No draft pick compensation will be allowed to any SOT team for a player lost to NL via FA or Traded to NL unless the player was

1.  On your keeper List entering the season

2.  Drafted  onto your 24 (20 farm) roster.

This would eliminate teams from picking up players who may qualify late in the year just to get a draft pick the following year.

This would take effect in 2013.

Thoughts/Comments/Concerns?

MLB and MiLB Players lost to NL

• WAR (Offense) has replaced VORP

o        Compensation rewarded at end of 2^nd rd

§         Higher the WAR, higher the pick if multiple guys qualify

§         Milb, the higher the rank the better the pick

o        Top 3 at each IF position and DH

o        Top 10 OF

o        Top 20 SP

o        Top 5 RP

• Milb, we will use top 100 from the following:

o        Keith Law

o        Sickles

o        BA

o        BP

• Name just has to appear on one of these lists
• Top 100 is mix of AL and NL
• Footnote: Once the new season begins, we will use the upcoming year’s list.  For instance, Rizzo and Fuentes would be applied to 2011 lists but they are grandfathered into the voting comp rule of 2010.

Innings pitched

• Minimum IP has been increased to a total of 1200 IP.

o        Increase due to a low starting point to begin with and the addition of the 10^th P.

September Injuries (Josh Hamilton 2010)

• In years past, a player needed to be deemed “shut down for the season” in order to be reserved without a MLB triggering event (DL,minors) in September.
• Last season (example), Josh Hamilton was sat down due to a cracked rib, Texas was adamant he would play the final weekend of the season to shake off rust which he did.  He missed approx 4 weeks due to rib injury but was never officially shut down.
• Rule Change:  If a player is injured in September and it is confirmed he will miss game action, he can be reserved by that teams GM.

o        Once reserved, player is shut down for the season.

o        Rest, family issues and poor production do not apply.

• Good: “Josh Hamilton has bruised ribs and is expected to miss the weekend series at Seattle” – Can be reserved.
• Not Good: “Vin Mazzaro has been struggling finding the strike zone; pitching coach Dave Duncan confirmed the team will skip his next start”.  Cannot be reserved.
• Spirit of the rule change is to allow team’s roster flexibility to compete in September.

SPICE Draft

• In 2010, SOT implemented a rule change to allow replacements for guys put on the DL week one have their stats count retro to opening day.  Unknown at the time is that this created the need to two transaction periods due to salary implications and priority impact.
• In 2011, most teams begin their season on Friday.  This reduces the need to have stats retro when we weigh that impact vs. the ability to have the spice draft same day as the draft.
• Rule Change: In a unanimous decision, league voted to return to the original spice draft set up where DL guys and pre-arb guys are reserved.

o        Draft order will mirror SOT draft order

o        Week 2 priority will be set based off the amount of moves made in the spice draft.

Hold vs. Saves

• The 2010 WM rule to combine holds and saves as one master category worth 16pts was overturned.
• New rule, saves will remain at 1pt and holds will be worth .75 pts

o        Holds:

§         1^st 6

§         2^nd 5.25

§         3^rd 4.5

§         4^th 3.75

§         5^th 3

§         6^th 2.25

§         7^th 1.50

§         8^th .75

Salary

• Players who we cannot find a salary for (J Benoit) will have a salary of 500k.
• COTTS will be used to look at minor league guys who have major league salary (Viceado)
• COTTS will be used to best ability pre-draft if AP is not out yet.

o        Best practices will be used.

Items not approved

1.       Category rule changes proposed by WTNY and TRC

a.       Increase and decrease values and OBP

2.       NET SB

a.       All NET items were not approved

3.       Ability to trade cap space

“A player may be assigned to any position at which he appeared in 20 or more games in the preceding season. If a player did not appear in 20 games at a single position, he may be drafted only at the position at which he appeared most frequently. Once the season is under way a player becomes eligible for assignment to any position at which he has appeared at least twice. A player selected for the UT may qualify at any batting position. Position eligibility for players who played in the majors the previous season is well-documented and easily determined. For rookies, the League Commish will research eligibility based on minor league appearances, and in some cases, the Commish will research the players major league appearances and combine the two stat lines. All owners are invited to help in this eligibility determination effort. As of 2008, players are eligible to be drafted at positions they’ve played PRIOR to draft day, assuming they’ve played at least 5 games(WM 09) at the qualifying position. Also, the “Miggy Rule” allows teams to use positional stats from games played on the Saturday of Draft Day, but only in games played prior to teams drafting players.

If the previous season is not a full 162-game season, a player qualifies at any position at which he played 10% of the available games (rounded normally). Thus, for 1994, that would be a player who played 113*.10=11.3 or 11 games, and for 1995 that would be 144*.10 or 14. [1995 rule change that we all hope is moot in the future.]

• Minor League players and those playing between the minor and MLB eligibility will be determined by combining all the games played at each level to determine position eligibility.

The section in Red is where I/we are wrong.   We’ve been using not a full 162-game season for players who were injured for part of the year, or in the minors.

I believe we should vote to change the current way we are treating this rule, and implement to rule as written above.

For example,

Brian Roberts only played 100 games last year.  89 at 2b and 11 at C.   In the past, Roberts would be awarded eligible at 2b & C.   Going forward he would be only eligible at 2b since he played over 20 games there and didn’t play 20 at C.

Jed Lowrie played 30 games in 2010.   18 at SS, 4 at 3b, 4 at 2b, and 4 C.   Under the old rules, Lowrie would be eligible at all positions since he played over 10% of his games at each position.    Under the new rule, Lowrie would only be eligible at the position he played that most since he didn’t play any one position 20 games.    Lowrie would be SS eligible only.

Thoughts/Comments/Concerns

A) Lost MLB player compensation
Compensation for MLB players lost should be same as minor league players lost. Rd and pick, remove the two outliers, then take the average.

B) Tiebreaker
How do we resolve a league vote that ends in a 4-4 tie? (current commish discretion)

Similar to MLB, I propose we incorporate player options on guys who are rookie eligible (…or maybe open it up to players with less than 3 years of service time?).  As it stands now, we have a rule in place that allows teams to reserve players on draft day with less than 6 years of service time.  The one player that still isn’t protected in my opinion is the rookie.  Once you activate a rookie, he’s on your roster all year, unless the MLB team sends him back down or he’s injured.  This discourages teams from activating young pitchers because they’re afraid of poor results without the option of sending him down to your farm.  The other fear is having the player get shut down in Sept, and you’re now stuck.  Lastly, if you activate a young player during the regular season, and he gets sent down, but called up during Sept roster expansion, you’re screwed.  Player options could eliminate these problems.  I propose three total player options per player.

SOT teams are allowed one reserve list (for injured players (Colon), players that have 6 or less years of MLB service time). However those players must occupy a roster spot on the day of the SOT Draft and can then be reserved after the regular draft is finished. A transaction draft will then take place open roster spots will be filled. Stats for players selected in the transaction draft do not count for first scoring period.
Proposed Rule:

Instead of allowing players with 6 or less years of MLB  service time qualify here, I propose we move it to 3 or less years of MLB service time.  In my opinion, players between 3-6 years should either be on your active roster, on your reserved list due to an injury, or a free agent.  I don’t know if teams reserved players between 3-6 last year, but it looks like a loop hole.

*$50 per team (paid at the wm)

*12 squares each picked at the wm

*4 wildcard squares (will be the remaining unclaimed squares)

*$100 pay out with end of quarter score winner

*For every wildcard square winner we pull a team name out of a hat at the draft to decide the winner

Everyone in?