Farm-Farm Team Violations

[Nos - Sharks]

The rule in question...

13) Farm-Farm Team
B) The farm-farm team is permitted to roster only prospects with 10 (or less) NHL games played.

20) Reprimands
D) Once players on the farm team no longer meet the minor leaguer or prospect requirements they are automatically released to the free agent pool where they will be placed on suspended waivers.

I actually can't really find the rule that explicitly states if a prospect on the Farm-Farm Team goes over the 10 games played eligibility term that said player is lost to Suspended Waivers but this is the closest thing I can find unless I'm just not seeing it.

Proposal for change: Eliminate the loss of ownership of prospects who violate the 10 games played or fewer rule for Farm-Farm Team prospects and instead utilize a Roster Lock until the team and manager in violation makes their roster legal. Keep in mind this could then mean additional signings by a manager in violation would go unprocessed and the players could be signed by another manager. In other words, keep your roster legal or risk giving away critical prospect/player information and scouting.

Reason: Far too harsh a punishment for a simple roster issue and 10 games can happen in a flash. In addition, highly valuable prospects can be sitting on the Farm-Farm Team and players of this ilk should never be lost in this fashion especially so early in their playing career. Crippling a franchise in this way isn't something we should desire for our league.

*NOTE: Roster Lock: This is the same process used in Yahoo for when IR designated players come off the IR and you then have to handle the assignment of the player in question before making any other roster moves such as adding players to your roster or trading for players.



**EDIT: Old Poll was; Should we...

...change the Farm-Farm Team violation rule to a Roster Lock?
or
...keep it as is and lose players to Suspended Waivers?

New Poll reads; Should we...

...change the Farm-Farm Team Games Played limit to 25 games?
or
...keep it as is at 10 games?

[Derrick - Senators]

I don’t necessarily like the current rule as it stands but it was put in place because too many managers were becoming negligent and/or abusing the 10 game rule intentionally. Changing the rule to include a “roster lock” puts a tremoundous burden on me personally CONSTANTLY having to check every single player on every single farm-farm team whenever ANY transaction is made. It should be the responsibility of every GM to manage his team fairly and effectively and be held accountable for his negligence and/or suffer the consequences. Whatever that looks like. The current rule promotes accountability, the one you propose promotes a babysitter mentality and does not promote accountability. I am all for changing the rule so long as it makes sense. I’m just not sure this is the answer exactly from a functional stand point.

[Jacob - Wild]

Maybe instead we could change the limit to 15 or even 20 games? This would give a lot more time for these valuable young players and may cause GM’s to not overlook them so easily.

Also, if we go with the Roster Lock. Maybe we should appoint assistants that can change, or at least bring attention to, when a roster is in violation. Or maybe we could try looking for a new site that does ot automatically? I feel that if we did indeed have a site that enforced our league rules to the tee, then maybe we could avoid some of the arguements of last year.

[Nos - Sharks]

The babysitter mentality doesn't exist for this new rule, accountability does exist because the idea is to have a backdoor clause for signing additional prospects. For instance, Derrick - Senators is in violation of his roster and signs another prospect, Mitch - Ducks notices this and likes the prospect so he signs the prospect legally and notes Derrick's mistake with his signing, Derrick loses out on the newly signed prospect. So you're still accountable but not to the point where you'll lose a top dog or a long standing member of your club. This would also promote the idea of managers keeping a close eye on prospect eligibility and not just for their own team but for others for sniping purposes.

I also like the idea of adding games to the limit, 10 always seemed pretty shallow, I'd even suggest 25 games. I've seen Junior Farm Teams elsewhere with this limit. One eighth of the full Prospect/Minor Leaguer limit.

[Derrick - Senators]

Jul 10, 2019 19:54:22 GMT -5 Nos - Sharks said:

The babysitter mentality doesn't exist for this new rule, accountability does exist because the idea is to have a backdoor clause for signing additional prospects. For instance, Derrick - Senators is in violation of his roster and signs another prospect, Mitch - Ducks notices this and likes the prospect so he signs the prospect legally and notes Derrick's mistake with his signing, Derrick loses out on the newly signed prospect. So you're still accountable but not to the point where you'll lose a top dog or a long standing member of your club. This would also promote the idea of managers keeping a close eye on prospect eligibility and not just for their own team but for others for sniping purposes.

I also like the idea of adding games to the limit, 10 always seemed pretty shallow, I'd even suggest 25 games. I've seen Junior Farm Teams elsewhere with this limit. One eighth of the full Prospect/Minor Leaguer limit.

I am not opposed to raising the games played limit. But it seems like habits are habits no matter the limit is. We see this with 10 games played, 150 games played and 200 games played. In theory it works, but in practice those who procrastinate or don't follow their players closely at 10 games still do the same thing at 25, 150 and 200 games played.

Also, the example you present only works for farm transactions. Every single transaction on Yahoo during the regular season would have to be monitored as well if there is a true roster freeze. Last season there were 215 transactions. Checking the games played for 10 players to ensure compliance would be extremely tedious and unnecessary in my opinion.

[Nos - Sharks]

It may be possible to have to implement a 48 hours clause for managers to notice the transgression and note it but yes, every single transaction would be under scrutiny including main roster moves. It would cause managers to fear being wrong for the possibility of losing key pieces during their season and so would/should check their 10 Junior Farm players before making transactions and to stay on top of it. You're right that procrastination is a thing with some people so this is an attempt to try to not only get people to be more aware of their own rosters but of all Junior Farm rosters for the possibility of sniping players and information. 10 games is pretty shallow though and is no doubt much easier to let pass than 25 games.

[Chris - Capitals]

I'm in favor of the change to a more manageable 25 game limit. I'll admit to missing players going over the 10 game limit but not for lack of paying attention or being focused on my team. Just from time to time stuff comes up and I'll have a few week period where I'm swamped at work and unable to check everything as thoroughly as I'd like.

[Nos - Sharks]

Jul 10, 2019 23:49:40 GMT -5 Chris - Capitals said:

I'm in favor of the change to a more manageable 25 game limit. I'll admit to missing players going over the 10 game limit but not for lack of paying attention or being focused on my team. Just from time to time stuff comes up and I'll have a few week period where I'm swamped at work and unable to check everything as thoroughly as I'd like.

I've even let prospects slip past the 10 games deadline in the past, I just let them go because in those instances thankfully they weren't too valuable. Some 'tricks' I'd suggest, if you can do it, would be to roster goalies on there since it's a longer process for them to accumulate 10 games and is harder for them to go unnoticed. Defensemen also take longer to develop typically. Also, if you know certain prospects are signed and contractually obligated to a foreign club in Russia, Sweden, Finland, etc. then you can know that they won't sneak onto a roster without you noticing.

[Tyler - Jets]

I would also be open to an increase to 25GP. I think a roster freeze is to hard to implement and there should still be some repercussions ie. suspended waivers for violating game limits.

[Nos - Sharks]

Sounds like people are more receptive to increasing the games played limit to 25, we could change course and go with that solo but like Derrick already noted, this would merely delay mistakes from happening. It would help, no doubt, but what I was trying to do was think of a way for managers to want to stay more on top of prospect eligibility. To give reason for you to double check your Junior Farm before making any transaction. To keep an eye on other manager's Junior Farms for the chance to snipe future talent from a manager who has an illegal roster. I think a 48 hour clause would be essential, if those 48 hours pass with nobody noticing then the GM can get away with having the illegal roster until somebody catches him.

[Daniel - Canucks]

I'm on board for upping it to the 25 games played. It's more than doubling what it was before and if you still can't stay on top of your farm teams then you deserve to lose any player no matter how talented to suspended waivers.

[Nos - Sharks]

Alright, there's too much resistance toward the Roster Lock idea (), I personally thought it was a pretty nifty idea! So I've changed the poll, new poll is up for an increase to the games played limit to 25 games instead. Re-vote!