There will be a new twist to the Phase II drafts starting with the SPB II draft in November. When protected rosters are called for, all teams with over 38 rostered players (including both protected and unprotected) will have the option of cutting their rosters back to 38 players, and releasing those over this limit, or keeping them while facing a POSSIBLE stiffer loss of players during Phase II.

In all historical SPB Leagues, teams with more than 38 players on their roster will be asked to make a decision when protected lists are called for. At that time, if the team has more than 38 players (protected & unprotected) on their roster, they will be asked it they want to cut down to 38 players, or not. This is ENTIRELY the managers decision. If they decide to cut to 38 they will submit the list of cut players at the SAME time as they give their protected players. These cut players will be added to the SPB rookie draft for that season. If the manager chooses not to cut down, he simply submits his list of protected players as always. This team could then POSSIBLY loose more than the 5 maximum players during the Phase II draft. Additionally this team could have their normal 5 player loss, with the number of players over 38 added to the normal 5. EXAMPLE: A team with 42 rostered players decides not to cut down to 38 and take their chances in Phase II with all their players. They could loose up to 9 players (normal 5 + 4 over) during P2.

Remember this does not mean they WILL loose 9 players, just that they could. In our most recent Phase II draft for 1980, held earlier this month, with all teams facing a loss of up to 5 non protected players, six teams lost the full 5, while 3 teams lost none. And other teams lost from 4 players down to 1. As always each team will only be allowed to pick 3 players each during Phase II. The amount of players drafted overall will not change.

The only SPB league this will NOT affect is SPB NOW. Logically this will hardly effect the older era SPB leagues at all, leagues such as SPB 100 (1908), SPB III (1939), and SPB60 (1948). This is because there were just not that many players used during these eras generally, and it is doubtful a team would ever have as many as 38 rostered players. Beginning with SPB II (1959), SPB I (1971), SPB IV (1981), and SPB V (1992), there will probably be some teams that fall into the high roster areas. But overall, not that many.

I called the SPB Rules Committee (all 12 historical league officers) to vote on this matter, and the vote was 9 for, and 3 against, so it passed by a large margin, and will be added to the historical leagues Constitution on the webpage very soon.

The reason for this was a growing concern over the continually expanding rosters of a few teams, which thereby was indirectly causing a decline in players available for our drafts. This new change will cause more players to be available in both the rookie and phase II drafts. All large rostered teams choosing to cut players down to 38, will see these same players added to the rookie draft. And of course, this also would increase players lost in Phase II due to possibly facing the loss of more than 5 players in this draft, if a team chooses not to make the cuts.