[USML Announce] Andy's Message and Other Stuff

[Jim Barrett]

Rich,
 
I think your free agent bid proposal makes sense.  First, it's simple to administer.  Second, it's based on a common bid system that works well in other contexts (meaning proven track record).
 
As for the early draft day problems - I don't see what's so bad about being able to bid on players who ultimately don't make the major league roster.  As the season approaches, there will be probably at least a couple of Sundays where owners can make adjustments to their active rosters and send the minor leaguers to their reserve roster.  If the player in question is traded to the NL or cut and signs with an NL team, we deal with in the same way we do during the regular season.  If we limit the draft to players with major league experience, there won't be much of an opportunity for pure speculation bidding on minor league prospects.  The only problem is the "windfall" problem but with only 4 reserve slots, it won't be that big of a problem.  Plus in reality, how many rookie players make much of an impact?  In all likelihood, a number of them will be sent back down to the minors at some point during the season.
 
As I've said before, most leagues have a draft before the season starts.  If they can handle it, so can we.

"Richard E. Robbins" <RERobbins at iTinker.net> wrote:
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


---------------------------------
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 Barrett 
To: USML Announcements 
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 
To: 'USML Announcements' 
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


---------------------------------
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


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://rochester.hostforweb.net/pipermail/announce_usml.net/attachments/20040125/991a4aa4/attachment.htm