CRL NEWS

March 14, 2026

“I haven’t seen it, but I’ve seen bits and pieces.”

n Angels 42-year-old Manager Kurt Suzuki, who was asked about that day’s cactus league pitching matchup between Mitch FARRIS and Walker BUEHLER. He added that a lot of his players were probably too young to have seen the now 40-year-old movie.

Got an email from one of you asking for a rule interpretation. It’s one we’ve never had before because we’ve never had to deal with someone who qualified only at DH. They wanted to know if the 20 games/most games positional requirement held for Roster-Freeze Day.

In short, the answer is yes. But the fact that he asked has me thinking that other owners may be wondering the same thing. (BTW, re-reading the constitution reminded me I need to change Draft Day from the first Friday of April to the last Friday of March.)

What makes It an interesting question is the owner mentioned the possibility of taking a chance on the player playing a new position on Opening Day (the day before the draft). If the player did not play a new position, they would than be released prior to the draft. But this is prohibited by both the constitution and precedent.

Here is Article V of the constitution:

“A player may be assigned to any position at which he appeared in 20 or more games in the preceding season. If a player did not appear in 20 games at a single position, he may be drafted only at the position at which he appeared most frequently. The 20-games/most games measure is used only to determine the position(s) at which a player may be drafted. A player who did not appear in the major leagues the previous season may only be assigned to the position he played most frequently in the minor leagues.  Once the season is under way (but after Auction Draft Day), a player becomes eligible for assignment to any position at which he appears at least once. Players selected for the utility slot may qualify at any position except pitcher.”

Although this specifically mentions the draft, it does not mention Roster Freeze Day. So, we will turn to precedent. For years now, we have been drafting a week or more after Opening Day. We have always used to 20/most games requirement in all those drafts. Then there is the logistical side of all this. All teams are developing draft strategy based on the available player pool. A player released the morning of the draft has not been included in that planning. The availability of that player also then impacts the value of every other available player (albeit, to a small extent) in everyone’s draft software.

We have made mistakes in this area in the past. Years ago, if you kept a farm player and he subsequently made the OD roster, you either had to waive the farm player or waive one of your keepers to activate him the morning of the draft. I think this bit Marcus and Matt one year. As we have matured as a league and learned from our mistakes, we now leave frozen rosters set and any activation of farm guys who make the roster now occur on the Monday after Opening Day.

I am going to get to a discussion of proposed rule changes that have arisen since the last newsletter. These changes would all occur in 2028 with the scratch draft.

Who even knows if there will be a 2027 season – it’s looking like a nuclear winter with the owners locking out the players until they accept a salary cap – something the players say they will never accept.

Dates:

Mar 20 – Roster Freeze Day.

Mar 26 – Opening Day.

Mar 27 – Draft – Back in Studio 1, our old room by the pool.

Rule change proposals (the first two were mentioned in the last newsletter and are repeated here to remind everyone):

Ken has suggested a change to one of the scoring categories (effective in 2028 with the scratch draft – so we have some time to discuss it). He would like to replace Wins with Wins + Quality Starts + Complete Games. His reasoning – it would return the value to starters who can last until the seventh inning instead of the crap shoot of which reliever gets the vulture win by pitching one inning (the fifth or later) when the victorious team takes the lead for good. Put me down as a solid “yea.”

Then there was my proposal to treat L1 players the same as O players – as far as being able to dump them (with a penalty) if they are out for the year. If you want to re-hash my reasoning, I have re-posted my argument from the last newsletter at the end of these ramblings.

Here is another proposal that came in as a follow-up on Ken’s proposal above.

Here is the direct quote from Spence:

“I’d like to propose (like Ken’s, starting in scratch draft) Since NL is a DH hitter league now, I propose going back to 9 pitchers and either going to 2 catchers or 2 Utility players. If Ken’s proposal goes through it makes less value of middle inning’s guys so no need for 10 pitchers.”

I kind of like this but I will offer a minor adjustment. Since we will be forced to deal with DHs (holding my nose), maybe we should dump the tenth pitcher and go back to 14 offensive players. My suggestion is we add DH as a position (the same 20/most games restriction still applies) and keep the utility position, meaning we would still only have the requirement of 1 catcher. The result would be that, beginning in 2028, the roster makeup would be:

C – 1

1B – 1

3B – 1

CN – 1

2B – 1

SS – 1

MI – 1

OF – 5

C – 1

DH – 1

UT – 1

P - 9

Now back to my proposal on L1 players (cut and pasted from the last newsletter):

The constitution prohibits waiving any players with a long-term contract. While I will agree that this is a good rule, there is a circumstance where I think an exception should be granted. Here is the issue that made me think about it:

Austin Riley. Thought I got a good deal from Steve and Bill. But then Riley went on the DL a week later. No problem, I’ll just pick up somebody that’s hot right now for him. Then Riley has season-ending surgery and the flash-in-the pan I picked up for him has turned into a stiff. What I want to do is waive the replacement (meaning waiving Riley, since they are tied together) and grab someone else off waivers. But I can’t, because they were tied together and Riley is on a contract. The constitution states you cannot waive a contracted player during the season, only in the off-season (with a penalty attached). Here is the kicker, it is the last year of the contract – Riley is an L1 – basically the same as an O.

BTW, in 2027, there will undoubtedly be several L1s on rosters because of the 2028 scratch. So this could impact several teams. I’m thinking an L1 player could be treated the same as an O (option year) player – but only on one condition – the L1 player must be out for the season or traded to the AL. (Otherwise, you could dump a contracted player in his final year if he is having a bad season but is coming back and the spirit of the rule says you cannot do that – you must honor the contract.)

I have a couple of ideas on what we could do. I’m going to run them out there for debate. We could do either (not both) or do nothing.

NOTE: None of the options below exist unless the original contracted player is out for the year.

Option 1 – A team may waive both players (the player in the last year of an LTC and his replacement). This could happen with a regular waiver-wire replacement or (in the case of the replacement going down) a free-agent pickup. In either case, it would cost the team the normal contract buy-out (twice the remaining value of the contract) plus the normal transaction fee for the weekly move. NOTE – this rule change could only be invoked in the case of a player with an L1 contract. In all other cases, LTC stipulations still apply.

Option 2 – A team may waive the replacement player through a regular waiver transaction and tie the new replacement to the original L1 player by paying a $5 “irregular link fee” into the prize pool in addition to other fees resulting from the transaction.

Either option would have the same effect – adding money to the prize pool.

Jim