I believe I am being unfairly punished by this mid-season rule change

[piper108]

Hi everyone, you may or may not be aware of the situation involving my Seattle team being over the salary cap. I was unaware that I was over the cap (I believe I must have miscalculated the penalty for having too few minor league players). Jxroth attempted to contact me via site message and then there were a series of message board posts about me being over the cap, which I will soon address. Since the end of free agency, I had been only accessing the site through the mobile app -- which apparently does not alert me to messages -- and since the change in the message board we no longer get email notifications when a message is received.

I without a doubt was over the salary cap (.18 over, and now corrected), but I have been told by Jxroth that I will still be punished by having my draft pick automatically dropped to #16.

I believe this is an unjust punishment.

At the beginning of the season, our league rules penalized a team for being over the cap by reducing a player’s performance by a full letter grade. This means that I did not gain any advantage by being over the cap. Instead, as you can see, I currently have the third-worst record in the league.

Jxroth asked about adopting other rules regarding a team being over the cap. This was done here: viewtopic.php?t=12178 Four other owners took part in this discussion.

A vote was then done by the league regarding a rule change here: viewtopic.php?t=12198

It does not even appear that anyone actually voted, but rather there was some discussion regarding what the rule change should be. No even said yes or no.

Based on this "vote," it was decided that the rule change would be this: Owners have 24 games/4 days to get under the cap. If they don't their draft position is dropped to 16. Owners should self police this by reaching out to an owner whose team is over the cap when the season starts. But that isn't a requirement and the penalty is imposed automatically, no matter the circumstances. viewtopic.php?t=12234

I don’t have a problem with rule changes, but I do not like how this mid-season rule change was implemented with little discussion, without an actual vote, and implemented only as a way to punish me, with absolutely no recourse on my part. Even if it was a legitimate vote, this was a mid-season rule change applied to an unresolved situation. Every rule change I’ve ever seen applies at the beginning of the next season and, again, I’ve never seen a rule adopted without a clear vote by the league.

I am not without fault in this, but I was not an absent owner. I did not ignore Jxroth’s messages; due to the way site works on mobile I didn’t even know I received them. I didn’t view the league standings and view the message board because my team was performing so horribly, which I attributed to the large number of injuries I had early on.

I feel that going by the rules as they were at the beginning of the season, I have been penalized enough by having my players dropped a full letter grade, which has essentially ruined my team’s chances for the year. And, again, I don’t believe I am being punished justly by the way this mid-season rule change was enacted.

[bmarkley]

I haven't said anything or been involved at all concerning this topic until now, just to be clear.

I have also been an owner of the BZL for decades and was an owner in the CHL up until the merger with BZL. I can't remember if the situation occurred in the BZL or CHL, maybe someone else knows. However, I do remember the situation we experienced. There were many owners who hit the cap in the first couple of days of FA with many high-quality players still on the market. This left a small number (like 3 or 4) of teams access to these players. There was an owner who was close or maybe already over the cap who offered long-term deals to these high-quality players, despite the fact he knew he would be over the cap and would have a hard time getting under. The team's final team salary was either close to or over $85 million. The owner was not willing to make a trade as he felt no one offered a fair trade for the quality of his players, plus there was only 1 team that had the cap space and they couldn't work it out. So instead of making a trade to get under the cap, he decided to ride out the season as a loss, but knowing he had some really good talent that would cost him peanuts for multiple years. It was a good management decision as he had good talent locked up for seasons and it only cost him 1 season, but the league owners didn't feel it was in the best interest of the league, so additional consequences were added if an owner did not make an effort to get under the cap by so many amount of days/games. Losing the next year's first round pick I believe was one of the penalties, but I can't remember for sure.

I can't remember if this situation was in the BZL or CHL, but I'm leaning towards the BZL. If so, then I believe this ruling or something similar was already approved by the owners way back then. If it was not previously approved by the league owners, then I agree with Piper108 and think the penalty should not begin this year, but instead start at the beginning of the next season. No matter the reason Piper was not aware of being over the cap, the rules that were in place at the moment of the occurrence or violation should be what is applied to the team. If the punishment was not heavy enough prior (as we found out from my previous experience), then we need to fix it moving forward, but we shouldn't change it mid-season. I don't think any owner would want that happening to them.

We can all think of moments where these types of situations have happened in professional sports. Such as the "Near-perfect game" or the non-called Pass Interference in the NFL's NFC Championship game this past season. Both leagues fixed these types of issues in the off-season, despite the public outcry to do it immediately. Because it wasn't in the laws of the game at the moment they occurred they handled it in the off season.

That is my opinion on the matter...

[jxroth]

I believe that occurred in the BZL -- but apparently it was not memorialized anywhere. In fact, that is where the idea for dropping draft ranking came from now.

Anyway, I really don't want to rehash this. There is a cap and it needs to be lived up to by every owner. In this case, the owner was given multiple warnings before any punishment....both in private and then in public. That could have ended the problem right there -- and even after the season had begun. So every effort was made to warn the owner. I know that activity in this league can be very low but if an owner fails to read IMs, read the public board, look at his salary -- that's our fault? No way. We're all busy I'm sure and don't have time for a lot of wrangling about things....and as far as I'm concerned this was already dealt with weeks ago. So I'm not changing the result. It's on the owner to manage his or her team in a fair and attentive way.

[blumer5]

Hi everyone, you may or may not be aware of the situation involving my Seattle team being over the salary cap. I was unaware that I was over the cap (I believe I must have miscalculated the penalty for having too few minor league players). Jxroth attempted to contact me via site message and then there were a series of message board posts about me being over the cap, which I will soon address. Since the end of free agency, I had been only accessing the site through the mobile app -- which apparently does not alert me to messages -- and since the change in the message board we no longer get email notifications when a message is received.

I without a doubt was over the salary cap (.18 over, and now corrected), but I have been told by Jxroth that I will still be punished by having my draft pick automatically dropped to #16.

I believe this is an unjust punishment.

At the beginning of the season, our league rules penalized a team for being over the cap by reducing a player’s performance by a full letter grade. This means that I did not gain any advantage by being over the cap. Instead, as you can see, I currently have the third-worst record in the league.

Jxroth asked about adopting other rules regarding a team being over the cap. This was done here: viewtopic.php?t=12178 Four other owners took part in this discussion.

A vote was then done by the league regarding a rule change here: viewtopic.php?t=12198

It does not even appear that anyone actually voted, but rather there was some discussion regarding what the rule change should be. No even said yes or no.

Based on this "vote," it was decided that the rule change would be this: Owners have 24 games/4 days to get under the cap. If they don't their draft position is dropped to 16. Owners should self police this by reaching out to an owner whose team is over the cap when the season starts. But that isn't a requirement and the penalty is imposed automatically, no matter the circumstances. viewtopic.php?t=12234

I don’t have a problem with rule changes, but I do not like how this mid-season rule change was implemented with little discussion, without an actual vote, and implemented only as a way to punish me, with absolutely no recourse on my part. Even if it was a legitimate vote, this was a mid-season rule change applied to an unresolved situation. Every rule change I’ve ever seen applies at the beginning of the next season and, again, I’ve never seen a rule adopted without a clear vote by the league.

I am not without fault in this, but I was not an absent owner. I did not ignore Jxroth’s messages; due to the way site works on mobile I didn’t even know I received them. I didn’t view the league standings and view the message board because my team was performing so horribly, which I attributed to the large number of injuries I had early on.

I feel that going by the rules as they were at the beginning of the season, I have been penalized enough by having my players dropped a full letter grade, which has essentially ruined my team’s chances for the year. And, again, I don’t believe I am being punished justly by the way this mid-season rule change was enacted.

I can get on board with a rule change, but i do believe he is right here. A rule to address a current issue shouldnt be enforced until the start of the next season.

[ballmark]

A number of thoughts are swirling; let me attempt to enumerate:

1. Yes, the BZL has had a fairly long-standing rule about losing a draft pick for being over the cap for x-period of time.

2. piper108 wasn't in the BZL when this rule was established and may have been unaware of it.

3. It does seem dubious that he could have missed all the messages. Even one look at the Standings page should have shown the forum thread. But the bottom line is we just don't know.

4. With as many new people as have migrated into the BZL, and with the dearth of discussion on the issue, it does seem that for many owners here, this probably appears to be a "new" rule even though for those of us who have been around for years, it is not.

5. If it is perceived to be a new rule, for the sake of all and the good of the many - not to mention the peace and harmony of the league - it might be in everyone 's best interest to treat it as a new rule which is a) to pass it mid-season requires unanimous consent (which we will clearly not get) which then means that b) it must be enacted in the off-season to take effect next year with a simple majority vote. IF you want to proceed this way.

6. WHATEVER path we follow, I would suggest that the Barry Zito League rules and maybe the free agency timeline and maybe even that silly little guide for new owners we wrote up some seasons back be "stickied" to the top of our league forum so everyone can see it going forward.

[piper108]

A number of thoughts are swirling; let me attempt to enumerate:



3. It does seem dubious that he could have missed all the messages. Even one look at the Standings page should have shown the forum thread. But the bottom line is we just don't know.

I understand you’re just commenting about the evidence on its face so I’m trying not to take it personal, but I’m guessing other uses accessing the site via mobile have had the same problem not realizing they had messages. Take a look at my owner card, I’m not the type of owner that would be trying out some radical new method of tanking; my number of 100 loss seasons and championships won are about even, which isn’t common. My favorite aspect of a salary league is that it’s not necessary to ever lose at all, and it seems strange to suddenly try to lose when I’d turned around a bad team and made the playoffs two of the last three seasons.

[GhostofKong]

4. With as many new people as have migrated into the BZL, and with the dearth of discussion on the issue, it does seem that for many owners here, this probably appears to be a "new" rule even though for those of us who have been around for years, it is not.

5. If it is perceived to be a new rule, for the sake of all and the good of the many - not to mention the peace and harmony of the league - it might be in everyone 's best interest to treat it as a new rule which is a) to pass it mid-season requires unanimous consent (which we will clearly not get) which then means that b) it must be enacted in the off-season to take effect next year with a simple majority vote. IF you want to proceed this way.

6. WHATEVER path we follow, I would suggest that the Barry Zito League rules and maybe the free agency timeline and maybe even that silly little guide for new owners we wrote up some seasons back be "stickied" to the top of our league forum so everyone can see it going forward.

I forgot to circle back on this but I wholeheartedly agree. We should get unanimous or high majority consensus from the whole league before enacting something mid season. Otherwise let’s just roll it out mid season.
The thing that needs to be remembered is this is a game played for fun, with an extremely diminishing player base. Regardless of whether Ryan saw messages or not, I’m extremely confident he was not out to intentionally diminish the competitive integrity of the league. This is isn’t life or death and it’s not like he was doing something that kills leagues like preying on newbs, starting message board fights, or mananging 2 teams in the same league. I recommend we add this as a rule next season and let bygones be bygones.

[piper108]

So what’s the resolution here?