2/25/2008-

Just a friendly reminder regarding the auction and keeper list info:

Keeper lists are due by 12:00 ET (noon) on Sunday March 9th - exactly one week before the auction.  Your lists must include:

-the players you are keeping w/ salary info

-the contracts you are signing them to (if nec.)

-the minor league players you are keeping

Please email your list to gmdskeepers2008@gmail.com.  I will also send the league a reminder email from this account so you can simply reply to that email.  I would image by 1PM et, I'll have the league's list of protect players. 

Note: You can send your list as early as you like.  I'll only check the account to make sure all lists have been delivered, but will not open any of the messages until noon on the 9th.  However (from the constitution) - should a team fail to submit their keeper list in time or realizes they made a mistake on their list, the commissioners will have sole discretion to modify that list.  And, should a team not clearly list the minor league players and draft picks they are keeping, it will be assumed that the minor league players will take preference over draft picks (so if a team has 6 minor league players and 3 draft picks, their bottom two picks will not be kept).  So it is obviously in your best interest to get your list in on time. 

As for the auction... 

March 16 - 12:00PM ET

208 Harbor Drive - 4th Floor

Stamford, CT 06906. 

For those won't be at the draft please call in via this number: 866-816-7511

and use conference code: 7105527411

It's hard to believe the auction is less than 3 weeks away at this point...

Good luck with everyone's keeper lists.

-Adam

2008 State of the League

12/26/2007

All –

After a busy off-season filled with plenty of rules, roles and owner changes there’s plenty to report. Hopefully this email will answer any outstanding questions about the off-season that you may have (Kwan – I know it’s rather long, but please try to get all the way through it) and the rest of the off-season can be spent trading keepers and preparing for the auction. So let’s get straight to it:

• New owners – as I’m sure all of you probably already know by now, Rishi will not be returning to the league next year. As one of the founding fathers of the league it was clear to both Rishi and me and Gary that he would no longer be able to dedicate the time and effort that’s required into the league and in his own words “the league deserves an owner that will put his or her (kidding - we all know women can't play fantasy baseball) heart and soul in it”. His wit, creative poll creating ability and devotion to the league will certainly be missed.

• Rishi’s legacy will also continue to grow as we are bringing in not one, but two new owners to replace him. Please welcome Doni Stern and Chaim Wachtel to the league who will be taking over the team formally know as the New York Grey Hate as co-owners. Both come highly recommended from the Israeli contingent of the league and have many years of fantasy baseball experience under their belts. Doni describes himself as “an overall sports nut” and is 34 years old & married w/ 3 kids. Working for a software company that develops solutions for cell phones, he still finds the time to play both fantasy baseball and football and has been playing in a league with Ken for the last 5 years. Chaim is a 34 year old biologist and just finished his post-doc at Columbia University and moved back to Israel where he is doing a second post-doc(!). Also married, but with two kids he’s a 3rd generation Yankee fan (just what we need to balance out all the red sox fans in the league) who moved out of NY in 1996 – just in time to miss all the Yankee Championships! Ken has volunteered to show them the ropes of the league so expect that while they’ll be ready and up to speed once we begin trading (more on that below), but that they’ll also be overly excited about Willy Mo Pena and have a propensity to keep starting pitchers with a shaky injury record. Chaim’s email address is cwachtel@yahoo.com and Doni’s is donistern@gmail.com. Trade offers and other communications can be sent to either one or both of them.

• Roles – as you all already know – Burr has stepped down from the commissioner’s post. He will remain as the league treasurer however. All league fees should be paid to him and all prize moneys will be paid from him.

• There have been plenty of rule changes that will take effect for the new season with the biggest being the implementation of FAAB. For those that don’t know what FAAB is, it is a replacement for the waiver system that we currently use to add or drop players. Essentially every un-owned player is run through an auction on a daily basis (there is a two waiting period when a player is first dropped however). Teams start with a $100 budget and submit blind bids on any player they want to add – bids can range from $0 to $100. The team with the highest bid “wins” that player and is added to their roster.
-$100 starting FAAB budget
-$0 bids are allowed
-FAAB will run daily
-2 day wait period before players can be bid on
-Players added via FAAB will have a salary of $5 or will retain their previous salary – whichever is higher. 
- Tie breaks will be decided by the FAAB order which will originally be set as the reverse of last year’s standings. In the case of a tie the team with the higher position will be awarded the player and that team will be dropped to the bottom of the FAAB order. 
- No trading of FAAB dollars are allowed
- In the case of an illegal pickup (i.e. the acquired player will put them over the salary cap) that team will lose the pick and will be dropped to the bottom of the faab order. The commissioners will do their best to determine the next highest bid and will manually place that player on that team. 
- Should a team make a trade after the FAAB auction is run but before the lineups lock for the day which leaves them without enough players to make their lineup legal they will be granted a one day waiver of the lineup eligibility rule (i.e. they can play that day with less than the correct amount of players – no stats will be given for the empty spots however).

• The $5 bump for players traded in-season will be lowered to $3. In-season will mean “any trade made after the lineups lock on the first day of the MLB season through the gammonsonian diamonds trading deadline. Trades made on opening day but before the line-ups lock will not be considered in-season. In the event that games are played outside the country before the rest of the league begins play ( i.e. two teams open in Japan while the rest of the league continues spring training), the date of the first game that counts in the standings will be considered opening day, regardless of when it is played or when the rest of the league begins play.”

• Players dropped in the last year of a long term contact will no longer have a $3 penalty against next year’s auction. There will continue to be a $3 penalty against the in-season salary cap. The penalties for players not in the last year will remain the same ($3 x each year left on the contract for both the auction and the in-season cap. i.e. dropping a 2/4 contract will have a $6 penalty).

• For the first time, we’ll impose a minimum activity standard for all teams. Teams will be expected to: 
- Maintain and adjust their line-ups on at least a weekly basis so that players that are not currently active (suspended, injured or on the DL) do not remain in their active lineup. 
- Remove players from their team’s IR list within 48 of that player coming off the DL
- Meet the minimum innings pitched limit
- Respond to communications from the rest of the league
If teams do not meet these activity standard they will receive a warning from the commissioners. If they continue to not meet these standards they will not be invited back to the league the following year. Exceptions will be made for special circumstances.

• There will no changes to the LTC structure, the order of the reserve draft, the timing of the minor league draft or the trade deadline.
• Additionally players that are minor league eligible and are selected both in the auction and minor league draft will still be awarded based on the status of the teams "opening day roster". We have however clarified the opening day roster to mean
"the 25 players on the active roster once that player's team plays the team's first game (as noted on mlb.com). This does not include players on the DL, in the minor leagues, suspended or otherwise not active for the opening day game. In the event that a player is traded before one team's first game to a team that has already played their first game that player will be considered to have not made the opening day roster"

• Finally, a clarification of the responsibilities of the trade committee has been added. This will read:

“The Trade Committee will oversee all trades during the regular season and will be charged with the responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the league by overturning trades which are clearly against the better interests of the league (collusion, deadbeat owner dumps, etc). The committee should not make judgments based on the impact of the trade to the standings or a perceived value of a player. 4 votes are required to overturn a trade. In the event that a committee member (or 2) is involved in the trade they will not have a vote and 3 (or 2) votes would be required to overturn a trade."

If anyone wants to see the results of the voting on these issues you can go to the voting page at www.gammonsoniandiamonds.com/polls.aspx .

Also, I’d like to thank everyone in the trade committee for their work discussing and debating each of these changes. It was no easy task talking about, voting on and writing 8 rules in less than a month. But everyone voiced their opinion if they had one, was respectful of other peoples opinions and more importantly voted quickly. Thanks also go out to the rest of the league for their patience and understanding as we hashed everything out. I recognize it’s not always easy being the dark as changes are happening around you, but hopefully everything we’ve done in the past 30 days will lead to a better and smoother season for everyone.

And now it’s time to focus solely on our teams for 2008 – as of January 1 the gammonsonian trading machine will be open for business. Within the next few hours minor league draft picks will be added to each team’s roster which are tradable commodities. Please keep in mind however, that there is a limit of 7 total minor league spots (and two MFS). You could either have 7 minor league players, 7 draft picks or any combination of the two – as long as it adds up to 7. If you have more than that you’ll have to make it clear what will be protected when the keeper lists are due (unless you are one of the most improved winners, then you have 1 extra spot).

The 2007 results have already been archived so trades can be made and accepted through the normal CBS trading mechanism.

The draft date is set for Sunday March 16th, 2008 and while we still need to confirm a location (Las Vegas, Arizona or Connecticut) we’ll continue to have it wherever we’ll have the most owners physically present. We will have a conference call-in number though for those that can not attend.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions regarding anything above or anything that wasn’t mentioned. And finally - good luck to everyone in the upcoming season!

-Adam