With MLB's trade deadline approaching, now's a good time to remember the rules if/when players on your roster are traded to the American League. Those of you who were here in 2008 might remember when I claimed a scrub pitcher sent to Cleveland in the CC Sabathia trade even though I didn't really have to in order to claim Sabathia. The lasting effect of that: if a player of yours is traded to the AL, you're entitled to a player coming over... provided that player was an integral part of your roster, not someone claimed on spec to reap the return or salvage #1 waiver claim priority.
Of course, most of these trades are veterans for prospects and there isn't a desirable return, but it's good to know.

When composing trades involving draft picks, remember that your five keepers are your first five selections. Only trade picks from the sixth round on.

Now that I am your new commish, here is a list of changes I intend to make:




All right... with that out of the way, still lots of baseball left. Let's be careful out there.

Welcome back to NLO '13. Among other things, we need to designate 5 keepers per team ... there's a deadline and I hope Yahoo makes it clear (March 8, if memory serves). I have recruited our old friend SpaceAge Playboy to replace Nebsnine, and may have to come up with one more player to reach our quorum of 8. We'll get our 8, assuming Yoga returns after all the keepers he lost to the American Leaque.

And since we are 5 weeks away from draft day, rule changes are on the table. One possibility is to add CI and MI positions. So throw your ideas on league improvement out there, and we'll discuss and hash them out.

Let's have a lot of fun this year!