Some league business to wrap up the season...
- The winner of this season's $20 WIS Gift Card drawing is elmossle! Congrats and keep an eye on your SM after we roll over for Season 20! Remember to re-up early every season and you could win next time.
- We only had one MILB MWR violation. Cleveland's (marhsal_law) LoA team did not get to the 25% mark. This team will now be on probation for a single season.
- We did have one MLB MWR violation. St. Louis (knappj) missed the single season MWR of 55 by two games. He also missed the two season MWR by 9 games, and the three season MWR by 4 games. This is the worst violation we've had here in SP. The VC and myself had a lot of discussion regarding what to do about it. On the one hand, clearly this required more than probation, as had been handed out in the past for single season MLB MWR violations. On the other hand, this is knappj. He is the only original owner left here in SP, has been a good citizen and a good owner since as long as I can remember. While I don't want to give 'special treatment' he has basically spent 5 real life years in SP, running the Redbirds. Myself, nor anybody on the VC wanted to just kick him out. So we brainstormed and tried to come up with a solution that was more severe than probation, and a harsh enough penalty that shows we clearly will enforce our league's anti-tanking rules. After a good deal of behind the scenes dialogue between myself, the members of the VC and knappj; we decided (and knappj agreed to) the following penalty in lieu of expulsion...
1- knappj will have the #1 overall pick next season. He has agreed to forfeit this pick as penalty. The way this will be handled is, after the draft prospects are released, I will send knappj a list of 10 or so pre-approved prospects. All of these prospects will be at the very, very bottom of the prospect list; players who would normally be drafted in the 20th round or later. knappj must select one of those pre-approved players with the #1 pick. He can sign that player if he chooses (I'm not sure why he would pay the $3M slot signing bonus for that player though). If he doesn't draft one of those pre-approved players, it will be grounds for removal from the league. The reason I'm having the draft pick forfeiture handled in this way is so that the league doesn't lose out on one of the top prospects in next season's draft if knappj were to draft one of them and then simply not sign them.
2- knappj will be put on probation. Any future MLB MWR violations will result in removal from the league.
3- knappj will still be required to hit the 3-season MLB MWR for next season, which means he will have to get to 74 wins.
4- knappj will also be replaced on the VC. We will hold elections sometime during the Season 20 offseason.
This is not something I'd like to do regularly, as the execution of something like this would be much more difficult if the pick wasn't #1 overall. But, in this case, I think it is an elegant and creative solution to what will hopefully be the last time SP has a problem like this. I hope the league members understand why we choose this course of action, and approve. As always, feel free to SM me or TC me if you have any thoughts, or want to discuss the matter further.
-On a more positive note, with knappj agreeing to an alternate penalty instead of expulsion, we will have a first here in SP.... WE WILL HAVE NO VACANCIES! As soon as we roll, I can just hit approve owners and we can move on to Season 20.
-Speaking of Season 20, all of our ML teams will need to get to 55 wins next season per the ML MWR except...
1-St. Louis (knappj), as noted above, needs 74 wins for the 3-season MWR
2- Washington DC (CameoLions) needs 62 wins for the 2-season MWR
3- Salem (davidjay) needs 59 wins for the 2-season MWR
4-Houston (turzich) needs 58 wins for the 2-season MWR
It was a great Season 19. Its exciting to see the bottom and the top of the league get closer and closer to each season. There is more parity and more competitive balance with each passing season. Just look at our WS, two franchises that have never been there before. We keep getting better and better each season, and we have so many great HBD owners to thank for that. Lets all keep up the good work... And maybe let Chicago get a WS sometime in the near future too... ; )
'Goose'
