Trade Aftermath - including a one-year exception

July is historically our busiest month trade-wise, so it may be a good idea to go over some of the rules regarding what's allowed and what's not when it comes to making roster moves following trades:

If you trade a hitter for a pitcher, you ARE allowed to activate a hitter from your reserve list to replace the guy you traded away. Likewise, you MUST reserve a pitcher to make room for the guy you acquired (unless you want to put the new pitcher on reserve himself). The same type of thing holds true if you trade a catcher for a shortstop.

However, keep in mind that you must be able to field a complete 23-man active roster immediately after the trade.  That means you can't trade a catcher unless you get one in return or have one on your Reserve List that you can activate. 

You are NOT allowed to make additional moves that aren’t related to the trade. For example, if I trade Derek Lowe for Barry Bonds, I can reserve Scott Spiezio (to make room for Bonds) and activate Jeff Suppan (to replace Lowe). But I can’t also reserve Aaron Cook and activate Clay Hensley – neither one of those guys had anything to do with the trade. Making a trade doesn’t give you the chance to do other roster shuffling.

Finally, you are not allowed to shuffle your roster around to fit the new guys you acquired under the salary cap. If you acquire three .25 pitchers in a trade and their salaries put you over the current salary cap, you’ll have to put one or two of them on reserve until the next transaction deadline and do your roster shuffling there. This doesn’t mean you can’t reserve a .30 pitcher and put one of the new .25 players in his spot. It means you can’t reserve a .30 outfielder and replace him with a .01 outfielder in order to get your salary cap down – as in the example above, the outfielders weren’t involved in the trade.

NOTE:  When compiling the list above, I noticed that the last point (roster shuffling to meet the salary cap) had already been violated a couple times this year.  Rather than try to go back and figure out retroactive moves (which in addition to being unfair, just might be impossible), or to start enforcing the rule mid-season (definitely unfair), the EC has decided that making a one-season exception to this rule would be the fairest approach.  Now this doesn't mean you should all go out and make trades so you can have a ball shuffling your salaries around post-trade, but if such moves will be necessary to get your roster just the way you want it after the deal, we'll let you do it for the next month.  Sorry about any confusion -- this rule isn't currently documented in the Constitution, though it's been one we'd always observed.  We'll be adding it this off-season.  Finally, this exception applies only to the final point in the list above -- all the others will still apply.

Hometown Discount Watch

In 2007, the teams that finished in 5^th-12^th place in 2006 will receive a budget of up to .06 to use toward reacquiring players who had played out their option with the team (B-contract players). The exact amount each team receives will be based on how far behind the 5^th place team they are at the end of the year, in terms of a percentage of the 5^th place team's point total.

Record Book

Week Ending 06/30:  No new records were set this week.