion draft to a reallocation. By this, I mean that I think that every existing team should have to have players at risk, existing teams could protect X players, and only the new teams get to pick off the unprotected rosters. I see no reason to allow existing managed teams to pick in such a draft. If a current, actively managed team is weak, that's just the way it is., and there are mechanisms in place to correct this (free agent and rookie drafts). My proposal, in specific, is as follows:

(1) Allow new or existing PB owners to pick up unmanaged teams for $4.95 per month for the first year, so long as they sign on before February 1. Teams picked up by these owners would be considered "expansion" teams.

(2) After February 1, each non-expansion team in the league submits a list of protected players. Each team would be allowed to protect X number of players where X=(21-the number of expansion teams that will be drafting). (Note that these teams do NOT have to cut all their unprotected players.)

(3) Each expansion team cuts its roster down to (35-Y), where Y=the number of players it wants to pick in the expansion draft, not to be more than 10. The players they cut are added to the free agent pool.

(4) The expansion draft is held, with only the expansion teams drafting, in a random initial order, serpentine draft of 10 rounds. The pool of players they could pick from would be all free agents, plus all unprotected players on existing teams' rosters, provided that no existing team should lose more than Z players through this draft, where Z=1+(the maximum number of players to be picked in the expansion draft divided by the number of non-expansion teams, rounded up).

(5) The entire league then participates in the rookie and free agent drafts per normal.

I think this system would allow the expansion teams rapidly to become competitive (if they are well managed) and would not cause existing teams to lose too many players, thereby preserving the overall balance and character of the leagues.

If we must contract, then I think the contracted teams' players should just go into the free agent pool. This does plenty to enhance competitive balance. Let's not do any reallocating or overbalancing the contraction draft toward weak teams.

What'cha think, folks?

Matt