Issue with FA Draft & Preseason IL
Before I make a selection, I’d like to raise an issue I have with the FA draft.
In my opinion, it is against the rules there are players on preseason IL that aren’t going to be or likely going to be out for the start of the season.
This includes players who have been playing since the weekend still parked on IL before the start of the free agent draft.
Although I believe not intentional, it’s basically roster manipulation for the Free Agent Draft.
Pre-Season IL is for players who are supposed to or likely miss the start of the season and not just sitting out a few spring training games.
Preseason IL should be set before the FA draft so that all players can be available, which I thought we already discussed previously in the past.
This isn’t a rule change. It’s following the rules on the book already, which clearly say preseason IL is for players who will start/likely start season on IL. This is not being followed in my opinion.
Chris and Ted said you just can’t add someone until you pick. Chris said I should have suggested a rule change. I disagree with this.
What if someone is picking in the third round for his first pick. Finally, drops someone but someone in a pick before would have taken that player if available initially, but wasn’t because they improperly stored someone on preseason IL.
Now, someone with a later pick has an advantage for a player who wasn’t initially avail because of the manipulation of preseason IL.
The intent of preseason IL wasn’t to stash players before FA draft to just see what happens. I thought we fixed this last year.
We have plenty of time before FA draft started to update our IL.
I’m getting tired of rules being stretched, not accusing anyone of doing anything nefarious at all, but this isn’t what preseason IL was initially for and not what I thought was agreed to when all avail players should be free before start of FA draft. It’s stretching or abuse of the rule. Whatever you want to call it.
I guess I will have to suggest eliminating preseason IL until the day before FA draft starts, which ridiculous b/c I thought we cleared this up in the past.
Also, I left players on my roster who are currently injured but not missing opening day. So I could have added/kept more players then clearly.
Bugs me too. I know we have addressed it in the past and the argument the other way is the teams doing this basically have to sit out the FA Draft because they are unable to pick up any players until they pick up all their healthy players. How well that’s being policed I don’t know. I would be upset if someone drafted into an open roster spot that had guys on preseason IL that no longer had the DTD designation at minimum. Perhaps we should take a look to see who has preseason IL players that no longer have that and address how they cannot pick until those players are back in their roster.
I agree with the sentiment. I get that teams can’t pick until their healthy guys are added, but it creates an odd imbalance in the FA draft such that it provides a disadvantage for teams picking early and a possible advantage for teams holding their guys if they have mid or late picks as the pool could open significantly. Not saying this is the case, but if a team has mid round picks, they could use this rule to hold all their guys before their picks, then add them back right before they pick, drop others and then almost immediately draft their dropped guys back, when teams picking early never had a shot at them. I get no matter what that these teams will have to drop some guys for good, but it kind of goes against what I see as the nature of the FA draft and the benefit of holding early picks.
Jason: you are proposing we change rules. Preseason IL operates the exact same way that IL+ does. When the season starts, each team only gets 5 IL+ spots. But in preseason, the preseason IL is 10 spots because MLB teams don't start putting their players on IL until we get close to starting MLB season. When you say that teams stash as many players as they can, this has gone on since I joined the league in 2014. Yahoo allows you to keep healthy players stashed in IL as long as you want.
The thing you're saying you don't like, is teams that are over roster, that have healthy players stashed in preseason IL and have late FA picks don't have to cut these players until they pick in say the 3rd or 4th round. But with the rules we have now, they're allowed to do that.
There's a solution to what you're talking about, but it would be a rule change.
We could change the rule where if you want to participate in FA Draft, you can't have healthy players stashed in preseason IL. Whether you have FA picks now or trade to acquire them later. Rule could be if you have healthy players stashed in preseason IL when FA Drafts, you have to sit the draft out. I could check the spreadsheet before the draft starts to check.
But this stuff needs to be discussed when we're in the 2 week period for rule change proposals. Currently, FA Draft has already started.
Sometimes we do rule changes in middle of the season, but it only passes if league support is unanimous. If one person objects, then we don't do it and wait until next season to vote on it.
I don't have a horse in this race because I do have healthy players stashed in preseason IL, but I have no FA picks and don't plan on trading for any.
So if we're to change rules right now, there has to be unanimous support. First, we need to get some kind of consensus on what the rules are changed to, whether you like my suggested rule of you have to sit out FA Draft if you have healthy players in preseason IL at the start of draft. Then we ask if anyone objects to it.
But keep in mind if we do this, the FA Draft freezes. And in my opinion, we need to give guys at least 2 days to decide if they object. Case in point, we gave the WBC cash idea 3 days for guys to object to it. And Jason did object but it was on the 4th day after I posted that the WBC cash was official.
So totally up to you guys. Do you want the FA Draft to freeze for at least 2 days while we figure this out? Or should the FA Draft continue as is and we vote on this next January?
I’m fine with continuing personally, but do think that’s a good suggestion for a rule next year Chris.
I concur with Matt. I think that by the start of the FA Draft all healthy players should be added to the teams roster or you risk exposing them to the FA Draft. This forces guys back into the player pool and you can't stay over roster during FA Draft which is the only time of year someone can be added for free. If this went up for a rule change next pre-season I would vote for it. In terms of this year, what is happening now has happened in past seasons. It is an aspect of the existing rules that guys have used so I do not think we should stop the draft for it.
Something to keep in mind, if the league does vote for a rule change next season regarding forcing teams to move healthy players to the yahoo roster for start of FA Draft, the soonest this would be implemented would be 2028 because we have already been trading 2027 FA picks. And making this type of rule change would increase the value of FA picks. And for my team, I've already traded 3 of my 4 FA picks, so it wouldn't be fair that, assuming this passes for 2027, that it gets implemented immediately for 2027. Any time we've made rule changes to the drafts, the changes get implemented the following season where no picks have been traded yet.
I agree with Jason. I am fine either halting current draft and restarting if necessary. I'd be in support of rule change 2027.
Whatever gets the draft going again. This type of back or forth sucks the joy out the league. Season starts a week from yesterday.