Opening Day Reminders

Happy Opening Day, Everyone!
A few quick reminders as we count down the hours to the first pitches of the 2010 CFCL Season:

• If you haven't done so yet, be sure to check your rosters in both locations they appear - the CBS Sportsline site and in the Excel rosters sheets available in the Download Center.  Verify not only that all your players are listed, but that their salaries and contract statuses are correct.
• You have until Noon Central today (Monday April 5) to set your active roster for the first few days of the season.  Last year, rosters were locked half an hour before the first game of the day - this year it looks like we've got up until 5 minutes before the first pitch of the first game.
• Remember that you can make moves between your Active and Reserve Rosters every Monday and Friday during the season.  You can enter your moves on any day, but every one needs to be effective on either Monday or Friday - if you're setting your roster on a different day to be effective for an upcoming Monday or Friday, be sure to specify your effective date before entering your moves.  For details on how to set the effective date for a move - in fact, for a full refresher on how to process and report all CFCL roster moves (including trades and free agent bids) review this primer from 2008.  There are couple tiny differences (rosters locking 5 minutes before the first game vs 30 minutes, for example), but by and large everything still applies:  CFCL Transaction Primer.
• Our first Free Agent Bidding date will be Sunday April 11, with a bidding deadline of 3:00 PM Central Time.  See the CFCL Transaction Primer for details about how to e-mail in your bids.
• Remember to check in every week or so with the Monroe Doctrine for the most recent ruminations from Rich.  There's a link to the Doctrine in the sidebar over to the right.
• Finally, for those of you who have Comcast, don't forget that you get a free preview of MLB's Extra Innings package for the first week of the season (April 5-11), which should allow you to see nearly every game being played in MLB.

Good luck, everyone.  Here's to another great season!

The Cuts Are In!!!

Gentlemen -

The cuts are in and therefore the rosters have been updated. Download the Roster Excel Spreadsheet to see what the competition has done.

Below are some of the highlights. Admittedly it doesn't look as pretty as when David did it, but I'm not as talented on the computer as he is.


2010 Winter Waiver Keepers

Aaron Cook .01 – Dem Rebels
Casey McGehee .11 – Dem Rebels
Raul Ibanez .26 – Dem Rebels
Emelio Bonafacio .05 – Dem Rebels (Graging Bulls)
Sean Marshall .01 – Red Hots
Kris Medlin .05 – Red Hots
Dan Haren .33 – Red Hots
Carlos Zambrano .08 – Revenge
Mike Pelfrey .01 - Bulls


2010 Long Term Contracts

Wandy Rodriguez 2 years (.08 11!) Dem Rebels
Jair Jurrjens 2 years (.06 11!) DoorMatts
Chad Qualls 2 years (.06 11!) DoorMatts
Andre Ethier 2 years (.22 11!) Revenge
Ryan Ludwick 2 years (.06 11!) Revenge
Justin Upton 4 years (.22 13!) Bulls
Troy Tulowitski 3 years (.20 12!) Bulls
Pablo Sandoval 3 years (.15 12!) Bulls

X Contracts Awarded

Jay Bruce – Clowns
Michael Bourn - Revenge

Big Salaries Cut

Manny Ramirez .43 Twin Killers
Matt Holliday .50 Twin Killers
Carlos Beltran .40 Copperfields
Lance Berkman .44 Copperfields
Carlos Lee .36 Copperfields
Roy Oswalt .29 Copperfields
Rafael Furcal .19 Copperfields
Brandon Webb .31 Revenge
Jeff Francouer .20 Revenge (Takes a .05 penalty for cutting LTC)
Johann Santana .37 Ruffins
Cole Hamels .24 Bulls

Money Left Per Team

Dem Rebels 8 players needed; .99 to spend; 12.37 cents per player
DoorMatts 8 players needed; 1.14 to spend; 14.25 cents per player
Twin Killers 15 players needed; 1.91 to spend; 12.73 cents per player
Red Hots 11 players needed; 1.68 to spend; 15.27 cents per player
Kenndoza Line 14 players needed; 1.47 to spend; 14.7 cents per player
Revenge 8 players needed; .87 to spend; 10.87 cents per player
Copperfields 11 players needed; .70 to spend; 6.36 cents per player
Ruffins 13 players needed; 1.82 to spend; 14 cents per player
Candy Colored Clowns 11 players needed; 1.35 to spend; 12.27 cents per player
Bulls 8 players needed; 1.05 to spend; 13.12 cents per player

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...

Fantasyland - The Movie

Word was sent out this week that the documentary movie version of "Fantasyland", the book by reporter Sam Walker in which he chronicles his rookie season in the Tout Wars expert league, is finally prepping for release.  Rather than a broadcast, it sounds like this will be a direct-to-web release.  I had given up hope of ever seeing this, since it covers the 2008 season (at least, that was the original intent).  The film has "regular guy" Jed Latkin filling Sam Walker's non-expert role for a season in the AL-only Tout Wars.

The film has a tangential CFCL connection, as former CFCLer Jason Grey is one of the experts participating in Tout Wars AL.

The film is due to be released on March 19 , when it will be posted at http://fantasylandfilm.com/ or  http://snagfilms.com/.

An outtake snippet posted on YouTube has Jed trying to get an update on Barry Bonds' situation from Bonds' agent Jeff Borris (and oddly thinking he's speaking to Scott Boras).



Edit to note that the clip is an outtake and not in the final cut of the film...

Reserving Non-DL Players Prior to the Draft

In a post about a month ago, we identified a number of special considerations due to our earlier-than-usual draft date.  One of those considerations was to allow certain players who would clearly be starting the season on the disabled list to be reserved prior to Draft Day, even if they have not yet been disabled by their National League team.

The Executive Committee will evaluate each player's situation and determine whether he can be reserved going into Draft Day.  As described in the earlier post, there will be a very high standard of evidence required before the EC will allow such an exception - there must be no doubt that the player will start the season on the Disabled List.

If you have a player you think may qualify for an exception, notify the Executive Committee by posting a response to the Pre-Draft Reserves of Non-DL Players thread on the Executive Committee Discussion board in the Forums.  Include any details or links to published resources that may help clarify the player's situtation.  The EC will discuss the request on the board (all CFCL owners are welcome to contribute) and make a decision about the player.  Note that in some cases the EC may decide that a decision cannot be made right away.

In order to qualify for an exception, there must be CLEAR EVIDENCE that the player will start the season on the DL.  The Executive Committee will use various information resources whether a player meets the criteria, but at a minimum, multiple online sources must have reported that the player will definitely (not "may", not "could", not "might", not "will probably", not "will likely") not be ready to start the season.  We'll use other information in evaluating the situation, but the information available will likely vary by player.  There may very well be players who we say DO NOT qualify for the exception who actually end up starting the season on the DL.  Our goal is to make sure we do not allow an exception for a player who does not start the year on the DL.

Of course, players who do go on the DL before our Hard Roster Freeze (Friday March 26) are automatically qualified to go on the Reserve List - notification of this move will need to be given before the hard freeze.

Feel free to start a discussion on the Forum about any players you think would qualify for an exception, however the EC will likely wait until the week before Draft Day before making a final ruling - only in extreme cases (broken bones, surgery, etc) will the EC feel comfortable making a decision three weeks before D-Day.  The EC will make all rulings by Thursday March 25 at the latest, but except in rare cases, do not expect a ruling before Sunday March 21.

If you have questions about this process, post a response to this note.