Hoping to slightly improve the quality of their last player, Shiner pays TWP a lucky $13K to swap #1 waiver picks. I look forward to finding out that SHI would have ended up with the same player either way. Oh well, it's only $13K...of fake money.
Well, Crazy, if it makes you feel better you can view the above trade as [Player SHI Took in Round 1 of the Waiver Draft] plus $13K for [Player TWP Took in Round 1 of the Waiver Draft]
Well, not really. If TWP didn't have the name of the player you wanted turned in on his draft list by the deadline Thursday, then how would he know who to take for you and then trade? Making a trade after the deadline? Just hoping the guy you got wasn't on somebodies list prior to your original first round pick. I am not participating in the waiver, but if I was, my pick would have been between Shiner and TWP, and maybe the guy you got would have been my first choice. Would that be fair? Just sayin....
To peel back the curtain, what happened was that Eric emailed me early Friday morning to ask (i) if I had run the Waiver Draft and (ii) if I hadn't, would it be ok to have a trade between SHI and TWP that they just agreed to. I said that would be fine as long as he reported it.
Now, one could definitely argue that I shouldn't have allowed it since Waiver Instructions were due on Thursday and everything should've been locked in then (I do note that Eric didn't change his instructions, just moved up). But I have always erred on the side on leniency for everyone on these things, especially because it's just the Waiver Draft - anyone could've had these guys for $40 in the FA auction or for $200K in the IOD if they really wanted them.
If the league would prefer me to be more of a hard-liner on these things, I can do that. But I think the majority of the league can think of a time when they've gotten things in the next morning after a due date or had some other minor issue that wasn't in full technical compliance with a deadline and benefited from a "no harm no foul" approach. If more owners now want me to be stricter (or if they want a new Commish who will be stricter), that's fine by me, just let me know.
First of all, I admit that I was the one posting under the auspices of "Crazy". Also, please do not read tone into this as I am merely stating my thoughts and opinions and have no ill will intentioned. I make this post strictly on a fairness issue to all members of the league. The trade did not affect me in any way, but I can certainly see how it could have affected others.
I have a clarification I would like made from Tom. I thought that in the past we had to have the waiver list in by midnight of the day before the draft. The waiver draft date was set on the calendar as Thursday, so I believed that our lists needed to be in by Wednesday night and the draft would be run on Thursday. That deadline would have been around 36 hours prior to you allowing a trade on Friday morning, a deadline extension not privy to the rest of league. I am not the only one that was using Wednesday evening as the deadlline date and expressed concern over this trade that may or may not affect the outcome the draft, but I will leave that up to each of the others as to whether they may want to publicly comment. I have no issues with a the Commissioner occasionally allowing some leniency on time matters, but what appeared to be a day and a half after the deadline seemed somewhat exceptional. So in the future, is the posted date the time for submitting of the list or the date of the actual draft?
In response to your question above, my preference is that we abide by the timelines posted. I can still understand leniency on the Commissioner's part if there are mitigating circumstances causing someone to be late on a deadline, but allowing a trade to take place after the posted deadline does not in my opinion, fall under that category.
Also, I somewhat take exception to the statement that "it is only the waiver draft". When choosing players in the FA auction we don't know how our team may or may not turn out with the IOD and trades still available. I have intentionally passed on players waiting to see what happens during that time knowing that I still have the option of picking up that player later in the waive draft. If it was that unimportant because it was just the waiver draft, then why was it so important for Eric to want to move up several spots in the first round to get the guy he wanted? Why do a lot of guys make trades for earlier waiver picks? I understand that this is just a hobby and a game and I am probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but when I am not the only one having these thoughts, then I feel it at least needs to be addressed and discussed. So there it is, the reason I posted to start with. Again, do not read tone, I have no ill will, just my two cents.
Gary (and whoever else has been talking about this off the board, I guess) -
I have always allowed instructions to come in for the waiver draft through the night of the announced date, and often times into the following morning. It was pointed out to me some years ago that announcing a date for the draft was unclear as to whether instructions were due the night before or any time through that date, and I decided it would be better to have it be through that date. I thought I had previously announced that some years ago and have kept to that policy but my apologies if that was unclear.
As mentioned, I have found over the years that the best way to run the league in my opinion is to allow some leniency on timeliness for most deadlines. As you may recall, most years it takes some effort to fill vacancies and I doubt that being more strict will help us retain owners.
Does this give some theoretical advantage to people getting the extra couple of hours? I guess maybe so? In my opinion the theoretical advantage is more than outweighed by not driving people away by being one of those super-strict leagues or requiring doctor's notes for waivers.
I will also note that being Commissioner is something I do for the good of the league because I enjoy ARBA and want to see it continue to run. I get, as far as I can tell, no advantage whatsoever from doing it and as you know I abolished the dues a long time ago. As such, I am not personally inclined to be a hard-ass on people. I spend enough time arguing professionally and I would really rather not spend my hobby time telling people that their list doesn't count because it's late, etc. If the league as a whole wants me to take that approach, I guess I can, but it will make the already-somewhat-tedious job less fun.
Don't get me wrong - I'm happy to keep being Commissioner, just explaining why I haven't been a stickler for this stuff to date.
And I'm totally serious - if someone else wants to be Commissioner, I'm happy to hand over the keys. We've been doing things my way for a long time now and a change could be good. And it would free up a bunch more of my time.
I don't have any issues with what you said now that I know how you handle the dates and waiver lists. I now know that I don't have to have my list in until the posted date and possibly even later. Still uneasy about allowing a trade after the posted date. In my opinion that is not the same as accepting a list late, but I guess it is what it is, and no one else seems to be concerned enough to say anything, so I will let it go.
Thanks, Gary. Just for the record, if I could go back in time and not do that stupid trade, I would gladly do so!Shiner didn't even get the guy they really wanted anyway and would rather have just taken one of the guys taken later or even someone still available than pay extra for Jordan.This deal is something that I had on the table with Josh for quite a while, but life got in the way of ARBA for a while.I was aware that doing it at that point fell into a gray area and wouldn't have been surprised or pushed back at all if Tom had said it was too late.If I were asked to void the deal afterwards, that would have been fine too. We might have done that on Friday had you contacted one or both of us personally instead.
Tom's never claimed to be infallible (at least not seriously) and neither have I. There are a lot of judgment calls that come up in running at complicated as this league and people can legitimately have different opinions. I certainly don't agree with all of Tom's decisions and am not afraid to tell him so. I generally prefer more structure and a stricter schedule also, issues that I bug him about often...and take on extra tasks to move things along. In fact, I was pushing to get the waiver draft done earlier, but he wanted to make sure that everyone was included, particularly the new people. We've certainly suffered from some mid-season desertions over the years.
Tom deserves a break after many years of faithful service, but I'm convinced that the league would be worse off without him. Most of his work is done until the offseason anyway though. Anyone else want to do all the league stats for me?
