Co-Commish Mailbag

I've gotten some questions via e-mail related to roster freezes and Draft Day, and I thought it would be helpful to share the queries and answers with everyone and possibly head of some repeats. A lot of the stuff we're doing now we only go through once a year, so many people seem to have the same questions.

Q: If a player we protect is traded to the AL between roster freeze day and the auction do we simply lose that player or once they are protected do they fall under the "players that are traded to the AL stats count" rule?

A: Guys who get traded to the AL after Roster Freeze Day can be kept for the season. From the Constitution: "If the player moves to the American League between Roster Freeze Day and the end of the season, the player can be treated like any other player on the team's roster for the duration of the season."

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Q: If a player starts the year on the DL we can put him on our reserves for the auction if we so desire, but their salary counts toward our $260 limit. Can we list them on our active roster and move them to the reserve list before the auction on the day of the auction or does that all have to be set when we submit our freezes? I read the constitution and it seems like we can move them to the reserve list on auction day if they are on the DL and we wouldn't be able to move them back to the active roster if not still on the DL come auction day if we freeze them on the reserve list so I just wanted to clarify things.

A: Yes, if a guy gets placed on the DL after you freeze him, you can move him to reserve prior to the draft (his salary would still count against your $2.60). A few notes on this:

1. You CANNOT put a guy on Reserve prior to the Draft if he has not been officialy put on the DL by his NL team. In other words, you can't speculate about a guy going on the DL and reserve him just in case -- there has to be an official transaction that he's been DLed before your can go through the draft with him on Reserve.
2. If there HAS been an official transaction putting a guy on reserve, we prefer that you decide if you're going to reserve him or leave him active ASAP. This will allow us to have the paperwork for the Draft (roster forms, amount to spend/players to acquire for each team) as accurate as possible on D-Day morning. It also allows all owners to update their spreadsheets and draft software so we don't have to futz around with inconsistencies on Draft Day.
3. For that reason, we'll have a deadline the afternoon or evening before the Draft -- all reserve moves, etc, need to be done by that deadline so we can update paperwork, send out announcements, etc. Once that deadline hits, the pre-Draft rosters are completely frozen.

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Q: When is roster freeze day again?

A: Roster Freeze Day is Monday March 24 at 4:00 PM Central time. Note, that this earlier post to the Blog included a list of important dates leading up to Opening Day: Draft Day Housekeeping, Pre-Season Calendar, etc.

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Til next time...