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.

Winter Meeting Notes

• Draft will take place on Saturday April 4 at 1:00pm. The location will be Cliff's, provided there are no issues from the host

• Protected lists are due to the Commissioner by Midnight Wednesday April 1

• Team Owners are reminded that the Federals will need $13 for website fees

• Roster lists will be made available on Thursday, subject to change by Saturday, if a player is cut from the team.

• HKP owner Dave will continue as Commissioner for the 2009 season

• In the event there is a dispute involving the Commissioner's team, a vote by the owners may be called to resolve the issue.

• Federals proposal on the minor league draft is tabled until draft day.

• The minimum number of Innings Pitched shall be 900 and the minimum number of At Bats shall be 4250

• The salary cap will be unchanged

• The proposal to include on NL player on the rosters was defeated
  

• League dues will be sent out by the Commissioner tomorrow or Monday
  

Winter Meeting Live!

Agenda for Winter Meeting:

Meeting Agenda (as of 3/12/2009)

I. Draft

• Officially set draft date, place, and time
• Set time for submission of protected lists
• Any other draft related issues
  

II. Commissioner

• Officially approve Commissioner for next season
• Issue of dispute involving the Commissioner's team. Federals suggest these should be resolved by arbitration or a vote of the league owners
• What constitutes a dispute?
  

III. Minor League Draft and Picks

• Federals suggest we cut minor league draft back to 2 rounds and keep 5 in the minors. Federals believe there are not enough players available to draft and to pick up during the season. Discussion. There are a variety of alternatives if we want to tweak these rulesIV. IP and AB team requirements
• We have had teams fall short of the IP and AB requirements in each of the last two seasons. At a minimum we should discuss these requirements. Please consider changing the IP and AB requirements for each team during the entire season to match totals in Roto Book, 900 IP and 4250 AB's - or something close to this. Currently, our rules call for 1,000 IP and 3,000 at-bats.
• In 2008, teams had the following total team AB's: 6295, 6267, 6589, 5777, 6930, 5696, 5907, 5138, 4994, 5803, 5548, 5856.
• In 2008, teams had the following total team IP's: 1002.3, 1333.7, 1206.0, 1286.3, 1268.7, 1557.0, 1314.7, 1218.0, 1507.3, 1252.3, 642.7, 1109.3.
  

V. Salary Cap

• WizNatSkins would like to consider raising the salary cap for each team. Is there a need for this? What impact would this have? Further clarification - this would be a salary cap raise to the bottom half of the league. Only about .10 per team. Those would be considered small market teams or perrinial losers, and be the ones to benefit.
  

VI. NL Players

• WizNatSkins would like to discuss the possibility of adding 1 NL player to each roster. Clarification - This is a suggestion for fun. The NL player won't be bid on, take one player @ that position. If that player is injured, his replacement has to also play same position.

VII. Other Business

• Reminder to bring website fee for Federals to the draft.
• Reminder regarding league dues.
  

Winter Meeting - Date and Time

Everyone,

I would like to suggest an online Winter Meeting Date and Time. How about Friday evening February 20th, 7PM. The meeting will be held here in a live blog session.

Please respond yes or no in the comments, regarding your ability to attend an online meeting at this time - Friday February 20th, 7PM.

Please note the live blog will be available on February 13, 2009. Invitations were recently sent out to team owners inviting them to become an author. I have received no additional requests to join the blog. As of today, there are only a few owners authorized to post to the blog. The Commissioner and myself remain the only administrators for the blog.

You do not need to be an author to participate in the Live Winter Meeting. You will only need to have Internet access and have the site loaded up at the appropriate time. It is fairly self explanatory, but please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions.

Thanks,
John
Brave Astronauts
and

David
HKP

From the Commissioner - Winter Meeting

Several things . . .

1. I have not heard from anyone regarding dropping out of the league. So I am very happy to proceed with the same teams and owners as last season. If for some reason, your intentions have changed and you just haven't gotten around to letting me know, please let me know ASAP.
2. Looking ahead at possible fantasy draft dates, the season starts Sunday April 5th, with the first full slate of games on Monday April 6th. The best case scenario would have us doing the draft one of the days during that first week of the season, Monday April 6 through Friday April 10. Please check your schedules, and if at all possible keep as much flexibility as possible for that week. Thanks.
3. Winter Meeting - I am planning to hold the Winter Meeting during the last two weeks of February, exact date TBD. In an effort to boost owner participation, I am planning to do a Live Blog Meeting here. At the arranged date and time, owners will be come here and then enter comments in a comment field while reading other owners comments. John (Astronauts) will be handling the installation of the appropriate software that should allow us to communicate in real time. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this approach.
4. If you have any agenda items for the Winter Meeting, please send them to me. I will make another more official call out for agenda items in the next 1-2 weeks.

That's all for now. Again, please take a look at the week of April 6-10 for our potential draft date.

Thanks,

David

HKP

From the Commissioner - Winter Meeting

Hello everyone,

Hope you all are enjoying the off season. I've updated the rosters to include the 29 man version. I also added a worksheet tab to show the current minor league draft order and auction throw order for 2009. I don't think we have anything else to worry about for another 2-3 months.

Given our recent struggles with scheduling and attending a Winter Meeting in addition to the draft, I'd like to try for a virtual Winter Meeting in 2009. I believe there is a chat room feature on the website that I think might work nicely. More info on that later after I check it out more closely.

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!