The Rules..

[pdaj]

I'm just curious..

How were the rules of this league formed?

By this, I mean.. who decided that we would be allowed to keep 6 players, DL players, and a rookie?

In my opinion, in allowing individuals to keep DL players and a rookie, it severly takes away from the quality of the draft. Furthermore, it allows certain teams to head into the draft at a much greater situation than others.

The skill and fun of a keeper league is in deciding who to keep among your roster. It also prevents stacked teams.. providing greater competition and fairness. Heck, and this is coming from someone who would benefit by being able to keep Everett, Burks, and Castillo.

But (for example).. if someone has a player such as Nomar Garciaparra, they should have to decide whether or not he is worth the risk of keeping. It wouldn't be fair to allow a team to keep players such as Griffey, Nomar, and Drew.. all while also keeping their top 6 players. Heck, if we all knew about the rules for this season, we would have traded for top injuried players at the end of the year!

I think we need a careful evaluation of this league's rules.. made by all the managers.

[imgreat95]

Paul basically the concept behind the dl keepers was mostly for guys who were lost for the season and were dropped before we decided to make it a keeper league. For example, had Nomar been lost for the entire season, i would have dropped him in april not knowing it was a keeper league. That was the main point i believe in the dl keepers. I do agree with you to an extent though. When you are talking about guys who were lost for 30 days in midseason, you basically had a choice to hang on to them, or release them.

[TheSmellyCat]

The rules were made last year around midseason on the Yahoo! board. We were experimenting and eventually came to an agreement. (For example I gave up a sh*t load to get Drew at the end of last year at the trade deadline, alot of trades were made by the teams that were out of it.) Like you said before you got screwed over and didn't really pay attention, but you just gotta understand that these weren't rules that were came up with on the fly it had to be at least a 2 month (may have been 3)period over which the rules were formed.

Of the DL players you named. Nomar was the only one who didn't get traded towards the end of last year.

[pdaj]

Another reason such rules are dangerous?

When teams are out of the running.. they can severly affect a race.. giving up top players for DL'd stars or future all-stars in preperation for the next year..

[TheSmellyCat]

How does it help your team for the next season if you trade a couple of your top players for one DL keeper? It hurts you.

[Michlee60]

In my opinion i dont think 30 days is enough. I think Imgreat is right in that it is a way to make people not lose players that were out for most of last year, but this is no way the case with only 30 days. My suggestion is that this rule be changed. Although I would prefer to just have the 6 keepers and the one rookie and no dl players at all, I believe the 30 days is just too little to allow someone to keep a person and still get their whole 6 keepers. My suggestion is maybe if someone played 30 games or less than they can keep them. This would emphasize the being able to keep someone who they did not get to use much of last season without making some teams being able to keep 10 stars versus only 6 for another team

[pdaj]

I like that idea, Michlee..

[Michlee60]

however it would have to be different for pitchers... maybe 5 games for starters and 10 for relief pitchers

[Nate Dogg]

Too bad we didn't have your imput BEFORE we all decided on the rules. Many trades were made or not made due to the rules that were agreed on by those who responded. To go and change things now would not be right. The rules were made to try and keep teams that were in the bottom of the rankings active. Most online teams drop out after half a season when their studs get hurt and they are out of contention.

[Michlee60]

when were these rules made? I remember discussions about if we wanted to make it a keeper league or not, but not on specifics like the 30 days on the dl rule...

[usc2002]

I think it is too late, regardless of how much the rule sucks to change it now....Maybe we can discuss this for next year but this one has already started as far as trades and such are concerned....And Michlee this was argued about for a couple of months about the whole DL thing, I don't agree with 30 days but like I said it is too late now, lets worry about it for next year.....For now, happy trading......

[Nate Dogg]

The rules were voted on by the teams that stuck around until the end of the season. If your team was out of contention and you quit checking in, well that is your problem and don't come back and start trying to change things after the fact. There were posts on the yahoo league site and Smelly sent out e-mails about the voting. As far as those who have joined after the fact, these rules should benefit you because the teams that you are taking over are the ones that had the most injuries and such. If the rules need to be adjusted, fine, I think there have been very good suggestions. Unfortunatly, they would need to be for next year. Too many trades have happened this year, and last season to go back and change them now. If this really pisses you off, then maybe you should let us know and we can try and find an owner who will not mind playing by the rules that we have voted on, rather than end up with owners who quit again.

Nate

[Baseball Guru]

Now is there any kind of rule prohibiting a team that is out of it from trading a great player for a not so great player??
IE: I have Piazza and I'm out of it...Well Shawn is in it and he has lets say Fick who won't put up nearly the #'s Piazza will...Well because he is my friend and I hope he wins I make this trade...
Again we should trust each other butyou never know if this can happen...Is there anyway to vote or to veto a trade???

[Michlee60]

I agree... we need to come up with more detailed rules to prevent arguments. Rules that will be followed throughout the season regarding different issues

[Michlee60]

If the rules were voted on... can we please have a copy of them posted?

[Michlee60]

to clarify what i just meant; i mean the actual rules posted, not who voted for what rules...

[GiveHyzduashot]

James, when I joined the league this year I asked the same question, and Bill basically told me if a team gets screwed over it's their own fault. I don't like that, because I think you should be able to veto trades, but I guess that's the way it is.

I agree with Paul on most of the rules. I don't see the point in being allowed to keep six players. That severely depletes the talent pool in the draft. When there are 120 players being kept plus DL keepers and a rookie keeper on top of that, the difference between the first pick and tenth pick is minimal.

I also agree 30 days is too short of a time. In example, Al Leiter missed the DL by three days. But he still would have given me 15 wins, which would be in the top twenty if I had to take a guess. In my opinion, a guy who puts up 15 wins should not be counted as a DL keeper.

I like the 30 games idea. That's a heck of a lot easier to track than if a player spent 30 days on the DL.

The rules can't be changed for this season, but I think after this year they need an overhaul.

[TheSmellyCat]

Basically any trade can go through now(but we could still not allow one if it was obvious cheating). But once the season starts at Yahoo! their is a commishioner (someone in the league who approves the trades and gets e-mails when someone votes against a trade.) Nate was the commishioner last year (I assume he'll do it this year as well, he did a good job) and he decides wehter a trade goes through or not. If its collusion then it'll be rejected, there is that threat in any league which is why there is a commishioner.

[amag]

For this offseason, I think its already gone too far to change the terms for keepers. But for next season,

I think we should scratch the DL keeper as well as the rookie keeper and implement something more strict in it's place a little like this:

If a hitter plays in 60 or less games he's a free keeper

If a starter starts 10 or less games he's a free keeper

If a releiver pitches in 25 or less innings he's a free keeper

There's a cap of 5 free keepers

It can include injured players that really were lost for the season, rookies, riskey options and formerly benched players who would otherwise be scrubs. It improves thier value.

How does it help lower ranked teams? They would have to determine that they're out of the race, and then can find these players an add them to the team. The higher ranked teams would not add these players to thier team because they could risk thier ranks to get one who's useless for the current year.

And furthermore it helps the lower teams becayse you must have the free keepers on your roster on the final day of the season (unlike DL keepers). Also it wouldn't pull very talented players out who only missed 31 or so games out.... adding to the draft pool talent.

And, with 20 teams we could cut the keepers down to 4. With drafts in the reverse order of the standings it would help lower teams as well.

Again I can't say that for this season because litteraly dozens of moves have already been made soley to fit in with the rules... if we were to drop our dl keepers then people who traded some quality talent just to get a dl keeper would completley lose out.
But these can be the rules we plan for and play around in this coming season.

[Michlee60]

amag-

I think you have the right idea, but with the DL players I'd lower it even more than what you suggested. What you listed still allows for a good number of players to be free keepers, especially pitchers who get injured which is very common.

I would suggest something more along the lines of less than:

100 at bats for position players

45 innings for pitchers who had 80% of their games pitched starts

20 innings for pitchers who did not have 80% of their games starts.

or something more along those lines anyway... Just something to make people to really think about whether they really want to draft an injury prone player.

[amag]

but still I think we have to go into the season with the current rules because so many people have built around them. Any discussions should be for this coming season and offseason, not for the current rules

[TheSmellyCat]

Sounds cool to me. But it may have to be adjusted because that would gaurentee that any september call up would be a free keeper. (There are always a bunch of good ones) So we have all season to establish it. (I like the idea of days spent on the DL, just maybe make it 60+ or something so less players qualify, we'll wait and see though)

[Michlee60]

sorry i didnt clarify... i meant to say players who you drafted only would qualify. therefore someone you picked up in midseason couldnt count regardless