[USML Announce] Three Proposals

[Jim Barrett]

Rich,
 
I vote as follows:
 
Proposal 1 (Trading FAAB funds)  - Yes (incl. Yes to trading player to another owner, who would then be able to waive and claim funds).  I think it might an additional spark to deal making.  Note that we may also have to clarify whether trading $25 FAAB balances a deal for an asterisk player.
 
Proposal 2 (ebay style bidding) - Yes for the reasons I indicated in my email a few days ago
 
Proposal 3 (keeping NL stats) - No.  I think this is a risk we all knowingly undertake by having an AL only league.  However, I believe that if this proposal is approved it should not be limited to just players that are traded to the NL.  It should also players who are released by their AL team and then sign with an NL team as a free agent. 

"Richard E. Robbins" <RERobbins at itinker.net> wrote:
I submit the following three rule proposals and assume that these (and all others) will be gathered by Mark Blocker and circulated in a more formal fashion in the near future. 

If you intend to submit a proposal, please include the necessary changes to our rules to implement what you propose. 

I have attached a word file that contains text needed to implement each of my proposals. The file has been marked to highlight changes to the existing rules.

Thanks,

-- Rich

Proposal – Permit Trading of FAAB Funds

We should permit in-season trading of FAAB funds and, to be consistent, we should permit an owner who trades for an NL-traded player to claim FAAB dollars by waiving the player.

As proposed, FAAB dollars acquired in trade would not be available for use until the next reporting period. Similarly, as proposed, an NL player acquired in a trade could not be waived until the next reporting period.

If we do not adopt this proposal, we should modify Section 14.6 to provide that the only team that can claim FAAB funds by waiving an NL-traded player is the League team rostering the player at the time of the trade to the National League. This would be nothing more than a codification of existing practice.

Proposal – Adopt Modified eBay Style FAAB Bidding

I propose that we adopt a modified eBay style approach to FAAB bidding by awarding a player to the highest bidder and using a salary of one dollar more than the second highest bid, $5 in the case of a single bidder (i.e., the minimum bid) and the highest bid in the event of tied winning bids. The rule would also prohibit collusive bidding to generate Asterisk Players. I recognize that a violation of the collusion prohibition is virtually impossible to prove. Nevertheless, I believe that USML participants are honest and that the explicit prohibition would suffice. 

Others have suggested an approach where we would use a slender bidding currency; with the result being that, FAAB players have salaries less than $25, which would mean that the FAAB acquisition process could not be used to generate Asterisk players. That approach is not subject to the collusive bidding problem found in my proposal. On the other hand, that approach will let teams that are close to the salary ceiling roster players that they would otherwise not be able to fit under the salary cap.

Proposal – Count Statistics of Players Traded to the National League

It is clear that there is no perfect solution to the problems created when a player is traded to the National League. We adopted our current rule many years ago in an effort to provide at least some compensation to the owner that loses a player to the National League. I believe that the compensation afforded by the current approach is essentially meaningless. 

Some will argue that allowing other-league stats is wrong because they are not comparable to American League statistics. That may be so. On the other hand, we do not do anything with statistics generated during inter-league play. 

Some will argue that like injuries, this is simply a risk of playing the game that we should accept. I believe that this is a risk that we can do without and one that we can (and should) eliminate. The injury risk problem is a different thing entirely. In the real world, general managers don’t wake up in the morning to discover that they have been stripped of a player (unless you work for George Steinbrenner).

Some will argue that we should be able to identify the players that are likely to be traded, and consider that risk when bidding. That may be the case – on the other hand, it is really hard to predict whether a player is likely to land in the other league. 

The impact of inter-league trades on the USML season can be dramatic. That just seems wrong to me. Let’s avoid the problem.


> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/msword name=Rule Proposal Implementing Text.doc

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