Our first-ever Winter Meetings concluded on December 10 after an impressive flurry of presentations and segments from Ken Simone, Chad Boysen, Paul Henderson, Chuck Tinkler, Jeff Swenson, and outgoing Commissioner Jeff. We were fortunate to have 15 Groundouts in attendance—an outstanding turnout. We anticipate conducting the meetings again next winter, as everyone indicated that it was a nice way to break up the offseason as well as strengthen some connections with the rest of the league. The meetings ended with a robust discussion on rules and policies, and several new rules will be enacted starting for the 2021 season.
New rules and policies:
Use of the library will be completely eliminated. Managers will be required to be able field a complete team with adequate usage at all positions for the entire season. Penalties for noncompliance have not yet been determined, but they will be severe.
The roster of Port Aransas will be included in the 2022 Annual Draft.
The rosters of the remaining two teams (Havana and Newark) will both be included in the 2023 Annual Draft.
Also of interest:
The Annual Draft is tentatively scheduled to begin Monday, February 8.
Due to health concerns and some uncertainty within MLB, it's impossible to plan anything for spring training in March, so GoCon21 is being considered for sometime after the MLB All-Star break, and no later than mid-August, with the hopes that some level of normalcy will have returned by that time. A specific location has not yet been determined, but many Groundouts expressed interest in seeking a new location. Previous GoCons have been held in Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee/Chicago and Phoenix. More details to come!
Award winners for 2020: Trey Mancini-CHA is our MVP; Jacob DeGrom-PEN wins the Cy Young; and Fernando Tatis-SAN takes Rookie of the Year. Congrats to the winners!
And a recap of the updated policy regarding 2021 roster limits:
Injured/Restricted List will be expanded to allow a maximum of five players that don't meet the standard 20 AB/10 IP threshold after the 3x prorate (actual: 7 AB/3 IP). Note: this is a slight modification to the ruling announced earlier.
Rosters can expand up to 45 players. Regular active rosters will remain at 25 players, and expanding to 30 players for September games.
For 2021 only, this means rosters can contain up to 50 players total.
These policies allow teams to maintain control over all/most of their players affected by the unusual MLB season, while curtailing gratuitously bloated rosters, and applies to the upcoming season only, as rosters will be returned to normal limits again following the 2021 PGB season.
Thanks to all the Groundouts for tremendous participation and interest in the meetings. None of the planning committee was sure what to expect, but after a few minor technical glitches, we hit our stride. Nicely done, Groundouts—see you at the draft!