Rule Change!

[ZFactor]

To all EFSports.com Owners:

Rule Change!
Since some owners this time of year like to load up on UFA players by
taking advantage of a loop-hole just before the UFA bidding ends, which
by the way is at the end of the regular season, or week 13, EFS is
announcing a rule change that will take effect immediatly. The actual code
for the change will take 1-2 weeks for rockey and Stan to have in
place, but I will be enforcing it manually until the code is in place.

Your roster will be invalid at the 53 & 8 level as it has always been,
which means no setting of starting lineups, no waiver claims, etc.
But... NOW we are going to make a hard maximum roster size of 55 & 10. This
means that once your team hits 55 or 10, any outstanding UFA bids that
you have will be automatically deleted, and you will not be able to
place any more UFA bids until you get back below 55 & 10.

If you have more than 55 & 10 on your roster right now, you will need
to waive players to get down to 55 & 10 max. On Saturday, December 3rd
when I wake up, I will be checking rosters in all leagues and I will be
waiving players for you until you have a max of 55 & 10.

Sincerely,
Tom

[Legend]

Not a complaint but just want to avoid a big deal later.

How will this work at draft time? If a team is at the 55 / 10 limit will

the pick just be bypassed, the pick made then the player cut or will it

just not let you do anything (IE time out) until you get below 55 / 10

and make the pick?

[paladisiac]

My questions:

01) 55 players refers to active plays NOT on IR, correct? True
02) when change-of-year happens, 0-contract players don't technically count against people's active roster, correct? then teams (probably out of the playoffs) will go down from 55 to some much-lower number, and will be able to rise back up to 55 active, correct? True, all teams, ones that had been in the playoffs or not, will drop well below 55 when their players with one year contracts drop to 0.

(unfortunately, this is news to me too.)

[Legend]

Need to know if players on IR count against the hard cap?

I don't think they should count since in some leagues I have 6+ players on IR

that would cut my roster down to only 49 active players.

If they don't then what happens then they come off IR will they be automatically dropped if it puts me over the 55 / 10? Say I have 6 guys on IR my roster is at the legal 53 limit and 4 guys come off IR which puts me at 57 active players. Will 2 players automatically drop?

Edited by ZFactor

IR players do not count towards the cap. Tom

[ZFactor]

Players on IR as before, will not count towards the hard active player cap.

[tec]

you guys sort of sprung this on EFS without much warning....giving folks a few extra days (2?) to adjust their own rosters would be well recieved i would think.

make your job easier too....

just my 0.02 worth...

tc

[Legend]

Ok if IR players don't count what happens if I am at 53 / 8 with 4 players on IR and 3 of them come off IR the same week. Will my roster go to 56 / 8 or will I lose 1 of them. If it's a hard cap just not sure what happens when guys coming off IR puts youover it.

Or If I have bids out for a player and then you run the weekly updates for IR players and my roster goes over. My bids go away then, I assume. I might want to cut a player if I get the UFA but wouldn't want to cut them before that just to be sure I would get them.

[ZFactor]

A new more comprehensive rule change to stop late season roster abuse, and some other seasonal loop holes, will go into effect for 2006. It will be announced in a week or two, and will take effect 1/1/2006.

For now, no new rule change will go into effect.

But...... I will look into all leagues and drop excessive players from teams that go nuts and have ridiculously inflated rosters. Those teams will have their rosters brought down to 55/10, IR players won't be counted. This will be done in the best interest of the league. Hoarding players by a few teams at the end of the year is not good for any league.

Tom - EFS

[Natalie Portman]

ZFactor wrote: For now, no new rule change will go into effect.

Tom - EFS




Howdo you rationalize threatening that you were going to begin waiving players off of teams rosters this morning, and then announce tonight that you've decided to wait a month before implementing this rule?

Do you have any idea how unfair this is to teams who made a bunch of changes last night to avoid your wrath this morning?

Teams who went out of their way to comply with your new rule in the time frame that you had stated are now going to suffer unnecessarily in both the salary cap and the contract cap.

How do you plan to make up for the damage you've done to the teams who tried to follow the rules and got significantly hurt in the process?

[ZFactor]

If you had excessive players on your PS, and then waived them, the penalties would have been for this year only. How does that hurt, since they will be wiped out at year's end anyway?

Tom - EFS

[Natalie Portman]

The salary cap penalties limit the ability to extend the length of player contracts before this season ends (that's a BIG deal).



Players with multi-year contracts who were waived to get down to the 55/10 limit will hurt the salary cap for those future years.



By making sure to get down to 55/10 this morning, the next month of watching the players was removed from any decision making. Players that suffer severe injuries in the next month might have been waived instead of kept. Plus, the payer that was waived in that example can't be retrieved without competing against the rest of the league once bidding resumes (his rights were already securely owned).



It's really great to look at the UFA Bid page tonght and watch as other teams bid on my players. With another month to observe the roles certain players are being used in, I would have had a lot more information to determine which guys should be the last cuts. Now some of those players are getting scooped up and my compensation is aworsened cap situation for contract extensions.



There's obviously more problems, but these just came to mind quickly.



The implications of this run very deep and the worst thing is that you're set up to damage the teams who complied with your declaration, and actually reward the teams who didn't.

[chinchilla]

I would like to see a rule that would prohibit teams from bidding on players in the last week and going into the negative on cap money or years and then not setting starters, this happened this week in League 3000.

Also, the extending of players after the season is over and going negative in these categories to do it. I think you should have to have both the Cap $$ and the Cap years in order to extend or sign players in a given year. This gives them some extra help for the prior year and there is no penalty for doing it in this season as the season is over and you need to do nothing else, so it doesn't matter if you are InValid.

Just my thoughts

[Lestat]

Natalie,

Can I buy you a drink the next time you are in Chi-town?

Lestat

[SuperStarDestroyer]

Could we PUH-LEASE get rid of that lame rule op capping an original bid on a player. So, what to bid what you want you have to rely on another owner to help you up it? That's ridiculous.

[tec]

I have been reading with interest the discussion in Lg5 about a trade that several folks voted NO to....i am not going to enter that discussion since i am not in that league now. But i find one of the arguments SSD makes to have a lot of merit, therefore i offer it as a proposal to EFS management for urgent consideration:

Proposal: owners that Foster teams are NOT allowed to make trades for that team until or unless they have PAID for that team and are taking it over for the following season. Forster owners for teams that are just beginning their offseason have the same restiriction ( see below- I believe leagues under the latter situation should NOT begin RFA until committed owners are found that have purchased the team.) I beileve that should be implemented asap for 2006 season.

this would alleviate a lot of concerns folks have, especially those detailed by SSD in the history of lg5. Lets face it, foster owners are caretaker owners, they dont have a long term interest in that team or league-unless they end up purchasing that team. Therefore, their abilities to manage that team should be restricted, at least until such time they do acquire a long term interest in that team-i.e. they purchase it....

I fostered an orphaned a team in lg5 for several weeks last season, and i made one trade in that league which involved a player for an 06 rd1 draft pick....the team i was fostering didnt have any rd 1 picks in 06.....

having fostered teams every year for past several years, i agree with some of the statements SSD makes, and in this case i believe a 'rule implementation' is warranted by EFS now, before the season starts and before fosters are assigned for teams/leagues that want to start their season.

One problem i foresee is that foster owners that are assigned so that leagues can begin their offseason UFA and RFA would have the ability to use draft picks to bid on RFA players.

I would suggest that in those situations that EFS start UFA but not start RFA until that league is full with paid, committed owners. in this situation the RFA for that league may start after Apr 20 if needed....not sure if that would require a coding change or not...if so then this could cause a problem...for those leagues there would be no need to start rook draft until later anyway...

thats enough on this for now...

looking for comments from the EFS community...

tc

[Bluecaterpillar]

Tom:
You should have not even started this thread... it could be flood gates!
However, I am seriously concerned and totally against your proposal.
EFS has been around for what? 10 years? We have 50 leagues (?), 40 trades per year (?), a non-linear growth of ownership but still probably 12,000 trades overall, since creation?...... and how many end up in Trade Court?

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the lg. 5 situation is an exception to most "foster" behaviors I have seen and just an aberration. As such, it should not lead to a rule change for the rest of us, past and future foster owners who see fair trading as a key part to making teams better.

Trading is vital to make orphans better and more attractive for re-purchase.
Abusive trading is an exception and that's EXACTLY why you have the Trade Court to start with!!

So let's not create a rule discarding trading when the safeguard already exists and it's the Court.

On a side note,I have just traded 1.7, 2.2, 5 players ranked 7th, 8th, 17th, 20th and 113th in their categories (so 2 1sts, 2 2nds, 2 3rds and Udeze) for the privilege (noirony intended) to move up from 1.7 to 1.1 and 1.2 and indeed pick what I hope will become Manning and LT or Manning and Barry Sanders.

Totally worth it, in my book... and very similar to the trade in Lg. 5.
-Blue

[Bluecaterpillar]

SuperStarDestroyer wrote: Could we PUH-LEASE get rid of that lame rule op capping an original bid on a player. So, what to bid what you want you have to rely on another owner to help you up it? That's ridiculous.
While I am at it... 100% agreement with this change proposal.
If Snyder can break the bank every year, so should we... The capping at 5 x 3 Mil. is ludicrous.
-Blue

[tec]

Blue-

my comments are not directed toward that trade under discussion in lg5, that particular trade, as i understand it, is between two owners in lg5, they have paid for their teams .

My post concerns 'Foster Owners' only, the proposed rule change would apply only to Foster Owners....that they should have resticted opportunities to manage their foster teams which would include restrictions on their ability to make trades and/or bid on RFA players. Basically i am proposing that the only transactions 'Foster Owners' can engage in are Waiver wire bids and UFA bids; nothing more....until or unless they purchase that orphan team.

i am in no way commenting on the validity of the trade in lg5, altho i do have an opinion .....

tc

Bluecaterpillar wrote: Tom:
You should have not even started this thread... it could be flood gates!
However, I am seriously concerned and totally against your proposal.
EFS has been around for what? 10 years? We have 50 leagues (?), 40 trades per year (?), a non-linear growth of ownership but still probably 12,000 trades overall, since creation?...... and how many end up in Trade Court?

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the lg. 5 situation is an exception to most "foster" behaviors I have seen and just an aberration. As such, it should not lead to a rule change for the rest of us, past and future foster owners who see fair trading as a key part to making teams better.

Trading is vital to make orphans better and more attractive for re-purchase.
Abusive trading is an exception and that's EXACTLY why you have the Trade Court to start with!!

So let's not create a rule discarding trading when the safeguard already exists and it's the Court.

On a side note,I have just traded 1.7, 2.2, 5 players ranked 7th, 8th, 17th, 20th and 113th in their categories (so 2 1sts, 2 2nds, 2 3rds and Udeze) for the privilege (noirony intended) to move up from 1.7 to 1.1 and 1.2 and indeed pick what I hope will become Manning and LT or Manning and Barry Sanders.

Totally worth it, in my book... and very similar to the trade in Lg. 5.
-Blue

[Bluecaterpillar]

Tom:
I misunderstood your comments and how they were not directly linked at Lg 5.

Yet, I think that trading is KEY, fundamental, most vital to any good job made by foster parents for the good of the teams fostered and to make them commercially attractive.

If nothing else, foster parents should be more carefully selected -- though I believe Tom and Sid have done a good job at having solid, cautious owners fostering teams.

I know for sure I would no longer foster if I could not trade during the fostering period.
-Blue

[SuperStarDestroyer]

we've NEVER had a good/mediocre/or badfoster owner except TEC. They've all been horrible and trades involving picks by foster owners when new buyers want picks to begin with should be off limits.

[Bluecaterpillar]

SSD:

Agreed... but then again, we don't need a limitation on rules... we need a limitation on foster parents. You can be sure that if/when Legend or JPN or TEC takes over, they'll give the fostered team a chance, especially with shrewd trading!!
-Blue

[tec]

hey....its just a proposal, put out there to generate some discussion. which it is doing, which is great.

the powers that be at EFS will ultimately decide.....but keep up the discussion that is how things get fixed or improved...

tc

[tec]

I think the question is: what does EFS, and the particular league with an orphan, expect a Foster owner to do?

to me first and foremost, the original owner is no longer managing the team, so what is needed is someone to set a lineup each week so that there is no 'freebie' week for any team.

a. my response would be that a Foster owner should be allowed to set lineups, make waiver claims, and bid on UFA players. Period....I cant imagine anyone having a problem with that...

I think we all can agree to that....

My question then is this- Should a foster owner have more responsibilities than that? this is something for EFS management to clarify.....??:

b. Where the 'problem' lies is whether or not a foster owner, who IMHO won't have any long term ties to the team or league unless he purchases the team, should be allowed to make trades and/or bid on RFA players?

Each year EFS needs current owners to step up and foster teams whose owners go AWOL, i would hope that all EFS owners would continue to volunteer as Foster owners no matter what the resolution of this question-after all our fellow EFS'ers need foster owners to fill in and make sure a league can finish its season in good order....

hopefully that is where we will get some guidance from EFS.......

tc

[DErickson88]

As a newbie single team owner,I may not have a full understanding of all arguments for and against but here are my thoughts...

I was under the impression that Foster Owners were called in for teams abandoned during the season, not necessarily to start the season.

Do owners that do not have their own money invested in a team actually manage that team with the same committment and enthusiasm that they do their own? This thread alone says not always.

Why couldn't EFS begin offering those leagues who are less than 50% full at the start of RFA teams in other leagues that need only one or two owners to get started? If a league still needs half of its owners to get going by the start of RFA, what are the chances that league will fill? I don't know, I'm asking the vets here.

Could leagues less than 50% full vote to voluntarily disband and join other leagues? Could EFS mandate that leagues less than 50% full by RFA be disbanded? It just seems a waste to have 10 half-fullleagues inactive when you could have 5 fullleagues actively participating per the EFS schedule.

I think EFS needs to initiate some type of action to get the maximum number of leagues they can activeonce the RFA period begins.

From my own perspective, it is disheartening to check in day after day just to see our league still isn't ready to get started. Once I check the "Buy a Team" page or LEague Master and see we still need owners, what can I really do as an owner? Not much that I can tell. Can't bid on RFA, can't bid on UFA, can't submit a trade for league vote. Sure, I can (and have) negotiated trades but as our league shows, trades posted on the message board don't really meanmuch right now. Nothing is "official" yet. Some owner's rosters are inaccurate now due to trades that have been made. And, before I can submit a trade proposal to another owner, I must check the MB to see if that player/pick is still even available (I know, I've already done that once). I know these owners are participating at the league limits right now and understand why...I applaud that. It is just confusing to someone trying to "learn the ropes".

Regardless, I am anxious to get my rookie season started!;)

[tec]

To answer your questions.... based upon my experience in previous seasons-

1. EFS always works to fill teams with orphans before setting up entirely new leagues, which is good for those of us in leagues with orphan teams but really delays anyone who wants to join an entirely new league and hence delays some income to EFS. thats the way its always been...Obviously leagues with 1, 2 or 3 orphans are easier to fill than those with 6 or more.

Note our league, lg25, had 7 orphans, 5 of those were taken rather quickly, including the one you own, so we are all at the stage where we are waiting patiently for those last 2 teams to fill. I note that the owner of one of those 2 teams has his time stamp updated periodically each week, so i dont know if that means he has other teams in efs which would change the time stamp here, or if that indicates he checks on this team....hopefully he will purchase that team.

it would help if we could find 2 owners to take those teams, i know we are all trying and i know eventually we will fill up. I like the makeup of the new guys who have joined the league, it should be much more interesting than in past....

2. in previous years, after a period of time, some leagues have merged when it became apparent that those with large number of vacancies would not fill. that is not ideal from EFS pt of view, but it happens.

3. i have made my comments about Foster owners and their role previously in this thread.

4. Bottom line is this.....Be Patient!! we will start our season soon, and you will get to experience the fun we all know as FF here at EFS!

tc

[Bucky Rules]

I have a question related to orphan teams. I figure this might be the best thread to get it going in.

I've convinced a FF lunatic friend of mine that EFS is the only way to go. He's interested in buying an orphan team in a league that I'm in. Now, I would be shocked if some of those owners that haven't ponied up for the $75 actually intend on giving up their teams. My friend has an interest in one of those teams in particular. So, my question is this...

If he buys the orphan team that he's interested in, does the current owner of that team have an opportunity to respond? Or are all orphans cut and dryfair game and tough beans to the procrastinator?

I ask this because the owner of the team in question has been very active, and he has a very good team. He doesn't act like someone who is willing to risk losing his team. Of course, I could be wrong about that, but it seems strange to me.

[tec]

my impression is that if its on the orphan list here at EFS its fair game to whomever buys it first.

now if the league you are talking about has orphans but that league is not listed on the EFS site orphan list, then i am not sure what would happen...a question for Tom, Keith, ....

tc