CRL News

February 12, 1019

Thirty years.

If the CRL were a mortgage, it would be paid off. When this league was born in 1989, I was still in my twenties and renting.

Another amazing note, we have two milestone anniversaries this year – not only is it our 30^th, it’s Major League Baseball’s 150^th. The Cincinnati Reds played the first professional game in 1869. Ask Glenn about it, he was there.

All kidding aside, we represent 20% of the history of Major League Baseball.

Anyway, not a whole lot of news, but I did need to get out important dates to everyone. (Comments on this year’s idiosyncrasies below.)

Friday, March 15 – Everyone’s initial $250 buy-in is due to Glenn.

Thursday, March 28 – Opening Day

Friday, March 29 – Roster Freeze Day

Friday, April 5 – Draft Day

Now some comments on the dates above:

Money:

The initial buy-in doesn’t mean all of you have to send the full $250, merely that you have a balance of at least $250 in your account. Six teams had some amount of money left in their accounts from last year, and one team has already paid (Thanks Scott). Here’s a list of what each team needs to have in by March 15:

Team 1 - $250

Team 2 - $250

Team 5 - $223.50

Team 7 - $250

Team 8 - $147

Please make your checks payable and send them to:

Glenn Cekala

614 Mangrove Thicket Blvd.

Ponte Vedra, FL 32081

Opening Day/Roster Freeze Day:

Since Opening Day is before Roster Freeze Day this year, it may have an impact on some of you. Draft eligibility is determined by opening-day rosters (including DL). If a player, say Bryce Harper (a bad example, because he should be signed by then, but you never know), is still unsigned, he may not be protected on Roster Freeze Day, because he is not on a National League roster.

Along the same vein, if you have a farm player who makes the opening-day roster, he may not be kept on your farm roster. Should you elect to keep the rookie, he will count toward your total protected limit. If he does not make the opening-day roster, he may be kept on your farm team and will not count toward your protected player limit. Also, if a farm players does not make the OD roster, he may only be kept on your farm team, even if he is expected to be called up in a few days (think a pitcher who’s spot in the rotation won’t come up for several days so they want him to get another outing in Florida or Arizona). Why does this matter? Because, although you can draft up to two farm players, you can only have three players total on your farm roster.

Roster Freeze Day is also when you sign any players to long-term contracts. Since we have a scratch draft in 2021, there is no reason to sign anyone to anything more than a two-year contract. If you need a refresher on long-term contracts, you can find it here: (http://www.c-r-l.org/rules/crlconst.htm#XVI )

Marcus/Matt, myself/Fraser, Glenn/Dennis/Craig and Steve/Jared may only protect seven players. Everyone else can protect 10.

I’m setting Roster Freeze Day for Friday so everyone can have a full weekend to prepare. I do not know what my work schedule will be that day, but I am taking vacation beginning Saturday. If I don’t get the roster protections in Friday night, I will have them in by first thing Saturday morning. I will email everyone once that is done.

Draft Day:

Since every team will have already been playing for a week, I wanted to remind everyone of the particular rules applying to the draft. Draft eligibility is based solely on OD rosters – it doesn’t matter who has been signed or called up in the interim. Likewise, positional eligibility is based on last year using the 20 games/most games played requirement. So positional shifts for this year are irrelevant for draft purposes – the player must qualify for the position based on last year. Naturally, as soon as the draft is over, a player may be moved to any position for which he qualifies this year.

Other notes:

There will be golf on Thursday, April 4. Place and time to be determined. If you are interested, email myself, Ken, Weve, or Farabee. BTW, Hutch will be at the draft and will be playing on Thursday. I’m going to try and play, but I still need to wait a couple of weeks and see if I can swing a club without discomfort.

I don’t know of any plans as of yet for Thursday night. I know the past several years, Farabee has hosted everyone at his suite in the Cosmopolitan for pizza and drinks. I can’t speak for him, so be on the lookout should an invite be forthcoming. As usual, if he does decide to host us again, our normal practice has been to put $20 or so apiece into his tip jar to help defray the expense of pizza, drinks and snacks.

Finally, although I didn’t start off these musings with a pithy quote (mainly because I haven’t seen any), I do have an editorial comment.

Read the various proposals about speeding up the game (pitch clock, more limitations on mound visits and relievers being required to pitch to more batters) and will refrain from commenting on them until I read more about them (not being instituted this year anyway). But I did have a comment on the proposal to add the DH to the National League. My response, in a word, is NO!

And it has absolutely nothing to do with pitchers hitting, or manager strategy, but the simple fact that baseball is a two-way game. If you are in the lineup as a hitter, then you should be required to pick up a glove and go field your position. Clubs have had to deal with sub-par defensive players for decades. The Cubs and Phillies trotted out Keith Moreland and Greg Luzinski every day for years because their bats required them to be in the lineup. It’s a tradeoff. And it’s a decision that should be up to the individual clubs, managers and GMs. There should not be a league rule mandating your worst defensive player rides the pine for half the game.

Besides, I really don’t want to make any other changes to our roster makeups.

See everyone in Vegas!

Jim