W e s t  H i l l   2 0 0 2
Winter Meeting Notes

Those present:
Adbats, Frankees, Fighting Bunnies, Ivy Gods, Torco, Tunderbirds

Those not:
Bass Masters, Fodder N Sun, Karm's Army, Nasdaq Sucks, Renegades

This year's winter meeting was held at The Press Box in Skokie. The meeting began at 12:15PM on Sunday, February 24th.

LEAGUE NEWS

1. Our league-specific web site continues to be available at www.geocities.com/rotispaul.geo. All potential keepers are posted there with raised salaries accounted for. If you use the All-Star Stats site for deciding on keepers, the salaries posted there may be inaccurate. Use the geocities West Hill site instead.
2. The currently posted hotline is no longer in service for us. A new hotline is actively being pursued and will be posted on the Commissioner's geocities home page. Until that time, all calls to the Commissioner should be placed to 847-782-9417 between the hours of 9am-9pm.
3. Congratulations were extended to the Fighting Bunnies.
4. The Fodder N Sun franchise has lost the Sun for this season. Fodder has replaced him with a new partner (Dave K) and the franchise name is hereby switched to "Geezers."
5. We agreed to pursue league expansion -- prospective owners should call the Commissioner before March 15th.

DRAFT DAY

We agreed that draft day would be on Sunday, 07Apr2002. It will be held at 9:15am tentatively set for Shubas as it was last season. As with last season, it will make sense to ensure that lunch is arranged for prior to our arrival at the draft. This will eliminate the risk of lost time associated with awaiting the return of owners to the draft table.

STAT SERVICE

We will retain AllStar Stats in 2002. The Commissioner will investigate a pricing dispute with the service within a week's time. It is believed that the price should remain unchanged from last season.

RETENTION DAY

Our declaration deadline for retaining players is Noon on April 1st. If expansion occurs, this deadline will be shifted by a day or two to allow the new team an adequate opportunity to pick from the leftovers. When you declare which players you're keeping, please also remember to include farmers to be kept and include address or telephone changes that you've adopted. Finally, also report in if you seek stats to be delivered by a means other than the Internet -- if so, your AllStar Stats fees will be greater.

RULE CHANGES/CONSIDERATIONS

We discussed and agreed to the following rule changes for this coming season:

1. We agreed to impose a "Steinbrenner prevention" clause to our "silent bid" rule that applies to players who become newly available to the NL. The change is that each West Hill franchise has a $100 kitty with which to place bids on such players for the entire season. If a tie exists for the top bid on a given player, the acting Commissioner will contact the tied bidders and have them rebid within their current kitty limitations -- all tied must bid at least their original bid and cannot exceed their respective kitty's limitation. If a tie for the top bid happens to be at the $100 mark, the subsequent bid is unlimited but must be for at least $100. Obviously, owners who have already spent kitty money on an earlier player will not be capable of tieing at $100 with another owner.
2. We shifted the open trade deadline from 01Sep to 01Aug in an effort to reduce the tendency to "dump trade." With the same purpose in mind, we agreed to restrict trades made between the open trade deadline and Sep 1st such that a given team is allowed to trade up to two active players and one farmer player to any other team during that month. There is no restriction, however, on how many teams that given team can trade with. For example, the Horses can trade 2 active players plus 1 farmer to the Silos on Aug 3rd and cannot trade again with the Silos for the remainder of the restricted period. The Horses can also trade one active players plus 1 farmer to the Tornados later on Aug 3rd and then on Aug 24th still trade one more active player to the Tornados. We revert to the "contiguous in the standings" clause for the period of time after Sep 1st.
3. We unanimously rejected a suggestion to replace the Stolen Base category with the category of OnBase Percentage even when considering the suggestion for the 2003 season.

TRADES

Several trade offers were exchanged at the meeting, but none were executed.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Homepage