Name of Rule Change

Sponsor

Jim Van Fleet

Proposed Change

I propose that MinorLeagueThirdRevision be moved to MinorLeagues and adopted as our rules. This rule change would take effect immediately. Any particular player issues can be addressed by the league with a one-time exception.

Rationale

On Ian Kennedy:

The rules now state "He must not have accumulated stats on any owner's roster during the completed season." Matt would have had the opportunity to check Ian Kennedy's service time at a page similar to this one during the season, so that he'd be informed as possible about whether he could retain the player during the coming off-season.

On David Price:

"As it is possible for players to be claimed in our software before they are generally available in the CBS universe, it is the claiming owner's responsibility to ensure that the claimed player is not on another owner's roster."

We have only had one occurrence of the "add a new player" request. Players are added constantly to the CBS system, so in the interest of keeping commissioner workload manageable, it will now explicitly be the owner's responsibility to make sure that their pickup is legal. I feel that this is an extremely reasonable burden to bear for the privilege of having a minor league.

On Colby Rasmus:

"Any player, foreign or domestic, minor or major leaguer, may be claimed from free agency or waivers at any time that rosters are unfrozen by league rule."

This means that when rosters are frozen, you can't pick up players through any normal means. Since off-season eligibility determinations are made before the previous off-season begins, but protection in the upcoming drafts is the whole point of having the minor league system, I don't think it's appropriate to have add/drop during this time.

On Edison Volquez:

"All players placed in the minor leagues must either be eligible for Rookie of the Year or had their eligibility lapse in the current season of play."

This would rule Edison Volquez (properly) as ineligible for minor league placement.

On Jarrod Saltalamacchia:

"All players placed in the minor leagues must either be eligible for Rookie of the Year or had their eligibility lapse in the current season of play."

The same rule applies, however, I'll bring up two other additions:

"The only exception is for players retained on their owner's minor league roster during the previous off-season; they may remain on the minor league roster throughout the year after their retention."

This means, for example, that after protecting Alex Gordon, I could keep him in the minors during this season. Note that he would lose this eligibility if I were to trade him during the 2008 season.

"Note that having played for another team during any previous season has no effect on whether a player can be placed in the minors. Since the player was not eligible for retention, all owners would must have had a chance to acquire the player via draft or trade."

This makes the fact that I can't review service time for previous seasons irrelevant.

Summary

This preserves almost all of our original rules, including the changes already put in play by Ryan and Bob. It tightens Ryan's rule to meet Bob's (i.e. you, as an owner, must retain the player to gain that second year of eligibility), meeting the outline discussed directly by Ryan, Bob, and Matt.

The "check for eligibility before the beginning of the off-season" allows for the second year of eligibility with minimal additional overhead on the part of the commissioner.

It incorporates Bob's suggestions regarding penalties and current year eligibility requirements, namely strongly disincenting the "ferrying" of players from active roster to minors.

Bob did mention that he personally wouldn't have a problem with picking up dropped, "started" minor leaguers and having another franchise pick them up and potentially keep them. I don't particularly have a problem with this, and if someone wants to suggest that as a friendly amendment, I would accept.

It does not address the fact that a player can, at once, have exhausted his eligibility for the Rookie of the Year award and still not have an every day job. That's just one of the possibilities that we face as owners, I feel.

You can always tell if a user can be picked up and placed in the minors, by use of their stats page and their service time page during the current year. Consequently, it is policable by the the commissioner directly.

Owners are particularly incented to acquire players while they are still eligible for the Rookie of the Year award, and are particularly incented not to place them in their active lineups.

Voting