Dear Mr. EFL Answer Man:
Today Cottage announced the removal of five cheeses from its shelves: Michael Choice, Logan Forsythe, Stephen Pryor, Paco Rodriguez, and Allen Webster. Are those players available to us in the Free Agent Draft coming up March 28?
— The Quesovore
Dear The Q:
Why do you call yourself “THE” Quesovore? Aren’t we all quesovores, fattening at least our egos on Cheese?
As to your question the answer is “Yes — they will be available then, and if not drafted then, will continue to be available at our monthly managers meetings all season until drafted.”
I’m going to say more about this, but before I do, I’d like to amend my Zobrist Rule proposal by replacing the original proposal with this:
3. Free Agent Draft: The second phase of the annual draft is the Free Agent Draft.
a) Only players on the EFL Free Agent List, plus those dropped by an EFL team after the Free Agent List was published, are available to be drafted.
…
d) If the Free Agent was on an EFL team roster at the end of the previous season, that team may on its turn match the current high bid (or if making the opening bid, match the current value of the player’s MLB contract) and have its bid counted as the current high bid. If the Free Agent was released in both the EFL and MLB in the middle of a long-term contract, bidding may begin on him at the minimum bid. If the Free Agent was dropped or DFA’d by an EFL team after the preseason Free Agent List was published, the EFL team that dropped the player may not both open the bidding and bid a for a term that extends beyond the expiration of any unexpired EFL or MLB contract (whichever runs longer).
Ok, now to expla….
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Ok, now to explain what I’m up to.
Our practice in these drafts has been a lot like those five old cheeses: just a teensy bit fuzzy. We have generally said players released by EFL teams immediately become free agents. If they are dropped during a draft we treat them as immediately eligible in that draft and subsequent ones that season.
The rules fit that practice when it comes to in-season Managers Meetings because we draft at those meetings from a list of “Available Players” maintained by the Commissioner. The rule doesn’t say how long a Commissioner must wait to add dropped players to the Available Players List. I read it as permitting the Commissioner to update the Available Players List immediately. Effectively, that’s what we do: we add the dropped players to our list of Available Players immediately during the in-season drafts.
However, for the preseason Free Agent Draft, the rules say we draft from a Free Agent List “published by the Commissioner at least one week before the draft.” There are some issues there (does the one week rule refer to the Rookie Draft, or the Free Agent Draft? Why should we be more restrictive for the annual Free Agent Draft than we are for the in-season drafts?) I believe the rule is best read to allow the Commissioner to amend the Free Agent list up to a week before the annual Free Agent Draft. So Choice, Forsythe, Pryor, Rodriguez and Webster are hereby added to the Free Agent List. (The database version of the list will be amended promptly, as soon as I research these players’ current MLB contract status.) This makes these 5 delectable dainties available in our March 28 Free Agent Draft.
But what if Cottage had been a little cagier, and delayed releasing these guys until we were amidst the Free Agent Draft? Do we really want the rules to forbid snapping up other people’s rejects immediately during the Preseason Free Agent Draft?
I don’t think so. So I suggest a rule that explicitly says this is possible.
And while we’re at it, I’ve thought of an improvement on the Zobrist rule that allows some opportunity to reacquire a cut player without allowing anyone to engineer an opportunity to cut a player’s pay in a non-market situation.
So – something like this (new language in blue)
3. Free Agent Draft: The second phase of the annual draft is the Free Agent Draft.
a) Only players on the EFL Free Agent List, plus those dropped or DFA’d by an EFL team after the Free Agent List was published, are available to be drafted.
…
d) If the Free Agent was on an EFL team roster at the end of the previous season, that team may on its turn match the current high bid (or if making the opening bid, match the current value of the player’s MLB contract) and have its bid counted as the current high bid. If the Free Agent was released in both the EFL and MLB in the middle of a long-term contract, bidding may begin on him at the minimum bid. If the Free Agent was dropped or DFA’d by an EFL team after the preseason Free Agent List was published, the EFL team that dropped the player may not both open the bidding and bid a for a term that extends beyond the expiration of any unexpired EFL or MLB contract (whichever runs longer).
Note that this gives the dropping team the choice to open bidding on the dropped player, but then not be able to extend the player’s contract beyond the EFL or MLB one (whichever is longer) — that is, not get him at an unrealistic discount. Or if the dropping team patiently waits until someone else opens the bidding, the dropping team can bid any way it likes.
Here’s why I think this is an improvement: the game hands us opportunities to get players at discount any time they become free agents for us while they are on the last year of their MLB contracts. Most of us have benefited from these windfalls. They’re tolerable as long as they’re rare — and we aren’t engineering them for ourselves! The Zobrist Rule is intended to prevent us engineering our own unrealistic discounts on key players.
My first proposal was too broad, too narrow, and too broad. (Strike three!) It was too broad in that it prevented dropping teams from bidding at all. But we don’t need that. It’s ok for a dropping team to try to reacquire a player for terms that fit within the obligation the dropping team is carrying already on its unexpired contract. It’s also ok to bid within the time frame of any longer MLB contract — no unrealistic discount is available there. So let’s let them bid within these constraints on their own initiative.
The original was also too narrow. It only disabled the dropping team for one season segment — that is, one month. On reflection, I don’t think that will be enough very often for other teams to organize a defense against the dropping team engineering for itself a windfall that could last for years.
And finally, the original proposal was also too broad. It forbade the dropping team from getting a windfall it did not itself engineer. If you drop Hamels in the last year of his contract when you’re the only one with $5,000,000 left, and I decide to have a go at him, is it your fault that a super-cheap contract extension opportunity has landed in your lap? This would be almost exactly like what happens when MLB engineers these opportunities for us, only even stupider on the part of your EFL competition. So you cannot be blamed for seizing this opportunity you did not make. (I am counting on teams not colluding to make such opportunities for each other.)
FINAL NOTE: I am working this weekend on making a copy of the rules available on our/Dave’s website so you can follow along on these arcane discussions more readily.