[USML Announce] Andy's Message and Other Stuff

[Richard E. Robbins]

Andy,
 
I agree that early draft dates are a nightmare.  On the other hand, I fear
that we may have no choice this year.  If we do, it will be critical that we
have well-understood bright line rules for the matters you raise.  
 
Position eligibility will need to be based on 2003 games played and not
where we anticipate a player will appear.  
 
I think that the hardest issue will be whether a player is considered a
major leaguer or minor leaguer for purposes of slotting rules and counting
against the cap.  On that front, I suspect that we will need to say
something like players who do not have rookie status or who have their USML
contracts running will need to be slotted on the active roster, otherwise
the reserve roster.  That will result in a windfall to owners of minor
leaguers who make the MLB roster.  
 
Similarly, we need to consider the pool of players eligible to be taken in
the auction draft.  If we allow 40 man rosters as of some date, we will
undoubtedly expose some players that would not normally be available.  If we
limit ourselves to non-rookies then we will eliminate the ability to spend
auction dollars on some players that we might expect to be available if we
drafted after opening day.
 
We will also need to think about what to do when opening day comes along and
some teams have minor leaguers on their active roster due solely to the
slotting rules we adopt.
 
If we go down this path, let's just recognize that things will not be
perfect and try our hardest to avoid ugly arguments.
 
On a related front, we should resolve open team ownership matters.  Do any
of you have additional candidates at this point?  [I'm resisting the urge to
chide Kerber about his size-related boasting -- perhaps he's all talk and no
(well you know where I'm going on this front)].
 
Rules, rules, rules.  There was a lot of talk last year about revising the
FAAB rules to eliminate the possibility of synthetic asterisk players.
Let's figure out what we are going to do on that front.  Mark Blocker
suggested one mechanism along the lines of dividing the normal FAAB budget
by a factor of five (or something like that) and bidding in similarly
reduced increments and then scaling the salary of any FAAB player back up if
and when he is retained for a second season.  I had proposed an alternative
approach where FAAB bids go for one dollar more than the second highest bid
with an explicit statement in the rules that bidding collusion to boost
salary is prohibited (recognizing that we can't prove collusion but assuming
that owners will be honest).  Blocker's approach gets around the collusion
problem but also means that teams near the salary cap can get players with
FAAB money and not run into the ceiling.
 
In addition, I'd like to see how people feel about permitting FAAB dollar
trades.
 
We need to get all proposals to Mark who will administer the normal voting
on such matters.  Mark will impose whatever process is needed.  Let's attend
to this please.  As our league scribe, I'd ask that any proposal include
specific revisions to the text of our Constitution.  I'd be happy to assist
anyone with drafting.  I will of course, draft textual changes to accompany
my proposals.
 
-- Rich


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From: announce-bounces at usml.net [mailto:announce-bounces at usml.net] On Behalf
Of Andrew R. Klein
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 1:43 PM
To: USML Announcements
Subject: Re: [USML Announce]


Jim (and others)-
 
I'm not keen on the early draft date. We've done that before, and it's a
nightmare with regard to rosters, position eligibility, etc.  If we do go
for the 13th, I'd ask for an early morning draft.  I'm going out of town on
the 14th and would have to return home right after the draft.
 
-Andy
----------------------------------------------------------
Andrew R. Klein
Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis
(317) 274-2099

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jim  <mailto:chicagojab at yahoo.com> Barrett 
To: USML Announcements <mailto:announce at usml.net>  
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: [USML Announce]

It's the day before Easter.  I could do it if necessary but it would be
rather inconvenient.  I still think March 13th is the best option.

"Andrew R. Klein" <anrklein at yahoo.com> wrote: 

Why did Saturday April 10 not work?
----------------------------------------------------------
Andrew R. Klein
Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis
(317) 274-2099

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Richard E. Robbins <mailto:RERobbins at iTinker.net>  
To: 'USML Announcements' <mailto:announce at usml.net>  
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 7:18 PM
Subject: RE: [USML Announce]

I am not available at all on the evening of April 2.
 
It sounds like we need to go early and that we need to come to an
understanding about how to handle slotting and position eligibility matters.
 
-- Rich


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From: announce-bounces at usml.net [mailto:announce-bounces at usml.net] On Behalf
Of JHWinick at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 6:13 PM
To: announce at usml.net
Subject: Re: [USML Announce]


At the risk of throwing a significant monkey wrench into the works, I am
afraid that I now have an irreconcilable conflict on April 3rd.  We should
talk about either a very early draft or maybe a Friday evening - say April
2nd.
 
Jeff Winick

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