WHAT I WOULD DO

Man, do I really love the managing aspect to any strat-o-matic league- most of all Brassworld. Where else can you manage a team through an entire month of the season, expect to have the best starting staff in the entire National league, only to see my team, the West Oakland Wolverines last in pitching. LAST!!!!!!!!!!! I knew, going in, that my bullpen would struggle, but to see WOW absolutely last in the league in pitching for an entire month is flat out disheartening. I spent over $16,000,000 on Loaiza, traded away a young stud in Carl Crawford to get Mike Mussina, got a good deal to obtain Jerome Williams to add to Roy Oswalt and Kerry Wood to have what I thought would be a very good rotation. It hasn't exactly worked out that way.

By the way, I HATE Octavio Dotel. Make some offers, boys. He's signed long tem, but I'm going to kill him long before the end of his contract. In the old days, I would have ripped his card up several times over.

It's a good thing the Wolves brought their bats in April. Playing the sunshine of Arizona must have really helped my hitting. It won't last.

I would assume that most of us are like me, having played in other leagues, and, in fact, playing in simultaneous leagues. For me, this is my first salary league. Frankly, I love the concept, though I've made a ton of mistakes. But, there are a few tweaks that I would think would better an already great concept.

1. Have a reward structure for the teams that make the playoffs, win the division, win the league, etc. I realize the argument against this would be that the rich get richer, but I think we should have a financial incentive to do well. Hell, we're all bug boys with a decent, at least, knowledge of the game. Not a great deal of money, but something to keep those teams on the fringe to shoot for the playoffs. I'd propose $500,000 for making the playoffs, $1,000,000 to the division winners, $1,500,000 for the league champs and $2,000,000 for Brassworld Champs. These sums are not added together.

2. Studs from Japan should be free agents after the season they 1st compete in the Majors. With respect to whoever signed Kazuo Matsui, he should cost a free agent's salary, not $200,000.

3. We should be able to spend more than our allotted money in any year. In other words, if a team has only $60,000,000 to spend and they have $65,000,000 in salaries, they are, obviously, $5,000,000 in the hole. BUT, it should cost them interest on their 'loan' of 10%. So, in the example above, the following year, the team would be $5,500,000 in the hole. In real life, teams do this all the time. At some point they have to dump salaries, just at the point the general manager wants. At a price, of course.

All of the above suggestions correspond with real life. I think any league ahould try to be as close to real life as possible. These 3 suggestions do this, IMHO.