Jolbert Cabrera Decision Is Final

[Greg Ambrosius]

I apologize for not posting this yesterday, but I had a family emergency that took me out of town all day. I did inform STATS of my decision to put Jolbert Cabrera back into the Auction League free agent pools on Monday night and the teams that were affected by this decision saw their lineups on Tuesday. I apologize that I wasn't able to post my ruling first before contacting them.



I made my decision this way for one reason and one reason only: We need to set a precedent about the FAAB bidding that will carry forward from here on out in the Auction Leagues and in the NFBC. This same situation could occur again if I don't set this ruling in place right now. What will change going forward is:



1) The free agent list will be finalized at 5 p.m. EST every Sunday night and no additions will be allowed by STATS after that. Going forward we will have Sunday MLB trades, Sunday minor-league callups and technical glitches that don't allow players to be added to the list before our 7 p.m. EST FAAB deadline. Now we have built a two-hour window that allows everyone to see the free agent list and it is finalized at that time, whether it's correctly finalized or not.



2) The FAAB deadline can NEVER be extended past 7 p.m. EST Sunday. This is my fault for extending it, but that two-minute window on Sunday didn't seem fair to all and now I realize that 62 minute window wasn't fair when not everyone knew that an hour was being added.



I will add these points to the rules today and I apologize for the inconvenience they have caused to the Auction Leagues. I've been accused of not spending enough time finalizing the rules and I'll take the hit there since obviously there's a question about the rules right now. But I never envisioned needing a free agent grace period to protect that list of players and I stand guilty of that. I'm sure there are other problems which will occur that I haven't planned for and I'll do my best to add those situations to the rules, hopefully before they happen.



This is not a ruling that was made to appease 22 owners and disappoint two owners. This was a ruling that was made to set guidelines for the future so that this doesn't happen again in the Auction Leagues and in the NFBC. All 232 owners in both contests need a fair shot at all available free agents and now there is a system in place that will make sure that happens.

[Greg Ambrosius]

To be official, this ruling had the following ripple effects on bids:



Las Vegas AL Auction League: Walla Walla did not have a conditional bid after Cabrera and retained Fred McGriff.



New York AL Auction League: Cellar Dwellars did not get Jolbert Cabrera, but did acquire David McCarty with a conditional bid and cut Ryan Ludwick.

Bad Angels did not get David McCarty as a result of having the second highest bid for McCarty after Cellar Dwellars and instead got Carlos Febles with a $1 conditional bid and dropped Fred McGriff.



Those moves have been entered on all three teams and Year To Date stats reflect that.