[USML Announce] USML Rules Voting

[john.fruit at usbank.com]

At this point, I'm keeping my preference for the 'C' option. I don't like
the E-bay bidding process, in that there's no risk fro over-bidding. You're
going to have 5 teams bidding their maximum FAAB balance for a player
knowing that there's no penalty, rendering inconsequential someone's
sincere bid.


                                                                                                                              
                      JHWinick at aol.com                                                                                        
                      Sent by:                 To:       announce at usml.net                                                    
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                      usml.net                 Subject:  Re: [USML Announce] USML Rules Voting                                
                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                              
                      02/09/2004 10:36                                                                                        
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In a message dated 2/9/2004 10:07:39 AM Central Standard Time,
SpringKerb at aol.com writes:
 In a message dated 2/9/2004 9:17:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, JHWinick
 writes:

 > Then may I encourage you to modify your vote and switch to option A from
 option C.  That would be, by far, the easiest
 > solution to strengthening the salary floor.

 I think C implicates lowering the cap (due to less FAAB inflation) rather
 than raising the floor.  As it is, we provide $40 more "headroom" with our
 cap ($360 v. $260) than the downside flexibility we provide with our floor
 ($200 v. $260).

 200 is actually a pretty tight floor already.  Take, for example, a team
 forced to dump when one or two stars are out for the year with injury or
 traded to the NL.  You could be at the floor already, without even
 dumping.  Then you can't do anything at all.  That would simply encourage
 owners to check out of the league completely for the year.  I'd much
 prefer to have someone active and dumping, than have them completely
 inactive because the rules have put them in a straight jacket.

 Mark
Mark,

I respectfully disagree with you regarding the tightness of the floor.  If
a player is out for the year with injury or traded to the NL, that player
can remain on a team's active roster and will still count toward the salary
floor.  I honestly believe that an active roster of anything less than 200
would result in teams totally tanking for the season.  I think it is in
everyone's best interest to discourage this practice.

As for the extra headroom in the salary cap, it was my original proposal to
have the headroom match the floorroom, i.e. a $320 cap.  There was concern
that this would be too restrictive given a $100 FAAB budget and a desire to
encourage some level of trading, so we added a little more flexibility.

I believe that the $200-$360 range is a good one provided that we close the
loopholes on asterisks and on escaping the floor with meaningless FAAB
bids.  The Ebay FAAB process is far from perfect, but it is the one with
the least unintended consequences and is, by far, the easiest to
administer.  Alternatives of the sort proposed by John Fruit are examples
of ways to enhance the salary floor but at the expense of needlessly
complicating the commissioner's life.

Jeff