We're Back - Winter Meeting Tomorrow!

Pitchers and catchers have all reported for their spring training and it's time for all of us to begin thinking about our fantasy baseball season. Tomorrow night, owners will meet online through the CBS Sportsline website for our winter meeting. An agenda may be found below.

First, here's some trade news:

• WizNatSkins trade their 2010 #1 minor league pick to the Phooeys for Jason Bartlett, Phooeys #2 (#6 in Round 2) and Phooeys #3

And, from Mashers new owner-to-be (Tom Haughton):

The commish is allowing me to seek out potential trades prior to my approval with the understanding that none are official until I have been confirmed. So consider everyone on the Mashers available.

This announcement resulted in the following trade:

• Federals trade Vernon Wells and Justin Masterson to the Mashers for Joe Nathan and Mashers 2010 #1 minor league pick.

Here is the agenda for tomorrow night:
Guys,

Here is the Agenda for tomorrow's meeting. Please let me know if I missed anything for the agenda. If so, please re-send to me. Thanks!

NARA Baseball Winter Meeting 2010 - February 23rd, 7PM
Agenda

I. Draft Date and Draft Location

• Friday April 9th 6PM - Cliff Snyder’s House

II. Fees (Website and 2009 Transactions)

• Owe David Pfeiffer for CBS Sportsline Web payment
• 2009 Transaction Fees TBD.
  

III. New Owner (Tom Haughton) Vote

• Tom Haughton would like to take over ownership of the Mashers - League Vote
• New Team Name?
  

IV. Protect Lists / Due Date

• Protected Lists due with Roster Extensions?

V. League Blog

• Reminder about League Blog
  
• Do people need to be re-invited? Good substitute for access to league website from work.
  

VI. Proposed Changes, Questions, Concerns

• Presleys raises concern that a number of players get locked up for the max 3 years with their extensions, thus draining the available talent come draft day. Possibly raising the salary to .5 per year as opposed to .3 per year might result in shorter contracts and thereby put more players into each upcoming draft. [DISCUSS]

• Federals would like to propose that we return our minor leagues to 2 rounds (draft) and 5 slots, the way it used to be. [Commissioner's Note: We used to have 4 minor league slots, not 5]. There are not enough players available for in-season pickups and in drafts of future years. [DISCUSS]

VI. Open Discussion

From the Commissioner:

Hope to see you guys online tomorrow night! If you have trouble accessing the league chatroom from our league website, call me at 410-379-5041 and I will help you try to get the problem resolved.

Note from the Commish - Trading Deadline

From the Commissioner:

The League trade deadline is midnight August 31st. If you want to make a trade before the deadline, please submit the details before 12:01AM September 1st.

Details regarding September roster expansion will be coming with the August 19 Transactions.

Draft . . . The Aftermath

From the Commissioner:

Dear Owners,

I just wanted to thank everyone for an enjoyable draft this year. It was nice to see everyone laughing and having a good time with it. There were a few moments in particular that I will remember for a long time.

Anyway, special thanks to Cliff and Colleen for hosting - Colleen's cooking was delicious and their new great room was a perfect fit for our large group. Cliff, please pass on a special thanks to your wife from all of us.

Also, thanks to Tom for filling in for Don on short notice. It is good to know that we can always count on Tom! Don, I couldn't properly convey how hard Tom worked to do a good job for you. His bidding war with Pfeiffer for Lyle Overbay's services was particularly noteworthy... and amusing.

Okay, so where do we stand now? We will have our first transaction deadline on Tuesday April 14th at 11PM Eastern. Current standings will determine the replacement priority. The only exception being for three players acquired during the auction on Saturday (Joe Koshansky, Dusty Brown and Chad Cordero). These three players did not make an American League Major League roster, and will receive the lowest priority for replacements during the first two transaction periods (regardless of their owner's place in the standings). Please send me several players of interest in priority order if at all possible, as I am sure we will have many requests for the same players.

Please see the attached rosters and let me know if you see any errors. I am in the process of loading the teams onto the website (approx 40% done), and will hopefully finish tonight or tomorrow night.

That's all. Good luck to everyone!

DS

From the Commissioner - End of Season

• Just a heads up that I just made the changes for Week 26 to the website, sorry for the delay as I was sick at the end of last week and over the weekend. Not sure if it will change anything, but we should see in the next several hours. We also have the issue of one team not achieving the minimum number of total innings pitched (this also happened last season). I'll send out a note in the next couple of days with the impact.

Trading Deadline and Roster Expansion

The Commissioner wanted to remind everyone that the trade deadline for our league is August 31st. If you are working on a trade and want to get it in for this season, please submit it to the Commissioner before midnight on Sunday August 31st.

Secondly, roster expansion starts Monday, September 1st at 7AM. I have included the rules for roster expansion here, let me know if you have any questions about it.

XIII. SEPTEMBER ROSTER EXPANSION
If it chooses, a team may expand its roster for the pennant drive by calling up one additional player after September 1 from the free agent pool, its own reserve list, or its own farm system.

If the player to be added is already part of your roster this will be treated as a regular move. If the player to be acquired is unowned the players' salary will be $.25.

The order in which players may be acquired will be as follows:
September 1: Players may be acquired starting this date from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. During this time the lowest team in the standings wishing to acquire an unowned player will receive that player if a conflict arises.
September 2 on: After 10:00 a.m. Sept. 1 player acquisition will once again be first come, first served.

Please Note: Players called up from your minors after Sept. 1 do not NEED to be activated.

Moves to Make

For the Tuesday 8/12 deadline:

• Mashers need to release Rich Harden and find a replacement
• Presleys need to make a move on Laird / Barajas
  

From the Commissioner - Status

I had planned on stepping down as commissioner after this season anyway, but since I've been out for a while, I think it's best for the sake of continuity to continue to send your transactions to the Phooeys as you have been doing. I will remain as commissioner for the remainder of the season, but only to solve disputes and rules clarifications.

From the Commissioner - Health Update

Thanks Dave for taking care of this. If you could continue to do it for Week 5 it would be appreciated.

In case anyone was wondering, my surgery has gone pretty well. I had a lamenectomy done to my L3-L5 discs on my spine where they opened me up, cut through the muscle, removed a part of the "wing" to that portion of my spine, and entered the spinal column to clean out the parts causing the inflammation on my nerves...especially the L1 nerve which runs through the hip all the way to the back of the ankles.I have a nice 7 inch incision with 33 staples in my back (it looks like a zipper going down my spine), which if things go as planned should be removed tomorrow. Getting back to full mobility and being able to bend, twist, and lift may take a little more time so I may be out next week as well.

Acting Commissioner Schlanger

Commissioner Haughton is scheduled to have back surgery tomorrow, Wednesday, April 9th. He is not sure what kind of condition he will be in to do the transactions so he has asked David Schlanger to step in. If you have moves to make and have not done so, please send your transactions to him until further notice.

Federals Roster Change

Ryan Sweeney made the A's Opening Day Roster. As a result, the Federals had to either activate him and release a player or waive him. The Federals released Ryan Sweeney, so he is available for week two transactions.

Transaction Period Extended

From the Commissioner:

Since the draft occurred prior to the start of the season, the first transaction period is extended to correspond with the next transaction period on the web site. So transactions are now due by next Tuesday at 10:00pm.

Boston - A's in Japan

From the Commissioner:

With the strange circumstances with the A's-Red Sox opening series, I believe the following should apply:

• If a player enters the box score in either of the games and gets sent down, that player, since he appeared in a game, is still draft eligible because he has played in a game.

New Proposed Protected List Date

From the Commissioner:

It has been proposed that we move up the due date of the protected list from noon [Thursday] March 27th to sometime on [Wednesday] March 26th.

If there are no objections I'll change the due date to 5:00 pm on the 26th.