How does your "only" league handle trades to the "other" league?

[virgonomic]

we keep it simple. Any player traded to the other league becomes and expiring player. He gets stats til the end of the year. The player can be traded, but if the player is ever dropped, he cannot be claimed off waivers.

To me this is the most democratic of all the rules. It's amazing how punitive fantasy leagues can be about things beyond an owner's control.

We do this. At auction, we are bidding on a player's value for the year - not on his value until he is arbitrarily traded to the NL. If traded to the NL he is no longer eligible to freeze, but can be traded. If dropped, he is out of the AL FA pool.

[Fresno Bob]

tough titties in my primary NL only

[kawaise]

tough titties in my primary NL only

Mine, too.

I've started this same conversation in my NL league. It'd be nice to see a change.

[kawaise]

What was the reason for this rule in the first place? Rotisserie League Baseball was printed well before inter-league baseball came about; was the "other" league seen as such a "foreign" entity?

Back in the 1980's we used USA Today's Wednesday edition to get stats for our NL league. Did the AL stats come out on the same day, or did they come out on Tuesday?

[Pogues]

What was the reason for this rule in the first place? Rotisserie League Baseball was printed well before inter-league baseball came about; was the "other" league seen as such a "foreign" entity?

Back in the 1980's we used USA Today's Wednesday edition to get stats for our NL league. Did the AL stats come out on the same day, or did they come out on Tuesday?

I think that might be it. I vaguely remember the stats coming on two different days in USA Today.

[mjl]

Separate days. The stats took up a whole page in the newspaper!

[Kevin Seitzer]

AL on Tuesday and NL on Wednesday.

[Judge Jude]

I think that might be it. I vaguely remember the stats coming on two different days in USA Today.

the original book in 1984 was quite dismissive of the "Junior Circuit," to the point of recommending against AL-only league. at times is was tough to tell the line between seriousness and campiness. also "tough titties" was the guiding philosophy.

you had to waive either the DL replacement guy or the original guy once he was reactivated, unless you had a natural opening. those 2 players also were linked for trade purposes. you only got 3 waiver moves of active players per year - and you could only replace them with players waived by someone else in your league. if your player was suspended for drugs, you couldn't replace him at all.

we eventually modified many of those rules following our 1984 season and beyond, so I can't claim to be a purist. but I do think that dismissing the philosophy entirely takes away part of the entire premise of the competition.

and as to the idea that major injuries are an equal-opportunity employer, well, that's not even close to being true. there's an inherent role of chance, and well, that's life. in a way, that was the original concept - life is often cruel, and people don't get dealt the same hand. but you do the best you can with what you have......

[The Dane]

and as to the idea that major injuries are an equal-opportunity employer, well, that's not even close to being true. there's an inherent role of chance, and well, that's life. in a way, that was the original concept - life is often cruel, and people don't get dealt the same hand. but you do the best you can with what you have......

My point with the injuries being less subject to luck than out-of-league trades is based on the premise that SO many injuries happen, hundreds in the NL alone, that there is GUARANTEED to be a more even spread of the impact on rosters. Have you ever seen an NL only roster with zero injuries? Sure, some effect teams more dramatically than others, and some great drafts are ruined by two or three big injuries, but they hit everyone. When only three or four players are lost to the other league it is GUARANTEED to not effect all rosters, but only a few.

This effect is also enhanced by the see-saw nature of such roster moves, and demonstrates why people love handcuffs. If Papelbon gets traded out of the NL and his owner doesn't have Giles, then not only does that owner lose a relatively secure closer, but one of his opponents gain one. This happens WAY more frequently with injuries, making the value of certain players swing wildly throughout the season, bringing both good and bad to more separate rosters.

We can't remove all the luck, nor would I want to, but the impact of out-of-league trades is something that is easily remedied and the only argument against softening it is that "we've always done it this way and it's part of the way the founders wanted it." Lame. Our game has changed immensely since the founders had it. The internet changed practically everything all by itself. Do you still want to use the newspaper for your stats every Wednesday? Of course not. So, why be arbitrary about what needs to change and what doesn't when the whole "purity of the history of the game" argument is long flushed away.

When Okrent and his pals started things, there wasn't competition and so the Tough Titties approach was acceptable because they were the only game in town. But with the explosion of fantasy football and the proliferation of daily fantasy games, our old way of playing will die on the vine if we don't adapt to the changes. Making things user-friendly is a big part of it. Tough Titties was a badge of honor 15 years ago, when it was a clear delineation between "real" leagues and "Yahoos." Now it's that old guy who refuses to have automatic windows and locks on his car doors and so keeps finding it harder and harder to find a car he likes. (True story: my dad.) Tough Titties is done. It no longer means what it used to. Now, it's just a pathetic attempt to hang onto to some fleeting sense that our version of the game was better than what all the kids were playing, but as it is in most things, youth will be served. Adapt or die.

Remember when most leagues were 4x4? No more. Remember when most leagues had only weekly transactions? No more. Remember when most leagues had a true waiver wire separate from free agents, until CBS decided they couldn't do that? No more. We are the margin now, people. It's time to let go of the stupid shit that only made sense in a context that is no more.

[rhd]

My original league also is an "Original rules" league. But we've changed some rules. A long time ago, we started allowing a player traded to the other league to be kept thru the end of season, and these players not only can be traded but also can be picked up by another team if dropped. The corollary rule tho is that no players coming over from the other league can be picked up for that year (we dont have FAAB, but we can replace players injured or optioned out, etc.). Our commish keeps a running list of players both eligible and ineligible to be picked up, so that everyone always knows who's available. I agree generally w the others that have said that a roto owner shouldnt be penalized for things beyond their control. I would consider quitting the league that refused to change such an antiquated and frustrating rule. I'm actually considering quitting over another antiquated rule that my league refuses to change, namely that players can be replaced only when they are DL'ed or sent down (no FAAB or reserve roster) and lowest team in the standings gets priority. AGain, factors beyond the owner's control affecting their team's performance.

Another of my leagues allows both the players going to the other league to be kept and the players coming in from the other league to be claimed thru FAAB and a "cash bid" system. Cant carry over players traded out to the next year however.

[Judge Jude]

"My point with the injuries being less subject to luck than out-of-league trades is based on the premise that SO many injuries happen, hundreds in the NL alone, that there is GUARANTEED to be a more even spread of the impact on rosters. Have you ever seen an NL only roster with zero injuries? Sure, some effect teams more dramatically than others, and some great drafts are ruined by two or three big injuries, but they hit everyone. When only three or four players are lost to the other league it is GUARANTEED to not effect all rosters, but only a few."

capitalizing doesn't make it so. often not a single contender is impacted by losing a player to AL. and while yes every roster has injuries at some point, the disparity in impact almost always is larger than the impact of AL-bound lost players - since there are so few of those.

meanwhile, calling a different philosophy "lame, pathetic, and stupid" - is, well, that. I don't really have a strong opinion on this one, but all of my leaguemates like the element of danger. The days leading up to the trading deadline, as you can imagine, were 100 times as dramatic compared to "keep the stats" leagues. But that doesn't make those leagues lame, pathetic, or stupid - any more than people playing poker for $100 a hand are any better or worse than people playing for a buck. having stakes higher or lower (in this case it being the risk of losing a player) is not a moral superiority or inferiority.

Let's allow for different leagues to have different rules. We'll all be just fine.

[The Dane]

meanwhile, calling a different philosophy "lame, pathetic, and stupid" - is, well, that. I don't really have a strong opinion on this one, but all of my leaguemates like the element of danger. The days leading up to the trading deadline, as you can imagine, were 100 times as dramatic compared to "keep the stats" leagues. But that doesn't make those leagues lame, pathetic, or stupid - any more than people playing poker for $100 a hand are any better or worse than people playing for a buck. having stakes higher or lower (in this case it being the risk of losing a player) is not a moral superiority or inferiority.

I don't think I ever said it was stupid. And I said the argument was lame, not the league. Pathetic... okay, maybe you could read it that I said the leagues were pathetic, but I was really talking about the mindset.

Above, you actually give a fine -perhaps the absolute best- reason for doing it that way: you like it. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. If that's the way you like to do it, that's fine. But, that is a far cry from the argument that I bemoaned as lame. You can't keep an antiquated rule because it somehow honors the old way, while you go change a bunch of other stuff. That was what I thought was lame, not the leagues. I play in a Tough Titties league that I enjoy very much, because I enjoy that league, not because that rule is a good rule.

[kawaise]

Have you ever seen an NL only roster with zero injuries?

Yes, actually; once (and I've been playing since 1986). It happened last year. A guy in the league had only one transaction all year, replacing Paco Rodriguez when he was sent down in April. Other than that MLB transaction he had NO injuries. Unreal. His fantasy team finished third.

[kawaise]

I seem to remember the original book being dismissive of the "Junior Circuit."

Thanks for the confirmations about USA Today's publication of MLB stats. This might explain the "Tough Titties" rule, too. It was a logistical headache (not factoring in the possible bias against the AL).

The official NL stats were published on Wednesday. If an owner had a player traded to the AL, he wouldn't be able to access AL stats until the following Tuesday. These were the days when we figured our team's stats by hand and turned them in to the commissioner. In such a case a team's stats wouldn't be complete for almost a week, thus, the official standings would be delayed a week.