hey tony nardacci: at monday night's gm meeting, i found the answer to your good question of why it is that last year's waivered players would not be put in the first 55+ draft pool.
the short answer? a promise.
the division promised the under-55 guys when they were asked to help out teams as waivered players that they would be able to stay with those teams until they turned 55, when they could choose to remain or become free agents.
so, to put them in a draft pool would be to go back on our word and to force guys, who'd just joined one team, to possibly become acclimated to, and pay uniform fees of, another team.
the long-range goal of the 55+ draft is to end, as much as possible, using waivered players. about three or four teams needed them pretty badly over the past two years. that can the fate of 55+ teams where finding and keeping players, especially healthy players, is often tough. with luck, this year's draft will offer each team two, and possibly more, new players.
i hope that you, and all the other readers, won't mind a detour here. i heard something pretty terrific at monday's gm meeting and i'd like to share it:
there were 14 names for 10 spots on the league's board of directors. at the meeting, 13 candidates who were there each stood and explained why he wanted to run for a board spot, which is time-consuming.
i was really pleased to discover, again, how fortunate cdmsbl is to have such fellows, at least two of whom represented the younger divisions. almost every guy said he wanted to do what he could to increase and improve the baseball experience for guys in the league.
in an earlier posting, i made a mistake and said the board was all volunteer. i've since been corrected and have learned that guys are paid a stipend for their services, but, on an hourly basis, it's small: every board member gets $250, the secretary and treasurer get another $400-$600, league commissioners earn more, upwards of a $1,000. the president can make, depending on the range of his duties, in the neighborhood of $6,000.
last year, board members met at least 15 times by one estimate, and if each meeting took two hours, the hourly wage of each would have been $8.33. if the league president spends 520 hours a year (or 10 hours a week), an easily reachable total and probably a huge underestimate, his pay could reach $11.53 an hour. that pay hovers just under and over the state minimum, and barely covers gas. so while it's not a true volunteer group, it's close.
such low pay doesn't diminish my point: which is that it was a real upper to hear how willing guys were to give their (minimally paid) time to the league and to hear them tell the 45 or so gms at the meeting their ideas and feelings for the league. there was no shortage of good will.
the election's choices are posted on the league's home page, under headlines. the only downer was that, by league rule, only 10 could be elected. (maybe that rule can be changed? maybe we'll accept anyone who wants to run? why not tap everyone's talent and energy? 14-member boards are known to work, yes?)
-mike
-- Edited by mhart on Tuesday 15th of December 2015 04:07:00 PM
Thanks for getting back to me regarding the my 55+ Division draft Question,
Does the 55+ division know what teams will have waiver players and how many for 2016 or do we have to wait until this draft is completed? When is the Draft anyway?
Also, it's my understanding that all players in all divisions are free agents at the end of the year. In most cases they now have the choice to remain with the team they play on or enter free agency? Right?
hey tony - john reel can fill you in soon and better than i.
my understanding is that he'll be compiling a list of draft-eligible players and hopes to have it done by january 31. the goal is to have the draft sometime in february. everyone will be notified.
for the draft, the managers will get a list of available players, which is the draft pool, and the managers will need to contact players who interest them to find out if those players are willing, have the time and are healthy enough to play 55+ ball. if players don't want to play 55+ ball for any team that may draft them, they won't be allowed to join a 55+ team later that season. they can only play on a team in 55+ ball, if they are willing to invest a season with the team that drafts them. after that one season, they'll be free agents.
i don't know how many waivered players are left. there aren't many. the peppers had three, and all three are 55 and older now. other teams had waivered players numbering none to five or six. i don't know how many will be under 55 this season.
again, i was led to believe that the total number of waivered players is very small, and the goal is to reduce that to zero, or almost zero (save for exceptional circumstances, which would require the approval of the 55+ managers), in the near future.
and you're right - all players in all divisions should be free agents by year's end, which means, as you say, guys can choose to stay with their teams or go as they please. if they leave, they just have to send an email to their managers, and either they or their managers should contact the league.
hope this answers your questions.
-mike
-- Edited by mhart on Tuesday 15th of December 2015 06:21:19 PM
One aspect of this plan that I hope remains open for discussion is how the draft is connected to free agency. As it was explained to me last night, if a player (like me) wants to leave a lower seeded team (like the Peppers) and join a higher seeded team (like the Cardinals) the Cardinals would have to give their draft pick to the Peppers.
That connection between free agency and the draft puts the manager of the higher seeded team in an awkward spot. "I wouldn't mind having Donny Ball but I would really like to keep that 4th round draft pick" "I wish Donny Ball would stop e-mailing me".
It puts the free agent in a tough spot. "I'd like to move up to another team but I wonder why that manager has stopped responding to my e-mails"!
It is also misleading to the new guys getting drafted into the 55 division. "Gee, I thought if I put in a year with the last place team then I could join my buddies on the ____. But now that I'm a free agent that manager has stopped responding to my e-mails"
As much as I see merit in the implementation of a draft, I do not think that the draft should be connected to free agency. Once a player has played his obligatory year in the division, he should be able to move without penalty.
Don Ball New Board Member
-- Edited by Don Ball on Tuesday 15th of December 2015 07:16:30 PM
Thanks Mike and Don for trying to clarify this draft,
But The only way I believe this draft will ever work with no objections from anyone is that "ALL" players entering the 55+ division for the first year of eligibility even waiver players are subject to this draft.
How can you "promise" an underaged waiver player more rights where they can play and avoid the draft at 55 when they shouldn't be in the Division in the first place then an age eligible player. It just doesn't make sense to me.
But again that's only my opinion.
-- Edited by Tony Nardacci on Wednesday 16th of December 2015 06:57:37 AM
tony & don: you both raise good questions, ones i imagine others have. so i'll go to this board one more time, and actually try to write shorter. apologies in advance: the odds are probably against going real short.
one quick note: i'm working from memory, a dangerous location, and all the 55+ managers may want to add to or subtract from what i say. OK, then -
tony, the "promise" - "commitment" was actually the word we used - to the current waivered players was made two years ago, before we had the idea of a draft. i don't know that we'd make that same promise today. if the draft works as intended, we won't need to make many more, if any, such promises. teams should be fairly well stocked and waivers would be, except in surprising circumstances, unnecessary. so, with luck, there won't be any waivered players in future drafts. if we do have them, however, then your question is even more to the mark and we'd have to consider it.
now, we did discuss having all eligible 55+ players enter the draft. several managers felt that players who've never played in the league, usually players whom managers find in their own recruiting, should belong to those clubs for at least one season. then of course, they'd be free agents like anybody else. we called these guys "community players." other managers felt that players who had not played in cdmsbl in three or more years should also be labeled "community players," and, again for a year, the property of managers who recruit them. that leaves a draft pool consisting of players coming up from the 45s, and guys who've played in the league within the past three years.
my answer may not satisfy you, tony. we've considered, in some measure, your position. but we acted as we did knowing that we also had to find a fair way out of recurring lopsided standings, mercy-ruled games, and teams with thinning rosters. with luck, maybe the draft will help us find our way to 2.5-hour, 7-inning games with uncertain outcomes. we'll see.
don, there was no sense at the meeting that the cards are thinking of reversing themselves about your status for 2016. just the opposite: i got the sense that the cards still plan on taking you as soon as free agency starts (jan. 1st, i believe). in fact, it was jerry who recommended the rule saying that if a team that finishes lower in the standings loses a free agent to a higher-finishing team, then the higher team loses a draft pick to the lower team. he did that knowing full well the consequences of the rule, but also, i sense, he did it out of a sense of fairness and trying with the rest of us to work toward parity.
one of the reasons that john in particular (and the rest of us agreed) wanted to have the draft AFTER free agency starts was to make sure that all the managers settled their free agent issues first, concentrating on taking the current 55+ players who want to move around. after that, they'd make their picks from the draft. that way, managers will have paid attention first to their own 55+ guys and settled their rosters to the point where they can look at the draft pool and pick with more precision, and the uneasy situation you describe is less likely to happen. in fact, shouldn't happen.
this draft is new to all of us, and questions such as you guys raise that will help us refine it, and, i hope, make it work.
thanks again for those questions; hope my answers help, though, remember, i'm only one of eight, and my fellow managers may want to make additions or corrections. - mike
-- Edited by mhart on Wednesday 16th of December 2015 01:47:56 AM
Yes I get what the 55 division is trying to accomplish. My concern is (waivers) if guys who are age eligible enter this draft or become free agents arent chosen for some reason, there should not be waivers allowed until those guys are picked up by a team that is going to use waiver players. I think Donnie kind of had the same concern. BTW: Congratulations Don on being a New Board Member!
Thats all
This will hopefully be my last post regarding this subject, It takes me to long to read Mike's responses! I'm Only Kidding Mike, Have a Merry Christmas!
..... more like 4 
