04-23-2025, 11:33 AMsköldpaddor Wrote: This is the punishment we decided on when we instituted the rule; like I've said a couple other places in this thread, we are absolutely open to changing it if anyone can come up with a solution that doesn't screw the entire team instead of just one player, and is scalable for multiple offenses.

I say this out of love and desire to improve the league. If you are looking to maintain consistency with past rulings in history. An simple solution is to:

- update Rule k 1. clarifying what the status of a player is once an enforceable agreement is reached. I believe the league has historically interpreted it as a signed member of the team and no longer a free agent.  (which is how I understood it)
-the decision on how to change language of the rule that was "broken" depends on how HO choose to define the status of a player on an enforceable agreement going forward. 
-If it is agreed that a player under an enforceable agreement is a signed member of the team and no longer a free agent, that would mean the newly added rule requires no change. It no longer impacts players who agree with their GMs on a contract so player wishes are still maintained. 
-Opinion: I do not see a need to change the penalty for instances where player and team have NOT come to an enforceable agreement prior to the signing freeze. I think that is fair and is a good deterrent. It protects players from the hopefully never happening case of a GM acting with malicious intent, where a player wants to experience free agency but the GM uses the lack of moving the player to the free agency section to deny other teams the ability to make contact with the player who is desiring to experience free agency and create the illusion that there are no interested teams leading to the player to re-sign with their original team and the pick and salary deduction is a significent enough penalty.

My suggestion is that if the rule II.E.c rule (the violated rule in the post) were to be broken the appeal should not be by the GM but should be by the player themselves who is denied free agency before even notifying the GM there is a problem.  As the player should be able to give you the information of if they were looking to experience free agency, before a GM has the ability to potentially influence a player who is not looking to rock the boat. If the player says they wanted to experience free agency...boom open and shut case, full extent of the penalty. If they said, they wanted to stay with their team assess the reduced gm pay and draft pick penalty.

Lastly, I suggest hiring someone whose job is to go through the rulebook and keep it current and have position that doublechecks the progress.