Quote:Here's what I will say: you raise separate and unrelated questions regarding whether we should consider restrictions on keeping players signed late in the season. That's a question worthy of further discussion.
That question is separate and apart from your circumventing a process that we have previously dealt with: which is having teams sign players who: (1) are ineligible to play at the time they are signed; (2) are signed for the sole purpose of keeping with a 7th round pick; and (3) are signed at a time where it is effectively no burden to keep them on the team's roster. This is a problem that we decided years ago should not be allowed. You found a slight variation on a problem that's already been dealt with.
My problem with this is that anybody could have done the same thing. Everyone has a bench spot they can spare. If someone else did it, I probably wouldn't be happy about it, but I wouldn't say they were cheating either.
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Here's what I will say: you raise separate and unrelated questions regarding whether we should consider restrictions on keeping players signed late in the season. That's a question worthy of further discussion.
That question is separate and apart from your circumventing a process that we have previously dealt with: which is having teams sign players who: (1) are ineligible to play at the time they are signed; (2) are signed for the sole purpose of keeping with a 7th round pick; and (3) are signed at a time where it is effectively no burden to keep them on the team's roster. This is a problem that we decided years ago should not be allowed. You found a slight variation on a problem that's already been dealt with.
My problem with this is that anybody could have done the same thing. Everyone has a bench spot they can spare. If someone else did it, I probably wouldn't be happy about it, but I wouldn't say they were cheating either.
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A. Everyone could have done this. I agree. I would have the exact same problem if anybody else did it. Don't know how else to say it.
B. I don't think it's a fair characterization to say you're cheating. You found a loophole on an issue we've already dealt with. We need to close that loophole (and we can close that loophole without harming you in any way other than you don't get the benefit of the loophole).
I may need to think longer about it, but at first blush, I have no problem with what PcB did (or what Ace did for that matter). I've always seen such moves as part of the strategy of keeper leagues.
I've talked with PcB and he's agreed to put this to a vote.
To reiterate: I don't think he did anything wrong or shady. I think he found a loophole on a specific problem we've already dealt with. If this was a player who was on IR, PcB would have been bound to however the player was drafted last year.
This is a unique issue because it's a player who was not drafted only because he was suspended. If it's a player on IR, he's stuck with how they were drafted the year before. Nobody was going to draft Gordon because he wasn't going to play this season.
The thing I would point out here, regardless of whether you think what PcB did should be allowed, is that it is effectively contrary to a rule that we already have on the books, this is just a loophole, so I would encourage a vote against it just for the sake of consistency.
I would ask team owners to vote on whether or not PcB should be allowed to keep Gordon by midnight CT Saturday. Please state your vote in this thread. Thanks.
Quote:I may need to think longer about it, but at first blush, I have no problem with what PcB did (or what Ace did for that matter). I've always seen such moves as part of the strategy of keeper leagues.
I would go the other way. A lot of keeper leagues don't allow players to be kept if they are ever waived. If the alternative is to allow bad teams to sign injured/suspended players to game the keeper system, I would favor making it so that a player who is ever a free agent or on waivers can't be kept.
Quote:The thing I would point out here, regardless of whether you think what PcB did should be allowed, is that it is effectively contrary to a rule that we already have on the books, this is just a loophole, so I would encourage a vote against it just for the sake of consistency.
I just don't believe that's true. It may be contrary to the intentions that sparked the rule's creation, but it in no way violates the actual rule. And those intentions aren't ones that I necessarily agree with. I like the idea that a poorer team can seek kelp off the waiver wire to help become a better team the next year. Similarly, the Braves have opportunities to stash risky propositions of their 40-man that the Cubs cannot afford to take on right now due to the fact that they are competing to win this year. I'm not voting yet, but I'm having a hard time seeing why PcB or Ace's actions should inspire disapprobation.
Quote:I would go the other way. A lot of keeper leagues don't allow players to be kept if they are ever waived. If the alternative is to allow bad teams to sign injured/suspended players to game the keeper system, I would favor making it so that a player who is ever a free agent or on waivers can't be kept.
That would bring its own sort of strategy, and I wouldn't stage a hue and cry if that were the rule (although I may not necessarily wish it to be). Another alternative would be to have waiver pick-ups kept at ADP.
Quote: I like the idea that a poorer team can seek kelp off the waiver wire to help become a better team the next year. Similarly, the Braves have opportunities to stash risky propositions of their 40-man that the Cubs cannot afford to take on right now due to the fact that they are competing to win this year.
That's a very poor comparison. There's no risk involved.
For example, a few years ago, Ace signed Julio Jones late in the season after he was placed on IR. There was no risk. He just stashed him on his bench to try to keep him in the expectation that he would be able to keep what had been a 2nd round pick in 2013 (and would be again in 2014) with a 7th round pick instead.
Also, there was no risk for PcB in keeping Gordon. He signed him after he was already eliminated for the season. Where's the risk? If Gordon's suspension ended, he gets a steal and keeps him with a 7th. If it didn't, he doesn't keep him. It made literally no difference to PcB to sign Gordon for the last 2 weeks of the playoffs when he didn't make the playoffs in the first place. There was no risk. There was only reward.
So, again, you're focusing on one--admittedly poorly chosen--word. Instead of "risky," go with "future" or "long-term." Risk really has nothing to do with it. We equally could have made the same move with very little "risk," even those in the championship. The bench is big enough. It's more to the point that one of the benefits of sucking this year is that you can start focusing on the next year. If your problem is that winning teams wouldn't feel as if they had the same latitude to stash Gordon for a couple of weeks, well, so be it. It's not dissimilar to trading away draft picks for better players this year in the pursuit of a championship. That's all part of the strategy.
However, it did occur to me that the even simpler solution to the "Gordon loophole" is to establish a cut-off date for when keepers must be on the roster, a la the playoff roster date that just passed in baseball. It can be at some moment before the playoffs begin, so that the team pays some roster penalty for picking up a player like Gordon. Again, this situation doesn't bother me at all, but that would prevent it from being an issue again.
A couple things I would say in response:
1. Keep in mind that this league has taken other steps to discourage tanking. For example, the reason PcB has the #1 pick in the draft is because he had the best record of the teams not to make the playoffs. In the past, he would be the #4 pick, now he's got the #1 pick. It makes no sense that we would discourage tanking on the one hand while encouraging teams to sign players that aren't even able to play by rewarding the with good keepers.
2. Trading draft picks both requires somebody else to give up the draft pick, and also means that somebody else is getting value in exchange. Somebody who just gives up a roster spot to a player who isn't going to play again/at all is just going out on their own and tanking their own team.
3. I'd have no problem with setting a deadline (maybe using the trade deadline) for when a player must be on a team in order to be kept.
Upon further reflection, I get why the Ace situation was a problem. The owner of Jones would have had to keep a useless player (probably drafted pretty high) all year in order to prevent another team getting him at a 7th round rate. That would penalize the team who lost Jones more so. So I get why that was an issue and I think the solution was a strong one.
The discouragement of tanking is applaudable--and the draft solution is similar to what happens in my other league. However, it really has no bearing on the Gordon situation. Gordon was available to all of us, no matter the record, and surely we each had a spot on the bench he could have occupied. Hell, bz had STARTING positions he could have improved (ZING!). To say that taking on Gordon is tanking would be akin to calling my keeping Bell all last year "tanking." That just doesn't make sense. Yes, like "tanking," you suffer the penalty now to reap the benefit next year, but there are plenty of spots on the bench that the penalty is minimal.
I'm cool with the deadline idea going forward.
I wouldn't describe what PcB did as tanking because his season was already over when he did it. Again, I think the problem with the Gordon situation is more timing that anything.
You don't want the last week or 2 of the playoffs being a free-for-all with people looking for players once they are eliminated from the playoffs, or don't make the playoffs, or hell make the championship game but know they aren't going to use a player in that game and trying to find keepers for next year after the season is effectively over.
Keepers are supposed to be players that are used in one year and are kept to the next. That's the problem with the Gordon situation. Going forward, a deadline probably fixes this problem, but we still have this problem to deal with for this year.
PcB is no worse off if he can't keep Gordon than if we had a deadline rule in place last year.
I actually am worse off if I can't keep Gordon this year.
Quote:I actually am worse off if I can't keep Gordon this year.
No, you're not. If we'd have set a deadline, you couldn't have kept him. As I said, I would have no objection to making Andy Dalton who you released to get Gordon available to you as a 7th round keeper if you wanted him.
My plan since last offseason was to keep Gordon. Not being able to actively hurts my team this year. I'm not sure how that's debatable.