Expansion for 2014?

[kennruby]

Long and short of it: I'd say according to our constitution that the Executive Committee needs to discuss how this will work and, once they have, present it to the rest of the league and put it to a vote that will last approximately three days. I see five teams (Rebels, Clowns, Beatniks, Bulls, and Kenndoza) who have actively been discussing it the last few days, with the Killers commenting a few weeks ago and three others (DoorMatts, Revenge, and Ruffins) not commenting, at least publicly.

If/when it goes to a vote, we'd need five votes to pass, and anybody not showing up to vote (I really hope everyone does) would be considered a "yes" vote.

There's no need for anyone to get personal - we have rules in place for precisely these reasons, and if the vote passes, there would be no hard feelings, at least not from me.

[Demreb]

Kenn - I never directly responded to your comment earlier. None of the comments, whether from an owner who agrees or disagrees with me, have I taken personally. I know this is all discussion about league issues and direction.

Additionally I appreciate any and all of the comments acknowledging the work I put into the league. But honestly this league is really run by the majority of the owners. For fear of leaving anyone out, the Clowns handle OnRoto, the Bulls handle draft day free agent pool sheets, the Clowns, Rebels, Ruffins, Revenge and Beatniks have held down EC responsbilities. Without any of those entities doing their thing, the league would suffer. It wouldn't disappear, but it would suffer. And that doesn't even address the owners (Kennoza Line and DoorMatts specifically) who are in the shadows providing excellent support, ideas and comments to keep the league on the straight and narrow.

The thing that's bugging me is the self-serving comments I'm hearing. "But if we expand here's how it will affect my team." IT WILL AFFECT EVERYONE'S TEAM!!!

If we have to cut down to 14 players, WE ALL HAVE TO CUT DOWN TO 14 PLAYERS. The new teams would be gathering from the available players with the same October 2013 knowledge we all have.

Not to pick on Kenn, but to use his example. If he exposes Darin Ruf, a new owner may snap him up (Ruf, not Kenn). But that owner is taking a chance based on the knowledge that he and Kenn have as of October 2013. Certainly Kenn could make a more informed decision in March 2014 on whether to expose Ruf or not. But in October the new owner would not have March 2014 knowledge to know whether Ruf will be any good.

We are all affected the same way. Now some of us may think we have a ton more talented keepers than other teams, but that's subjective. Coming out of last season I thought Mike Stanton was the next Baseball God. Then during the off-season he goes and changes his name, the Marlins trade everyone with any talent and Stanton injures himself early in the year. He's still talented but not nearly the Baseball God I thought he would be in 2013.

One other thing. We all came in to the league in different ways. Some of us started from scratch. Some drafted from a pool of players. Some took over departing teams. Each of us had the chance to say "I don't want to accept the team on those terms" and walk away. We also have had the chance to walk away after each season if we're not happy with things. There is absolutely no value in comparing how we came into the league with how future owners will come into the league. What's done is done, let's move on.

What we can do is when we have new owners enter, we use as similar as possible entry methods as we've used in the past under the same circumstances.

[mcoulter2008]

So we have three owners chomping at the bit to get in? Seems to me that all that needs to be done is have one more team resign their post and all three can walk right in.

[MGrage]

It seemed to me that you were taking this personally Rich because you started your previous message with a shot at Mike then finished it with a passive aggressive blast at both of us. That's one reason why I avoided writing about any other team in my messages. And why I'm taking so long to craft this post.

I didn't want to ruffle any feathers by comparing and contrasting teams and who'll get hurt more than others. I thought it would bypass any unpleasantness and ill will. But it didn't stop folks from reading into it precisely that.

I never want to cause any trouble and that is very easy to do in an imperfect medium as the Internet. I really didn't like the way the conversation was going yesterday so I avoided it like the plague until well after midnight. I also thought it was premature to try to shut down the thread when we haven't even heard from three pretty active members of the league yet (Dave, Matt & Tim). Two long time owners and an EC member. I'd like to hear their opinions.

Like I said in my first post in this thread, I was on the fence and I voted yes. BTW, I don't have selective memory. I have bad memory. I'm sorry but I had completely forgotten about the circumstances of Kenn's arrival nearly 10 years ago. I didn't even remember much of my own admission into the league until your Get to Know an Owner questionnaire. I'm also horrible with names, birthdays and anniversaries. It's just how I am.

Even now I'm debating internally whether or not to send this in fear of someone taking something the wrong way or being offended by reading in between the lines. Yesterday has really killed my desire to talk about this whole situation ...

PS. Come on, don't go there Mike

[kennruby]

Oct 18, 2013 10:36:39 GMT -5 Demreb said:

What we can do is when we have new owners enter, we use as similar as possible entry methods as we've used in the past under the same circumstances.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, I was not in the league last time this situation occurred (an actual expansion draft, rather than a new team taking over an old team), so I did not even know how it would work until it was stated in various emails this week, and I mistakenly believed until then that it would work differently.

Could I have held up the start of the draft by asking a lot of questions about a potential expansion? I suppose, but I think we all wanted to get the draft going at the time, so potential expansion was more of an abstract idea for quite a while.

I'm not bothered by losing players I think might be good (RUF!), I'm more bothered that the process isn't written down and that it feels like a rule change that did not go through the proper procedures as stated in the constitution.

In my mind, there are two votes we need to do: one, to add the official rules for expansion to the constitution. Two, to vote for whether or not we should expand for 2014. If it helps anyone, I would vote FOR the first item as it has been laid out in various emails and posts, but I would vote AGAINST expansion for 2014 as I feel like it's not fair to the league that the rules weren't in place in time for us to make an informed decision for next year.

I re-read the constitution yesterday, as I do every year (though I think I had been reading an outdated one before yesterday), and it's a lot easier to notice things that are wrong (and there are few) in what's there than to realize what isn't. Not having anything in there about expansion I feel is an oversight that we should be able to rectify.

[Demreb]

Good idea for adding Expansion to the Constitution. We'll have to make sure it's worded specifically enough for teams to have an idea of what to expect, but vaguely enough given that teams leave and enter the CFCL under different circumstances.

Matt - I understand your comment that I was taking things personally with the shots to you and the Clowns. You may be right, I haven't delved deep enough into my inner being to see if that was what was happening. When I responded, in my mind, I was making comments more or less on behalf of the remaining teams in the league who apparently had inferior rosters and wouldn't be nearly as affected by expansion.

And looking back at the responses, Nick was the first to voice an issue. He called out Mike saying that Mike's comments appeared "unseemly" I think is the word he used.

Rather than acknowledge that maybe an unintended insult was levied against other owners, the response was "Well you can pick on me for saying that but I've worked hard to put this team together and don't want to see it come apart unfairly." That's when we were off to the races.

I really believe we are all concerned about the same things. They are being presented in very different styles. And, as Matt mentioned, the Internet sucks for communication. But if that's what we have to use because we all can't convene to discuss things in person everytime an issue arises, all we have to work with are the words typed and the experiences of previous face to face conversations.

It's not perfect and it could lead to more dissention which wouldn't be in the best interest of the league.

Now, as to Kenn's voting suggestions. Good idea with one reservation. Adding verbage to the Constitution about Expansion makes sense as I mentioned above. So we can put that to a vote.

Having a vote about Expansion for 2014 (or 2015 for that matter since if we simply vote no to 2014 we'll be in the same boat next year with me chasing you guys down for 2015 expansion and then someone will say they drafted/traded/FAABed a guy specifically for 2015 and don't want to lose him) is fine, but it's not conclusive.

What we are really voting on is "Are we open to Expansion in 2014 or 2015?" Because we can't vote on actually expanding for two reasons.

1) We don't necessarily have potential owners that want to join. We do have one that has mentioned in the last week they want to join and an application went out to them to essentially be considered to replace the Danger. The other two guys showed interest early in the 2013 season but I haven't spoken with them since because I didn't have any reponse from anyone after Draft Day about Expansion.

2) Let's assume those two guys are interested and they submit applications. I think all of us are feeling a bit injured by the Danger's lack of involvement over the years. So, if we follow Kenn's lead, we will be putting these owners through a very fine filter.

That's good, the way it really should be to keep our league at the level we know that it is at. However, if we decide the two applicants are not a good fit and we politely reject them, then WE WON'T EXPAND. And all this bickering and intentioned or not insults occurred over something that wasn't going to happen anyway.

The minute the "rules" were discussed on how expansion would happen, everyone (or at least some of the owners that bothered to respond) immediately said "Wait, I'm not losing my players". NOTHING WAS IN PLACE YET, yet there we were shoving our sacred treasures into the corner saying "not from my team you don't."

So to be accurate we can't vote to expand because simply saying "we're expanding" doesn't mean we are. There are too many other variables.

I'll post a poll this weekend about the two issues and we can vote and then see where we are.

[morkertt]

I think that, as long as we have active and interested owners, that we should expand.

I think the key here is the thought of "is this best for the CFCL"?
We could create arguments until we are blue in the face around how it could be damaging to our own teams. It's easy to argue that, yes, some teams would be more "hurt" than others. It drains the pool of available players to a new level.

I still think that, given passionate owners, the short term sacrifice is worth what expansion could add to the league in the long run. I enjoy the added challenge of a few more owners to attempt to outwit and will make the winning of a Copperfield Trophy all that much more valuable.

To be honest, I've stayed on the sidelines, feeling that the back and forth has been a turnoff. Not that I'd depart, but, when the CFCL appears more like our Congress than a hobby...

My thinking may be very simple, but, that's how I see it...the problems will work themselves out.

[mcoulter2008]

I'm hesitant to even type in here, as I feel subjected to personalized attacks each time I do, correspondence that only alienates me from what I am in this league in the first place.. But I just think that something that effects owners and the league as deeply as adding two teams and subtracting players from your rosters should have hard-clasp rules in place rather than just arbitrarily throwing out plans and numbers that have not even been discussed by the EC. Has the topic been broached before? Sure...but not in this depth. For example, where did the 14 keeper number come from?

[Copperfields]

Hello All! I stumbled in here by following the link Rich posted in the 30 Years blog. Glad to see the old CFCL passion continues to burn!

I'm not going to stick my nose too far into the league business (in fact, I haven't done a detailed reading the rather lengthy posts that preceded the one below), but I did want to ask Kenn about this:

Oct 18, 2013 7:50:56 GMT -5 kennruby said:

By the way, I got the above from "home.comcast.net/~dmahlan/constitution/const-fm.htm," which I suppose is outdated (how would I know). There is now a PDF on the site (http://home.comcast.net/~dmahlan/constitution/const.pdf) that is different. Maybe that's one of the problems of the constitution...there are at least two floating around.

First - yes, the PDF is the most recent version.

Next, my question is: how did you end up at the link you quoted above? Did you click somewhere on one of the sites that took you there, or was it something you had saved in your bookmarks? The "Constitution" link in the header of the CFCL Internet Headquarters pages points to the PDF, not to the old outdated HTML version. If there's an old link pointing to the HTML, I'll need to remove it. Let me know how you ended up there, Kenn. In the meantime, I'll get rid of that old page so as to avoid confusion (my bad for not doing that to begin with).

Finally, since I'm on a Constitutional vibe, while it's true that the Constitution does not spell out processes and guidelines for running an expansion or dispersal draft, the CFCL does have well-established precedent for how it's run them in the past. While those guidelines may not be easily accessible, they are documented (both in detail in Word docs the Co-Commissioners retained and in summary form in the Draft History section of the website).

While those locations may not ideal (I agree a published supplement to the Constitution may be in order), each situation can be unique ... in some cases one or more team is leaving the league, in others there are only teams being added, etc. So it never made sense to actually "publish" a process that had to be tweaked to fit each specific situation - especially since we had 12 teams at the time and couldn't conceive of expanding beyond that point. Instead, the Co-Commissioners retained the processes used in each previous expansion/dispersal draft and they were reused or adapted as needed to fit the specific situation. As Rich noted, an addition/supplement to the Constitution will need to tread the balance between specifics and generalities.

For the record, the last time the CFCL added franchises (2000), we moved from 10 to 12 teams and each existing team protected 14 players (so, no, Rich didn't pull that number from the ether). In that case, though, there were TWO franchises leaving the league instead of the one in this case, so there were two full rosters available in the player pool (in addition to the unprotected players). Theoretically, current teams should protect fewer than 14 players to meet the standard set in previous expansions.

[Copperfields]

Oct 18, 2013 3:54:25 GMT -5 MGrage said:

Has the CFCL ever had 12 teams in a 15 team NL? I don't think it has.

Hi Matt - yes, the CFCL had 12 teams from 2000-2008, when there were 15 NL teams.

Regarding league size in general, when we lost two teams after the 2008 season, it was always the intent to move back to 12 once viable candidates were found. The thought was that we'd rather play at a less-than-complete level with a solid set of owners than play full-size but with a couple of slugs we picked up to make up the numbers.

Speaking of numbers, the move of the Astros to the AL shouldn't be a concern, as the CFCL has actually been playing extremely light for a number of years now. At the time of the last MLB expansion, when the NL ended up with 16 teams compared with the 14 in the AL, the Rotisserie League Constitution expanded the active roster of an "official" NL ultra league to 25 players. That year and the following (1998 and 1999), the CFCL actually played with 27-man active rosters (17 reserved), since we had 10 teams rather than the 12 stipulated in the Constitution. When we expanded to 12 teams in 2000, for some reason we reverted to 23-man rosters rather than the Constitutionally-correct 25.

Anyway, the move of the Astros to the AL, just brings the CFCL closer to being in line with a standard NL roto league (proportionally-speaking), though it's still two franchises short of that.

The official Roto League Constitution specifies that ultra leagues should aim to acquire 80% of available talent in the auction, while the CFCL Constitution sets the bar a little lower than that, at "approximately 70%".

The CFCL hit that mark through 2008 (auctioning 69% of players), and as noted above has been light from 2009 on (auctioning 58% until 2013, and 61% last season with the removal of the Astros from consideration).

I don't mention that as any kind of recommendation, just thought I'd mention it since the claims of a thin talent pool seemed a bit odd. It could be the league has adjusted to the shallower penetration over the past five seasons and the current depth of use of the player pool is a good fit for where the is CFCL now.

[kennruby]

I'll respond to David's two messages together here.

1) I'm all for deep leagues. I think the thing with the Astros was more or less an opportunity to make fun of how bad the Astros are. That said, a 12-team league with only 15 NL teams has never been done in the CFCL, as there have only been exactly 15 teams in the NL for a year (or is it two?), so this is new territory. I'm looking forward to it (hopefully in 2015).

2) I don't think the "14" number came out of nowhere either - I knew there was a reason for it - I just had never seen it before, mostly because I wasn't in the league in 2000, and I didn't see it in the constitution.

3) Even if the expansion methods are always sort of different every time, there's no harm in creating some kind of standard and then adding language of the nature of "the EC, with the input of the rest of the league, can make adjustments for expansion scenarios not specifically outlined above."

4) As for how did I find the outdated constitution? Google, my friend! I don't have the CFCL bookmarked on my work computer, and I didn't have the URL memorized, so usually I google "CFCL Mahlan" to find it. When Google gives me that option, it also puts - close to the top - the constitution. Hey, that's what I was looking for this time, might as well just click on THAT link instead. There you go.

[Copperfields]

Oct 21, 2013 17:56:48 GMT -5 kennruby said:

That said, a 12-team league with only 15 NL teams has never been done in the CFCL, as there have only been exactly 15 teams in the NL for a year

Ooops - you're spot on Kenn, absolutely correct. The last time there were 12 CFCL teams, the NL had 16 franchises, not 15 (so Matt, you were correct in your original post as well).

Oddly enough, despite misstating the number of teams, I correctly calculated the depth of player pool penetration (69%). 12 CFCL teams in a Astro-less NL would be 74%.

Thanks for catching that, Kenn, and also for the info on the bad Constitution link. I've updated that page to load the corrected PDF version, so it should be good from now on.

[headruffin]

Sorry to be so late to the party. It took me the better part of the weekend to get through all the posts. I foolishly thought that I could sit down and post something quickly. That, obviously, couldn't happen.

And thanks to everyone for taking the time to provide their thoughts -- even when they got a bit testy at times. Kenn's right. This is a big deal. And, btw, I assure everyone that my silence had nothing to do with disinterest. A variety of deadlines, both teaching and research related, conspired to keep me away from the discussion. Sorry about that.

Sorry also if I've missed something to which I should have responded. My comments below are provided under the assumption that, as Rich wrote in an earlier post, expansion is off the table for this off-season. Here goes.

Given the amount of virtual ink spilled on this, it's obvious we need language in the Constitution to deal with the decision to expand. Before we even get to that point, however, I think we first need to decide what the preferred size of the CFCL should be. I think we should expand beyond 10, but I'm not sure whether the ideal number of franchises is 11 or 12. I'm leaning toward 11, in light of the Astros's departure, but could be convinced that 12 is better. In any case, once we decide on this number, maybe we could agree that any time we're short, expansion is automatically in play. Assuming we get an owner to replace the Danger for 2014, we all know that we're going to try to expand by one or two teams in 2015. If we decide 12 teams is the CFCL's ideal number and we only find one suitable new owner in 2015, we all know that we'll keep trying to fill the vacant slot until we do.

As to expansion language, I think Kenn provides a terrific starting point. Overall, I agree with Rich that the number of players current owners would protect in an expansion draft has to bite a bit, especially if we don't have to protect our Milb players. This number needs to be in the 13, 14, 15 area. However, if we're not expanding until at least 2015, current owners who have expressed concern over this number will have time to do whatever they feel needs doing, knowing that we're committed to getting to our ideal number of teams.

So those are my two cents, which -- given the amount of time that has lapsed since this discussion began and the effects of inflation -- is more like 2.5 cents by now.

[kennruby]

Thanks Dave - As for the ideal league size, that's an interesting question. I prefer 12 for no other reason than I have what my wife calls "a touch of the OCD," and I'd prefer an even number of teams (even as the NL has an odd number, which is just crazy to me). However, I'll stipulate that 11 might be more ideal. I'll still be able to sleep.

Most nights.