Gizmo,
   That's one of the dumbest rules I ever heard. How can someone or a team benefit from someone not being there. Hell if you are averaging 190, bowl 2-3 weeks then pay to not bowl and you just gave your team 10 pins a game. Plus it's static so if for some reason the lanes are exceptionally hard one night (for example the oil machine breaks and doesn't oil and they don't figure it out until after you guys start bowling, or the opposite, it puts too much oil out for some reason) while everyone else struggles to make average, the person not still gets 10 pins over their average. We always used the rule, a vacant or blind score was 200, but if a rostered bowler missed a week, it was their average. But if they missed more then 2 consectuive weeks, then it was 10 pins off their average for every week they miss going forward. So miss one week, use average. Miss the next week, use average. Miss the next week, use average - 10 pins, miss 4th straight week, average - 20 pins, and so on. People will sometime miss 2 weeks, vacations, work, etc. But after that you better find a sub. This made sure that you didn't have the scenario you have or the one they seem to be afraid of. Might be a suggestion for next year's rules.
 
on edit: I used to bowl in a large, big money scratch league with similar rules. Haf to wear team shirt, or fined. Had to wear black slacks (for men) or fined. No hats while bowling. We wanted to look professional to attract a sponsor. We paid $37 a week (back in 2004) and first place got $10,000 (4 man team). We had the league capped at 800, so we had bowlers average in the 170's in the league. Points were head to head against the person across from you, plus extra for team game and team total. But even that league has fallen into despair with crash. I bowled in that league for 4 years and the lowest # of teams we had was 32. Now the dress code is gone, down to 3 on team, and there were only 10-12 teams last time I looked. Just be lucky you still have league like this, and try to work to make it stronger.

That doesn't make any sense. If you're not bowling you shouldn't get a higher score than your average

It's also a second shift league that starts at 9pm, so although we do have sponsor names on our shirts, literally no one is there to watch except for some significant others.  We've had several league meetings this year about adjusting some things.  A handful of new teams from out of town joined the league last year and were really pretty shocked at how things operated and how much money they didn't get back at the end of the year.  Several things have been adjusted, but there are still some weird rules.  The blind score is the next bone to pick, it just doesn't make any sense that you could miss a week and get a higher score than what you most likely would have bowled.  But that rule was the difference between going 29-1 and 24-6 which is what it ended up being.  Again, in this league you don't make or lose a lot of money, so it's not a big deal, but I don't see the point of having a scratch league and all these rules if there isn't a bit of competition. 

Our scratch league blind rule was that you got 10 pins less than the low score that was bowled by any bowler on the other team that game.

That way a blind always hurt the team.

Sounds like a rule that needs to be changed.

I agree the rule is a bit odd at best, but why do people never complain about odd/bad rules until it bites them in the ass? 

Trash heap,
    Why would you penalize a team for a missing bowler? Things happen in life. People get stuck at work, people get sick during the day, people have emergencies...so what you are saying with this rule is "too bad, show up and bowl anyway". That is as bad as the rule Gizmo pointed out. And anytime you use a single score for everyone, you risk that the score will be higher than the missing person's average, unless you set it ridiculously low. Using the absent bowler's average or minus 10 off their average is fair. It takes into account the skill of the bowler and gives them a score commensurate with that skill. Why should the rest of the team each have to bowl 20 pins above their average to win a game just because somone was forced to miss a night?

It's a scratch league, it hasn't really applied in the past.  Only in the last couple years have we started to have people join the league that average less than 200.  It USED to be a penalty, and still is for 95% of the league.  Having to take 200 after using your average from one week is supposed to be incentive to show up or find a sub.  I just hadn't realized before you could use 200 even if you average under 200 . .

I agree the rule is a bit odd at best, but why do people never complain about odd/bad rules until it bites them in the ass?