Winter Waivers Begin!

Yes, you've arrived at the right spot - welcome to the CFCL 2008! As you can see, the CFCL Report is now a blog. I'll explain all about that a little bit later, but I know you've come here for your Winter Waivers fix, so without further ado...

Winter Waivers
Click here for the list of players who were waived by their CFCL teams and are available to be claimed in the first round of Winter Waivers. This first round of waivers will last until 6:00 PM Central time on Thursday January 10.

NOTE: Since this priority for waiver claims goes in reverse order of the standings, you might want to send a list of 4-5 players you want, in the order of preference, in case your first couple of picks don't work out.

Remember, you're allowed to attempt to claim as many players as you like. If you do claim more than one player, please RANK THEM IN THE ORDER OF PREFERENCE. This ranking may determine which players you do or do not get. For details on what happens if multiple teams claim the same player, see the Winter Waivers section (Article XVIII) of the Constitution. If you don't supply an explicit ranking, I'll assume the order that you name them is the order in which you want them.

All unclaimed (non-AL) players go into the Free Agent Pool for next year's Draft. Also, remember that if you want to claim a player on waivers, you must waive a player on your 23-man roster to make room for him. All the waived players will go through the second round of waivers.

Take a good look at the list, particularly you rebuilding teams -- as always there are likely to be some hidden gems of good talent and cheap potential available.

The salary and contract status that the player will receive if he is claimed is listed. W contract players will become D contracts on Draft Day, minor leaguers will keep their M contract status until they lose their rookie status or you activate them.

The Trading Season
With keeper lists and cuts announced, trading can soon begin. Of course, talks can begin immediately, but nothing can be made official until after 6:00 PM on January 10. At that time, the off-season trading season officially begins and it will last until Roster Freeze Day, a week or so before the Draft.

Draft Day Target Date
Speaking of the Draft, here's a reminder again that our current target weekend for Draft Day is March 29-30. As in the past, our primary target and default Draft Date is the Sunday of Opening Night. If anyone already knows of a conflict with Sunday (or Saturday for that matter), please let me know. We’ll have at least three owners traveling in from out of town, so the better we can set our date, the better.

New Owner Search Update
The search for leadership for our three ownerless franchises continues. We've asked that anyone interested in joining us submit an application by Friday January 11. I will send applications out to everyone as I receive them so that by the time the 11th rolls around we should all have a good handle on the candidates and can hopefully decide rather quickly about those we'd like to invite to join us.

Rosters for the New Owners
Once the new onwers have been identified, here's how things will proceed:

1) The new owners will hold a straight draft in which each will acquire 23 players by selecting them from the pooled rosters of the Lambchops, Meisters, and Splinters. The salaries and contract status of the players they choose will remain the same. Players who are not selected will be temporarily set a aside.

2) The new teams will then hold a single round of Winter Waivers in which they will be allowed to select from all the players who were not claimed by existing CFCL teams during the original set of Winter Waivers.

3) Players who are waived by the three new teams will be combined with the players who were not selected during the dispersement draft (Step #1), and all those players will go through Winter Waivers in which ALL CFCL teams will be able to participate.

In other words, the Winter Waivers fun is just beginning!

Now, About This Blog Thing...
Ok, clearly this isn't the same report layout you are accustomed to. I decided to try publishing the report as a blog for a number of reasons, mostly having to do with reducing the time I spend formatting, posting, and archiving the report.

A few things this will mean for you...

1) The report won't be a once-a-week thing anymore. With this, I'll be able to post news, notes, and general other falderol as I have the time and inclination. I still plan to post the transaction reports, but if we move to 2-3 transaction dates per week as we're dicussing, it makes sense to have the capability to post them right away rather than all together once a week. Plus those transaction reports will be tagged as transaction postings, so it will be easy to be easy to find transaction-related posts.

2) You'll have instant access to the full archive of the season's posts, which means if you want to go back and check on a transaction or verify a rule explanation that was posted, you'll be able to do so by using the Archive listing over there on the left.

3) You'll be able to comment on posts by using the Comment link down below. I certainly don't intend the comments here to replace the Forums, and encourage the continued use of them for discussion. However, if you've got something to say about a post or a quick remark about the bidding on a free agent, you and do it here. This'll also be handy for communicating all those errors and ommisions Matt G. finds in my posts.

Things will probably be in a state of flux around here for a while. I literally set all this up last night, so chances are I'll be tweaking the format, layout, content, etc. as I do a little exploring. And, of course, there's always the chance I'll find this won't work out after all and hasten back to the old report format. In the meantime, if you've got suggestions or comments, feel free to share them!