Joy of the Christmas Season

If you are following this blog you are either a) friends or family of a team owner or b) a fantasy owner yourself or c) a baseball fan in general.

If you fall into the C (or A) category you may have been aware of a flurry of baseball transactions in the last few weeks and had your eye on the Big Moves.

Jacoby Ellsbury just signed a mega-mega-million dollar contract with the Yankees.
Stud Closer Jim Johnson was traded from Baltimore to Oakland.

Reaction from most CFCL owners?  One big collective yawn.  How could we not be interested in Ellsbury going to the Yanks and Oakland picking up a proven closer?  Because it happened in the American League.

The CFCL is a National League only, keeper league.

Here are the moves that flow our juices.

Edwin Mujica was signed by the Red Sox.
Dexter Fowler was traded to the Astros (OK, this is a big name player so almost any baseball fan would be interested in this deal).
Oakland sent Seth Smith to the Padres for Luke Gregorson.
Norichika Aoki was traded by the Brewers to the Royals.

All in all six CFCL teams have lost eight players to the American League this off-season.  When a player goes to the AL, if they are still there by Draft Day, the CFCL team loses the rights to that player.

So Aoki to the Royals may not seem like much, but Morkertzuma's Revenge had him at .02.  That's a lot of steals for just two cents out the window.

Dem Rebels lost a former closer and still very productive setup man in Mujica and what's worse is Mujica's salary was only .04.

In one deal alone, two CFCL teams lost players.  The Nationals traded Ian Krol, Steve Lombardozzi and another player to the Tigers for Doug Fister.  Dem Rebels and the DoorMatts each lost a player.

Every day a CFCL owner wakes up during the winter can either be a day of joy or sorrow.  It's possible for a player to move to another National League team where they will be the closer or the starting secondbaseman and all of a sudden they become much more valuable to their CFCL team.

But it's also possible for more of the above to happen where you wake up and find that one of your players was traded to the American League.  That can really throw a wrench into your plans for next year.

Many CFCL owners have been known to want to write a letter to Santa begging that a bag of coal land in a certain National League GM's or Player's Agent stocking.