League Updates Rules

EFL Supreme Commissioner Issues Edicts In Cueto Case

On September 14, at 10:15 AM, the following announcement came across the EFL teletype feed:

The Dragons release Johnny Cueto at the end of the season.

(Do they still use teletype?  Isn’t it amazing how prehistoric humans, before the internet, figured out ways to communicate?  For those of you too young to remember prehistory, teletype was sort of like the pony express without the horse hockey.)

Little did the Dragons know that they had changed the EFL for ever.

Less than six hours later, at 4:06 pm, the following  message came across the Commissioner’s text message feed:

Cueto being dropped just means he’s on waiver right now, right? In theory a deal could still be made with Haviland?

Sometimes people can be so insensitive, not thinking about how their actions affect others.  The author of this text message, whose anonymity I will cherish as if he were my own son,  put the Commissioner in an excruciating moral bind.  On one hand the Commissioner has a duty to answer owners’ legal questions quickly, so as to not throw up roadblocks to their maneuverings.  The Commissioner him- or herself would know the answer instantly, due to his or her omniscience in such matters, and could use that information instantly to make deals, etc.  So, to reduce the Commissioner’s competitive advantage, the Commissioner must respond as quickly as humanly possible — or quicker, considering it is the Commissioner we are talking about.

On the other hand, it isn’t fair for some owners to know the rules while others do not. The information is the league’s information, not any individual owner’s.  So the Commissioner’s first impulse was to answer the question immediately and copy all the other owners.  Which is probably what the Commissioner should have done.

“But,” the Commissioner sighed, “if that’s my practice people will be discouraged from asking about rules so as to not reveal to competitors their plans to take advantage of Haviland’s pique at Cueto for betraying the Royals with suddenly-poor pitching performances.  Owners ought to be able to ask questions without trumpeting to everyone their plans.”

Conveniently the Commissioner was busy.  Not too busy to answer the question, but just busy enough that the thirty seconds it would have taken to pass it along to everyone else was just unavailable. So the Commissioner did what he could, and consoled himself by realizing the delay in telling everyone might, by pure luck, turn out to be good policy.

So, now the two earth-shaking edicts:

EDICT No. 1: In re Cueto

The DFA rule has rendered the practice of “releasing” players entirely obsolete.  There is nothing we accomplish by releasing, cutting, or dropping a player immediately that we don’t also accomplish by DFA-ing him.  The DFA only adds functionality by giving you time to trade the player. There is no rational reason to do a drop rather than a DFA. So I shall presume, using the reasonable person test, that anyone who announces a release, drop, cut, or dismemberment of a player is actually announcing his Designation for Assignment.  If you really find the player so disgusting that you cannot stand to have him defacing your roster any longer and can’t, in good conscience, try to foist him off on someone else, you will have to include the following (or its equivalent) in your announcement:

 “This is not one of those modern wishy-washy namby-pamby DFA’s.  This is a real, old-fashioned, honest-t0-goodness release/drop/cut/dismemberment the way God intended.”

EDICT No. 2: Stewardship of Information

Any owner seeking a ruling from the Commissioner may ask that the ruling be kept confidential so as not to reveal the owner’s plans to the league. The Commissioner may keep the ruling confidential for a period that allows the owner to have time to use the information, but not so long that other owners would have their rights compromised by the delay, and in no case longer than 24 hours.  Examples of reasons that would require quicker public release of a ruling would include an impending draft or roster deadline. If the ruling can be publicized without compromising the asker’s proprietary information (about his plans), it must be publicized contemporaneously to all owners.

As usual, the word “Edict” in the above edicts means “The Commissioner utterly enacts this into law, unless someone objects, in which case the Commissioner has no idea where these so-called ‘edicts’ came from.”

EFL
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB RS RA
Haviland Dragons 97 50 .662 753.3 537.6
Old Detroit Wolverines 93 54 .629 4.8 707.3 540.4
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 91 56 .616 6.7 745.6 583.2
Flint Hill Tornadoes 84 63 .569 13.6 739.0 634.1
Cottage Cheese 78 69 .534 18.8 648.4 610.4
Peshastin Pears 78 68 .534 18.8 629.5 588.4
Canberra Kangaroos 67 80 .455 30.3 737.3 811.3
Kaline Drive 64 83 .437 32.9 593.0 678.4
Portland Rosebuds 59 87 .405 37.6 603.0 733.8

Haviland: W 1, L 1; 13 – 7.  .266, .414, .471;  27 ip, 9 er.  You can win a championship anytime with numbers like this all season. Steve Pearce only went 2 for 7 (with a HBP), but those two were both homers. Is he regaining is 2014 form?

Old Detroit: W 3, L (-1); 11 – (-2).  .303, .361, .592; 25.3 ip, 6 er.  Two straight days of great hitting and pitching!  This was supposed to be what happened every day, but nowadays I’m giddy to see it happen twice in a month. Matt Moore contributed 7 scoreless innings. Welcome back, Matt! If only…

Pittsburgh: W 1, L 1; 10 – 10. .250, .333, .403;  10 ip, 3 er.  It seems harsh, doesn’t it, that the Alleghenys would be saddled with 10 runs when their pitchers compiled a 2.70 ERA?  Well … Rubby De La Rosa contributed 5.7ip, 0 er — but he’s 100% benched.  Lance Lynn did 3.3 ip, 3 er, and he’s 100% active. So the total actual pitching was 4 ip, 3 er, not near enough to cover 2 games.  If there are any replacements (I haven’t checked) that would explain it pretty easily.

Flint Hill: W 2, L 0; 7 – 5. .245, .298, .377;  6.7 ip, 1 er.  It’s heartwarming to see a young EFL owner showing leadership and drive. Rather than just drift along, giving in to the reality that it’s clearly impossible for the Flint Hill to move up to 3rd place,  the Tornadoes are still ripping up the countryside as quickly as they can. Justin Morneau’s 2 for 3 with a double, triple, and a walk kept the offense from sliding too badly so the great pitching could earn them a double win.

Cottage:  W 0, L 2; 11 – 16. .320, .333, .500;  4 ip, 3 er.

Peshastin: W 1, L 0; 2 – 0. .224, .288 .358;  27 ip, 9 er . Here we see a snapshot of the Pears in mid-leap over the Cheese.  See the futile efforts of Salvador Perez (4 for 10 with a homer) and Kris Bryant (3 for 6 with two doubles and a walk) to keep the Cheese afloat despite paltry pitching?  See the Pears’ championship-quality pitching fall short because Jay Bruce (1 for 3 with a homer and two walks) and Yasmany Tomas (1 for 3 with a homer) only played one game each?

Canberra:  L, 1 – 5.  250, .314, .250; 13.3 ip, 7 er.  Marx predicted the withering away of the state. Ha ha! That’s a good one. But seriously, our league’s representative in two national capitals (each with their own federal districts, although only one is really overrun with kangaroos) is in the process of withering away. Only three Kangaroo hitters appeared in games Friday!  They were good ones — Abreu, Harper, and Semien — who each reached base at least once (Harper 3 times), but you can’t get by on 11 AB a day!

Kaline: W 1, L 1;  7 – 7. .225, .262, .450; 20.7 ip. 9 er.  The Drive got 40 AB (and 42 PA, thanks to a walk and a HBP). They weren’t absolutely stellar, but they were better than the Kangaroos’.  Tommy Milone triple chulked (1.3 ip, 5 er) but… Marcus Stroman is back! Already! 7 ip, 1 er! Beware oh sleepy Kangaroos!

Portland: W (-1), L 2; (-1) – 9. .226, .246, .302; 14.7 ip, 11 er.   It’s heartwarming to see a young EFL owner showing leadership and drive.  Rather than just drift away and let the Phillies and Braves have the first two picks uncontested, the Rosebuds are going out there every day and busting their rears to undertake their rivals and reclaim that first pick.  I’ll bet those guys in Philly and Atlanta spat our their coffee this morning when they saw that Portland and returned one of its wins and gotten a loss for it.