Ruleset discussion

I'm going to walk through the ruleset and describe the thinking that's going on.

1. GENERAL

1.1 I've expanded the roster. This is done mostly to avoid in-season acquisitions. Even though many of us in this league live and die by the waiver wire, if we have to start considering salary implications, etc., of every waiver pick up, it becomes a TON of work for someone. I'm willing to play the role of accountant, but I shouldn't have to be doing piles of calculations every week. Hopefully a 40-man roster will help this.

1.2 I suggested in my head a budget of $265: $10 per UC, and $1 per draftee. The league minimum, therefore, is $1. I think it's worthwhile to have bonuses for performance--top five finishers get some kinds of scale of rewards, and we could have other rewards, like, say, for "most-improved" or something.

Also, I think the money should be delivered in two sums so that owners have money with which to play toward the end of the season--say blowing half their budget on late-season acquisitions, at the risk of not being able to keep those players under contract the following year.

1.3 I can imagine that auctioning 400 players would take a whole weekend. As a result, I came up with the idea of two types of players: auctioned contract players and drafted "free" players. The idea is that one drafts players who are young or who are serious reserves--third catchers and the like. Basically like whom you would expect to find on the 40-man of a real team.

2. PLAYER MANAGEMENT

2.1 This part is clearer. Obviously players' status shouldn't change over the course of the year.

2.2 Also clear. In my head, I think there should be a 10% raise for players, but that can be discussed--we could have escalators based on length of contract (10% a year, but a 50% hop in the fourth yeah, say), but I like a blanket 10%, since it makes accounting easier.

2.3 I think that the draft is where we can hide prospects who might not even be in the yahoo system or players who aren't full-time yet, etc. As such, they should be "free" to the owner. After three years, though, the owner has to decide what to do with the player--and if he wants to keep him, then he needs to promote him by putting him under contract (and retroactively paying him $1 for his third year).

I somehow worry, though, that owners will abuse this system and ride players raw for free :) As such, any drafted player can be put under contract by a different owner during the auction. In other words, no drafted player is safe at auction time. That encourages the draft's remaining a place for RESERVES, not starters. Starters should be under contract. That's why, on the flip side, a drafted player can be promoted to UC at ANY time by the owner... So say you draft Papelbon, and he kicks ass. You know he'll be nominated by someone the next year at the auction, so you might as well promote him and put him under contract yourself for $1, thereby avoiding having to auction for him.

3. AUCTION

This should be very clear.

4. SUPPLEMENTAL PLAYER DRAFT

Also clear. I know that the keeper system seems busted (forfeiting your lowest picks, instead of your highest), but considering that any drafted player can be auctioned off the next year, it's unlikely that there will be much value in the draft at any time. I could be wrong.

5. MINI-AUCTION

Hopefully with a 40-man roster, there won't be tons of mid-season acquisition, but if there is, I think this sort of three-day auction is a pretty good way to do things--it's like a waiver wire claim period, but with cash instead of waiver position. I imagine these will get much more exciting during the second half of the season, once the all-star break cash dump is made.