[USML Announce] USML Rules Voting - Winick's Vote

[Richard E. Robbins]

Jeff,
 
I think my proposal re mobile FAAB dollars already addresses -- at least in
part -- one of the issues you raised.
 
My proposal was that we either allow for mobile FAAB dollars and, if that
does not pass, that we make an explicit statement that the only owner who
can claim back FAAB dollars is the owner rostering the player at the time of
the trade to the NL.  This is merely a codification of a position that we
took last year.  My proposal included text to allow for mobile FAAB dollars
and then said that if the proposal fails, Section 14.6 should be revised to
read as follows:
 
If a player who is traded to the National League during the course of a
season is on the Active Roster or the Reserve Roster of any team in the
League, that team may elect to waive the player at any time during that
season while the player remains in the National League.  Upon any such
waiver, the salary of the waived player shall be immediately added (as
opposed to waiting until the commencement of the next succeeding Reporting
Period) to the waiving team's FAAB; provided, however, that in the case of a
player acquired in the most recent Rotation Draft or retained on a Reserve
Roster without having his salary deducted from the team's $260 expenditure
limit for the most recent Auction, $2 shall be added to the waiving team's
FAAB.  The right to have funds added to a team's FAAB is limited to the
League team on whose roster the player appears when the player is traded to
the National League.  This Section 14.6 shall not apply to off-season major
league trades.
 
As to your second point, I think that needs to be addressed as a separate
matter and I'd prefer that we deal with it once we get through the current
round of voting.  The key issue is whether we should limit compensation for
trades as opposed to losing a player who happens to end up in the National
League.  I've thought about this somewhat and must admit that I get confused
rather rapidly.  We don't compensate an owner whose player gets benched or
whose player gets sent down to the minor leagues.  If a player is released
outright we don't provide compensation.  I'm not sure why things should be
different if a player who is released or waived ends up on an NL roster.  On
the other hand, you can argue that there is no reason to distinguish between
situations in which a player rostered on a USML squad remains in major
league baseball but in the NL.  Of course, I'd prefer to avoid the whole
situation by allowing NL stats -- but that's another matter.
 
I'm not trying to avoid the situation and believe that it is something that
merits consideration.  Rather than cloud things further at this point, would
it be OK if we clear the current slate of proposals and then allow for one
more round to deal with this?  I'll post a revised constitution promptly
once the current voting is done.  There is no reason why we can't move
rapidly on the current stuff.  There has surely been enough discussion for
people to vote.
 
OK?
 
-- Rich
 


  _____  

From: announce-bounces at usml.net [mailto:announce-bounces at usml.net] On Behalf
Of JHWinick at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 12:14 PM
To: announce at usml.net
Subject: Re: [USML Announce] USML Rules Voting - Winick's Vote


In a message dated 2/7/2004 7:59:21 AM Central Standard Time,
MBBlocker at aol.com writes:

1.  Permit trading of FAAB Dollars
 
2.  Count statistics of players traded to the NL
 
3.  Creation fix proposals
 
   a.  E-bay bidding proposal
 
   b.  Skinny FAAB proposal (reduction of FAAB budgets to $20)
 
   c.  Players acquired throug FAAB cannot be asterisk players

1.    Yes
2.    No
3.    A
 
Although I'm enjoying the Blocker/Robbins debate, I think there is a
critical point that has been missed by both.  There are two objectives that
need to be achieved in correcting last year's debacle.  Both Mark and Rich
have focused on the problem associated with artificial "asterisk" players.
They have both missed the second issue which is artificial inflation of
salaries to avoid the salary floor.  It seems to me that the second
objective is no less important than the first.
 
As much as I appreciate the simplicity of option c, it does not address the
problem with dumping teams bidding up valueless players to absurd salaries
to allow them to dump beyond that which the rule was designed to permit.
For this reason, I cannot support option C.  If you want an example of the
problems that artificially inflated salaries create, just calculate the
"true" value of the players that were on the Riptorns active roster at the
end of last year.  It should be clear to you that they effectively wrote the
salary floor out of constitution.
 
So, the only way to address last year's problems in their entirety is to
adopt option a or b.  I support option A because it addresses both of the
problems with the least amount of unintended negative impact.  I share
Mark's concern that ebay bidding means that some players will be assigned
salaries that are less than what they otherwise would have been.  On the
other hand, that really is the nature of a perfect market.  Bottom line,
though is that I am less concerned about that problem than I am with the
additional complexity associated with the skinny FAAB rule and more
importantly, the fact that the skinny FAAB rule adversely impacts the salary
cap by allowing teams near the top of the cap to spend far more on FAAB
acquisitions than they would otherwise be allowed.
 
I do want to raise a couple of additional topics, as well.  These are most
properly categorized as clarifications, rather than rules changes.  First,
if the league votes to continue to disallow the trading of FAAB dollars,
then the rules should be clarified to provide that FAAB dollars can only be
retrieved by the owner of a player that is traded out of the league AT THE
TIME THE PLAYER IS TRADED OUT OF THE LEAGUE.  To allow otherwise is to
sanction an exception to an otherwise explicit rule.
 
Second, the constitution has established a compensation system for instances
where a team loses a player to the other league.  This somewhat ambiguous
rule has apparently been interpreted to compensate a team if his player is
traded to the NL, but no compensation is awarded if a player is waived or
released and is picked up by an NL team after a period of time during which
the player wasn't on any ML roster.  Since the intent of the rule is to
compensate a team for losing a player to the other league, I propose that
the rule be clarified to allow compensation to any team that loses a player
that ultimately ends up on an NL roster.  I don't see any reason for
treating a player that ultimately ends up out of the league any differently
than one who does so immediately.  With respect to my prior clarification, I
would provide that the proposal be modified to allow retrieval of FAAB
compensation only at the time that they player is either traded out of the
league or is added to an NL roster.
 
Jeff W.

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