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LDB Rules Board Reporter

2010 Decisions

In re aRBI, 2010 LDB 1 (Apr. 6, 2010)

QUESTION: The Wiki says that aRBI shall be RBI-2GIDP, but the Commissioner stated in an email that aRBI shall be RBI-GIDP. Which formula are we using?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that aRBI should be RBI-2GIDP, as stated in the Wiki. The rule as stated in the Wiki is entirely unambiguous, and therefore carries the day. We recognize that the Commissioner provided a different formula in an email, and that that formula is probably a better one. But the Wiki is the primary source for LDB's Rules, and where it can only be interpreted in one way, that interpretation should usually, and perhaps always, govern.

We should emphasize that, in this case, the rule written into the Wiki is workable and a relatively minor change from the other possible rule. Additionally, to the extent that anybody is harmed by the misunderstanding, that harm falls equally on people who relied on one source and people who relied on the other. Treating the rule stated in the Wiki as definitive thus does not create problems for the functioning of the League, and does not create or exacerbate any avoidable inequities among owners.

Of course, this does not stop the league from changing the rule mid-season, in accordance with the "In-season Rule Changes" provision of the Wiki. Such changes require unanimous consent.

J. Dubner, M. Brophy, and R. Hughes

In re Cancelled MLB Games, 2010 LDB 2 (Apr. 12, 2010)

QUESTIONS: (1) Do stats from cancelled MLB games count in LDB? (2) If they do not count, what should be the mechanism for getting them tossed?

DECISION: On the first question, the Board unanimously concludes that cancelled MLB games will not count in LDB. On the second question, the Board unanimously concludes that the Commissioner should first look for a way to solve the problem functionally. If a functional fix is not possible, the league will rely on owners reporting cancelled games.

Regarding the first question, the Rules are completely silent on the issue. However, our past practice with CBS was to not count these games. And, as we understand, most if not all fantasy service providers do not count cancelled games. Given our past practice and that the fantasy baseball industry generally does not count these games, we are persuaded that they should not count.

On the second question, we think a technical fix is optimal. If that's not possible, then owners should keep their eye out for canceled games, and email the league when one occurs. Given that most of the league checks scores repeatedly throughout the day, a regular practice of emailing the league when a canceled game is spotted should suffice to catch all canceled games. Note that you should email the league, rather than just Geoff, so that everybody else knows that they don't need to report that game.

We considered proposing a prize for reported games, e.g., a .4M reward to the first team that spotted any given canceled game. Ultimately, we determined that this was unnecessary.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

In re Pitchers' AAA Starts, 2010 LDB 3 (Jun. 6, 2010)

QUESTION: The Rules designate this as a "3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 2 HR" penalty, but with no mention of WPA, RE24, or NQW penalties. Does this imply we want no penalty on those categories?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that the rule was inadvertently incomplete as drafted, and should therefore be corrected. AAA starts will now consist of 3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 2 HR, -3 NQW, -0.40 WPA, and -4.42 RE24.

Charging -3 NQW to a pitcher with the stat line stated in the Rules strikes us as uncontroversial. If a pitcher goes 3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, and 2 HR, he incurs a game started, but no win or quality start. He almost certainly accumulates a loss as well, leaving him with -3 NQW under our scoring structure.

WPA and RE24 were more difficult to decide, since both are context specific. We thought it most appropriate to construct a fictional, realistic three inning sequence based on the stat line listed in the Rules and adopt the resulting WPA and RE24 values. This is the scenario we decided on:

• Top 1: AAA starter allows 1 run
• Bottom 1: Starter's team gets back a run
• Top 2: AAA starter allows no runs
• Bottom 2: Starter's team gets no runs
• Top 3: AAA starter allows 2 runs
• Bottom 3: Starter's team gets no runs
• Top 4: AAA starter allows 3 runs, pulled with bases empty, no outs

In this situation, the AAA starter incurs -0.40 WPA and -4.42 RE24.

As an aside, we apologize for not deciding this matter quicker, as dictated by the Rules.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

In re Waivers, 2010 LDB 4 (Jun. 9, 2010) (Unpublished)

QUESTION: Where the rule reads, in part, "waivers always process through the opposite league first, then through the league with the original team's owner..." but the Commissioner later finds that MLB actually processes waivers in the opposite manner (original owner's league first, followed by the other league) should the rule be interpreted to mirror MLB?

DECISION: No. A plain reading of the rule states that waivers process through the other league first, and to read it as the opposite would require a rule change. The rules also clearly state that in-season rule changes require unanimous league consent. In order to change the rule to process through the original owner's league first, therefore, league consent must be gained. Under the Rules, in-season rules changes "are permissible so long as no team objects." Especially because the change that the Commissioner proposes would not injure any owner, the Rules allow him to propose the change to the league, allow a reasonable time for objection, and implement the change if nobody objects.

J. Dubner, M. Brophy, and R. Hughes

In re Payouts, 2010 LDB 5 (Jul. 7, 2010)

QUESTION: We never really settled what we're going to do about payouts. Can you guys come up with an appropriate structure?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that we will use the same payout structure as last year, but with slight modifications that shift the prize pool in the league champion's favor, while also rewarding teams with second, third, and fourth place finishes. Teams will start being paid back their league fees after 102 wins instead of last year's 100. The remaining prize pool will be split 60-20-10-10% between the first through fourth place finishers, respectively, instead of last year's 65-35% split between the top two.

We find basis for our decision in several unsettled discussions about payout structure, which showed support for last year's payout structure, but with a desire to shift payout to the league champion and top four finishers, especially the league champion. We also found competing ideas for more radically altering the payout structure, but no consensus on them, and some of them were logically unworkable. That said, we think it prudent to keep the system we have, modify it for the changes we find widespread support for, and leave the more radical changes for the offseason.

Under last year's system, each team paid in $60 for the season. After a team won 100 points toward its season record, that team earned $1.00 back for each win thereafter, the break-even point being 160 points. Teams making the playoffs were guaranteed to be at least made whole on their $60 buy-in. Many teams, of course, fell short of 160 wins and did not get back all they paid in. The unpaid funds constituted the prize pool, which the champion and runner-up split 65-35%.[1]

Based on our calculations, we conclude that increasing the requisite points for beginning repayment to 102 and splitting the winnings amongst the top four teams 60-20-10-10% creates a much more desirable net winnings result.

In all other respects, the payout structure should remain the same.

Under this scheme, last year's standings would have resulted in the following net winnings distribution. Note that this is a somewhat extreme case, due to Starr winning so many in-season games above 162. On par, the disparity between the champion and runner-up would be even greater.

	New Pool	Old Pool
Brophy	$105	$99
Starr	$50	$68
Ian	$22	$7
Jack	$22	$7
Geoff	$3	$5
Dubner	$1	$3
Vijay	$0	$0
Ilan	($4)	($2)
Jay	($8)	($6)
Nat	($24)	($22)
Ray	($29)	($27)
Anton	($31)	($29)
Ryan	($39)	($37)
Sean	($67)	($65)

Note: we do not warrant the absolute correctness of these numbers, as we worked backwards from the Commissioner's payouts last year. In fact, there is rounding error in them and/or an unaccounted dollar for the requirement that Vijay be made whole on making the playoffs with 159 wins. But they should present a reasonable picture of the result.

[1] The goal of this structure was twofold: (1) make teams out of contention think twice about selling off and (2) encourage teams to continue making day-to-day management decisions to maintain league competitiveness through the entire season.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

In re Playoff Pitching Staffs, 2010 LDB 6 (Aug. 29, 2010)

QUESTION: May a team place a pitcher currently on the DL on its playoff roster? What about a pitcher in the real-world minor league systems?

ANSWER: Only if the pitcher is scheduled to come off the DL during that stage of the playoffs. The rule requires teams to "bring three starters and two relievers to each playoff round." Because all pitching stats are calculated as rate stats in the playoffs, and there is no innings requirement, a team could game the rule by using 1 superstar and 4 disabled pitchers. Accordingly, it would be best to interpret "bringing" pitchers to the round as selecting pitchers who are on major league rosters; that is, not disabled pitchers or players in the minor leagues.

Because an owner might legitimately want to use a disabled pitcher who is scheduled to come off the DL, they may do so, provided they announce their plan to the league and identify a backup pitcher on their roster who will pitch if the disabled pitcher does not appear in a game that week.

J. Dubner and M. Brophy

DISSENT: I respectfully disagree with the rest of the Board. While the decision we are rendering makes fine sense, I think we are overstepping our bounds. The Rules state that, "[s]hould any ambiguity of these Rules arise, such ambiguity is resolved by the Rules Interpretation Board (Board)." The Board has struggled numerous times this season with what is 'ambiguous' and what is not, mostly at my behest.[1] The rest of the Board takes a much broader view of the Board's power than I think the Rules allow. While I agree it may be desirable to give the Board broad powers, I do not think the Board has the power to render this decision.

Looking over some of our past decisions, most of them involve a question where there was no workable solution within the text of the Rules (see payouts, AAA starts, and cancelled games data). The one decision where we declined to intervene was the aRBI question, where we found a clear, workable standard with no ambiguity. This case is much closer to the aRBI question than to any of the others. Under the Rules, "[t]eams will bring three starters and two relievers to each playoff round." There is nothing ambiguous about this sentence; a team should be able to select any players for the playoff roster, with or without DL or minor league status -- just as it may with offensive players. In fact, I think a short roster would be perfectly acceptable strategy that brings higher risk and reward.

Brophy finds ambiguity in this sentence for other reasons: it doesn't speak of bench sizes or whether players may be subbed in and out. But these are extrinsic questions to the matter at hand, for which I think there is no legitimate ambiguity. Brophy also pointed out that, taken to the extreme, a manager could put all injured players on the playoff roster, which would result in divide-by-zero errors in scoring. First of all, no manager would ever do this. Second, even if one did, the Board would simply need to determine what to do with such score, since the Rules give no guidance.

Dubner made a very compelling case for why allowing guys on the DL or in minors would not effect league intent, and I agree with him. I even think that giving the Board the mission of effecting league intent and broad power to fashion new rules without a league vote is a good idea for next season. But I don't think we have the power to do so right now and that this should go to a league vote.

[1] The irony of 'ambiguous' being ambiguous does not escape me. Neither does the fact that I wrote that portion of the Rules.

R. Hughes

In re Tiebreakers, 2010 LDB 7 (Sept. 3, 2010)

NOTE: Geoff just sent us an emergency question. Brophy and Starr were disqualified because it affects their playoff match-ups. Anton stepped in as #3.

QUESTION: After the UZR update, it turns out that Nat, Josh and Geoff are tied at the end of week 20. We have no provision for a tie breaker in standings in the Rules. Geoff provided the contents of an email from August last year announcing tiebreakers for 2009.

DECISION: We unanimously conclude that the system used in 2009 should control. Standing will be determined based on the following criteria, in descending order:

1. Standings points
2. Head-to-head record (if three teams are tied and their head-to-head record results in another three-way tie, we'll ignore this and move on)
3. Wins (exclude tie wins and forfeit wins from standings points)
4. Tie wins
5. InTRA-divisional record
6. (god help us all) Overall roto performance
7. Commissioner's coin flip (with witnesses)

R. Hughes, J. Dubner, and A. Johnson

2011 Decisions

In re Multiple AAA Start Penalties 2011 LDB 1 (Mar. 31, 2011)

Financial Penalty Vagueness: The Rules Board unanimously declares that the following rule:

For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The fines will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

Shall be interpreted to mean:

For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The fines will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

In Addition, if it is within our power, we would like to submit the following rule change/addendum to the above rule for a league vote:

"If an LDB GM leaves any of the mandatory positions of his lineup empty on the first day of the MLB season, instead of facing the regular penalty of going 0-5 with 2 GIDPs for each empty roster spot, he will instead incur no stats for each empty spot. This rule will ONLY apply to Opening Day."

M. Starr, A. Johnson, and J. Zalman

2012 Decisions

In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)

QUESTION: Robinson Cano was erroneously marked as a K2 last year. He was actually a K3. Anton, who purchased him in the auction three years ago, has owned the player for all three years. He said that he had built his team around having Cano this year, but now he should be an RFA instead of a K3 (had he not been erroneously marked). Need a decision about what to do with Cano's status.

DECISION: We find ourselves in the odd situation of having to interpret rules that we no longer have, as they were lost on an old server. However, one of the pieces we have left of the rules is an amendment made during the previous offseason, the "Dubner Amendment," which clarifies the powers and mission of this board:

If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

Having no rules to read from, we have to draw on memory to answer this question. We recall no contingency for dealing with the situation where incorrect data entry prejudices a team owner. As such, we need to craft a commonsense decision that fulfills the intent of the league.

We are guided in part by the dispute at the beginning of the 2011 season as to what extent Jay should be penalized after not having set his lineup over multiple days. Part of that discussion focussed on the level of responsibility an owner in this league must have to know his own team. The consensus was that everybody in this league must have a higher responsibility than they would in an average league. We think that is true in this case: an owner should know, without relying on entered data, whether a player has been on his roster for two or three seasons.

We are also guided by situations in the past where the league has had to fashion workarounds in data gaps, especially with regard to fielding data. Given that our league software is far from enterprise-level, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data inaccuracy. That is true in this case as well. One cannot expect every contract status to be correct, especially when it was (likely) entered by hand at some point.

As such, Cano's contract status last season was K3, and he will be an RFA this year. Additionally, Anton must pay the $0.7 million in savings that he received with Cano's more favorable K2 contract designation last season.

We are mindful that we must "avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league." We therefore do not opine here on the situation where an incorrect contract status requires an owner to pay back substantially more than $0.7 million in savings.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, and M. Starr

2013 Decisions

In re Monetary Penalties for AAA Starts, 2013 LDB 1 (Mar. 9, 2013)

Our decision today comes in three parts with all agreeing on the first two issues and a split of opinion on the third.

QUESTION 1: Should monetary penalties for AAA starts be assessed before the luxury tax?

DECISION: As an initial matter, monetary penalties for AAA pitching starts are not included in our current version of the Rules. We lost our copy of the official Rules in 2011 following a server move, and the rewritten Rules applied the penalty only to invalid lineups. But the Board believes that the penalty was in the prior version of the Rules and that its omission was incidental. The penalty had been discussed at length in previous years and there was no reason to think that the league had decided to eliminate it. (Further discussion can be found in the July 2012 email thread entitled "[ldb] REMINDER: make sure your rosters are valid post-trading!") The Board has power to correct drafting errors in the attempt to restore the lost Rules, and will do so here. Accordingly, the penalty is $1 million for each week a team misses the innings requirement, commencing after the team misses innings for the second time in a season. It is imposed at the end of the season, per Geoff's explanation.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, J. Dubner

QUESTION 2: Should monetary AAA start penalties be levied against teams' budgets the following year, in the event their carryover cash cannot pay the monetary penalties at the end of a season?

DECISION: When we instituted AAA penalties, the intent was to make them punitive and therefore coax owners into managing their teams until the end of the regular season, regardless of their places in the standings. If monetary penalties from AAA starts could not be levied against a following year's budget, a negligent owner could avert the monetary portion of the penalty by simply using his cash -- or not having any. In some sense, that would render the rule meaningless. Accordingly, the penalty should be applied against a team's future budget if he does not have the cash reserves to cover the monetary penalties at the end of a season.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, J. Dubner

QUESTION 3: How should AAA start penalties affect new owners that inherit teams from previous owners?

DECISION: This season, we have two new team owners: Jeff Peterson and Jeff Jorve (the Jeffs). Prior to their entry to LDB, their candidacies were discussed at length, as was the process by which they would acquire teams. The teams they were inheriting were from Nat Jackson and Jack Murphy. Put simply, Nat had a great team, and Jack had a poor team. Rather than assigning each of the Jeffs one of the abandoned teams, we opted to let them draft players from each of the abandoned teams in order to bring balance to the situation.

Both Nat and Jack's cash situation at the end of the season was fairly meager. Nat had $0.4 million, and Jack had $2.6 million.

But Jack's team also carried along with it a lot of debt. Having incurred AAA starts a staggering 14 times, he incurred $14 million in penalties. The question today is what portion of that debt the Jeffs should shoulder into the 2013 season.

Before we answer that question, a more precise timeline of events that led us to this point is instructive:

1. Jack incurred 14 AAA starts last season by missing the innings requirement in 14 of 20 weeks in the regular season.
2. A $14 million monetary penalty was imposed on Jack's team at the end of the season for incurring those AAA starts (see above).
3. Jack's balance sheet went into the red.
4. Five months pass, and Jack then decided he was no longer going to be in the league.

Given that the penalty was imposed seven months ago, we are not deciding whether or not to impose a penalty on the new owners (as the dissent argues) -- we are deciding whether or not to erase the debt that Jack's team incurred at the end of last season.

We are guided in part by the fact that the Jeffs were allowed to dismantle Nat's premiere franchise. That opportunity brought a lot of benefit to their teams. Having assumed the benefits of dismantling Nat's team, we think the Jeffs also need to assume the burden of Jack's debt. The mere fact that Jack left the league does not extinguish the debt; the inheriting owners are acquiring the teams as-is.

We are also persuaded by the situation that purchasers of struggling MLB teams find themselves in. That breed of MLB owners knows the task ahead of them and the time it may take them to create a winning franchise. One of LDB's paramount features is is allowing owners to build a winning franchise over a number of seasons, much like MLB teams do. Coming into the league, the Jeffs also knew the task ahead of them in terms of building a franchise, much like purchasers of MLB teams do.

Accordingly, since the Jeffs split Nat's team, they should split the net debt of Nat and Jack's teams, a total of $5,485,202 each, leaving them with $172,514,799 to start the 2013 season.

We think this is an equitable result, given the benefit the Jeffs received from Nat's team and the expectations they had coming into this league. Additionally, shouldering this debt amounts to being docked only 3 percent of their yearly budget, which is not a significant disadvantage in 2013, and certainly not beyond.

We note that we do not opine on the situation where a new owner inherits a team with debt that significantly burdens him or her in the year s/he enters LDB.

The dissent makes much of an argument that distinguishes between different types of debt: those that benefited former owners and those that do not. We recognize that Starr's goal as Commissioner is to simplify many aspects of the league. Making this technical distinction goes against that effort, which we think is inappropriate. Additionally, such technical distinctions are not well-received by non-attorney members of LDB who are already suspicious of attorneys running the Rules Board. Indeed, the "Dubner Amendment," which modified provisions of the Rules governing this Board says:

Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

A debt is a debt. Rather than distinguishing between different types of debts, we think it most prudent to hold them all to the same standard.

Lastly, the dissent argues that the new owners are at a "serious disadvantage" not having played in LDB before. Ian notes that he made his division series his first year, won the league his second year, and never considered himself at a "serious disadvantage" upon entering the league. Even if it is true that new owners are at a serious disadvantage, everyone in this league is held to a high standard for running their teams. (See: In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1.) We should not be in the business of qualifying that expectation. To that end, Ian also notes that prior to his first auction, the league allowed him to give Sean $7 million and Jason Bay (after his one great season) for a more expensive Manny Ramirez, before he had any idea how the game worked.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin

DISSENT: The innings-floor penalty is a penalty. It's designed to punish and discourage negligence. In most cases, including Jack's case, applying it to a new owner does not accomplish either of those goals: the new owner wasn't responsible for the negligence, so doesn't deserve the punishment, and couldn't control the negligence, so the disincentive has no effect. Equally importantly, the new teams gained absolutely nothing from Jack's negligence: he made no trades and acquired no useful assets, but rather left his team to rot. So applying the penalty punishes the new owners for someone else's misconduct, without them getting any benefit whatsoever from that conduct. That's not the purpose of the penalty, and it should not be applied here.

That said, in some cases, a new owner might benefit from the previous owner's negligence: if a previous owner blew up his team and traded away all his starters, then missed the innings floor, the new owner would be inheriting trade acquisitions and cash obtained through the kind of negligence we're trying to prevent. I find this unlikely, since an owner who's likely to leave the league probably would not bother building for the future. But to deal with that possibility, I would support leaving the decision of whether the penalty should apply to the Commissioner or RIB or league on a case-by-case basis, or support enforcing the penalty with a floor at the $178M base salary amount.

Ryan and Ian say that the penalty was "imposed at the end of the season," apparently based on our conclusion that it should be applied before the luxury tax is calculated. I'm not aware of anything in the Rules requiring that interpretation. The penalty is meant to be assessed against next year's salary, so when it is formally "imposed" is an artificial technicality that shouldn't be the basis for our decision.

Ryan and Ian conclude that it's fair to apply the penalty to new owners because (a) the penalty is a debt of the previous owner, and new owners should take on all benefits and burdens of the existing team, and (b) MLB owners take over struggling franchises and have to put in the work it takes to revive them. I don't find either of these arguments convincing. As to the first point, describing the penalty as a "debt" and ending the analysis there ignores the reason the charge was imposed. We pass on debts to future owners because otherwise a creditor will get screwed or the new owner will inherit a benefit without the corresponding burden -- but here, nobody would be harmed by the failure to take away money from the new owners, and the new owners aren't inheriting anything obtained through incurring the debt. The benefit of splitting up Nat's team is simply irrelevant to this question, and in any event is eliminated by having to divide that one good team between two new teams, supplemented by picks from Jack's nearly useless roster. As to the second point, new LDB owners come in at a serious disadvantage no matter what team they inherit; they must learn about high school juniors and incredibly complex rules, while facing owners with nearly a decade's experience. This is not remotely comparable to new ownership of a struggling MLB franchise, who come into control with an experienced staff in place and can hire MLB front-office veterans. We expect a lot of our new owners, of course, but we shouldn't be putting them at an added disadvantage without a good reason.

J. Dubner

2015 Decisions

In re HTH Keepability 2015 LDB 1 (Mar. 3, 2015)

According to Hughes, the rule is ambiguous as to whether: 1) the keeping team must be the team to have picked up the MS player, and 2) whether such player must have accrued statistics for the keeping team or any team.

First, let's take a look at the HTH rule itself --

Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics for the team on the active roster. The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

Hughes argues the following:

"...'Mid-season' is an adjective that modifies the object "free agents." Under the definition above, "free agents" with mid-season contract status are the class of players who can be nominated as HTH. It doesn't speak to the team that picked them up in the first place at all. So any MS should be able to be kept regardless of what team picked them up."

In regards to the bolded sentence above, Hughes also notes:

"This proviso was added for the purpose of keeping teams from picking up injured players who got cut (recall: injured Brandon Webb being shrewdly picked up by Brophy). It also doesn't say which team the player has to accrue stats for, so long as they accrue stats for some team."

The language on the LDB Rules Wiki does indeed carry some ambiguity, but since LDB had been operating the last couple of seasons on the notion that only the team that picked up a player on waivers could declare them an HTH, we began to dig through the Google Groups archives for the origin of the rule.

Sure enough, we discovered the following from 2012: (link)

Geoff Harcourt:

My proposal for an up-or-down vote is:

a) In order to be hometown hero eligible, a player must satisfy the following criteria:

1. Ended the season on a mid-season free agent (MS) contract. This means K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible. The player must clear waivers if they were on one of these contracts

2. Accumulated some official MLB stats while on the active roster for the team during their season-ending team membership. This means the player was not on the bench while playing in an MLB game and pitched pitched at least one pitch while assigned as SP or RP OR was pitched to while in a non-pitcher, non-bench spot.

These active stats must be accumulated during the season-ending team membership. So if you picked someone up in April and played them, but then dropped them, and someone else picked them up, then dropped them for a season-ending injury, and you picked them back up, that player would not be eligible if they did not accumulate stats for you on the second stint.

b) Hometown heroes will be paid according to the following salary schedule:

1. Relief Pitchers - 2 million

2. Catchers - 4 million

3. All other players - 6 million

To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever. To qualify as a catcher, the number of games played at catcher must be more than 50% of their total games played.

These provisions will apply to mid-season free agents picked up during 2012 and beyond.

Omitting the "HTH Catchers for $4M", the rule above was voted into LDB law on 3/13/2012.

By a vote of 3-0, the Rules Committee has decided that 1) the team who picked up the player and still retains him at the end of the season may declare the player an HTH, and 2) said player must have accrued positive LDB statistics during its current stint with that team, as it had been voted on in 2012. By that logic, this eliminates any loophole of trading an MS player to another team to be kept in the post-season, as the player cannot accumulate any stats for the new team in the post-season.

J. Breisblatt, A. Johnson, and J. Peterson

In re HTH Keepability Follow-up 2015 LDB 2 (Mar. 4, 2015)

Follow-up question that isn't addressed above: what if a player is picked up as a free agent by team A, dropped by team A, is picked up off three-day waivers by team B (as opposed to being picked up as a free agent), and then accrues positive stats? Dubner has deGrom in that situation, and I have Phil Hughes in that situation. Are they HTH-able, or can we only HTH people who were picked up as free agents?

If it's an MS on waivers, that's perfectly eligible for HTH status. --J. Peterson

Yes, Team B can HTH that MS player. --A. Johnson