No – despite Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness coming out this week, this article is not about the multiverse – though I guess it is interesting to ponder if on another Earth Shohei Ohtani is still a 2-way stud? Did Acuña not land in such a way to tear his ACL? But I digress…
In dynasty and keeper leagues there is often the question of how open the universe should be for the player pool. Can you roster players who aren’t in an MLB organization and aren’t MLB/MiLB free agents? Can you roster players who are in college? Can you roster players who are international? With as deep the Fantrax player pool is and since you can submit players (with a baseball reference or MLB.com link to the player page) for Fantrax for support to add if all the necessary information is there, the number of players who aren’t signed by a team but are in the pool is vast.
But all that said – is it best to have an open universe or not? I had Jesse Roche and James Anderson on The Commissioner’s Office last week and we discussed how they, along with Bret Sayre and Ian Kahn, created the new Highlander Dynasty Invitational League and the intricacies of the rules of the league (you can find the constitution here). One of the many unique rules in their league is that each team is allowed two open universe players. So, this means if the league had existed last year or before, a team could have rostered Seiya Suzuki, or a team could roster Roki Sasaki now and just hold on to him until/if he comes to play in the majors. Of course, this also means top projected MLB draftees this upcoming draft are eligible to be added, or the likes of Druw Jones could be rostered.
So – why should this be allowed?
The argument for it in dynasty and keeper leagues is to just allow all players in the player pool to be able to be rostered since it’s a keeper and dynasty league and so why not let all players be rostered? While the depth of the league will certainly impact this, since the smaller the roster the less logical or beneficial it is to hold on to players who are years and years away, sometimes players who would be rostered in a closed universe league are farther away from the majors than some of these players. While this is most obvious with guys like Seiya who come over from Japan or Korea, there are also international signees who get signed in their mid-teens and who will not sniff the majors until after some upcoming college players who progress more quickly through the minors will get a cup of coffee. I’m also a proponent of letting managers run their own rosters as they see fit. So, this can allow teams to really build their rosters as they see fit. If you want to construct a roster that has some guys who are not in the majors yet then this lets you do it and design the team however you want – really letting teams shape their own vision and roster construction. A final benefit of this from a league running point of view is as a commissioner/league you don’t have to police if a player was added who shouldn’t have been (unless there is a max on the number you can have).
But why not?
That said, there are also arguments for not having a fully open universe. First, having an open universe, at least in a deep keeper or a true dynasty league, changes the value and process of draft picks. If you don’t have an open universe then most likely early picks, or at least fairly early picks, will go to the top picks from the last international class and last first-year player draft. That said, as long as you understand the rules and how to rightly value picks in a trade, that’s not a big deal (and also why this sort of rule can’t be changed in existing leagues, at least not without a multi-year lead time.
There is also an argument if you are trying to make a league as “realistic” to running a major league franchise as possible that there are rules on when these players can be added by those teams, so why not have the same structure in a dynasty league.
The other concern is how this can impact that one manager in the league who just wants to do a constant rebuild, wants the sexy young name, and just is a perennial rebuilder. Now, that problem is also possible in other leagues – and often requires league rules such as minimums, active roster requirements etc, to deter this approach and the total tank (check out the Highlander constitution above for some more unique approaches for this). However, if you can go to this degree it’s also possible to do that even if you don’t do an open universe.
So – there are pros and cons to both of these approaches – it’s really up to you as a commissioner or a league to determine ow you want your league to function and if you want those players available to be rostered in your league or not!