My weekly three questions

viper · Post by **viper** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 2:50 am

Three questions for Greg:

1. Will the “Eligibility” link on the team home page ever be fixed? Right now you get the following error message

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'

[Oracle][ODBC][Ora]ORA-00918: column ambiguously defined

/baseball/reports/player_eligibility.asp, line 54

2. If a players is added by the STATS folks into the player database, are there circumstances where he would be removed? Consider the situation that a pitcher is called up on Thursday for a spot start. After yielding a mere 9 runs in 3IP against the Little Sisters of the Poor, the player is sent down with the same advice Mr. Tanner received, “Full time consideration of another endeavor might be in order”. Of course, he is added to our database by STATS since, after all, he was on the 25-man roster and had statistics. Equally obvious was the fact that he had no FAABs on him. Will this player remain on our Free Agent list through September? Is it a "Once there, always there" database? I personally think this is how it should be.

3. What is you resolution of the problem where a team does the following? (a) He has two OFs on his reserve squad. (b) in FAAB, he successfully releases an active OF for a pitcher (c) he forgets to make a move activating one of the two OF.

Final note for STATS. During the week of the 26th, a number of players will gain additional eligibility. A gentle reminder to them might be in order. This is ongoing but that week will likely be the biggest week.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 5:01 am

Three answers for Viper:

1) STATS has been alerted and will fix it or at least explain it.

2) If a minor-leaguer is called up during the week for one start and then sent back down before Sunday he would not remain in the FAAB pool by Sunday's deadline. He would still be considered an undrafted player who is in the minors and thus wouldn't be eligible to be picked up in the NFBC.

3) In that case, we have said the player's lineup would revert back to the previous week's lineup. He would lose his FAAB pickup and that player would go back into the free agent pool. I better add this to the rules to make it official.

viper · Post by **viper** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 6:09 am

Mr President ... two followup questions.

In question #2, assume he stayed up over the weekend and was placed on the STATS database for one FAAB sessions. He then went down, presumedly forever given he went back to his dry cleaning shop in Dayton Ohio. Under these circumsatnces, would he remain on the free agent list? I ask because I am looking at ways to see who was added each week to the list given there appears to be NOTHING provided by STATS as to FA additions.

In question #3, under this very unusual scenario, I assume FAAB would not be rerun even though the player he selected may have been a hot comodity - not that that would ever happen. I ask because teams likely set lineups based on FAAB results. This player would likely just become next week's hot commodity. Is my assumption correct?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 7:11 am

1) If he remained on the free agent list for that FAAB period and nobody picked him up, he would come off the following week since he would be in the minors. If he was picked up in a league and later dropped while he was in the minors, he would remain within that league's free agent listing the rest of the way. STATS has been told to allow MLB players on active rosters and DLs to be in the free agent pool along with ANY player who was originally drafted or was on a league roster in your league at one time.

In other words, if Zack Greinke was good enough to be drafted in your league on Draft Day and later dropped, he remains in your league's free agent pool the rest of the year. That's why you're seeing some minor leaguers in your free agent pool. I have updated the rules page to clarify that, but I know some people are still not clear on that. Basically my feeling has always been that each league is separate and if a player was good enough to be drafted he's good enough to remain in your league's free agent pool. The fact that someone took a chance on Greinke and then gave up shouldn't preclude you or another owner from taking a chance on him now.

2) FAAB would not be rerun and that player would go back into the free agent pool the next week.

viper · Post by **viper** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 7:55 am

Thanks for the clarifications