Leadership Change

Biermann Assumes Control

Annandale, VA- The Molson Baseball League's Commissioner's Office this morning announced that former commissioner and sitting Los Angeles Dodgers chairman Bob Biermann will assume control of the Office of the Commissioner through June. Mr. Buchanan will be out of the country for three months, returning the first week of June.

"I asked Bob if he could step in this week, and he agreed," Commissioner Buchanan said. "I have a lot of demands on my time preparing for this assignment between now and my deployment date, and I am very appreciative that Bob is willing to step in to make sure the league runs smoothly."

Mr. Buchanan said he expects to have some connectivity while deployed and intends to continue managing the Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers.

Rules Proposals

Mr. Buchanan was asked about the proposal from the Florida Marlins to reduce the salaries of veterans released at cut-down time before the draft. The Commissioner said that while he thinks the idea has some merit, he believed that the players union would demand that these veterans first be given the opportunity to earn that salary from a different team before any reduction took place.

"These players have earned the right to be paid," MBLPA representative Peter Spellos said between signing copies of his new book, "100 Porn Web Sites You Can't Live Without."

Mr. Buchanan also offered, "One drawback I do see, although it is not a deal breaker, is that reducing these salaries will contribute to talent inflation. Let's face it, there are a few teams every year that are well under the cap, and they could pick a lot of these high-salaried, aging players up for a year."

On Team Identity

In his interview with league reporters, Mr. Buchanan had a lot to say about the team identity concept which continues to make the Molson League unique among most fantasy leagues.

"The team identity rule, which has been part of the league for over 20 years, was intended to offer members the opportunity to manage their favorite teams with the right of first refusal on all rookies coming through those systems. Although the League has taken steps to offset the competitive imbalance that is inherent in this system, most-recently by charging draft picks for team identity protects, I do not feel that is sufficient, and suggest the League owners consider new measures.

• Place a cap on the number of protects a team can have in any given year. Because eliminating team identity altogether has continually failed in voting, this proposal would reduce the competitive imbalance by setting a cap of 1-2 team identity players annually per team. This proposal could also improve the draft pool which, as this season demonstrates, is usually considerably weakened by the removal of the top rookies from roughly two-thirds of Major League Baseball teams.
• Teams cannot trade team identity player rights. If the intent of the rule is to let you control your favorite team's players, I fail to see how trading their rights is consistent with that philosophy. For me, this is clearly a competitive imbalance which is wholly inconsistent with the intent of the team identity rule.

"Historically, one counterargument has always been that Major League farm strength cycles are cyclical, but after twenty years in this league I think that is not true. In any case, I don't think we can rely on a natural cyclical phenomenon to balance the competitive effects of the team identity rule."

Roster Spreadsheet

The league has posted the post-cut down roster and salary spreadsheet online. The link is on the right panel.