{"id":1126,"date":"2018-01-18T19:55:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T02:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1126"},"modified":"2018-02-17T09:48:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T16:48:34","slug":"dtbl-25-gators-farewell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1126","title":{"rendered":"DTBL 25:  Gators Farewell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id='K_WZXUt4TO1F1MiS1oRP4A' class='gie-single' href='http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/511957002' target='_blank' style='color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;'>Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'K_WZXUt4TO1F1MiS1oRP4A',sig:'w-XZfEQVYjYuOrgBcxS9SKUi7mEeTWI1qs079GKWWMA=',w:'594px',h:'401px',items:'511957002',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><br \/>\nHappy 25th Anniversary!\u00a0 On January 18, 1993, the later-to-be-named DTBL held its inaugural draft.\u00a0 When thinking about how I would commemorate this important date in league history, I was originally planning on writing about how the league came together and what happened on this date 25 years ago.\u00a0 But then it dawned on me that <a href=\"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=437\">I already did that<\/a>, exactly five years ago.\u00a0 So I invite you to read that article again.\u00a0 While today is the official league anniversary date, I intend to celebrate it all year long.\u00a0 Yes, 2018 will be our 26th season.\u00a0 But now we have 25 full years of history to look back upon.\u00a0 Today, however, I am going to share some news instead.\u00a0 Our 15 year run with the same 10 league members is coming to an end.\u00a0\u00a0One of our original members has decided to step down.\u00a0 Greg will be relinquishing control of the Gators.<\/p>\n<p>Greg informed me shortly after the season that he intended to retire from the league.\u00a0 He indicated that he simply doesn&#8217;t follow baseball like he used to and thus fantasy baseball had lost its appeal to him.\u00a0 At that time, I told him I would give him a couple months to think it over, although it was clear he had already given it plenty of thought.\u00a0 This week, he confirmed that he will be stepping down.<\/p>\n<p>Greg, if you are reading this, thank you for your 25 years of service to this league.\u00a0 It never would have gotten started without you and the other original members of the league.\u00a0 You all were crazy enough to let me talk you into giving fantasy baseball a shot, even though none of us, myself included, really knew what we were doing in 1993.\u00a0 The fact that this league still exists is definitely something I am extremely proud of.\u00a0 But it wouldn&#8217;t have happened without you.\u00a0 So thanks again, Greg.\u00a0 You will be missed in this league, but we&#8217;ll certainly keep in touch.<\/p>\n<p>When looking at the Gators franchise history, obviously they haven&#8217;t been very successful of late, but that was not always the case.\u00a0 They won two DTBL championships, in 1995 and 1998, and were arguably the most dominant franchise in the league during the late 90&#8217;s.\u00a0 From 1995 to 2000, they never finished worse than third place.\u00a0 The &#8217;95 championship squad was probably their strongest ever, and in the discussion as one of the most talented rosters in the league history.\u00a0 They were led offensively by Mo Vaughn, Dante Bichette, plus a couple of guys who passed away far too young:\u00a0 Kirby Puckett and Ken Caminiti.\u00a0 The roster featured a pair of DTBL rookies who went on to become two of the best players in league history:\u00a0 Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez.\u00a0 The Gators &#8217;95 draft is on the short list of best drafts any team has ever had.\u00a0 In addition to the stars of that &#8217;95 squad, some of the other Gators all-time greats include Derek Jeter, who\u00a0is the only player in league history to accumulate 3,000 hits, Nelson Cruz, C.C. Sabathia, Tom Glavine and Billy Wagner.  An interesting fact that I didn&#8217;t realize until looking over the Gators team page this evening is that they only finished in last place twice:  their first (1993) and last (2017) seasons.  Since 1994 was an expansion season, this means the only time they ever had the first pick in the draft was that inaugural year of 1993.  So while there were a lot of down years towards the end of the franchise&#8217;s history, the Gators were almost never the worst team in the league.<\/p>\n<p>I know plenty of people who probably would have been interested in taking Greg&#8217;s place in the league.\u00a0 But it was a pretty easy decision to whom I would give the first offer.\u00a0 My youngest sister, Kathleen, will be joining the league as a full member.\u00a0 As you know, last year she filled in admirably for Jay while he was deployed overseas.\u00a0 So now she will have full control with much more freedom to build the roster however she sees fit.\u00a0 By the way, Kathleen is younger than this league!\u00a0 She was born a couple weeks after that inaugural draft of &#8217;93.\u00a0 Welcome, Kathleen!\u00a0 Oh, and while I&#8217;m at it, welcome back, Jay!<\/p>\n<p>Since we haven&#8217;t had an ownership change in 15 years, there isn&#8217;t a lot of recent precedent on how to handle this situation.\u00a0 In the past, we have not had new owners inherit existing rosters, even when there was only one new team.\u00a0 However, I suggest we change that now.\u00a0 Our previous &#8220;expansion&#8221; process was pretty rough on the newcomers, particularly considering how deep of a keeper league this is.\u00a0 Many of you experienced that first-hand, particular Nick, who I believe is the only current league member who came into the league as a lone newcomer.\u00a0 So I would understand it if you feel it is unfair for a new member to not have to go through that as well.\u00a0 On the other hand, it would be *far* less work for me if we simply allow Kathleen to inherit Greg&#8217;s team as is.\u00a0 And let&#8217;s be honest, she wouldn&#8217;t be taking over a stacked roster.\u00a0 I am proposing that from here on out, as long as there is only one newcomer to the league, that person simply takes over the existing roster of the departing owner.\u00a0 If there are multiple new members in a season, they will have a mini-draft to pick keepers from the rosters of the departed.\u00a0 If anyone has a problem with my proposal, please let me know with a reply to this post, a forum post, or a direct email.\u00a0 We obviously need to get this squared away pretty soon since roster cuts will be due in just a couple weeks.<\/p>\n<p>There will be a whole lot more to come soon on the upcoming season and our year long 25th Anniversary celebration.\u00a0 Congrats to all on a great quarter century!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Happy 25th Anniversary!\u00a0 On January 18, 1993, the later-to-be-named DTBL held its inaugural draft.\u00a0 When thinking about how I would commemorate this important date in league history, I was originally planning on writing about how the league came together and what happened on this date 25 years ago.\u00a0 But then it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gators","category-komodos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1126"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1130,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}