COPPERFIELDS reserve M Bowie, activate J Vidro.

COPPERFIELDS reserve B Kim, activate T Gorzelanny.

RUFFINS reserve C Quentin, activate JD Drew.

RUFFINS reserve R Paulino, activate C Coste.

RUFFINS sign M Corpas (.06), reserve S Eyre, waive B Sweeney.

RED HOTS reserve G Jenkins, activate B Wickman.

RED HOTS reserve A Embree, activate D Kolb.

BULLS reserve C Ross, activate I Snell.

BULLS reserve J Wright, activate C Bradford.

BULLS reserve J Cruz, activate P Feliciano.

KENNDOZA LINE reserve S Finley, activate M Diaz.

KENNDOZA LINE reserve S Spiezio, activate J Lugo.

KENNDOZA LINE reserve J Edmonds, activate K Greene.

KENNDOZA LINE reserve J Valverde, activate J Lieber.

KENNDOZA LINE reserve E Ramirez, activate A Pettitte.

DEM REBELS sign R Theriot (.05), reserve him, waive T Hamulak.

DEM REBELS sign T Miller (.05), reserve S Thorman, waive J Matos.

DEM REBELS claim B Johnson on waivers, reserve N McLouth, waive J Piedra.

DOORMATTS reserve R Clayton, activate C Burke.

DA PAUL MEISTERS sign C Paronto (.12), reserve D Sanchez, waive T Sledge.

DA PAUL MEISTERS sign R Ring (.10), reserve M Pelfrey, waive O Robles.

DA PAUL MEISTERS reserve H Ramirez, activate W Ohman.

PICTS reserve J Capellan, activate R Wolf.

PICTS reserve M Lamb, activate J Cirillo.

Website To Check Out

What I was hunting around the Internet for something else, I stumbled across the LTBNL Annex.  When you've got a few moments free, head on over to http://www.ltbnl.org/ and check it out.  The Annex is a site for the LTBNL, which stands for "League To Be Named Later", and they've been around since 1989. 

After years of traditional Roto, the LTBNL converted to the Roto7 version of the game a couple years ago.  This is a variation cooked up by, I think, Ron Shander and it's based on traditional Rotisserie, but converts teams' performances into a Win-Loss record.  Basically, you track the stats and standings for the week the same as we do in the CFCL.  At the end of the week, the first place team gets a record of 7-0 for the week, second place goes 6-1, third and fourth are 5-2, on down to 12th place who gets shutout, 0-7.  All stats then get set back to zero and everyone starts from scratch for the second week, which is scored the same as the first and then a team's second week record is added to their mark for the first week for a record for the season to-date.  Things continue on that way, week by week, for 23 weeks, at which time there are playoffs among the top 6 teams, played head-to-head.  A very interesting concept, which theoretically would keep more teams in the race longer.

The LTBNL Annex is a very nicely done site.  A clean, crisp design, with some great features.  Note that while they may play a non-traditional form of the game, the dutifully perform the Yoo-Hoo Ceremony at the end of each year.

The writing on the site by the LTBNL PICFL (Permanent Interim Commissioner For Life) - or whomever does the writing - is quite extensive and entertaining.  It kind of reminds me of the days before a job and three kids dominated my life when I had the time to wax lyrical over doings in the CFCL.

The LTBNL page includes a Forum, but it's hardly been used.  Apparently, they prefer to use the board on their TQS site (http://baseball3.tqstats.com/scripts/teamhome.pl?ltbnl)

I've added a link to the LTBNL Annex to the Fantasy Baseball Community section of our main page.  Stop in and check on them once in a while.

FAAB Story

Last week, Matt Grage pondered in the Forum:  "Is it odd for owners to be out of FAAB this early in the season?"

The quick answer is yes, but not as odd as you might think.  As of the first full week of August this year, we had one owner completely out of FAAB and another virtually out (with an unusable balance of .02).  Others were very close, though.  A third of the league had .10 or less left in their budget, and all teams except for one was at .40 or below.  That's the highest percentage of teams under 40 since we went to 12 teams in 2000.

Overall, there was a total of $2.68 left in FAAB through last week.  That's the lowest amount since back in 2001, where there was only $2.20 left to spend by this time of the year.  That year, there were two teams with zero balances, two more under .10, and another two between .11 and .20.

Other years saw a ton of money still out there at this point.  In 2000 there was a whopping $6.29 still available to be spent, with only one team having a balance below .21, and none under .10.

Overall, though, outside of 2000, every year had at least 1 team with less than .10 to spend, sometimes as many as 4.

Here's a summary of the FAAB situation at the end of the first full week in August for the past several years:

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 08/18:  No new records were set this week.