No, I meant that we cut to 20 at the beginning of FA period, and no WW pickups allowed until after Rule 5. Then all of the players that were cut are available for FA signings, and the teams at the top of the WW pecking order don't have any advantage, unless the player makes it through the FA period and Rule 5 draft without being signed.

Posted by bjschumacher on 1/10/2015 1:12:00 PM (view original):
No, I meant that we cut to 20 at the beginning of FA period, and no WW pickups allowed until after Rule 5. Then all of the players that were cut are available for FA signings, and the teams at the top of the WW pecking order don't have any advantage, unless the player makes it through the FA period and Rule 5 draft without being signed.

What this would mean is that you could remove a player from your 40 without a chance of losing him to another team, which goes against the theme.

I also don't want to pay for a guy to play for another team. If I cut him then I am fronting his salary (or at least part of it) for the year.

Posted by shobob on 1/10/2015 1:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bjschumacher on 1/10/2015 1:12:00 PM (view original):
No, I meant that we cut to 20 at the beginning of FA period, and no WW pickups allowed until after Rule 5. Then all of the players that were cut are available for FA signings, and the teams at the top of the WW pecking order don't have any advantage, unless the player makes it through the FA period and Rule 5 draft without being signed.

What this would mean is that you could remove a player from your 40 without a chance of losing him to another team, which goes against the theme.

Ah, I was thinking that the players would be available as a free agent to be signed by other teams. But yeah, I see. If you DFA him with waivers and nobody would be able to pick him up on the WW, then he would stay with your team. Never mind. Bad idea.

I truly do appreciate the sentiment behind your proposal, jkenned, but for me to be on board, we are going to have to come up with some solutions to the problems that I see going along with it.  Please address them.  Tec laid out a fairly effective (but labor intensive) method for monitoring, but does not address compliance/enforcement.
1. What if someone signs a free agent and doesn't immediately assign him?  What tools does the commish have to force compliance?
2. Since we all have real lives to live, what reasonable sort of time frame are we talking about from acquiring to assigning?

 I see this as an enforcement nightmare, as the commish and a HORDE of deputies will have to pore over the minutiae of signing, waiver acquisition, and trade completion dates/times on a player by player basis, as the signings/trades/claims come dribbling in.  You have to admit that the rule proposal at it stands is much simpler, and easier to monitor and enforce.

I get that having most of the waivers activity all occurring at the same time as the rule 5 draft might be a bit overwhelming, but I still truly believe that this is a built in brake on the already overwhelming incentive to finish last with this theme.

I do like the proposal of stiffening the MWR, and changing the punishment to banning offenders from making pre R5 waiver claims.

Posted by bjschumacher on 1/10/2015 1:28:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shobob on 1/10/2015 1:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bjschumacher on 1/10/2015 1:12:00 PM (view original):
No, I meant that we cut to 20 at the beginning of FA period, and no WW pickups allowed until after Rule 5. Then all of the players that were cut are available for FA signings, and the teams at the top of the WW pecking order don't have any advantage, unless the player makes it through the FA period and Rule 5 draft without being signed.

What this would mean is that you could remove a player from your 40 without a chance of losing him to another team, which goes against the theme.

Ah, I was thinking that the players would be available as a free agent to be signed by other teams. But yeah, I see. If you DFA him with waivers and nobody would be able to pick him up on the WW, then he would stay with your team. Never mind. Bad idea.

Sometimes, when you throw **** against a wall to see what sticks, you just end up with a ****** wall.

The truth of the matter is that the commissioner has no real power of enforcement of any of our rules. We are dependent upon CS actually enforcing them for us, which they are often hesitant to do (I've had to push to remove an owner before for violating a league rule in Cool Papa Bell).

With the cut down to 20 at either time we are dependent upon the honor system, but at least cutting down to 20 at the start of Free Agency gives us a chance as a league to address the issue. If an owner does not trim down at the Roster Freeze then he has effectively managed to protect his players and we are forced to come up with a suitable punishment.

With the cut down to 20 by the start of Free Agency we have four Real world days to make sure people are in compliance. I would send an sitemail and trade chat to that owner reminding them of the rule and if not fulfilled by the final day of Free Agency they will be removed. If an owner has not performed the initial cut down to 20 by the final day of Free Agency then we need to act quickly to have them replaced with an owner who will comply that day.

After the initial cut by the start of Free Agency once players are claimed and signed it will be tougher for us to track and enforce but so long as teams are back at 20 by the final day of Free Agency then we are going to be fine. A quick scan of the rosters after the PM cycle of the final day of Free Agency will be needed to ensure everyone is in compliance and we can track that based on recent transactions in the News section.

But by giving us four days to track enforcement it will actually be easier to enforce the rule, rather than if we wait until the end of Free Agency when there will be no time to rectify the situation as all checks will be done during the Roster Freeze, which means that the offending owner can't fix the situation until after the Rule 5 and has effectively protected up to 20 other players while suffering no real penalty while being allowed to pick up players in the Rule 5.

To reinforce Mike's point.

The guy with #1 WW priority can select the best 2 guys every day for 6 straight days.

Conversely the guys with the 2nd and 3rd priority have to really be careful. Do they select the best and hope it is a different guy than the #1 guy selected? Or do they shoot for a second tier guy and hope? 

What I mean is the #1 guy is in a VASTLY stronger position compared to 2 or 3. Whereas in the R5 setting each guy gets one pick per round, a MUCH lesser advantage to #1.

>>What this would mean is that you could remove a player from your 40 without a chance of losing him to another team, which goes against the theme.<<

All of these guys would still be available to draft in the R5.

>>This means that we all have to be up to sorting through up to an extra 620 players (20 players on 31 teams exposed to Rule 5 more than usual)<<

Draft board is limited to 500 players.

Shobob, The other thing I think you are over estimating is the rush to the bottom. I doubt owners will be lining up to 'tank' to pick up the 21-25 ML players and AAAA types or overpaid guys in their mid to late 30's. I know I am not exposing anyone that has any business being more than an injury replacement at the ML level I think you are over-emphasizing the impact that these Waiver claims are going to have on the teams that finished at the bottom of the league. Off of my ML roster I will be letting go of Juan Marrero, Ubaldo Marrero, Alfonso Apricio, and Armando Cruz. Those four will be available on the Waiver Wire and will get me to 20 with a trade/release of an arb eligble player. None of those guys are game changers for anyone and this squad has been one of the better in Ford over the past couple seasons. The only guys that you get that will provide a larger impact are also going to be guys with high salaries the team is trying to get out from under. 

OK, I'm medicated so it's possible what I'm about to post will make no sense.   Nonetheless, here goes:

1.  No waiver claims prior to the R5 draft.
2.  No more than 20 protected at the time of the R5 draft(easy to check/enforce).
3.  The only players who can be unassigned would be FA signed less than 24 hours prior to R5 draft freeze(also easy to check/enforce).

Can anyone tell me the drawbacks of this? 

I don't know how hard this would be to enforce but could we limit the number of ww pickups until ST starts? 

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/10/2015 3:11:00 PM (view original):
OK, I'm medicated so it's possible what I'm about to post will make no sense.   Nonetheless, here goes:

1.  No waiver claims prior to the R5 draft.
2.  No more than 20 protected at the time of the R5 draft(easy to check/enforce).
3.  The only players who can be unassigned would be FA signed less than 24 hours prior to R5 draft freeze(also easy to check/enforce).

Can anyone tell me the drawbacks of this? 

To me, this solves all the problems that have been listed.

No one will wait to sign FA on the last day.   You might miss out.
The #1 WW priority will not have a big advantage throughout the process.
640 players will be protected and the rest will be up for grabs, worst to first, one at a time. 

How about if we just limit the total number of WW pickups each owner can have before spring training? To about 2 or 3.

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/10/2015 3:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/10/2015 3:11:00 PM (view original):
OK, I'm medicated so it's possible what I'm about to post will make no sense.   Nonetheless, here goes:

1.  No waiver claims prior to the R5 draft.
2.  No more than 20 protected at the time of the R5 draft(easy to check/enforce).
3.  The only players who can be unassigned would be FA signed less than 24 hours prior to R5 draft freeze(also easy to check/enforce).

Can anyone tell me the drawbacks of this? 

To me, this solves all the problems that have been listed.

No one will wait to sign FA on the last day.   You might miss out.
The #1 WW priority will not have a big advantage throughout the process.
640 players will be protected and the rest will be up for grabs, worst to first, one at a time. 

I see this as pretty cut and dry, solving most of the issues if not all of them. I especially like rule #3, because the top FAs usually wait until the last day, and this eliminates the need or concern about only having a half day to assign late signing FA's.

WAAAY easier to monitor and seems to allow the general premise of the theme to thrive.

I can see some resistance to #1, but as a few others have suggested, maybe just set a hard limit on total claims before the R5, rather than disallowing them altogether.

Small potatoes compared to the rest of the stuff being hammered out.

I like the no waiver claims prior to R5, and must have only 20 on the 40 at the beginning of R5. Should be easy enough to enforce. Penalties should be adjusted to fit the crime.