Rule notes
Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 1:01 amThere were two interesting situations that came up with this week's transaction deadline which required me to dig deep in the archives to determine the correct course of action. Since I haven't seen either of these things come up in quite some time, I think I'm going to put them in writing here for future reference.
First, you may have noticed that Mike decided to take a flyer on Chris Carpenter following positive news of a possible recovery/return. Mike had inquired with me to find out if it was possible to directly assign Carpenter to one of his DL slots even though the web site would not allow him to do that. I figured there was a reason why I programmed the site the way I did, but wanted evidence to back it up. So I searched our mailing list archives and found a message from 10 years ago where I directly stated that free agent signings cannot be directly placed on the DL. Therefore, I am sticking with that rule. You must have a free agent signing on your roster (majors or minors) for at least a week before you place him in a DL slot. I don't remember the exact reason for this rule, but I suspect it is because the purpose of the DL slots is to give you a little extra flexibility when you have injuries, not to allow you to stash away extra players. But if you are willing to roster a guy for at least a week, like Mike is doing with Carpenter, you can then move him to one of those slots.
The second situation didn't actually become an issue because Dave decided to delete a transaction. But prior to Sunday night, he and I both had claims in for Heath Bell. Come Monday morning, we were tied in the standings. As you all know, players who are claimed by multiple teams are assigned to whichever team is lowest in the standings. Since Dave removed his claim before the transactions were processed, Bell went to me. But with us suddenly being tied in the standings, I wasn't sure who would have gotten him if we both still had pending claims. I looked at the code and found that conflicting free agent claims between teams tied in the standings are then broken with two additional criteria. The next tie-breaker is number of free agent signings remaining (greatest to least). At the time, I had 7 free agent signings remaining to 4 for Dave, so I would have received Bell anyway. If that doesn't break the tie, the last criteria is team batting average (best to worst), even if the claim is for a pitcher. I think I chose that as the last resort tie-breaker just because it is a category that is almost guaranteed never to be tied and was a way to do it in code rather than flipping a coin. So there you have it, in case this happens again.
First, you may have noticed that Mike decided to take a flyer on Chris Carpenter following positive news of a possible recovery/return. Mike had inquired with me to find out if it was possible to directly assign Carpenter to one of his DL slots even though the web site would not allow him to do that. I figured there was a reason why I programmed the site the way I did, but wanted evidence to back it up. So I searched our mailing list archives and found a message from 10 years ago where I directly stated that free agent signings cannot be directly placed on the DL. Therefore, I am sticking with that rule. You must have a free agent signing on your roster (majors or minors) for at least a week before you place him in a DL slot. I don't remember the exact reason for this rule, but I suspect it is because the purpose of the DL slots is to give you a little extra flexibility when you have injuries, not to allow you to stash away extra players. But if you are willing to roster a guy for at least a week, like Mike is doing with Carpenter, you can then move him to one of those slots.
The second situation didn't actually become an issue because Dave decided to delete a transaction. But prior to Sunday night, he and I both had claims in for Heath Bell. Come Monday morning, we were tied in the standings. As you all know, players who are claimed by multiple teams are assigned to whichever team is lowest in the standings. Since Dave removed his claim before the transactions were processed, Bell went to me. But with us suddenly being tied in the standings, I wasn't sure who would have gotten him if we both still had pending claims. I looked at the code and found that conflicting free agent claims between teams tied in the standings are then broken with two additional criteria. The next tie-breaker is number of free agent signings remaining (greatest to least). At the time, I had 7 free agent signings remaining to 4 for Dave, so I would have received Bell anyway. If that doesn't break the tie, the last criteria is team batting average (best to worst), even if the claim is for a pitcher. I think I chose that as the last resort tie-breaker just because it is a category that is almost guaranteed never to be tied and was a way to do it in code rather than flipping a coin. So there you have it, in case this happens again.