The announcement that PB values may change after the new park effects are implemented resulted in a few valid questions on this board.

The main one boils down to: Why can't this adjustment wait until after the cutdown to 27 players when teams need to be in cap compliance?

Since the impact of this adjustment is unknown, teams who may have in good faith traded and worked to get into compliance with the cap may now find themselves no longer in compliance and forced to make another move.

This seems like a potentially harsh penalty given that the timing of the new PB value calculations appears to be arbitrary.

I say appears, because we have gotten no reason why it must occur before the draft.

Since these are valid concerns, instead of simply an apology about the timing, why not offer an explanation of why it must happen before the draft instead of after?

This to me is where PB breaks down the most - what seems like a changeable decision is not justified logically by those making it, even in the face of valid customer concerns. "Sorry, won't" is not an answer to why the timing cannot be changed so that teams are not impacted unfairly.

Instead PB apologists argue how accurate the PB values are or discuss how it might have minimal impact - both possibly true - but that is unrelated to the need for the timing staying before the draft. When the Commish repsonds directly, it is to give more people time to react by pushing back the drafts, even though he doesn't justify having to react at all because he doesn't answer the arguments about waiting. And while he explains why the delay occurred (the data not available), that still doesn't explain why it must happen before the draft.

This same thing will happen next year - if a cap is going ti be imposed, that cap probably should be set on player values calculated before the park effects are changed - otherwise teams don't have the information they need for a long enough period. The whole timing of this should be considered and debated, not set in stone because it alway has been done a certain way.

My macro-point is this:
We get causes and apologies but not rationales very often. This is one of those times when we have been given no reason why it must occur before the draft in spite of valid concerns, just that it will.

Fred Cline