Teams represented:
Abners, Beer Steins, Cucci Coup, Keller's Heroes, Mike's Myths, Paul Bears
Teams absent:
Gold Glovers, Miam Ivice
This year's winter meeting was held at Slate Street Billiards in Vernon Hills. The meeting began at 12:25PM (or so)on 17-Feb-2002.
League News / Expansion Stats / The Draft / Retention Declaration/2002 / Other ChangesNo accolades were given to last year's co-winners Cucci Coup and Paul Bears, but there was plenty of recognition during the course of the meeting.
It was announced that the Dark Brothers and Who Zohn 1st owners will not be participating in the upcoming season. Their rosters and any players unkept by the incumbent owners will become available for retention by new ownership if new owners can be successfully recruited.
Last season's Hotline is no longer available to us. A new one will be announced
sometime between now (17Feb) and retention declaration time. If you need to
contact the Commissioner, please phone his home between 9am and 9pm or e-mail
him at paulHadler@cs.com.
We are a league in need of ownership infusion. Prospective new owners should
contact the Commissioner at his home phone of 847-782-9417 between the hours
of 9am and 9pm until a new hotline is implemented.
The AllStar Stats web site for our league is www.allstarstats.com/baseball/1672
and we will retain their service through 2002 at the same rate as last season.
Of course, they will have more features.
COMMISSIONER-BASED WEB SITE
The Ivicerrie League web site remains active this season. Use www.geocities.com/rotispaul.geo
to get to it. From this page you will find league news, ongoing Ivicerrie financial
status, and any other league-impacting communications that are necessary.
We agreed that the draft would take place on Friday, April 5th at 5:30PM. The exact location will be in Lake Zurich (complements of Mike's Myths). The Commissioner will notify each owner well in advance of draft day to announce the address and to provide directions. It is not information that belongs on the web site for security reasons.
The stat service will provide draft-day rosters that dictate which players are still available to be drafted and at which positions they qualify. The Commissioner will review the list early Friday morning and make updates as needed (based on the morning paper and Internet sources), prior to getting copies made. Each owner must supply their own source of Minor League players to pick from during the Farmer selections. The Commissioner will not be able to attend this year's draft, but is making arrangements for a representative to cover for him.
We agreed that a "pull a number out of a hat" type of exercise will
be conducted prior to the draft to determine a waiver order. The waiver order
will come into effect this season and will apply only to major league players
previously unaffiliated with the NL. More details are written up below and also
in our rules page.
RETENTION Declarations for 2002
We agreed that each owner will declare which players are being kept on their
roster (per our retention rules) no later than midnight between March 29th and
30. This will give the Commissioner time to notify the league about kept players.
It will give potential new owners a chance to select unkept players for their
rosters at a supplemental draft being scheduled for April 1st or 2nd. Finally,
it will also give the stat service an opportunity to remove those players from
the draft-day roster.
Sequence of events again are:
PAYOUT
We agreed to leave the policy as it was. 50%, 25%, 15%, 10% for 1st through
4th with quantity of Ivicerrie teams 10 or less; 45%, 25%, 15%, 10%, 5% for
1st through 5th with 11 teams or greater.
We agreed to leave the roster composition, transaction fees, minimum account balance, Willy-Nilly limit, and minimum innings rules as they were.
We agreed to encourage all incumbent owners to recruit new owners. New owners will have an option to claim abandoned rosters (Dark Brothers or Who Zohn 1st) or to simply participate in a supplemental draft on April 1st or 2nd. In the supplemental draft, all unretained players that currently have Ivicerrie salaries will be picked sequentially with the order being determined by coin-flip (or similar random methodology). Retention rules of 2002 (limit of $50 or 3 players) apply to the supplemental draft.
Beginning in the 2003 season(not a typo), the retention rule will be expanded from a choice between a limit of $50 or 3 players at any salary to become a choice between a limit of $75 or 5 players at any salary. This is believed to increase the size of retention rosters to an extent that will reduce the quantity of players auctioned off during the draft. Therefore the draft will not be quite as exhausting. It is additionally believed that the maturity and fairness of Ivicerrie owners and the checks and balances built into our rules will prevent negative influences that this rule change may otherwise have on trading activity.
We implemented a new rule that will prevent an owner from reducing a player's salary during the course of a season (as was done with Rick Ankiel and Chris Truby when they were dropped from the active roster to the farmer roster in 2001, for example). The new rule: Once a player has an Ivicerrie salary in a given season, that salary remains with the player throughout the season -- regardless of which owner claims him, when he is claimed, or which roster spot the player occupies. Normal retention rules or auction rules will adjust the player's salary the following season -- whichever applies.
We modified the rule regarding acquisition of players who were previously unaffiliated with the NL. On the date such players become National Leaguers, each Ivicerrie owner has until midnight of the following date to make a claim for the player. If no claim is called in, the player simply becomes a free agent and is subject to our normal first come-first served policy. If the player is claimed by one or more Ivicerrie teams within the indicated timeframe, the player is automatically awarded to the roster of the Ivicerrie owner highest in the waiver order (where 1 is higher than 10). Waiver order is originally determined on draft day through a random process (probably by picking a number out of a hat). When an Ivicerrie team is awarded a player through the waiver system just described, that team instantly drops to the bottom of the waiver order. The current waiver order will be maintained in the Commissioner News section of the stat service page. When calling in a waiver claim, all owners must describe the complete transaction (drop Mark Grace and add Jason Giambi, for example). All applicable transaction fees apply as usual.
A complete set of rules for the upcoming season is available
elsewhere on this web site. The highlighted items show changes
from the previous season's policies.
Reminders:
Retainers must be declared on the hotline no later than midnight between March 29th and 30th. Please also include address or telephone changes and your preference for Stat delivery.
See you all on April 5th at 5:30PM in Lake Zurich. Directions will
be provided once determined.