AMENDMENT / RULE ADDITIONS

[Rawhide GM (Jimmy-LM)]

To the league, on behalf of the TRP, below is a list of amendments or additional rules. The TRP has been discussing several topics since the middle of August, and we are going to make a few changes, for the better of the league.

None of these are drastic rule changes, but all will help to create a longterm and competitive environment for the league.

Any questions can be posted, but we hope these rules are written well enough to be understood in their full capacity.



Amendment 10.2 Revocable Waivers

There will now be a set period for revocable waivers and trading. There will be a set period that players can be posted as well a maximum of 5 players that can post on revocable waivers. An example of how this will work is listed below (please not, these dates are used as an example, and will be subject to change on a yearly basis, based upon MLBs schedule of games)

Trade deadline 8/5 midnight

8/11-8/14 players can be placed on revocable waivers. A maximum of 5 players can be posted per team.

8/15-8-17 any player placed on revocable waivers can be claimed. 1 PM with all claimed players sent to mlbpa

8/18 claims announced. Players will claimed in the order they were posted. The team lowest in the standings that post a claim will win the trading rights for the player, and will move to the bottom of the standings. All unclaimed players can be traded freely. No player that has exceeded the 150/50 limit can be traded with out being placed through revocable waivers after the trade deadline.

8/20 all trades of claimed or unclaimed players must be posted by the end of this date.
...


Amendment 10.3 Buyout Clauses

The current buyout method is being reworked, and there will now be a tougher method to buyout of contracts. Previously you could buy out a players full contract remaining for 50% of the entire sum of remaining money, or 50% of each year for the remainder of the contract. This percentage will now increase significantly, and will also have a step program.

If you are buying out a 1 year deal, the penalty is now 75% of the contract remaining
(example: Player A 2015:$10.0M = penalty owed for 2015 = $7.5M)

If you are buying out a 2 year deal, the penalty is now 70% of the contract remaining
(example: Player B 2015:$10.0M, 2016:$10.0M = Penalty owed for 2015 is $14.0M, or over two years would be $7.0M each for 2015, and 2016)

If you are buying out a 3 year deal or longer, the penalty is now 65% of the contract remaining
(example: Player C 2015:$10.0M, 2016:$10.0M, 2017:$10.0M = Penalty owed for 2015 is $19.5M, or over three years would be $6.5M each year)


...


There will be only 2 Prospect bidding periods this season, and both will be during the regular season.

[BlueSox GM(Matt P)]

I think this buyout program is crap especially for contracts that are derived from mlb contracts. It will make it impossible for teams to cut the albatross contracts that burden a particular team which makes the team uncompetitive for an extended period. Buyouts are important to allow bad teams to get better. I'd like to see these penalties split across mlb contracts and contracts that are offered by owners in the league. Holding owners accountable for their offers is fine but there are some gross contracts out there (Kershaw, Pujols, Fielder) that owners will eventually need to buy out. Just my two cents.

[BlueSox GM(Matt P)]

Or maybe an amnesty clause like the NBA.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure I mind the buyout clause for future contracts. But I think it's unfair to apply it to contracts already made/owned. Managers acquired players with the expectation that those players could be bought out at 50%, thereby limiting some of the risk of longterm deals. Changing that now is like changing the contracts themselves, since the buyout is effectively an option on the contract. It's not fair to change those terms after the contracts are acquired.

I don't have a problem applying the new rules to contracts not yet made, but all current contracts should be grandfathered and have the option to buyout at 50% under the rules in force at the time those contracts were made/acquired.  Once teams have already acquired a contract, it's just wrong to change the terms under which that contract operates.

[PawSox (GazW)]

Got to agree with Tim there. If it is changed for already existing contracts it's going to hurt a few people in a couple of years time who thought they would be able to cut their MLB salaried high earners when they drop off a cliff. However, I personally think that the penalty for cutting should be higher on free agent signings. There were some scandalous deals given out last year and managers were able to cut them pretty easily after a few weeks.

The first year after signing a free agent you should be penalized 100% with a sliding scale the years after. Hopefully that would make people think about the deals the give out.

[Rawhide GM (Jimmy-LM)]

Oct 9, 2014 23:54:27 GMT -5 @muspelle said:

I'm not sure I mind the buyout clause for future contracts. But I think it's unfair to apply it to contracts already made/owned. Managers acquired players with the expectation that those players could be bought out at 50%, thereby limiting some of the risk of longterm deals. ".

These are the exact deals we are trying to prevent Tim. I call it stupid money and it hinders a lot of teams, and never works as planned. If your on giving out a contract with the EXPECTATION that you are going to buy it out, then you are obviously overpaying for said player.

I can listen to the larger MLB contracts and the TRP can discuss each one on an individual basis, but observing the waivers this past season and how many teams dropped players on 1 and 2 year deals with ease (myself included), we need to make stiffer penalties. It should be difficult to et out of contracts, not easy, and this rule is created to have more of a consequential impact during the Free Agency Period

[Deleted]

I agree with Jimmy. The buyout % last year was a joke. It made it too easy for teams to get someone and then just buy them out. When we had our draft, certain players fell because of their contracts. But in the end they value was there to the owner to draft them, rounds later then they should have gone, because they had a big deal. Certain teams had a huge amount of cap space and used that to overpay for certain guys. It shouldn't be that easy to get out of those deals. Drafted players are one thing, FA's signed are another IMO.

I wouldn't be opposed to talking with the rest of the TRP on possibly having a separate set of rules for contracts prior to 2015 vs contracts 2015 and beyond but that is completely up to Jimmy to decide if we open that up.

[Deleted]

I like the new rule idea's and id be fine with an amnesty as well if it was for a new owner taking over a team that was miss managed but for teams that freely gave the contracts they did id disagree with an amnesty.

[Deleted]

yeah, just to repeat, i don't mind the rule going forward for new contracts. its only already existing contracts where i think is an issue of fairness.

i'm not in horrible shape with this because the only big longterm contract i own is posey and its still a fairly friendly contract for his talent, but as an example i traded for beltran this summer. now, he's ok value at his contract, but he was dealing with some injury stuff so part of my thinking was hey if we get to next summer and he's still got issues then the only downside is i can buy out those two years for 15m total and since he costs 15m for one, that's basically no effect to my 2015 cap. under the new rules it would cost a lot more - which is the point i understand, fair enough - except that weren't the rules under which i acquired him, and i very well might not have otherwise (or at least paid less). other teams with more or bigger risky contracts will have even more issues. i don't have a problem with it if i acquire a guy this year because then i know the rule in advance.

there are multiple ways to deal with it, grandfathering is one. that's the most perfect way, it just requires some admin. another way would be to hold off the date you implement the rule, for instance, if you waited until opening day 2016 to implement the rule, then teams would have this year and the 2015-2016 offseason to buy out deals, it's less perfect but it would capture most situations (and require no admin in the sense of keeping up with grandfathering) since all contracts that are 3 years or less would be able to be bought out reasonably close to the old rules (since in the 2015-2016 offseason a 3 yr deal now would then be 2yrs and could be bought out flat, i chose opening day tho so it affects the season less). i think that works for most contracts altho others with risky contracts i haven't thought about could say that's not enough. (also, implementing the 75% for one year deals for 2015 shouldn't be much of an issue, so you could even start that on opening day 2015 to allow anyone that had planned on a 50% buyout of a 1yr guy this year to do it this offseason, and then start the rest of the rule on opening day 2016, i think while less perfect than grandfathering that would probably cover most issues to the ex post facto change here with a lot less admin. unless someone objects? just trying to offer solutions)

[Deleted]

actually, the admin for grandfathering might not be that bad. i forgot that you already put together a list of 2014 contracts so a manager could just refer to that to prove a contract is eligible. you could probably also stipulate that only a player that's still on the same team as he was at the end of 2014 is eligible for grandfathering. if a guy is traded going forward, its buyer beware and new rules apply (slightly harsh, but probably won't kill deals). you could probably limit the grandfathering to 2-3 years as well. that might not be as hard as i thought since you're basically already doing the admin with the 2014 roster archives.

[Deleted]

"There will be only 2 Prospect bidding periods this season, and both will be during the regular season."

So this means that International Free Agents like Rusney Castillo will not be bid on during the off season free agent pool?

[Deleted]

I'm willing to take on a bad contract as long as I get a top prospect to go along with it or good young player.........this is another way teams can do things.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2014 15:26:51 GMT -5 @tribetime said:

I'm willing to take on a bad contract as long as I get a top prospect to go along with it or good young player.........this is another way teams can do things.

marlins, this isn't the trade block, this is for the rule changes.

[Javelinas GM (Scott)]

In full agreement with Tim on this one. Contracts originating in 2014 should be grandfathered and we have copied our 2014 rosters with contracts to show these.

These rules would have definitely influenced whether or not I aquired a certain player(Matt Kemp, Charlie Morton, Felix to name a few), plus would have factored into how much I might have paid to aquire said player.

I am perfectly fine with all the new rules proposed so long as 2014 contracts are grandfathered.

[Tigers (prev. Redbirds Amy)]

I agree w Scott and Tim and support all the other supposed changes.
I figure Rusney will be w the MLB FAs

[BlueSox GM(Matt P)]

The international free agents who are under 23 and signed on or after July 2nd are milb draft eligible (typically this is referring to the 16 and 17 years olds that the Yankees, etc are throwing a ton of money at). The older ones, Rusney Castillo, Kenta Maeda (maybe), etc are the MLB free agents. I believe the signing bonus period that was held last year in which Tanaka was acquired was more to allow teams to fill out their rosters that did not do so in the draft. Plus, not having one at the beginning of the year allows teams to get a better feel for who their team is, before choosing to commit money to the signing bonuses. A team that is committed to rebuilding has a distinct advantage to a team that's taking a wait and see approach when it comes to a preseason signing bonus period.

[Generals GM (Pete)]

Instead of trying to grandfather contracts for the buy out change, how about having one more year with the old percentages, and then apply the new percentages the following year? Makes it easy to manage and gives people a chance to plan ahead.

[Rawhide GM (Jimmy-LM)]

Oct 9, 2014 19:50:07 GMT -5 Rawhide GM (Jimmy-LM) said:

Amendment 10.3 Buyout Clauses

The current buyout method is being reworked, and there will now be a tougher method to buyout of contracts. Previously you could buy out a players full contract remaining for 50% of the entire sum of remaining money, or 50% of each year for the remainder of the contract. This percentage will now increase significantly, and will also have a step program.

If you are buying out a 1 year deal, the penalty is now 75% of the contract remaining
(example: Player A 2015:$10.0M = penalty owed for 2015 = $7.5M)

If you are buying out a 2 year deal, the penalty is now 70% of the contract remaining
(example: Player B 2015:$10.0M, 2016:$10.0M = Penalty owed for 2015 is $14.0M, or over two years would be $7.0M each for 2015, and 2016)

If you are buying out a 3 year deal or longer, the penalty is now 65% of the contract remaining
(example: Player C 2015:$10.0M, 2016:$10.0M, 2017:$10.0M = Penalty owed for 2015 is $19.5M, or over three years would be $6.5M each year)

So this is the agreement the TRP will make... This Buyout rule will be active as of January 4th. January 3rd is the last day to tag any free agents, and seems like an appropriate day to make as the last cuts before Free Agency bidding happen, therefore our current 50% buyout will stay in place through 1/3/15 (the buyout still comes off the 2015 salary cap). If you are intending to keep a player on your roster for the 2015 season, it is entirely expected that their value to you as GM is important for this upcoming season and beyond, and that this buyout rule is intended to prevent you from dropping dead-weight easily during the season.

The argument that you have traded for a player, WITH THE EXPECTATION that you will be able to buyout their contract, is a very poor argument and probably a poorer decision on your part, and that's why this rule will still go into effect for all contracts for this upcoming season. We will still listen to very large MLB contracts, similar to players like Pujols and Cano, on a case by case basis as the TRP and will make decisions on and individual basis for those players.

[Deleted]

So, new owners who inherited players with exorbitant contracts the previous owner foolishly acquired?

We think trimming the salary fat is part of reshaping/rebuilding a team. We are getting three new owners. They now have only until January 3rd to trim unsavory contracts by trade or be shackled to their sinking ship? And, what about new owners from last season and are only part way through their rebuilding?

A grandfather clause keeping the old rule for players with unwieldy contracts seems more appropriate -- if they inherited the players. It isn't as though they traded for bad contracts. In fairness to the new owners, a grandfather clause seems most appropriate.

[Deleted]

This is a small accommodation and I am glad the TRP considered it, but realistically its not really close for a lot of teams to make many real cuts since it takes a while to get the cap for big buyouts, 2016 would have seemed like the minimum.

I'm not going to argue it further, but i still think it's just unfair of the TRP to make rule changes that affect contracts are already made/acquired like this without much more serious accommodation.  Going forward for new contracts, no problem.  But I think this is a BAD precedent for rule changes. Now when I acquire a contract, I really don't know what I'm acquiring, it's really at the whim of the TRP to change the rules under which the contract was acquired, after the fact. I don't mind rule changes as we all want to make the league better, but not ones which punish managers for decisions that they've already made.  

As for the idea that taking into account LEAGUE RULES when valuing a player in trade is poor decision on a manager's part, well, that's just absurd.  Did I read that right?  A manager acquires a player and part of that calculation is risk, the buyout rules directly affect risk and thus value, so any decent manager would ALWAYS have that in that in the back of his/her mind.  The leagues rules are part of the definition of how the contract works.  To say otherwise is to say managers made a poor decision by relying on league rules......seriously?  I couldnt let that go without commenting.....wow.