I do hate this part of being Commissioner, but here are the tentative fines for the 2008 season.
First, the good news - there were no unexcused late series this season. Many thanks to everyone for keeping things running smoothly.
As per usual, all fines were waived for teams that changed hands mid-season. There have also been various special circumstances that I have already been made aware of that have been taken into account.
Here are the fines as I have them. Please let me know if I have computed anything incorrectly, or if there are extenuating circumstances that would make a waiver or reduction of a fine appropriate.
All fines are the result of overusage and extra games started. Thus, I have listed the overused players and the amount of such overusage below.
For reference, here is the fine schedule, taken from the 8/10/06 and 10/8/07 posts:
Late Reporting of a Home Series: $50K per incident
Failure to Play and Report a Home Series within 2 weeks after the Due Date: $200K per incident
Games Started in Excess of Total Allowed: $25K per GS
For PA and IP usage in Excess of Total Allowed: $2K per PA $5K per IP
PLUS, an additional penalty applicable only to PA/IP overusage: For PA/IP fines totaling less than $49K: +$50K For PA/IP fines totaling between $50K and $99K: +$100K For PA/IP fines totalling $100K or greater: +$250K
For example, if Player X has 3 IP over the allowable limit, but the team owning Player X has no other overusage, that team will be fined $65K (3*5K + 50K).
As another example, if players on team Y aggregate to 21 IP over their allowable limits, team Y will be fined $355K (21*5K + 250K).
Finally, if player Z makes 31 starts when he was only allowed to start 30 games, but the team owning player Z has no overusage fines for PA or IP, that team will be fined $25K. (additional penalty only applies to PA/IP overusage fines)
While this may seem harsh, the reality is that most teams do not overuse any players in a given season and most minor cases of overusage are explainable in such a way that a fine can be waived or reduced in the Commissioner's discretion.
As always, I welcome any comment or discussion on this subject.
