[USML Announce] Daily Roster Audit Compliance Report

[Richard Robbins]

Wow.

How is it possible we've not dealt with this before?

It seems to me that Section 3.1 is pretty clear about what an active roster
is supposed to look like.  It doesn't contemplate up to 9 pitchers.  It
says 9 pitchers.  No more and no less.  I should have recognized this at
the start of this thread.  That's what I get for trying to do this stuff
without the text in front of me.

I don't think its obvious that 3.4 should be read to permit under
representation in an active roster just because it speaks about what to do
if you have over representation at a position during the middle of a
reporting period.  If you have a 23 player roster and there's over
representation somewhere doesn't that also mean you have under
representation somewhere else?  If the over representation is prohibited
then shouldn't the under representation be prohibited?  The bottom line is
that 3.4 simply doesn't answer the question must you always carry 23
players on your active roster.  So 3.4 can be read (perhaps) to support
either argument.  The thing is, Section 3.4 tells us that you can do a
trade that causes your roster to be out of whack, i.e., you clearly can
trade an active pitcher for an active catcher which would cause you to have
too many catchers so long as before the end of the relevant reporting
period, i.e., before the transaction becomes effective, you fix your
roster.  Same thing with trades that bust the cap or floor.  That's all it
does.  It doesn't attempt to talk about whether you can have less than 23
on your active roster.  To a point I think Brad made above, it can't be the
case that you can only trade a catcher away if you get another catcher in
the same deal.  We've never run our league that way and there's nothing in
the rules that should lead us to that result.

So, put another way, I think that 3.4 just stands for the proposition that
you can do whatever you'd like in a single trade so long as you get your
act together with other moves before the thing becomes effective.

As Cardinal Kerber (hey did anyone notice that the Lady Golden Bears are in
the Final 4?) has stressed, each team started out the year with compliant
rosters, so they should be required to maintain compliance.  If you want to
do a deal or a bunch of deals in a reporting period, that's fine.  But when
the dust settles, you need to have a compliant roster.  You can't do a deal
that leaves you without a pitcher on the assumption that you will pick up
another one in FAAB in a later reporting period.  If you want to pick up a
FAAB pitcher in the bidding that ends on Saturday and do your trade Sunday
morning before the deadline, that's fine.

What you can't do is assume you will fix it in later reporting periods.

If we want to permit teams to have less than 23 players on their active
roster then we'd need to amend the Constitution.

Dead spots with useless guys (like my second catcher slot right now) are
OK.  Empty slots are not.  If we want to permit empty slots then I think we
need to amend the constitution and we should never do that in season in my
opinion at least. (and per the constitution too, I believe)

Finally, I'm not sure that there's agreement with Jeff's interpretation
about what can and can't be done with NL players.  For example, I am
relatively (not not 100% confident) that owners have placed NL players on
their reserve rosters in the past and used them deal with cap or floor
issues later on or to fill out their rosters etc.  I think I did that a few
years ago.  We've probably included NL players as asterisk guys to balance
deals too.  To say that I can only have an NL player on my active roster as
a place holder if he happened to be there as an AL guy when he was traded
and if he hasn't been put on reserve since then is, I think, a new wrinkle
and one that we'd need agreement on.  I'm not saying this would be a good
or bad result, but I think it would be a clear rule change and departure
from prior practice as well.  Because this issue goes to roster composition
/ roster integrity issues I think it would be good to consider it together
with the empty slot issue.  You guys may prefer to separate them and I get
that too.

Ugh.

-- Rich


On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, wrote:

> Even if I'm wrong, making it clear and explicit can't hurt, but I'm also
> interested in Rich's take.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeffrey Winick <jwinick at harriswinick.com>
> To: USML Announcements <announce at usml.net>
> Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 11:52 am
> Subject: Re: [USML Announce] Daily Roster Audit Compliance Report
>
>
>
> Guys,
>
>  Despite Mark K's belief that this issue is clearly addressed in the
> Constitution in the manner he reads it, I, for one, do not agree.
>
>  Lets wait until Rich is available and then ask him to pose a question to
> the league for a vote.
>
>  Jeff
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 3, 2013, at 11:39 AM, "springkerb at aol.com" <springkerb at aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> No, I don't think we do.  To the contrary, it appears clear (at least to
> me) that under-representation at a position is allowed--period.  By
> contrast, a trade that left a team below the salary floor or above the cap
> would not be allowed.
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: Brad Jansen <bljansen at gmail.com>
> To: USML Announcements <announce at usml.net>
> Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 11:27 am
> Subject: Re: [USML Announce] Daily Roster Audit Compliance Report
>
>  I think the one point to confirm agreement on right now is this: a trade
> cannot be made if it leaves a team's roster imbalanced in any way (i.e., a
> team cannot trade a CI unless it gets one back or has someone on reserve to
> fill the slot). I don't think that should be in issue. Do we all agree on
> that point?
>
>  --BLJ
>
>  On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Dennis Adams <dadams17 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For whatever its worth (which very well might be nothing), I am in a
> couple other leagues (albeit head-to-head ones) that frequently witness
> managers moving players from their active roster to their bench spots at
> the end of a weekly matchup to secure AVG/ERA/WHIP at the expense of Runs,
> HR, Wins, Ks, etc.  Under-representation in any league seems to me like a
> strategy move that carries risk and that risk tends to make people
> comfortable with accepting others who choose to under-represent.
>
>  I guess my point is, even if it were an oversight, I'm not so sure
> under-representation should be prohibited.  Glad my temporary oversight in
> forgetting to promote Juan Rivera led to this debate on the league bylaws
> though!
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 11:06 AM, <springkerb at aol.com> wrote:
>
> What the roster "shall consist of" is not the same question as whether and
> how it has to be filled.  Section 1 addresses the former; Section 3
> addresses the latter.  When the constituation expressly says you can't be
> over-represented and doesn't mention under-representation at all, then
> under-representation has to be allowed.  Intent doesn't matter and a
> thousand other leagues don't matter.  We have a written rule, and it's
> clear.
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeffrey Winick <jhwinick at aol.com>
> To: announce <announce at usml.net>
>  Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 10:46 am
> Subject: Re: [USML Announce] Daily Roster Audit Compliance Report
>
> Guys - just because one can create an ambiguous r
>
>
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