Answer Man on Eibner’s Contract

Pear Management

Dear Pare Management:

MLB/EFL Trades: Any time a trade is made in MLB, if an EFL team owns all the major league pieces in one side of the trade…

3.) and the other side of the trade includes minor league players, the EFL trading team may elect to keep those players by adding them to the payroll at the minimum wage, or to drop those players without obligation (as if they disappeared into the EFL team’s faceless minor league system, never to be seen again).  If the minor league player kept in this way has already debuted in MLB, he will be treated as a Rookie if his Rookie status would not have expired had he been drafted in the Rookie Draft; otherwise he will be treated as a veteran and will cost his actual MLB salary.  If the minor league player has not yet debuted in MLB, he can be owned in the EFL at the minimum wage until his debut.  In the season of his debut, his EFL team may play him by allocating him to a position (or as a pitcher), making that year the first of his five consecutive Rookie years in EFL, or may hold him out of play by allocating him 100% to be inactive for the remainder of the debut year, in which case the next year is perforce his first Rookie year in the EFL.

Interpretation: Since Eibner debuted this year, his compensation is governed by our rules about rookies.  If you play him this year, it becomes the first of his five rookie years.  If you don’t activate him this year, he becomes a rookies automatically next year for five years.  Our rules do not expressly say what happens if he is amid his debutant year, but the first and last sentences in the rules cover all the contingencies.  Players acquired by trade do not fall into debutant status.

Now that this is taken care of, may we move on to an update from games of July 30, 2016?