Free agency is run every Sunday night at 8 ET and winning bids are announced 30 minutes or so after that. We'll have 150+ leagues this year, so it's possible this process could take a little more time this year, but last year STATS was getting most of the winning bids posted by 8:20. You can then insert any of your new players into the following week's lineup before Monday's first game.
Per our rules, you are allowed to cut ANYONE you want to improve your team. That being said, it will be up to us to keep all of those players in their respective leagues' free agent pools. If we deem someone too valuable has been cut we do reserve the right to pull that player out of that league for the time being or even for the whole season.
There is no question that some cuts will be controversial this year, especially in the 12-team format, and some folks will holler to have those players removed and others will say I'm getting too involved in the competition. We certainly expect those hurdles this year in the Online Championship, but for the most part we are going to stick to the style we've had during the first five seasons.
For one thing, we don't use a "No Cut List." To say the Top 50 can never be cut or then picked up doesn't hold throughout the entire season. Tom and I will just use our vast baseball knowledge to decide who is allowed in a free agent pool or not. Yes, it's subjective, but that's why we get paid the big bucks.
More than anything, I look to see if a top player is being cut in only one or two leagues. If this is the lone exception and this player only becomes a free agent in one league, then it makes sense to step back and take that player out of the FAAB pool for a bit. This happened last year after Troy Tulowitzki and Victor Martinez got hurt. Both were cut early in one league each and I chose to take both out of their respective free agent pools for the time being. Nobody else ever cut those two and I kept them out for the whole season. I chose to be safe rather than sorry, and while those leagues had one less free agent to bid on, I felt it was the right decision to protect the integrity of the overall competition.
Again, we'll use subjective judgement again this year in the main event and the online championship to protect the overall contests. We don't want one league getting access to top players who were cut while 25 or even 49 other leagues don't have that same access.
So cut who you want and realize that we'll be checking over every cut every week and pulling players out of the FAAB pools if needed.
I've asked STATS to send cuts and winning bids this year in three separate files: Live events, online championship and satellite leagues. If we can post all of the cuts and winning bids that way this year, it will be easier to look over for everyone. And feel free to check the lists with us each Monday morning because we'll post them here and look for your feedback. Thanks all and good luck.
As you can see, our job isn't over after Draft Day.
