piloneus382 wrote:As long as neither player involved in this type of transaction has a 3rd team of eligibility.
Piloneus raises an interesting question. In the past it hasn't mattered how many teams had secondary rights to a player, it was always the first team with secondary rights to the player to grab him once the player became eligible and there has never been a problem with that. For example, in DFL 29 the Expos/White Sox announced prior to the season that they would not be using Mike Marshall, to whom they had the highest priced card, and that any eligible team should feel free to use him. Three other teams, Texas, the Dodgers and Twins, had secondary rights to Marshall. Having the Twins, I grabbed him first and later traded him to the Dodgers (all perfectly legal, since I was the new owner of Marshall) and there were no complaints. Note that if I had dropped Marshall, the Dodgers and Rangers, and presumably even the Expos if they changed their mind about using him, would have been able to claim him.
So the question is, for example, if the Expos this league decide not to use Marshall and the already pitching rich Dodgers are in the same division, can the Expos prior to the start of the season prevent the Dodgers from claiming him by only giving permission to the Rangers and Twins to use him (assuming that the Rangers and Twins are in the league)? Of course, if no permission is given to any team, once the first series is completed, any eligible team could claim him.
Another question involves secondary rights to a traded player. If I recall correctly, last league the commish said that once a team trades a player, it cannot reclaim him if that player is later dropped, and that makes sense, since the team traded away its rights to the player. So, for example, if the Dodgers last league dropped Marshall, the Twins would have been ineligible to reclaim him, since they traded his rights (Perhaps it would have been smarter for me to merely drop him and let the Dodgers claim him. That way I could have retained his rights if the Dodgers dropped him.). But what about the rights of the Expos and Rangers if the Dodgers dropped him? Did the trade to Dodgers extinguish their secondary rights? The practice in the past has always been that trades did not extinguish secondary rights of other teams not involved in the trade, meaning in this example the Expos and Rangers could have claimed Marshall if the Dodgers dropped him, but again, that issue has never been addressed.
This is one of the benefits of new blood in a league. Questions get asked about rules and unwritten assumptions that were never considered.
How about it Mr. Commish. What say you?