Trade Reporting Rules

When Tim and Mike e-mailed me about their trade this past weekend, they said they weren't sure about the proper procedure for reporting a trade. They actually did a fine job of it, but since we've had some changes to our transaction reporting procedures for this season, I thought it would be a good idea to go over the process for trades (it's that time of year...).

After you and another owner agree to a deal, here's what the two of you should do to make things official:

1. You should both report it to the League Secretary (David M.) via e-mail.
2. Your e-mail should contain the details of the trade, as well as specific moves you will make in order to ensure your roster is complete and legal following the deal. This might involve:
   • Releasing players to get your down to 40 players if you acquired more guys than you gave up
   • Activating and/or reserving players in order to meet the positional requirements

Until all parties involved in the deal send me an e-mail that meets the above requirements, the trade will not be considered official - even if the deadline passes, pushing the effective date for the trade back a day.

Once the necessary e-mails have been received, I'll enter all the transactions (the trade and the associated moves) at the Sportsline site. This will help ensure that the trade meets all the requirements - if I can't get legal and valid active rosters based on the e-mails I was sent, the trade will not go through.

Other things to keep in mind about trades and associated moves:

• Owners cannot propose/accept trades themselves at the Sportsline site. We have some special requirements and restrictions involving trades that Sportsline is not able to monitor, so we require all trades are reported via e-mail to ensure we can do a validity check before the stat site is updated.
• When you acquire players in a trade that will put you over the salary cap, you CANNOT make associated moves in order to get your active roster under the cap. You'll have to reserve the expensive player(s) for the time being, then activate them at the next regular Monday or Friday transaction date.
• You cannot make a trade that will leave you unable to fill an active roster position. If you have a guy on your Reserve List that you can activate as an associated move, that's fine. But you cannot leave an open spot after a deal figuring you'll pick up a free agent to fill the roster spot later - even if you make the trade on a Sunday. You have to have the replacement available on your roster prior to making the deal.

For more explaination or additional details on the rules on trades and reporting them, refer to Article XIII. of the Constitution.