Multiyear Contracts open up

I'm just about to flip the switch to allow you to start signing multiyear contracts. But I just wanted to put out a few caution flags first...mainly for brand new owners who have taken over Orphan Teams.

First, familiarize yourself with the rules for contracts at: http://www.benchwarmerbaseball.net/rules/rulespages/Rules_16_0_Contracts.asp

And keep these things in mind:

• To correct a misconception several people have had...you don't need to sign someone to a contract to keep him for 2010. You will get to keep up to 28 players from your roster in November - contract or not.
• You must have ALL the cash to pay the ENTIRE contract up front. And once you spend the money, you will NEVER get it back.
• Above all, the contract is a salary/cap play, not so much a roster move. You're betting that the player's salary will go up so much that it's better to lock him up for the same salary now rather than pay his inflated salary next season.
• Since salaries are based on performance, if you sign someone in March and he is injured in April and out the rest of the season, you would almost certainly have been better off paying his salary next season...and there's no reason to sign a player who won't even see the major leagues this season or not until August or September.
• You have until the end of July to make contracts.

So, why even do it now? Well, teams in returning leagues can only take 5 million in cash into the new season. You will lose any cash above 5 million that you have left after the Week Zero transactions. If you don't use it for signing new free agents in the next few weeks, well, it might be worth a gamble then to do a contract or two.

For BRAND NEW leagues, you're not subject to this 5 million cash limit. You should hang on to your cash and wait to sign contracts later in the summer.

Commissioners League - Any comment on the live draft?

The Commissioners League draft on 1/31 was the first attempt at doing a live draft for BWB.

Any comments on how it went?

I'd rather not focus too much on the technical aspects. I know that some of the setup was not complete until Saturday afternoon, so there wasn't a lot of time for you to check it out. I don't anticipate a full rush on my part to try to program an interface like you see on ESPN or CBS or whatever...but I'm more interested in your thoughts on doing it live rather than doing it via a list.

Here are some initial comments from me:

• The only remark on the tech interface is that for the chat room, I did ask people to try it out prior to the draft to make sure that it worked for them. We got off to a slow start as people tried to get it running (it does require your browser to have a working Java plugin, and I'll make sure to make that point ahead of time in the future).
• OK - two comments on the interface: I'm constantly working with multiple browser windows and tabs and am very comfortable with that and tend to take it all for granted. I'll try to make that clear as well prior to anyone joining another one that you need to easily switch between the chat interface, the player list, and your roster to adequately participate.
• I fully admit that the "what do we do if you're not there?" rules were last-minute. However, I assumed everyone was going to be there. The fact that at least 7-8 people (more?) weren't there made it tougher (see some notes below on dealing with missing people).
• This was a bit tougher for me, as I was running everything else and auto-drafting for others, but staying under budget was a big issue. I spent the most on draft night and have had to go really cheap in Phase 2. I know that typically in online roto drafts the top players go first, but people probably need to be thinking seriously about the salary cap.
• I was happy that we got it done in about the estimated 3 hours (a little longer, but we started late). I think if everyone had been there, it would have gone faster.

OK - some thoughts on the missing-drafters:

• I need to be more insistent on doing a pre-draft list - and RANKING the picks (for the team that had 400 un-ranked players on his list, that wasn't much help).
• I see that I need to make it possible to edit the list mid-draft so that if you have to leave you can set up how to do the end of the draft.
• I'll modify and tighten up the auto-draft procedure. I had thought teams would be going after more prospects, like in the list drafts, so that was the reason to take a prospect in Round 3. Also, it was easy to say - this team has a 1B, so don't take one...but tougher when trying to determine how many SPs or OFs constitutued "full." I'll also put something in there to look for some budget players in there earlier. Again, this was harder to do in practice because there were so many teams I had to be looking at.

Your thoughts? What did you like/dislike about doing it live? What were you surprised at? What would you do differently the next time?

Player List Status in Spring Training

Some quick notes on the "status" column you see on Player Lists (and I've noticed that it doesn't appear on the draft list selection - I'll add that soon)...

"Major" or "minor" league status? At the moment, everyone who was on the 40-man roster in December or gets signed to a major league contract gets noted as major league status. As players get officially optioned down in Spring Training, they'll be changed on the site (we don't catch them all, so there's one big update on Opening Day). If someone signs a "minor league contract" he's noted as minor league status. Same thing goes for minor league players invited to Spring Training.

For "DL" status, there are not necessarily official transactions right now for the disabled list, but as I learn of players who are expected to miss part or all of the 2009 regular season (Troy Glaus, Ben Sheets, etc.) I change their status. If you see someone out there you know will miss time and isn't listed that way, let me know. At this stage, I'm not changing status for injuries during the spring (so, for example, Bill Hall was recently listed as 4-6 weeks, but that's not necessarily going to cut into the regular season).

This is one part of the game (player status, trades and other transactions) where I'm not subscribing to a service, so that's why I always claim "semi-accuracy."

In a related note, does anyone know a link or source for all the current players on the DL - ideally something official? I use a combination of the transactions listings on mlb.com and usatoday.com for updating player status and I'm regularly disappointed with how many things mlb.com leaves off their transactions page (particularly guys coming off the DL). An occasional visit to a page listing all DL players would allow me to cross-check my info. I'm really looking for a list - NOT analysis - as I want to just be able to quickly scan it (so, for example, the injury page on ESPN fantasy is too much information and too cumbersome for this particular purpose).

Problems with Roster Limit Checking

Doing the Week -8 transactions, I found a problem with checking roster limits. In checking the database, I look to see if you're adding players (and adding hitters over 250, pitchers over 250, etc.) plus if you're cutting players in any of those same categories.

Last spring, I had to make some changes to make sure I handled players on IR correctly and that was all fine, but I found out that in the off season - when a lot of you haven't yet put players into lineup slots, I was missing some cuts.

So, in the previous few weeks, it may have been possible that I disallowed a signing when in fact it should have been legal. I apologize for this - it's fixed now and I'll have to reevaluate when players on IR are involved later in the season - but at this stage there's no way I can go back and modify that.