Loophole

Now matter how hard I try to button up all of the loopholes in the rules, it seems like every year something comes up that's not covered.

Here's what happened - this morning I announced a pickup of Jeremy Accardo (RP-TOR) and I cut Kevin Gregg (RP-FLA). About two hours latter, John, the vulture that he is, picked up Gregg and cut Jack Wilson (SS-PIT). The problem is that Joe has now informed me that he has Jeremy Accardo on his roster. My bad. Normally I memorize everyone's roster and would not make this mistake, but it's too early in the season and I'm running two leagues.

As an aside, the timing of John's pickup of Gregg falls under the 24-hour waiver rule that we added last year. Since John picked up a player within 24 hours of him being cut, a team with a lower record could swoop in and claim Gregg if they wanted to. Since John has the worst record in the league, the point is moot.

A second aside - it was another shitty relief pitcher, B.J. Ryan, who caused the waiver rule. He was cut by Dennis and three or four other teams wanted to claim him. I guess I now have something in common with Dennis.

Shut up.

Back to the main issue - what to do. Whenever stuff like this comes up, my feeling is that the guy who f-ed up should be the one penalized. In this case that was me. It would make sense that since I cut Gregg, he should stay cut and John should be allowed to claim him. I obviously can't take Accardo, so that leaves me with an empty spot on my roster which I can still fill with my transaction for the week.

This would all be fine and good, but what if John hadn't picked up Gregg? It has happened many times in the past where teams have picked up players that were already on someone else's roster. We've always just negated the pickup. But if we used that standard here, it gives me a do-over and screws John out of the player he wanted.

So, I'm changing the rule. Once you cut a player, he is cut - even if the player you want to pick up is already on someone else's roster. If that happens, you are allowed to pick up a different player to fill the empty spot, but the original player you cut remains cut from the time you first announced it.

There - that should sew it up.

So, think before you cut.