PICTS claim A Heilman on waivers, waive D Stenson (.06D).

COPPERFIELDS claim J Loney on waivers, waive R Castro (.01W).

DEM REBELS claim R Klesko on waivers, waive P Feliz (.05W).

DA PAUL MEISTERS claim J Cruz on waivers, waive C Floyd (.32W).

TENACIOUS B claim R Cormier on waivers, waive B Larkin (.05W).

RESERVOIR DOGS claim K Benson on waivers, release A Sanchez.

HARD HATS claim J Lopez on waivers, waive G Atkins (.08W).

PICTS claim S Smitherman on waivers, waive F Pie (.05M).

COPPERFIELDS claim R Mondesi on waivers, waive S Stewart (.05W).

DEM REBELS claim C Biggio on waivers, waive N Jackson (.05M).

DA PAUL MEISTERS claim M DeRosa on waivers, waive M Kata (.07W).

TENACIOUS B claim Mi Williams on waivers, waive T Hodges (.10W).

RESERVOIR DOGS claim J Buck on waivers, waive C Stynes (.08W).

HARD HATS claim R Martinez on waivers, waive G Zaun (.02W).

DA PAUL MEISTERS claim A Good on waivers, waive T Glavine (.16W).

TENACIOUS B claim G Stephenson on waivers, waive K Lofton (.32W).

RESERVOIR DOGS claim JJ Davis on waivers, waive B Duckworth (.11W).

HARD HATS claim R Ledee on waivers, waive E Karros (.02W).

DA PAUL MEISTERS claim T Martinez on waivers, waive JT Snow (.06W).

RESERVOIR DOGS claim J Foppert on waivers, waive K Saarloos (.10W).

HARD HATS claim C Hart on waivers, waive S Green (.39W).

DA PAUL MEISTERS claim M Stanton on waivers, waive D Miller (.05W).

RESERVOIR DOGS claim M McBride on waivers, waive B Abreu (.48W).

RESERVOIR DOGS claim T Bozied on waivers, waive J Thome (.43D).

Click here for updated rosters in Excel format.
Click here for the 2004 Rotation Draft Pick Tracker

Here are the full details of the selections for the first round of Winter Waivers.  These are the ranked lists for each team, with players who were selected by more than one team marked with an asterisk.  Players are crossed off if they were already selected.

The period for Round 2 of waivers (the players waived above) will expire at 4:00 on Friday, November 14.

The completion of the first phase of Winter Waivers officially begins the winter trading period.  Starting now, you can make trades without restrictions.  This trading period lasts until Roster Freeze Day, a week or so before Draft Day 2004.

Based on some preliminary schedules I've seen, Opening Day next year looks like it will be April 4.  That means our target weekend for Draft Day would be April 3 - 4.  Please keep these dates in mind during the off-season.  I'll keep reminders in the reports as I send them out during the winter and we'll try to narrow in on a specific day as Spring Training approaches.  FYI, Palm Sunday is April 4 and Passover begins April 6.

The following piece by John Kenney appeared in The New York Times after Game 7 of the ALCS.

This is it. Winner takes all. Unless the Yankees win and force a Game 9. In which case the winner of that game goes to the World Series. Unless the Red Sox lose that game, too, thereby forcing a Game 10. Should the Yankees win, they'd move on to Game 11, giving Boston yet another chance.

On the mound for the Red Sox in Game 8, working on just one day's rest, will be Pedro Martínez, accompanied by John Smoltz of the Atlanta Braves, Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the singer Norah Jones. Grady Little, the Boston manager, said, "It's an unusual rotation, as well as being technically illegal, but these are top-rate pitchers as well as a truly gifted singer, and well, it's Game 8 and that's what you do in these situations."

Game time is 4:15 p.m., though the Yankees are under the impression that the game begins at 8 p.m. The Red Sox, in association with Major League Baseball, feel that this will give them the opportunity to establish an early lead. "The four-hour jump is really going to help the ball club," said Theo Epstein, the Red Sox general manager.

Boston has not won a World Series since the American Civil War. During that time the team has carried with it the burden of an alleged curse — caused, some say, by the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Nomar Garciaparra, the Red Sox shortstop, spoke to reporters about the curse. "I was talking with Jason Varitek after the game," he said. "We both just read the new biography of Sylvia Plath and I was saying that, in many ways, our experience as a ball club is much like Ms. Plath's — passionate, yes. Creative, yes. And yet in many ways deeply troubled. Of course, if you think about it, the Yankees, overbearing, dominant, are very much like Ted Hughes. I guess the only difference is that we've never committed suicide. Although we've certainly thought about it."

"There's no curse," said Epstein, as he accompanied a Jamaican high priestess, Yocasta LaPierre, while she sprinkled chicken blood around home plate.

Reached for comment, Joe Torre, the Yankees manager, reacted with surprise: "I had no idea there was going to be a Game 8. I thought we won Thursday night. Also, I feel our best work is far less sentimental than Plath's or Hughes's. Except for Matsui and Zim, who don't speak English, we're much more in the Billy Collins school."

Another change that will take place during the game is the removal of second and third base when the Red Sox are batting. "We've noticed that second and third bases are troublesome for the Red Sox, especially later in the game," said Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball. With the removal of the two bases, according to a diagram released by the commissioner's office, Sox baserunners would be allowed to proceed from first base directly to home plate.

Selig said he would address the new "blindfold" rule for the Yankee hitters in the No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the lineup at a later date.

Little said that one substitution on his roster would be benching center fielder Johnny Damon for Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations. "Johnny's working with Unesco right now on some pretty serious stuff and Kofi, whose name means `Friday' in his native Ghana, kindly agreed to play."

The winner, of course, will play the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. The Cubs qualified for the Fall Classic after losing to the Florida Marlins on Wednesday.

As you saw in the past couple reports, there were plenty of comments submitted in the 2003 End-of-Season Survey, and I also received some during the award balloting.  Often, the survey comments simply explained the reason for certain rankings, but there were also some questions and issues raised that I should address:

"I would like the Excel roster to be updated more frequently (weekly), and I'm not sure about where to find FAAB budget info and $$$ remaining/spent."

The Excel rosters ARE updated weekly (during the season).  It could be you're not getting the most recent version when you click on the link because the pervious one is still in your browser cache.  If you get an old version of the rosters, try clicking Refresh or Reload on your browser toolbar to update it.  Whenever I post a new Report at the website, I also post update Excel rosters.

As you pointed out later in your comment, the Excel rosters also include the most recent (and "official") FAAB balances for each team.  The Excel rosters also provide details on exactly how each team has spent its FAAB so far.  If you hover your cursor over the cell to the left of the team's FAAB balance (the cell that has a red triangle in the upper-right corner), a box should display listing the players that have been acquired to date and the price paid for each.

"There are a few people who could put stuff out there (on the website) over a couple weeks that could be fun and entertaining for all."

Hear, hear.  Anyone who would like to contribute anything to the weekly reports, or any other area of the website, should feel free to contact me.  The Message Board provides an easy, informal way to contribute, but if you'd like to do something more formal just let me know.  If you 'd like to write a weekly or monthly column, for example, simply volunteer.

"Try to stop the pop-ups that happen only when I go to the site."

I'm not sure if you're referring to pop-ups you get when visiting certain areas of the CFCL website or the TQS site.  Actually (and unfortunately), it doesn't really matter which – I don't have any control over either.

Part of what makes TQS so cheap for us is that they sell advertising space on their pages, and part of that includes pop-up ads.  Likewise, many of the CFCL pages are stored at Yahoo! Geocities, a service that hosts web pages for free.  The key word here is FREE, although since we all know nothing in life is really for free, the price we pay for this service is putting up with those pesky pop-ups.  While I love the CFCL, I can't afford to pay for premium, pop-up-free web space.

There are a couple things you can do to reduce pop-ups, though.  If you use AOL's integrated version of Internet Explorer, make sure you have the built-in Pop-Up Blocker turned on.  Another solution is to download a toolbar that installs right in your browser window and will, among other things, block pop-ups.  Here are a couple I've heard good things about:

Google Toolbar - toolbar.google.com

Alexa Toolbar - download.alexa.com (if you want to do a good thing, go to www.bookcrossing.com, scroll down about ¾ of the way, and click on their link to get the toolbar)

Weekly Transaction Deadline – The feedback about the transaction deadline (4:00 Friday) was very positive overall -- once they adjusted from the old deadline, ¾ of all owners felt it worked great.  Some people suggested alternative deadlines – going back to Noon on Tuesdays, any day earlier in the week, or Saturday mornings.

The change to a Friday afternoon transaction deadline was mostly driven by an effort to synchronize the time required to process the transactions, prepare the weekly reports, and enter the moves at the stat service with a chunk of available time of approximately the same size in my schedule.

Unfortunately, restrictions on my time and access at work make it pretty impossible to have a midday deadline at the beginning or middle of the week.  Likewise, as my kids are getting older they are getting more homework and are involved in more and more activities, which means finding free time at home on weeknights is increasingly difficult.  Weekend days aren't much better. 

The only time that really fits is Fridays.  Michelle works on Friday nights, so we seldom have anything planned in the evening (which makes Fridays better than Saturdays).  Even though I'm usually busy keeping the kids corralled in the evening, the fact that I don’t have to get up for work the next morning means I can wait and work on the reports until 1 or 2 AM if needed.

I apologize that the Friday afternoon deadline is inconvenient for some people.  If it would help to move it earlier in the afternoon on Friday we can discuss that, but this is probably one of those things where we're not going to get everyone 100% satisfied with any option.  And since I'm the only one who has a significant time commitment associated with the deadline, I'll ask your indulgence in letting me pull rank and stick with the current set-up (unless, of course, something changes in my availability).

Various Other Suggestions – a few owners made suggestions for new/changed rules. 

If I have time and space in the next report, I'll list the suggestions and we can begin discussing them.  Otherwise, I'll start a thread on the Message Board.

Based on the final 2003 standings, here are the teams that will receive Toppers, the number of Toppers the team receives, and the players who are eligible for Topper use.  There was a lot of dumping of B contracts this year and as a result there will only be a maximum of four toppable players in the 2004 Draft.  

Record Book