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| ETERNAL SQUABBLERS LEAGUE
1. ENTRANCE FEE For the last two years the entrance fee was $190. $40 of that went to All-Star Stats and $15 of it goes to me because I need the money for my coke habit. Is there any desire to raise that fee? 1 - No,
actually, I�d like it lowered to $175 I wouldn=t want anyone to quit because we are playing for too much money. If everyone votes for $300 and one person would quit if we play for $275 or more, we=ll only raise it to $274.
"Now that I am getting single, I have more money to spend." -- Pete Gabrielli, who voted to raise the entrance fee to $300. "Keep it the same. It's almost more about bragging rights at this point anyway since the payout occurs on draft day." -- Drew Gallagher "Don't bother us with this drivel!!! The 'Lords of the Realm' will do whatever they want anyway!!!!" -- Scott Winterburn Editor's Note: The entrance fee will remain $200 for the year 2000. I don�t know how all of you feel about the mid-season trading, but I know that at least a few of you feel like I do. Personally, I just don�t have the time or energy to work the phones (or the Internet) anymore to make sure I make yet another lop-sided late July trade to keep up with the other teams in contention. On top of it, I think Rotisserie is generally more fun if the team that drafts the best team tends to be the team that wins in the end. That hasn�t necessarily been the case every year thanks to some very lop-sided trades � admittedly, I have been on the receiving end of many of those deals. On the other hand, some degree of trading is still fun, of course, so we certainly don�t want to eliminate it completely. Drew suggested the following which is quite simple: If you trade player who is $21 or over, you must receive a player in return who is within +/-$5 of that player�s salary. So, if you traded a player who has a salary of $22. You would have to receive a player whose salary is between $17 and $27. Additionally, if trade a player who is less than $21 and in the last year of a contract, you must receive either (1) another player in the last year of a contract or (2) a player whose salary is $21 or greater. This would, of course, only apply to in-season trading. Paul is concerned about scenerios not concidered by this rule - specifically certain trades which would NOT be "dump" trades would be prohibited by this rule. For example, if you have a $20 closer in the last year of a contract, you could not trade him for a $40 outfielder even though it wouldn't be a "dump" trade. Unfortunately, unless someone can come up with a better "anti-dumping" rule, this is the one we're going with. Yes, there will be those occasions where you want to make a "fair" trade but can't, but that is better than the alternative which is not having ANY rule and letting all trading get out of hand. "I don't like the idea because it seems you have to figure out an algebraic equation to make sure that the trade works or not. We're just not that bright." -- Pete Gabrielli "The rule probably needs some modification and clarification so maybe it is a pre-draft issue." -- Drew Gallagher "Dumping is a necessary evil, ask me, I end up 'building for the future' year after year. Besides, I don't recall there being any rule in MLB that requires teams to receive 'like salaries' in any fashion when trades are made. If you don't want to take the time to 'grease the crease' and do what it takes to insure victory, tough nuggies!!!! I'll trade my overpriced, short contracted players for future gems, a.k.a. Alex Ochoa!!!!" -- Scott Winterburn Editor's Note: Tentatively you can expect some version of the rule above to be implemented in 2000. It seems we may need to do some clarifying and tweeking of the rule. We will address it on draft day. Just before roster freeze last year, one team suggested that we allow teams to retain players at positions in which they played less than 20 games if you know they will be the starting player at that position. I didn�t think it was appropriate to address this at the time since teams where juggling their rosters by making trades based on the standard 20-game position eligibility. But, I did promise to bring it up in this survey. The problem with this is, who is to determine exactly which players should get the "extra" position eligibility? Sure, you know some players will definitely be starting at a new position in the up-coming year. Such as Pokey Reese last year who qualified at 3B after 1998 but was definitely going to be the starting secondbasemen in 1999. But for every Reese there is another player who is boarderline in the eyes of � the league and definitely moving to a new position at least in the eyes of the person who owns that player. If we do this, I suggest that we use Baseball Weekly�s yearly synopsis of each team which they usually run in early March which shows a chart for each team with the starters at each position. If they show a player starting at 2nd-base, he then qualifies at secondbase. 2 - That�s just genius. I was going to quit the league, but not
anymore! "Use the preseason number of games played found in the back of Baseball Weekly. Also establish a minimum number of games someone should play in preseason to qualify." -- Paul Rosa "Yuk." -- Pete Gabrielli "I don't want to have to bring a magic 8-ball to the draft, so no speculating on positions. Hell, what if the Malinowski web-site says that Piazza is starting at 2nd -- where do you draw the line between valid information and just damned amusing information?" -- Drew Gallagher (Editor's Note: If my web-site says Piazza is playing at second, he probably is.) "I personally like the 'butterfly' position!!!!!" -- Scott Winterburn 4. MORE ON POSITION QUALIFICATION All-Star stats allows you to designate a number of games that a player has to play before he qualifies at a new position during the season. We had always used ONE game simply because it was easy to track � if you saw a player played catcher one day, you knew he qualified there for the rest of the year. Now, with the information overload thanks to the Internet and Baseball Weekly, it�s simple to find out how many games any player has played at any position at any point in time. And All-Star Stats does the work for us. I say we eliminate the odd one inning stint an outfielder plays at shortstop in April because his manager wanted to be cute or because his team was losing 25-1. In my opinion, a player should have to play more than just 1 game at a new position before you can move him there. 3 - I hate change. Leave it at one. "Hey, if I want to activate Canseco at pitcher than I should be able to..." -- Drew Gallagher "New positions are always good!!!!!" -- Scott Winterburn Editor's Note: Essentially, voting was 5-3 for increasing the number of games required to qualify at a position during the season. Starting this year, a player must play FIVE games at a position before you can move him there. 5. ROOKIES ON THE D.L. ON DRAFT DAY This is going to come up every year if we keep drafting before the season actually starts, so we need to address this. The problem is, what should teams be allowed to do if a "rookie" player is on the D.L. on Draft Day. Here is the dilemma: Scott has Pablo Ozuna � one of the Marlins top prospects. He�s only 20 years old or so and he obviously won�t be starting in Florida next year no matter how well he does in Spring Training. But if he is on the 40-man roster and is injured in the Spring before getting assigned to minor league camp, the Marlins will have to put him on the D.L. to start the year. Should Scott have to keep him as one of his 16 keepers or drop him? That seems harsh, and your gut reaction is to say, "Well, let all D.L. rookies be kept on the reserve roster." But, what happens if a rookie you KNOW is going to make the majors gets hurt. Say, for example, Rick Ankiel gets hurt in the Spring for me. Should I be allowed to keep him on my reserve roster and not count him against one of my 16 just because he�s hurt? That seems equally absurd. I just can�t think of any way to do this that will make it fair no matter what the circumstance � either way it�s not pretty, it�s just a matter of what your preference is. 3 - Any rookie on the D.L., consider yourself lucky, he can be kept on
your reserve roster. "It sucks, but affects us all equally. Except the Caps because he doesn't know who Pablo Ozuna is. Anything that helps Mike! Plus he had a date last night." -- Drew Gallagher, who voted that a rookie on the D.L. must be kept active or dropped. "Go Pablo, Go Pablo!!!!!" -- Scott Winterburn Number of visitors to this page: |
4 - I=m
a loser and it=s juuuuuust right at
$200
