Ŀ
                  INTRODUCTION TO THE DRAFT                    


Each team will consist of a clearly defined roster of players.
Player positions, of course, are the defining element.

Perhaps nothing in the entire year is more important than the
draft.  The players on your Opening Day roster will do more to
shape the character of your team than any amount of wheeling and
dealing - because, remember, you can't get something for nothing.
You can alter the hand you've been dealt, but unless you're
especially shrewd, aggressive, and lacking any conscience (ok, I'm
raising my hand), your team's overall level of talent won't change
drastically.

Unfortunately, almost tragically, we cannot hold an interactive
draft.  It is simply impossible.  The times and distances involved
with our participants dictate that.  It is the fundamental purpose
we created our "on-line" Exec-PC fantasy league.  So, that being
said, let me say that our off-line draft is NOT a compromise.  It's
the way it is, and that's that.  Necessarily, it's going to be a
little more random than some of us might like, but it's not a
perfect world.  If it were, I would've finished better than 6/12
last year.  Anyway, not to worry.  First of all, we're all drafting
under the same rules.  Secondly, our Draft Master, Scott Segrin,
has outlined a method that I think will work like a charm.

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                           OUR TEAMS                            
 

The team roster composition will be the following:

          1    Catcher
          2    Catcher
          3    1st Base
          4    3rd Base
          5    Corner Infield (1B or 3B)
          6    2nd Base
          7    Shortstop
          8    Middle Infield (2B or SS)
          9    Outfield (LF, CF, or RF)
          10   Outfield (LF, CF, or RF)
          11   Outfield (LF, CF, or RF)
          12   Outfield (LF, CF, or RF)
          13   Outfield (LF, CF, or RF)
          14   Designated Hitter

          15   Starting Pitcher
          16   Starting Pitcher
          17   Starting Pitcher
          18   Starting Pitcher
          19   Starting Pitcher
          20   Relief Pitcher
          21   Relief Pitcher
          22   Swing Pitcher (SP or RP)
          23   Swing Pitcher (SP or RP)

As you can see, this gives us a 23-man roster.  

So we're close to the actual rosters.  The last position player on
a team is usually a light-hitting defensive specialist of some kind
who wouldn't help our teams anyway.  The same type of uselessness
is applicable to the tenth pitcher on a real team.  If we had a
tenth pitcher on our fantasy team, he wouldn't hurt you too much if
he hardly ever threw.  But after you see the scoring method we'll
be using, you'll see why he wouldn't be of much help.  Pitchers are
sometimes worth more to a team in real life than in fantasy
baseball, especially that role pitcher who sees two batters every
third day.  Only if our League ends up quite short of twenty teams
will that tenth pitcher be of any value.  With twenty teams, you
might be forced to carry a Roy Smith or a Darren Holmes, and who
needs that?

(Digression:  If you ever took Economics 101, you might recall the
term "structural unemployment."  It's a reality factor economists
consider.  You see, even in the most thriving economic times, when
job vacancies are plentiful, you will always have unemployment.
Why?  Because worker skills are never perfectly suited to the
market, and in very prosperous times, they are invariably inferior.
Worker skills simply cannot meet the demands of industry.  Well,
after compiling a year's worth of free agent lists in an 80%
Rotisserie League, I can tell you that there is a severe case of
structural unemployment in the MLB Pitching Corps.  There are a
zillion entry-level workers (i.e. rookies) who just can't cut it
and are optioned up and down like an AC sine wave, journeymen who
can't adapt to a changing marketplace, a bevy of skilled and able
workers milking disability, and an older generation being forced
into retirement because of diminished skills.  The job vacancies
are there, but the competent bodies needed to fill them aren't.
Last year in the American League, I estimate that 5%+ of the
pitching ranks was in a CONSTANT state of flux.  I'd say 20% of the
rest was comprised of guys who wouldn't be pitching if the Cubans
were allowed in the Majors.  That's adds up to 25%+ of the American
League.  So even in an 80% fantasy league, where only 77% of the
available pitchers are used, team owners are pitching guys who
really suck.  And it sure seemed like more than 2%.)

        If you don't understand the previous paragraph,
        don't get scared away.  If fact, it's probably
        better that you don't.
                                             -Ed.

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                       THE RESERVE SQUAD                        
 

Oh, and what to do with the remaining seven players?  Those players
will comprise the RESERVE SQUAD.   At the beginning of the year it
will consist of 5 pitchers and 3 hitters.  Once the season begins,
and you've determined your starting line-up, the composition of
your reserve squad may change as you wish.  For instance, as
extreme and unrecommended examples, the reserve squad can consist
of eight pitchers, or eight catchers.  Outside of players on Major
League disabled lists, the reserve squad can never contain more
than eight players.

All unqualified player movement will occur only between the active
team and the reserve squad.  As many unqualified reserve promotions
(and associated demotions) can occur per week as you wish.
However, a player can only be outrighted to the reserve list three
times.  A player who begins the season on the reserve roster still
has all of his options.  After three times, that player is "out of
options," and must be waived.  A player waived in this manner can
only be replaced on the active roster by another reserve player.
The waived players' spot cannot be filled until the reserve draft.

If an active player becomes injured, released, suspended, enslaved
by Amazon Women, or otherwise rendered inactive, he can be replaced
either by a reserve player or a free agent (see the section on free
agents immediately following).  Players who are injured (meaning
that they are on the major league team's disabled list, 15 or 60
days) are placed on the reserve squad but do not count against the
seven-man restriction.

So how do you change the player composition of the reserve sqaud?

Answer #1: with three supplemental free agent drafts held
throughout the year.  We'll use dates suggested by Front-Office
rules for this:
                    May 15
                    All-Star Break
                    Labor Day

Note that these dates are general.  The exact date will fall on the
Monday closest to these dates.  It will be conducted in a pure
reverse order draft, based upon team standings, with the last place
team getting first choice.  There will be no rotation in these
drafts.  Draft choices will not be ordered by player position.
Draft choices will be submitted to the League Office on a list.  A
rank-order list may or may not be provided; you may be required to
list the players in order of preference.  A ranked list of your
replaced reserve squad must also be submitted, in order of
replacement priority.  Only the players listed on the "replacement
list" will be replaced.  Since we are working with submitted lists,
the submittal deadline will will be 12 AM marking the beginning of
that Monday, which is Sunday night to most of us.  With that said,
the draft list deadlines will be the midnights marking the days of:

                    May 18
                    July 12
                    Sept 6

Further rules will be posted on this matter as we approach deadline
time.

Answer #2:  Another way to change the composition of your reserve
squad is through trades.  With a reserve squad, multi-player
package trades are possible.  Without a reserve squad, if you
wanted to trade Trevor Wilson for Edgar Martinez, you'd have to
throw in an extra pitcher and 3B to keep the roster balanced.
Though this is only a minor inconvenience, it just doesn't seem
right.  Now we have a lot more flexibility.  Example: you trade OF
Jose Canseco and 2B Robby Thompson for SP Jack McDowell, RP Brian
Harvey, and OF Phil Plantier.  Plantier replaces Canseco on your
active roster.  Now you need to replace 2B Thompson, but the only
infielder on your reserve list is Scott Leius, who is only eligible
for 3B.  But that's ok, because before you made the trade you knew
that you could move Gregg Jefferies from 3B to 2B, and then slide
Leius into your the now vacant 3B spot.  Your worst active starting
pitcher, maybe Charlie Nagy, gets demoted to your reserve list, to
make room for McDowell.  If your reserve squad was at full capacity
before the trade, Nagy takes Leius' spot on the reserve list.

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                  FREE AGENTS & INJURED PLAYERS                 
 

The free agent pool consists of any undrafted players, or players
not on an active or reserve roster.  These players are all
available for the three reserve drafts.

They can be acquired for only one other purpose: filling a roster
vacancy created by the the injury of a player.  Since we have the
convenience of time-stamped messages, free agents will be allocated
on a first-come first-serve basis.  Only a player that is
officially listed on the disabled list can be replaced in this
manner.  A pitcher who misses a start because of a blister, or a
Chris Brown/Eric Davis type of player that is sidelined every two
games with hangnails, psoriasis, or tension headaches cannot be
replaced by a free agent (they can however be demoted to the
reserved list).

We'll be following the standard Rotisserie convention of "linked"
players.  That is, an injured player and his free agent replacement
are, in effect, one player.  They cannot both be active at the same
time.  When the disabled player is activated, either he or the
linked free agent must be waived.  A disabled player must be
activated by his fantasy team within two weeks of his activation by
his major league team.  If he is not, he is automatically waived.
This is one area where a very casual owner may be hurt.  Also, a
linked free agent can never be reserved.  If he is to be replaced
by a reserve player, the linked free agent is waived.  A reserved
player that is replacing an injured player can never be replaced by
a free agent, unless he himself becomes disabled.  In that case, he
can be replaced by another reserve player or a free agent, and so
on and so on.

The reasoning behind the linking rules, and the automatic waivings,
is to prevent hoarding of players.  The reserve squad drafts are
the only method we have of introducing mid-season parity measures
(or is it parody?), so it is important that those with injured
players haven't profitted from misfortune.  Sure, the method is
still subject to abuse.  I could promote a disabled player off my
reserve list and replace him with a superior free agent.  Well,
Front-Office has a rule to defeat that abuse.  A disabled reserve
player activated specifically for replacement must spend two full
stat cycles on the active roster (that's zero production, folks),
and his free agent replacement can only be selected on the final
day of the second stat cycle.

But let's alter the situation a little bit.  Let's say that Mike
Henneman goes down.  Lo and behold, Norm Charlton is out there.  So
I pick him up for the short haul, and he does well for me as a
reliever.  But then Henneman comes off the DL.  I have no choice
but to waive Charlton.  The league bottom feeders can profit from
this if they are paying attention, as we will see in the next
section.

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                      THE WAIVER WIRE                           
 

Players who are waived can be claimed by another team.  This is NOT
on a first-come first-serve basis.  Rather, the lowest team in the
standings that claims the waived player shall receive him.  The
extra bonus here as that the claimed player can displace any like-
position player on the active roster, or any player on the reserve
squad.  The displaced player is in turn put on waivers.

All players on waivers will be included in the weekly reports or
otherwise posted in the Sports Conference or the Mahoney
Collection.  Players will remain on waivers for one week only.
After one week, they will be re-allocated into the free agent pool.

The original team can reclaim a player off of waivers, but only if
no other team claims that player.  The original team can claim
rights to a waived player, but they are last rights.

The waiver wire is VERY important in fantasy baseball, and should
bear close observation.  Last year in my AL Rotisserie league, the
following players appeared on waivers and played very productively
(or will next year) for their new owners:  Bill Wegman, Mike
Pagliarulo, Mike Gardiner, Bill Gullickson, Steve Olin, Wilson
Alvarez, Edwin Nunez, Mike Timlin, and Charles Nagy.  That was in
an 80% league; in our loaded league the names will surely be even
better.

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                              TRADES                            
 

Trading players has been discussed in some detail already, ususally
by example.  Basically, you can trade any number of players from
your team in exchange for any number of players from another team,
AS LONG AS THE POSITION REQUIREMENTS ARE MET.  This means that your
active roster must always have an active or disabled player at
every position.  If a trade is unbalanced, a pitcher for an
outfielder for instance, eligible players from each team's reserve
squad must be available to fill the vacated spots.  In trades where
one team receives enough players to exceed its active and reserve
squad roster limit, players of the team owners choice can and must
be waived to bring the total number of players back down to 31
total players.

There is another kind of unbalanced trade: one in which one club,
for whatever reason, trades talent(s) for crud(s).  Sometimes this
owner has been manipulated or swindled, fed bad info or has a weak
mind.  Or blame it on simple ignorance.  Well, we can't let extreme
cases of this occur.  After all, we are emulating major league
baseball, not the Cleveland Indians.  Occassionally we will have to
pull a Bowie Kuhn and negate trades for the better good of the
league.  I never expect this to happen.  But we ought to be
prepared.  Should we allow someone to trade away Will Clark for
Mark Lemke?  Especially if Will's going to a contending team?  It
will take a clear-cut and vocal majority ( > 50%) to negate such a
trade.  I suspect this will never happen though.  It just has to be
said -just in case- it does happen.
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