Deadline Deal

With a mere five days until Roster Freeze Day, the Bulls and Dem Rebels kissed the blarney stone and made a deal.

In an effort to shore up the middle infield and add some team speed, Dem Rebels acquired Emilio Bonafacio and the Bulls 5th round pick.

The Bulls were able to lock down 40% of the Rockies starting staff by acquiring Jason Hammel in return.

Roster Cut Details

"Making final cuts is what I hate most about this job. Monkeying around with people’s lives is never fun. On the other hand, when I’ve picked the team, 25 players are monkeying around with my life." - Don Zimmer

Roster Cuts
Rich has e-mailed roster cut worksheets to all owners - if you haven't received yours, please let Rich know.  The deadline for roster cuts is 4:00 PM Central time on Monday March 22. All teams must reduce their rosters to 15 or fewer players and submit the names of the players being kept to Rich by this date. Any rosters not received by the deadline on March 22 will be reduced to 15 by a random method determined by the Executive Committee.

We'll Be Right Back...
Before we get to the information about the cuts, we've got a brief commercial interruption. As noted in earlier e-mails, all CFCL fees must be paid by the time your cuts are received. If you haven't done so yet, please be sure to send your payment soon so it's sure to get to me in time.  Refer to the previous e-mails for payment information.

Cuts - The Gory Details
The roster cut sheets are (I think) fairly self-explanatory, and certainly those of you have been through this processes before should have no problem filling them out. I won't go into a lot of detail here about how to submit your cuts, but there are a number of things you should be careful to keep in mind when completing the form. A number of years ago I put those reminders and a number of other details into a separate document that I creatively entitled Roster Cut Instructions.

For old pros and young upstarts alike, the temptation will be to dive right in to your cuts, but I encourage everyone to at least take a glance at the instructions so you're aware of all the requirements and implications of your decisions.

Submitting Your Cuts
When you e-mail your cuts to Rich, make sure you put ROSTER CUTS in the subject line -- that way he will know not to open your message until he has submitted his own cuts to the other two-thirds of the Executive Committee.

While the deadline isn't until the beginning of next week, keep in mind that the earlier Rich gets your information the sooner he can start compiling the league-wide keeper lists, which means the sooner you'll get the news. 

As a reminder, your cuts are considered final as of the time you send them -- that means no trades are allowed between MARCH 22 and the end of the Draft. Once you mail in your cuts, your roster is frozen, so if you're working on any last-minute blockbusters, make sure they're completed and noted on your roster cut sheet beofre you send it.

One protected lists have been submitted, they cannot be changed, even for moving players between Active and Reserve Lists. EXCEPTION: Changes may be made before the Draft ONLY to reserve players who were sent to the minors or placed on the DL or has received a special exception from the Executive Committee between the time cuts were submitted and the start of the Draft. You cannot move players from your Reserve List to your Active Roster after your cuts are submitted.

National League Opening Day Rosters
Draft Day (March 27) is the well before Opening Day for most teams, so the official National League rosters will not be set before the Draft. Every team will probably have a few borderline players who still might get send down to the minors before Opening Day.

Remember, you can download the 2010 Spring Training Rosters from the Download Center. Matt G. has been doing a bang-up job of keeping the spreadsheet up-to-date with information about which players have been send down by their NL team.

Pre-Season Calendar
Along with Draft Day, here's a list of other important days in the coming weeks:

Roster Freeze Day
- Monday March 22, 4:00 PM
List of Keepers Released
- Wednesday March 24
Hard Roster Freeze (no more adjustments for DL or demoted players)
- Wednesday March 24
Draft Day
- Saturday March 27
Opening Day Rosters must be set
- Monday April 4, Sportsline Deadline
First Regular Transaction Date
- Friday April 9
First Free Agent Bid Date
- Sunday April 11

More on Fantasyland

The buzz around the March 19 premiere of "Fantasyland" continues to grow.  The makers have a fairly active Facebook page going, they've posted additional videos on their YouTube page (it's not clear if they're outtakes or excerpts from the finished film), and SnagFilms has posted a trailer on their site that is worth checking out:  http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/fantasyland_preview_premiering_on_snagfilms_march_19/

In what I've seen so far, the Facebook comments and video clips seem to focus on the fantasy-baseball-players-are-oddball-geeks aspect (tales of trades made on honeymoon nights, during shivas and funerals, while having sex for cripessakes), and while humerous, they get old pretty fast.  I'm hoping that what's been posted so far is just material collected during the search for the "regular guy" be featured in the film and is not representative of the film itself.

That said, it does look like a well made film, and as the bizare nature of the game's participants isn't the main focus, it should be alot of fun.

As an interesting side-note, "Trading the Gator" clips show up quite often in the "Related Videos" section on YouTube...