Ten years ago while he was working for the Hagerstown Suns as a broadcaster, Ryan founded the Society for the Advancement of a Two-Season System. That Facebook link suggests the SATSS is the 44860395959th group in Facebook’s realm.
44,860,395,959th but not least! The Society, because it is a Public Group, has had electric growth. It now counts 10 members, one for each year. (Three of the members are also in the EFL. To its credit, the SATSS is approximately the same size as the EFL even though the EFL has five extra seasons under its belt. And the SATSS has a Facebook page. But they don’t have a trophy!)
The Society describes its purpose thusly:
We believe there should only be two seasons: Baseball and Christmas. Baseball season runs from the day after the Super Bowl until the day after the World Series. In between: Christmas. Simple really.
As an early member of the Society, I am afraid I am responsible for the only schism in its recorded history. I do not observe Super Bowl. I treat Christmas as being over on Three Kings Day. I and my fellow Non-Bowlists (if any) get started on baseball weeks ahead of the mainstream of the Society.
So — now that Baseball Season is over and Christmas is upon us, it is time to winterize your rosters. Here are some friendly reminders:
- If you have veterans on ugly unexpired contracts, a window is now open for you to possibly rid yourself of those contracts. All you have to do is DFA those players BEFORE they sign new contracts, or have their teams exercise their options. Of course, DFA-ing players puts them on our Waiver Wire and assures they will not be on your roster on Opening Day (unless you reacquire them from someone who claims them off the Wire, draft them in the spring Free Agent draft, or horn in on an MLB trade to get them back). And if no one drafts them and no MLB team signs them to a new contract after you DFA them, then you have to carry them on your payroll until their EFL contract expires without having them on your roster for at least one month in the season.
- Oops. Small correction. The window has already closed for Madison Bumgarner, Paul Goldschmidt, Chris Sale, and Carlos Carrasco, whose MLB teams picked up their options for 2019 on Tuesday.
- Our salary caps revert to the 2018 Opening Day figure of a mere $99,500,000 ($102,500,000 for the Outs, under the rule we adopted last spring). Imagine! Only 8 figures! The next salary cap update will be right after 2019 Opening Day salaries are published.
- Over the next week or so I will finish pruning the end of season 2018 rosters to get them in shape for the winter.
- I will finalize the Rookie Draft list by removing players we already own from the list of 2018 Debutants maintained for us by Baseball Reference.
- Sometime in November I will calculate updated defense figures for all players.
- Our next event is the Winter Meetings. I will circulate in November a Doodle to look for the date of that meeting.
- Between now and then is a good time to:
- Make roster cuts (see above). Anyone you cut will be available on the waiver wire before the Rule 5 Draft at the Winter Meetings.
- Make trades.
- Scout next year’s Rookie Draft players.
- Propose rule changes for consideration at the Winter Meetings.
- (IF you are the owner of the Balk) consider whether you want your team disbanded, or put on the one-year hiatus allowed in our rules. Or maybe you just want to forget all about that idea of leaving the league.
- Consider possible expansion candidates for consideration prior to the Winter Meetings (so they can join our Rule 5 draft). I am operating on the assumption that our league limit is 12 teams. If that assumption is wrong let me know.