Governing Board Decision - UMEBA/BBA Waivers

[RonCo]

At present there is, by design, no interaction between UMEBA and BBA teams other than the universal shared Free Agent pool. Recently we had the Cairo UMEBA team claim a BBA player off the Montreal waiver list. There was clearly no intent to deceive or gain unfair advantage in this action--the Cairo GM was merely exploring an action the OOTP game allows them to take, regardless of our expectations. No harm intended.

After consideration, the Governing Board has decided:

1) The waiver claim will be considered null and void
2) The player will be returned to the Montreal roster prior to next sim
3) It is requested that UMEBA GMs refrain from taking this action in the future (the bug has been reported to the OOTP Dev folks)
4) Any future such actions discovered will also be made void (but, seriously, just don't do it)

Sorry for the bit of delay in the decision process.

[handaspencer]

At present there is, by design, no interaction between UMEBA and BBA teams other than the universal shared Free Agent pool. Recently we had the Cairo UMEBA team claim a BBA player off the Montreal waiver list. There was clearly no intent to deceive or gain unfair advantage in this action--the Cairo GM was merely exploring an action the OOTP game allows them to take, regardless of our expectations. No harm intended.

After consideration, the Governing Board has decided:

1) The waiver claim will be considered null and void
2) The player will be returned to the Montreal roster prior to next sim
3) It is requested that UMEBA GMs refrain from taking this action in the future (the bug has been reported to the OOTP Dev folks)
4) Any future such actions discovered will also be made void (but, seriously, just don't do it)

Sorry for the bit of delay in the decision process.

[Spiccoli]

Apologies... if you’re not exploring every option...
You’re not trying

[bcslouck]

[Ted]

You know, it's irrelevant now, but how does the game even calculate waiver priority if it's including the UMEBA teams. That's funky.

[felipe]

I guess I should get Fajardo back too, then

[JimBob2232]

Right call. Thank you.

[Spiccoli]

So is trading allowed between UMEBA and BBA teams?

I thought I read earlier that it wasn't yet.

[RonCo]

At present, there are no transactions to be made between the UMEBA and the BBA.

[Ted]

Thinking about it a little, there can really never be trading between UMEBA and BBA teams. First, it would make the rule 6 draft unnecessary. No reasonable player would ever be eligible. He'd just be traded to a BBA team for every escalating packages of players. More importantly, transactions directly between these teams would allow for incredible salary cap circumvention. You could move any contract you didn't want to an UMEBA team. They could take AA prospects who would rake there. BBA teams could sign players in FA for UMEBA teams and trade them for cap relief of guys who would end up in the rule 6.

There are just so many ways allowing transactions between these teams would be a mess. We'd basically have to embrace an entirely different financial and league model, say like that of soccer if we decided to allow these types of transactions. I'm not making the claim that there's something "wrong" with soccer's model, just pointing out that it's so different and that's what we'd move towards if we did this. And sorry Nigel. I know it's football.

[bschr682]

There are ways it can be done. But you are right in that it can’t be unrestricted.

[Ted]

There are ways it can be done. But you are right in that it can’t be unrestricted.

Just trying to think about restrictions. The rule 6 is a big thing. From the BBA standpoint, it think it's important that those UMEBA players have a fairly controlled entry. The rule 6 is a good format. You'd have to make it so only players previously eligible for the rule 6 could be traded away from the UMEBA to a BBA team, and there goes most of the interesting deals already. Prospects and young players essentially couldn't be traded away from the UMEBA. If you don't the rule 6 draft is completely marginalized and maybe disappears.

So let's say you do that. (Assuming we want to keep the rule 6 draft). Then you're limited to prospects (likely lesser ones) from the BBA and older, expensive players from the BBA going to the UMEBA for ???. What would we want from the UMEBA at that point? The occasional guy missed in the rule 6? Cap relief. That's largely what we'd want. I don't like that idea at all, but say we decide that's okay. You're right, it'd have to be restricted. Some sort of salary AAV and total dollars numbers. Maybe a number of times per team, etc.

If the primary motive from the UMEBA is to get a better influx of guys wasting away in our minors, I'd much rather see some sort of rule 5 type draft for the UMEBA looking at our teams, or if somehow we can make the UMEBA more attractive to our minor leaguers. Or perhaps put some limits on our minor leagues so the pool of 27-32 year old career minors guys is larger and more just go to the UMEBA. I forget what the old compensation for the previous version of the rule six was, but maybe something like if you lose a guy in the rule 6, you get to take two guys who would be eligible for the rule 5 who are not on the 40 man from the team that signs the players?

Those changes are likely very hard to implement, but all of those types of ideas seem better to me than lettings us dump our contract mistakes in exchange for giving up some non prospects.

[bschr682]

At the rate it’s going, there won’t be a rule 6. Check out our draft pool. My thought, haven’t delved too deep yet though, is 1 trade with the BBA per UMEBA team per year.

Yes it will be salary dumps primarily especially in the beginning, but that’s only 8 trades a year. In theory the scarcity of it might drive a BBA team to send something young and good along in order to dump a bad contract. That young player then feeds back into the rule 6 at a later date.

I’d also further restrict it to a window of time to also up the scarcity of it.

So that’s 8 dumpy contracts a year coming over. 1 per team. Not too harsh on our finances and those bad contract guys would actually still be stars over here. Like I said hopefully the scarcity of it would lead BBA teams to essentially have a bidding war to dump a bad contract and that might lead to future rule 6 guys getting sent over.

Just a thought...

[usnspecialist]

At the rate it’s going, there won’t be a rule 6. Check out our draft pool. My thought, haven’t delved too deep yet though, is 1 trade with the BBA per UMEBA team per year.

Yes it will be salary dumps primarily especially in the beginning, but that’s only 8 trades a year. In theory the scarcity of it might drive a BBA team to send something young and good along in order to dump a bad contract. That young player then feeds back into the rule 6 at a later date.

I’d also further restrict it to a window of time to also up the scarcity of it.

So that’s 8 dumpy contracts a year coming over. 1 per team. Not too harsh on our finances and those bad contract guys would actually still be stars over here. Like I said hopefully the scarcity of it would lead BBA teams to essentially have a bidding war to dump a bad contract and that might lead to future rule 6 guys getting sent over.

Just a thought...

I'm intrigued....

[bschr682]

the idea certainly needs to thought about more. Im sure there are loopholes im not thinking of that would lead to bad things. From the umeba side, any trading, even pure salary dumps, are a win because of the massive talent disparity. Its looking at it from the BBA side where things get tricky.

Also an interesting tidbit that ill throw out there is the essentially the chance for a contract do-over. Free agency drives a guys price so high that the team that signs him quickly realizes he isn't worth it. Not necessarily a bad player, but a massively overpaid one. Gets sent to umeba and the next rule 6 that comes around gives him a shot at going back into free agency and back to the BBA for hopefully a more reasonable salary. That is of course assuming rule 6 works the same way as in the past...

[agrudez]

I'd be against interaction between the leagues. Times infinity while GMs have teams in both.

[handaspencer]

Could someone explain rule 6 to me? How is that different than rule 5? I am assuming that is something we currently don’t use but was used in the past.

[Ted]

Could someone explain rule 6 to me? How is that different than rule 5? I am assuming that is something we currently don’t use but was used in the past.

The rule 6 takes place prior to FA. Players with a certain amount of minimum service time (like say 3 or 4 years, i forget how much) that are in the UMEBA are available to be "Drafted" by BBA teams. The draft order is the same as the ammy draft. You actually draft the rights to the player, but not the player. Drafted players are put into the FA pool, and everyone can submit offers like any other FA. If a team that is not the drafting team signs the player, the drafting team can match the offer and retain the player.

It's a way to get the top players in the UMEBA into the BBA. I think there was some for of compensation for UMEBA teams losing players, but I don't recall what.

The rule 6 draft is really really good for rebuilding teams have a ton of cap space and nothing to spend it on.

[Lane]

Could someone explain rule 6 to me? How is that different than rule 5? I am assuming that is something we currently don’t use but was used in the past.

The rule 6 takes place prior to FA. Players with a certain amount of minimum service time (like say 3 or 4 years, i forget how much) that are in the UMEBA are available to be "Drafted" by BBA teams. The draft order is the same as the ammy draft. You actually draft the rights to the player, but not the player. Drafted players are put into the FA pool, and everyone can submit offers like any other FA. If a team that is not the drafting team signs the player, the drafting team can match the offer and retain the player.

It's a way to get the top players in the UMEBA into the BBA. I think there was some for of compensation for UMEBA teams losing players, but I don't recall what.

The rule 6 draft is really really good for rebuilding teams have a ton of cap space and nothing to spend it on.

I'm pretty sure the compensation was the EBA team's pick of any R5 eligible player from the signing org.

[Ted]

Could someone explain rule 6 to me? How is that different than rule 5? I am assuming that is something we currently don’t use but was used in the past.

The rule 6 takes place prior to FA. Players with a certain amount of minimum service time (like say 3 or 4 years, i forget how much) that are in the UMEBA are available to be "Drafted" by BBA teams. The draft order is the same as the ammy draft. You actually draft the rights to the player, but not the player. Drafted players are put into the FA pool, and everyone can submit offers like any other FA. If a team that is not the drafting team signs the player, the drafting team can match the offer and retain the player.

It's a way to get the top players in the UMEBA into the BBA. I think there was some for of compensation for UMEBA teams losing players, but I don't recall what.

The rule 6 draft is really really good for rebuilding teams have a ton of cap space and nothing to spend it on.

I'm pretty sure the compensation was the EBA team's pick of any R5 eligible player from the signing org.

That sounds right. I wonder if it would be reasonable to make it two players. They don't get hit so hard, and the overwhelming majority of the time, BBA teams still won't be losing anyone that will contribute. I can count on one hand the number of players I've ever lost in the rule 5 that have had "careers" and most of those were career backups or 5th man in the 'pen types.