Possible Rule Change

[Demreb]

Hi Guys -

I talked with Matt B. yesterday to see if I fully understood the Bentel Proposal (and YES I actually was involved in all the conversations between Bentel & Bentel, I apparently just didn't remember all the salient details).

Here's the deal.

Matt and I discussed and proposed that if a player (let's call him Felix Pie) gets called up AFTER Opening Day, 2007, the Rebels could activate him. His contract would change from M to D+ (for lack of a better idea). So for 2007 his contract is D+. At the end of the year his contract moves to D. IF he is on the Cubs roster going into 2008 OR he is in the minors, his CFCL contract is D.

At the start of 2009 he is a C, then the following year he's an X, etc. This basically buys the CFCL owner a few extra months (unless Pie is brought up on April 4th, then the Rebels get a whole year) to evaluate the talent while on an active CFCL roster.

Pie's clock would still start ticking in 2007 (just like by the old rules if the Rebels activate him) we've just moved the starting line back a few feet.

Now we can explore all sorts of possibilities with contingent rules. If we have the D+ option, do we even need an accumulation of AB/IP? If we kept the AB/IP totals, that may drag the player's activation out even longer -- Pie gets called up in 2007, but plays sparingly (100 ABs). Rebels don't activate him so he stays an M. In 2008 he's called up, Rebels activate him (assuming he'll get 30 ABs) and his D+ starts then.

Maybe it's six of one, half dozen of the other. I'm sure you all have ideas on this.

If you don't like the proposal, that's cool. I just wanted to make sure you didn't like it for the right reasons.

[MGrage]

Well, I'm not too sure that's a really good idea either without any IP/AB limits. One could theoretically keep a player as an M contract for years without activating him. What's to stop me from keeping Troy Tulowitzke or Steven Drew on reserve as an M contract until their year 27 seasons? I could skip their first couple of mediocre seasons as they gain experience in the Majors and work through the kinks. Then I could control their best years at a minimum of expense. Mahalo

Matt

[Copperfields]

Rich and Matt B.,
Thanks for the clarification. That makes things a little clearer.

Just to confirm my current understanding based on this, the ultimate intent of this proposal is NOT to 1) extend the length of time owners get to keep their former M-contract players NOR to 2) delay the LTC decision. Instead, it is to allow an M-contract player who is called up mid-season to appear on his CFCL team's roster without necessarily start his contract clock ticking.

In some sense, then, this is a different way of handling Reserve List Rot -- allowing teams to activate players without the "penalty" of moving toward the LTC decision.

If that's the case, then, as the Grand Whumpkin (or whatever they call they guy who answers the door at the Emerald City) says, that's a horse of a different color. This seems to have a little something for everyone who chimed in on this discussion.

• For me, there's the reduction of Reserve List Rot,
  
• For Steve, there's the benefit/cost aspect -- you can activate the player right away and while his contract might not start ticking immediately, it will kick over to D the next year when it might otherwise have not done so if you hadn't activated him,
  
• For Nick, there's the elimination of the "free ride" aspect of my alternate proposal - there's no possibility of returning to an M contract once the player is active,
  

About the only person who it doesn't address is Matt G., who lobbied for extending the AB/IP limits.

That's not to say I don't have some concerns/question about this rephrased proposal, though.

1. This latest post doesn't mention the May 15th date that the original post does . However, I think it's important to have some kind of date prior to which the D+ provision would not be available -- I don't think we should allow an owner to get nearly a full season's worth of stats out of this arrangement. In fact, I'd lobby for setting the date later than May 15 -- maybe June 30, or even July 15. I think a half a season bonus on the front end of an M-player's career is reasonable. To provide much more would be going a bit far, IMO.

2. I think we still need to retain the AB/IP limits. Without them a team could decide not to take advantage of the D+ provision and just leave the player on Reserve for 4 years until he's Miguel Cabrera in his prime. {EDIT: Matt was much quicker (and succinct) with his reply this morning. In regards to this point - what he said.} There still needs to be some point at which the contract kicks in immediately if the player isn't activated, and I think our current limits are just about right. If we set the qualification date correctly, it would eliminate the type of concern Rich expressed in his Pie example above.

3. This isn't mentioned, but I assume that this provision will be available only while the player is still on an M contract, right? In other words Rich couldn't leave Pie reserved for his first 200 major league at bats, and then, after his contract has kicked over to D (assuming the AB/IP limits are still in place), activate him and then get the D+ benefit? In order to stay true to Steve's risk/benefit equation, I feel (strongly) that the D+ benefit should only be available if the owner takes the risk of activating the player prior to being on a D contract.

4. There's no mention this time around of the player not being eligible for a D+ contract if he's traded. I don't see a problem with D+ eligibility travelling with the player if he's traded as an M.

All that being said, I'm not sure I'd be in favor of the proposal, as I still think it's trying to fix something that I'm not convinced is broken.

I do like the fact that it's an incentive for owners to avoid Reserve List Rot. From that perspective I might support it as long as 1) we retained the current AB/IP limits, 2) it was available only for players who are activated after a date no earlier than June 30.

What does everyone else (anyone else?) think of this new explanation from the Bentel Boys?

[Demreb]

I know David was looking for response from the REST of the league, but I thought I would chime in on a couple of his ideas/concerns.


- I think that we have agreed (Matt B and I) that the trading of the player is allowed with D+ opportunity still intact as long as the trade is done as an M contract.

- When I mentioned that we may not need AB/IP limits, I was thinking that we may have the ML automatically move to D+ once he's brought up by the major league team. I don't think I like that, I was just thinking out loud. If we don't have that provision then we need an AB/IP requirement.

- If the player (Pie) exceeds the AB limit, his contract moves to D without possibility of D+. Now of course an alert owner will recognize that Pie's ABs are at 120 in August and activate Pie to benefit from the D+. Of course if that happens, the owner is pretty stupid for letting 120 ABs go by without benefit.

- I agree with David that this proposal meets Steve's "consequences" issue. If Pie gets called up and I activate him in 2007, he has 100 Corey Patterson ABs and thus the Cubs feel that in 2008 he needs more "seasoning", I have to decide to cut him going into 2008 or keep him on my active roster through the Draft and then reserve him.

- I understand David's point of wanting a "can't activate earlier than X date", but I'm not sure I agree. What happens if (and this happened with Prior and Wood a few years back) Pie has a great spring (remember when Prior and Wood had great rookie springs?) and the Cubs send him to the minors to start the season (because they [the Cubs] say he's not ready, but they don't want his Free Agent clock to tick too early). Then they call him up late April, early May. Let's say the CFCL rule says he can't be D+ activated until July 1st. Between late April and July 1st Pie has 200 ABs. I just lost my D+ option even though I wasn't try to play any games with the system. We would either need to raise the ABs or reduce the activation date.

OR (just thought of this) if the above scenario plays out, it could mean that most of the time we're dealing with a STUD (David Wright, Albert Pujols, etc) so the owner really doesn't need an extra few months to evaluate talent.

In talking with Matt B he commented that the purpose of the proposal was to allow owners to evaluate middle talent (Corey Hart?) not the David Wrights of the world.

[Copperfields]

demreb said:

What happens if ... Pie has a great spring and the Cubs send him to the minors to start the season. Then they call him up late April, early May. Let's say the CFCL rule says he can't be D+ activated until July 1st. Between late April and July 1st Pie has 200 ABs. I just lost my D+ option even though I wasn't try to play any games with the system.

I thought about this scenario as well. My reaction to it was similar to Rich's second thought -- not necessarily that the player is a "stud", but that if he comes up in April and passes the AB/IP limit within a couple months, he's not the type of player this proposal is targeting (the Corey Harts, to use the proposal poster boy). For example, if a player comes up in mid-April and accumulates 130 AB in the 2.5 months before July 1, that puts him on pace for over 300 AB by the end of the season. That's more AB in a rookie season than Corey Hart has accumulated in his entire career (three seasons) to this point.

As I noted above, I can understand giving a little front-end extension to the contract of mid-range minor leaguers, but would draw the line at allowing a nearly full season of free stats to every M-contract player - studs and all.

I think we need to avoid falling into the trap of looking at this the way some people look at X contracts -- an automatic "bonus" to be used on every single M contract player, as opposed to an option to be used in certain situations (as it's intended).

This would (hopefully) eliminate the concerns that Nick and The Professor have expressed about tying up the premiere talent even longer than we allow now - the Wrights, Cabreras, Howards, etc. would probably never qualify.

[Copperfields]

Ok guys, 5 people voted to keep this discussion going, but for the past couple weeks it's been a 2-or-3 person conversation ... and two of them are people who voted to stop the discussions. Where are the rest of you who feel talks should continue?

If we're going to end up with a final proposal to vote on, we'll need to decide the following (and maybe more):
- Is there a date prior to which this option should not be available?
- If so, what?
- Do we keep the AB/IP limits where they are?

My input on these is in Reply #17 above, and Rich has responded to that. What does everyone else think?

[Nick's Picts (archived)]

I was one of those who voted "nay" on the last ballot. As such, I am trying to stay out of the conversation because I don't want to unduly influence the folks who are interested in putting together a proposal. Obviously there is some desire to see this idea through to a concrete proposal and, if it sounds reasonable, there is some possibility of me voting for it. However, if I were to start chiming in now I don't think there is a whole lot of constructive insight I could add. I don't think the current system is broken. I think this proposal isn't so much about evaluating player talent as it is waiting for an MLB team to solidify playing time before a CFCL owner locks up a player for a long-term contract. The more David talks about avoiding roster rot, the more I become convinced of his concern but I don't see any way this can be avoided without shifting game play in the CFCL away from auctions + roster management toward scouting A ball and hitting the lotto.

All of that to say that my silence is geared toward letting a proposal develop without accidentally poisoning it.

[Splinters]

It is perhaps too little and too late for me to get involved in the discussion, but I thought that I would add my 2 cents.

When the issue was first raised, my initial reaction was in support of the concept based on (i) the belief that an owner should be rewarded for their scouting and retaining minor leaguers, and (ii) when in doubt, make our game as close as possible to the structure of the real game - MLB teams rewarded for developnig young talent by having the pre-arbitration years with arbitration eligibility based on service time calculations much more accurate than our system.

The more I have thought about the issue, however, I am concerned about the effects on our game of giving teams more advantages based on development of cheap talent. Regardless of the intent for implementing M contracts and the associated rules (I was not part of the league at the time), I want to echo Nick's concerns that we would be further "shifting game play in the CFCL away from auctions + roster management toward scouting A ball and hitting the lotto."

As a result, regardless of how accurate and justifiable the proposal becomes, I would be against the proposal out of concern that we may be diminishing the importance of the auction and roster management.

[redhots]

My initial response was in support of the concept.....like Teddy stated and I posted as such.......due to the fact that I do believe owners should be rewarded for scouting talent and grabbing/holding onto that talent. The more I have observed the discussions and thought on the issue I have almost come full circle. It really isn't broke and it is a sufficient system for the majority of M contract players. The X contract helps with the exceptions. I would hate to take away from the value of the auction and roster management.

I voted to keep the discussion going because I was still thinking on the issue and was curious if anyone else had any input or ideas. Currently I am leaning heavily toward no change at this time.

Just my .02

[davidsruffins (archived)]

I also voted to continue discussion; it's in my egalitarian nature. Who refuses to talk? Fascists that's who -- fascists and U.S. Senators. So basically, my vote to continue talking was a vote against fascism.

With that out of the way, I'm on board with the various points made by Nick, Teddy, and Bob. This is an interesting set of solutions that is ultimately in search of a problem.

God bless America.

[stones]

davidsruffins said:

This is an interesting set of solutions that is ultimately in search of a problem.

Besides being rather humorous, the Prof. says it str8.