There are trades every day in the American Association – trades, releases, people coming on and off the disabled and inactive lists. While it gives managers a lot of leeway to rebuild their teams, fix roster problems quickly and sometimes exile problem players, I sometimes wonder if it doesn’t also cause more problems on the field and in the clubhouse than it solves.
I’ve been paying more attention to the AirHogs roster this year, mainly because I’m trying to keep a database of player numbers just to keep track of who is on the field. Trying to keep track of the roster changes could almost be a full-time job, and it’s not just here, it’s everywhere.
I started looking at tenure, and there are some players who last less than a week with the team – this should have been a tryout and not a contract.
Part of the issue is that spring camp is so short – I really don’t think you can look at all of the possible players in the amount of time there was to put a team on the field to get started.
The biggest problem I see is that there is no trade deadline. It would be interesting to tell managers that there were no roster changes (except in case of injury) after June 15 or the All-Star break or any random date. This would mean the managers would have to build the best team possible before that date, and afterwards, they would have to work with the players they had on the team.
In this case, the players would be able to work together since they would know each other better. There would be less paranoia about getting released or traded. Everyone could focus on the actual target – which is championships.
Just a thought.