The Freeze List

THE TRADING SEASON

Players can be traded for other players and/or salary cap money. Every player also costs to the buyer a Lit. 3.000 fee (real money, no salary cap). Owners are allowed to unconditionally trade players from the minute the annual draft ends (early April) to the weekend after the regular season ends (early October). After that deadline, any player traded must be protected for the following season, and there are limitations also for players who have been traded to National League teams in real life. Trading players is also legal, but no salary-cap money is to be involved, between the proclamation of the Championship winner (mid-January) and the start of the Draft (late March). Of course, after the submission of the freeze list (early March), the owners can only trade their protected players. A complete list of this year's trades can be seen, hopefully, thanks to the Flowers' statistic service, by just clicking here. For more informations, please see the league's rules page.

Each owner has the right to freeze up to 13 players (pitchers and/or batters combined) whose maximum total value is L. 70.000 from their roster, as it is two weeks before Draft Day, thus retiring them from the draft field. The two weeks are necessary to prepare the draft lists of pitchers and batters, from which lists the protected players are absent.
The value of a player is determined by a statistical tool designed by the valorous Mr. Flower, which takes into consideration the stats of the last three years, giving the most weight to the current season and the least to two years ago. The statistical gauge we choose to define in one single number the value of a player's season is the OPS (On Base Percentage x 1.2 plus Slugging Average). For pitchers, of course, it's just the opposing OPS.

This system has been introduced for the first time in 1998, in the fifth year of the League's existence. In the first four years, a simpler system allowed the owners to just freeze nine players, regardless of their value. The new system was implemented in order to level the competition as much as possible with the beginning of any new season, giving any owner more flexibility (you can now decide to freeze three or four good prospects you have in your team by just releasing a more established player, whose money value is higher).

The part of the season which immediately precedes the freeze list submission is probably the most intriguing of the whole year. In these days, following the Championship, owners start to look ahead to next season. They're again allowed to trade players (see table on the right), so they throw all of their trading skills on the battlefield, in order to reshape their rosters for the best.
To better understand the importance of this time span, jsut think this: in March 1999, in just two days, players like Mo Vaughn, Ivan Rodriguez, Tino Martinez, David Justice, Ken Hill, Jay Buhner, Sandy Alomar, Troy Glaus, Ricky Ledee, Carlos Lee and Mike Sweeney were traded, even in three-for-one deals.
What else needs to be said? You should have felt the excitement...

See this year's keepers for each team.

It is also the most appropriate time of the year to discuss rule changes, because any new rule becomes effective with the next Draft (no rule change is ever supposed to affect the current season).

r.caramelli@bo.nettuno.it
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