Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobbyraz49
I'd bet OOTPBB23 would lose some income IF this isn't settled prior to exhibition games at their usual starting times.
Any rumors as to what each side wants ? Perhaps FA at an earlier age ?
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To the first point, I think in the short term what COVID indicated was that if anything OOTP has a (small, short term) benefit from the season not starting on time. All the baseball nerds want to get their fix absent real baseball and then if BBRef does the same thing they did in 2020 - simulate the season day-to-day through OOTP - then that's a ton of free advertising that's sure to bring in even more baseball nerds.
If it's as small as earlier free agency, OOTP can implement that just by changing some existing settings. I *suspect* that we might see stuff like allowing for more sweeping changes in the lower minors (which I guess now is just low and high A ball?) like testing moving the mound back or using larger/squishier baseballs (that is, that are easier to hit but don't carry as far), neither of which the game has a good way to implement anyway until we see what the results look like. Otherwise, the biggest implementable change that's happened in recent years was the putting the ghost runner on at second base in extra innings thing, which had some interesting complications (how do you score that run? Is it earned? If the first pitcher comes out before he scores, does it still count against him?), but at the end of the day was a pretty straightforward business rule that they could implement on top of existing code.
I haven't really seen what else they're debating... I mean, so far the owners haven't even tried to talk to the union since locking the players out, so right now I don't think they're talking about anything other than the standard "we're all losing money! Trust us! No, you can't look at our books the way the other major American sports leagues do with their union!" thing they always do when work stoppages happen. I would stop and wait for proposals to actually be made before worrying whether or not OOTP can mirror them.