For the last five years the entrance fee was $200. $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?

    0 - No, actually, I�d like it lowered to $175
 8 - I=m a loser and it=s juuuuuust right at $200
    0 - Raise it to $225
    1 - Raise it to $250
    0 - Raise it to $275
    1 - Raise it to $300

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.

 2 - $250 limit
    8 - No limit

Comments regarding this question:
"Oddly, I think this is the first year that no one entered a limit of $200, so if enough people had voted to increase the entrance fee, we would have actually done so.  Not that it matters since a large majority are obviously comfortable with the $200 fee." -- Chris Mal

"I will defer to the opinion of the masses!  It raly doesn't matter as it's all going to Jolie's college fund so why don't you just figure how much we need to put in there for 4 years at MIT!" -- Basement Boy (a.k.a. Hugh G. Rection, a.k.a. Scott Winterburn)

"As Chris knows, I am the idiot who spent $1000 on a Jordan and Nolan Ryan Rookie for no apparent reason.  They now sit in my closet!" -- Jamie Schlesinger who voted to increase the entrance fee.  [You paid $1000 for a Brian Jordan rookie card?  Me thinks you got shafted on that deal. -- Chris Mal]

The waiver system we have doesn't serve a whole lot of purpose.  There's rarely anyone that winds up on waivers worth grabbing, and even when there is, I seem to be the only one who notices (although Jamie did also claim a player this year.)  If we got rid of it, any players you cut would go directly into the free agent pool.  This would also then match the ASL for whatever it's worth.

    1 - No, I like checking the waiver list each week with the possibility of picking up Manny Aybar or Tomas Perez.
 7 - Good point, let's get rid of this goofy waiver system.
    2 - I don't care

Comments regarding this question:
"Jeff D'Amico at $2 is really going to pay off this year." -- Jamie Schlesigner who voted to keep the waiver system

Someone suggested we add some sort of salary cap.  We actually tried this a while ago with mixed success.  There are a lot of ways to apply it.  I suggest to keep it simple that we set a maximum value for all of the salaries of a team's active roster.  Note that All-Star Stats DOES add up that value for you - it's at the bottom of each team page at all times.  I believe they even allow you to set you league up so that you wouldn't be allowed to exceed the salary cap value, so no policing of teams would be necessary.

You should also note that this could very well affect how you FAAB$ bid on players because if the cap is say $400, and you bid $90 on a player and add him to your active roster, you are already going to be quite close to the cap!

The suggested salary cap would supplement the present anti-dumping rules, not replace those rules.

 6 - No, I don't like this idea.
    1 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $400.
    0 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $410.
    0 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $420.
    0 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $430.
    0 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $440.
    0 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $450.
    1 - I like the idea of a cap, make it $460.
    2 - I don't care.

Comments regarding this question:
"Maybe the formula could be Draft Day $ ($290) plus $100 FAAB plus $50 or something.  I don't really care that much." -- Jamie Schlesinger.  [Hey, that adds up to $440, but you voted for $460 -- Chris Mal]

Dejua Vu all over again.  One person suggested that we reduce the number of active players from its present number of 27.  I should remind everyone that the number of keepers was once 23, but that was prior to the expansion of the NL by adding the Arizona Diamondbacks and Milwaukee Brewers.  That means that the NL had expanded by 14% (16 teams / 14 teams = 114%).  It stood to reason that to keep our "mental" values of players in the NL the same as they had always been, that the number of active players would also increase by 14%, so we went from 23 active players to 27.  There are now 50 more players to draft, so it makes sense that we would add 40 more active players, does it not?

The argument that I've heard for reducing the number of active players is that there are too many active players in the NL vs. our AL league.  But that is NOT true.  In this league there are 10 teams x 27 = 270 players.  In the AL there are 12 teams x 23 players = 276 players.

If you want to nit-pick, we should actually be INCREASING the number of active players in this league because there are MORE major league NL teams than there are major league AL teams.  Specifically, there are 16 NL teams (16x25=400 draftable players) and 14 AL teams (14x25=350 players).  So, in the ESL where we draft 270 players, that's only 67% (270/400) of the player population drafted.  In the ASL we draft 276 players, that's 79% (276/350)!  So how can it possibly make sense to say there are too many active players in the this league?  If you look at the numbers, really, there aren't enough.

 4 - Keep it the way it is, there should be 27 active players for $290.
    4 - Reduce the number of active players to 26, and the amount of draft money to $280.
    2 - I'm undecided, kind of the same way I am about my sexuality.

Comments regarding this question:
"Actually, I think we should reduce the number of active players to 25, and the amount of draft money to $280." -- Dale Scott

It was suggested that we reduce the number of keepers from its present number of 16.  As noted in the previous survey question, the NL expanded by 14% a few years ago by adding the Brewers and the Diamondbacks.  At that time we kept the number of keepers at 16, since we had gone from 15 to 16 a few years prior to that after the addition of the Marlins and the Rockies.  In reality, we should have expanded the number of keepers by 14%, but we left it at 16, so I see no reason to go the opposite direction, do you?  Actually, since we're voting on this, what the heck, let's also vote to INCREASE the number of keepers to 17.

(As a side-note, and as I have noted every time we've voted on this, any rules which directly affect existing teams would not go into affect until the following year.  So if this rule passes, it would be effective for the 2004 season.  For those in the ASL, this isn't without precedent.  When we've changed the number of keepers in the ASL, it waited one year.  The logic behind waiting is to keep the voting legitimate.  For example, if a team with 16 keepers thinks the number should be reduced, such a team is less likely to vote to reduce it.  By making it affective a year later, when no one knows how many keepers they will have, it keeps anyone voting to protect their current situation.  Likewise, a team with only 10 keepers is less likely to vote to increase to 17 even if they think it makes sense.  But since you have no idea how many keepers you will have going into 2004, it keeps the voting completely unbiased.)

    1 - Increase the number of keepers to 17.
 4 - Keep it the way it is, teams may keep between 0 and 16 players from year to year.
    1 - Reduce the maximum number of keepers to 15.
    3 - Reduce the maximum number of keepers to 10.
    1 - I don't care.

Comments regarding this question:
"I would prefer to reduce the maximum number of keepers to 14." -- Dale Scott

"The above side-note is gay - I vote for inclusion in the 2003 season." -- Pete Gabrielli

"For the record, I'm not the one who voted for 17." -- Chris Mal