Also, this gets us out of the can't-pick-up-an-undrafted-rookie rule. That rule exists, I think, to prevent the windfall of getting a surprise rookie on a super-favorable contract. These guys (guys like Brad Miller and Danny Salazar) end up being very good for the auction.

Its an interesting idea, curious what others have to say. Just playing devil's advocate ..

Between the 30-man active rosters and guys who meet the rookie criteria, we're already rostering 400+ major league players across the 13 teams. Part of me is inclined to say if you find someone, more power to you. And like you said, there is an auction.

Also seems like it could stifle parity a little bit. For those not competing this year, the only incentive to participate in FA pickups at all would be to flip a FA to someone competing.

Could consider a more limited rule change where you can pick up rookies in-season but just can't keep them (and everything else stays the same). Probably won't be a ton of impact guys considering the depth of our minor league rosters but at least would provide for more options on the WW.

I am against the rule change.

First person to offer
1st rounder for Jesse Chavez
Or
3d rounder for either Dunn, granderson, or crisp

Gets the deal.

I'm against this.

Angle shooters coming out against the rule change.

I hear you that we do roster a lot of people already. Though I think it would enhance parity, if anything, since the windfall from a savvy mid-season pickup is kind of random, and more likely to be picked up on by someone paying attention. Forcing those players back through the pre-season auction gives everyone a crack at them.

Also, you're right that if we implemented this rule for rookies alone it would be better than what we have, IMO.

Everyone has the same degree of opportunity to pick a non-rookie off waivers, assuming they have the funds to make a winning bid. Like the FA auction, we currently have a waiver process that is fully transparent and accessible. It's up to each owner to determine how active they would like to be on the wire.

Speculative adds are a huge part of fantasy sports, to paint them as "angle shooting" is puzzling (my poker vernacular is shaky, but my understanding of the term means a dishonest or unethical act). I could visit everyone's roster and identify players that would qualify as "non-essential" or "speculative" under your definition. It sounds like you're off base here.

I was being facetious calling it angle shooting, thought that was clear, my bad.

Of course we have mid-season auctions, and of course everyone has access. Of course it's up to every owner whether they want to keep their interest up every week of the year. But it's just a fact that not everyone follows the whole season, and would be available every week to bid on any interesting players that come up. Since we inevitably don't have everyone's focus during the season, we put the interesting players that come along mid-season up for auction when we do.

It's just an extension of the logic behind the mid-season drop/pickup rule we talked about implementing (agreed to implement, actually) this winter. And applied to rookies alone this would provide an unambiguous improvement.

Not paying attention is a choice, while anyone who's traveling can easily bid up to a week in advance. Not that it's likely to come up, but if someone was really adamant about getting a bid in, they could PM a commish with their bid for the week where they know they'll be unavailable.

Owner apathy is not a valid reason to change the waiver system.

Meh, I think it is, but I understand the disagreement.

If nothing else, it's still clearly an improvement were we to apply this to rookies only.

Why did you want the salary floor rule, BTW? What was your rationale?

I honestly don't remember, but my old posts are in the thread somewhere.

I'd support allowing people to add rookies under the same rules as any other adds. Given that they've gone undrafted, it seems unnecessary to say everyone needs to get a chance in an auction.

Agree.

I'm not on board with allowing mid-season rookie pickups.

It would decrease the value of draft picks ("I don't need to draft this guy when I can just get him on waivers") and further inflate prices in the free agent auction (fewer players available means prices just go up, see the bidding on graduated rookies Salazar, Nick Franklin, etc. from this season, that money would go somewhere else).

Plus, what's the cutoff point? Does the player have to be promoted to MLB in order to get picked up? What if (hypothetically) you have Oscar Taveras get called up in July for a cup of coffee, he's acquired off fantasy waivers, then is demoted again irl. Does the owner keep Taveras? Does he have to cut him? Does he get to demote him to his farm system at the end of the season?

Agree it's messy.

What I had in mind when I tossed it out there was you can add whoever you want (newly promoted guy, minor leaguer, alien, whatever) but you can't keep them the following season if they were rookie eligible at the start of the season. That player would then be in either the auction or rookie draft player pool next year depending on games played.

Pro is it marginally increases the in season player pool. Con is it adds a bit of admin headache to track it. Not sure it's worth the hassle to be honest.

Considering we still have people (myself included) bidding on non-eligible players, I can foresee it being quite the hassle to keep everything straight.

I'm on the Pecota side fwiw.

It isb't a big deal, but I do think it's a bit silly when there are players who would be useful, but can't be added even though they are major league baseballers. And I'd have thought that the biggest hassle is the whole league bidding on ineligible players every few weeks, like happens now.

I was vaguely referring to the issue of all the behind-the-scenes stuff that Exit and I take care of with regard to tracking player data, confirming eligibility, updating the spreadsheet, and all the related work throughout the year. So while the ineligible pick-ups is what I razz on guys about the most, there are many factors that can make new rules logistically complex.

While it may seem silly when compared to real-life MLB (which we strive to model the league after), the rookie rules are in place to help influence certain trends within the fantasy realm, as I mentioned above. I think what we have now works pretty well, hence my hesitation to adopt this particular proposal. I've been posting on this a lot, so I'll pipe down for a while.

Nice Salazar pick up.

Yeah, well, we'll see if he those ticks on his fastball back. But yes, pleasant surprise when I saw the drop yesterday. Does the system allow you to bid on a player if you dropped them, say, at 10:45pm on Sunday night? Because that would definitely be an angle-shoot.

That had occurred to me before and I was wondering if we should institute a rule to close the loophole. We technically don't have a rule forbidding such an action, but I feel it would be a valid thing to overturn if it did happen since someone could use it to reset a bad/expiring contract on the fly.

Should we set a minimum time period for an owner to reclaim a previously dropped player? Like a week or two?