1. Rosters & Scoring
1-Catcher
1-First Baseman
1-Second Baseman
1-Third Baseman
1-Shortstop
3-Outfielders
2-Utility
2-Starting Pitchers
2-Relief Pitchers
3-Pitchers
9-Bench Spots
5-DL spots
Scoring
--Batters
---Runs
---Home runs
---R.B.I.
---Stolen Bases
---AVG.
---Walks
--Pitchers
---Wins
---Strikeouts
---Saves
---Holds
---E.R.A.
---W.H.I.P.
2. DL Eligibility
- You will have 7 days from when the player comes off the MLB DL to remove the player from your list.
- If this is abused, you may be subject to loss of draft picks.
3. Playoff Format
- The league consists of no divisions.
- The top 2 teams will receive first round byes in the playoffs.
- The next four best teams will receive wild card bids.
- ONCE THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN, ONLY PLAYERS ON A LEAGUE MINIMUM CONTRACT CAN BE ADDED.
4. Salary Caps & Player Contracts
- Franchise budgets are capped at $100 Million.
- Teams must have a minimum of $75 Million per season of roster salary used per season.
- Contracts are guaranteed, although they can be terminated at any time, Franchises will be responsible for the players "Buy-out" which would be 50% of players total remaining salary which would count towards your season salary
- There will be no maximum salary in terms of dollars but there is a Max in years, No player can be signed for more than 4 years.
- There is no limit to how many 4 year contracts a franchise can sign.
- Bids are only in integers (eg. 1mill, 2mill...NOT $5.25 mill etc...)
- Here is an example for bids, if you place a 4 year/$12 Million offer, than what that means is you are paying your player $12 Million a year, the $12 Million is not the total amount, its the yearly amount.
- Minimum bids are $0 million, 1 year deals. There is no maximum bid.
- Teams can only sign players to Minimum deals which is for 1 season in the event you need to fill-up your rosters. Any signing done during the season will be for the league minimum and WILL NOT count towards your salary cap.
- The number of transactions allowed in the regular season is 65.
- Example of a line-up
C - 2 yr./$4 Million
1B - 3 yr./$12 Million
2B - 1 yr./$3 Million
3B - 3 yr./$20 Million
SS - 4 yr./$5 Million
LF - 3 yr./$8 Million
CF - 1 yr./$6 Million
RF - 2 yr./$4 Million
DH - 2 yr./$2 Million
SP - 4 yr./$20 Million
SP - 1 yr./$1 Million
RP - 3 yr./$4 Million
RP - 2 yr./$2 Million
P - 1 yr./$8 Million
P - 3 yr./$1 Million
P - 1 yr./Minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
**Notice how the bench players are all minimum contracts, that's because if you choose to spend all $100 Million on starters, its completely your choice but in order to fill your line-up you would need to pick up free agents but they can only play on your team for the remainder of that season. You'll be able to re-sign those players to Multi-year deals at the end of the year
5. Terminating a Player Contract
Penalties
- Contracts may be terminated at any time to clear cap room, however, Buy-Out money will still count against your cap, as follows:
Example:
Team A has a player that has a three year contract:
2010 - $7 million
2011 - $7 million
2012 - $7 million
Total Contract: $21 Million
- Team A would be responsible for the cap penalty of $11 Million if the player clears waivers.
- New team would receive the player at the standard minimum contract.
- If another team claims the player off of waivers, they are responsible for the FULL contract.
- There is no cap penalty for the following season, player is off the books...
- ONCE THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN YOU CAN ONLY DROP MINIMUM CONTRACT PLAYERS
- In the event that a player under contract dies, the contract for that player will be terminated from a GM's roster.
- If a GM signs a player and that player were to suffer career ending injury or if a player isnt on an official MLB roster at any time during the contract he was signed for, the GM is still responsible for the contract, his contract cannot and will not be voided. The commissioner will consider it simple bad luck and nothing more.
6. Trades
- Owners may trade any combination of players, prospects, and/or draft picks, as long as both teams do not exceed the salary cap or roster size limit.
- Owners who feel a trade is unfair must submit their reasoning to the Commissioner.
- All trades are subject to Commissioner approval.
7. Offseason Free Agency
Bidding
- Bidding will be done via offseason message board.
- Once you have posted a bid on a player, you cannot remove the bid. No editing.
- The maximum number of years of a free agent contract is 4 years.
- There is no maximum dollar amount, however, you cannot exceed your cap at ANY time.
- The minimum bid in free agency is a League Minimum contract for 1 year(1yr/min).
- You cannot exceed the active roster limit of 25 players at ANY time.
- Any player signed during the FA period cannot be released or traded until the FA period is over.
- A bid is secured when it remains the high bid for 2 consecutive "End of Day" postings.
Bids are ranked in the following order:
1. Higher dollar amount - Higher total salary outweighs higher yearly salary.
2. Equal dollar amount, with less years but more money
- e.g., 3 years/$4 Million will beat a bid of 4 years/$3 Million
3. Equal dollar amount, with "loyalty" (explained below)
4. Equal dollar amount, with higher "prestige" (explained below)
5. Last season's standings - If all things are still equal, the player will sign with the team who finished higher in the standings in the previous season.
Loyalty
- Franchises retain loyalty on all players on their roster at the end of the season. During offseason FA, you only have to match the highest bid on your free agents to retain them. All things being equal, players wish to re-sign with their current teams.
Prestige
- Prestige points are awarded for various accomplishments, including league standings and end of year awards. (explained in "9. League Dynamics")
- Only Prestige Points earned in the past 3 seasons will be considered during FA. Players would prefer to sign with a team that has had some recent success, assuming bids are equal and neither team has loyalty.
8. Farm System
Draft
- Our Draft will begin approximately a week after the MLB Draft concludes.
- Draft order will be the reverse order of standings from the previous season.
- Draft picks can be traded at any time.
- During the Draft, all draft selections are final once they have been posted to the message board. No editing.
- Draft eligible players include those players drafted during the current season's MLB Draft and the previous year's international signing period.
- If a player does not sign a contract with his Major League team, it has no bearing on his status within your organization. You will have the rights to that player when/if he is drafted in subsequent years.
- No maximum amount of players on your farm team.
- The only way to acquire farm team players is via draft or trade.
- Farm players can be traded at any time.
Limits
- A farm player will be considered a farm player until they reach their limits: 130 ABs, or 50 innings pitched, or 30 Major League pitching appearances.
- Before a farm player reaches their limits, the owner is free to use the farm player on their active roster, but is not responsible for the farm player's contract. (in other words, they are free of charge)
- Once a farm player reaches their limits, their contract will kick in. The owner will have 72 hours to decide whether to keep the player under their new contract terms or release the player into free agency(with no penalty)....OR....
- Owners may "option" the player during their first season, providing they have the cap space to carry the new contract terms. The player's contract will count against the cap, but not against the active roster.
- Optioning a player is only applicable during the 1st season that the player reaches his limits. This protects the owner against a surprise call up that wasn't planned for (e.g., a player jumping from AA to MLB unexpectedly).
- When season 1 concludes, the player is treated as any other active roster player.
Farm Contracts
- Round 1 (Picks 1-6): 4 years/ $2 Million (0)
- Round 1 (Picks 7-12): 3 years/ $1 Million (0)
- Round 2: 2 years/ League Minimum (0)
Once the initial farm contract is up, owners will choose to claim arbitration(displayed in parenthesis) on the player after each season, for the next 3 seasons. The contract will increase by $1 Million per season, or the owner can elect to release the player into free agency(with no penalty).
For example:
Season 1 - 4 years/ $2 Million (0)
Season 2 - 3 years/ $2 Million (0)
Season 3 - 2 years/ $2 Million (0)
Season 4 - 1 year/ $2 Million (0)
Season 5 - 1 year/ $3 Million (1), or free agency
Season 6 - 1 year/ $4 Million (2), or free agency
Season 7 - 1 year/ $5 Million (3), or free agency
Season 8 - Free agent
If the owner declines arbitration, they do not retain loyalty.
9. League Dynamics
Prestige Points
- We need a way to keep score, over the long-term. We will do so using "Prestige Points" - points awarded for advancing into the playoffs, as follows:
1st Place (Winning the championship) 15 Prestige Points
2nd Place (Making it to the championship) 10 Prestige Points
3rd to 6th Place (Making the Playoffs) 5 Prestige Points
7th to 12th Place (Missed the playoffs) 0 Prestige Points
Bonus Presitge Points
-If you have a player who wins an end of year award you will receive extra Prestige Points:
- Cy Young Award - 2 Prestige Points
- MVP Award - 2 Prestige Points
- Rookie of the year - 1 Prestige Point
- As explained earlier, Prestige Points earned in the past 3 seasons will be one of the tiebreakers used during the free agency period.
End of Year Voting
- Obviously, a league like this is only fun if you enjoy the people you're playing against. At the end of each season, GM's will vote "Yay" or "Nay" on the approval of all the other GM's. You need at least 2/3rds of your approval votes ("Yay") to remain in the league the next season. So yes, your job here does lack security.
- GM's can approve or disapprove in any fashion they see fit: If you are not active in the league, if you are unpleasant to deal with, or if you make bad deals and are diluting the league with your incompetence - these are all issues left to the discretion of the voter.
- The league for the enjoyment of competition, but some sort of social grace is expected from all involved. Sports - related trash talk is good, anything personally offensive is unwanted.
- These rules are not written in stone and I'm sure we'll have to continue to make modifications as we go.
1-Catcher
1-First Baseman
1-Second Baseman
1-Third Baseman
1-Shortstop
3-Outfielders
2-Utility
2-Starting Pitchers
2-Relief Pitchers
3-Pitchers
9-Bench Spots
5-DL spots
Scoring
--Batters
---Runs
---Home runs
---R.B.I.
---Stolen Bases
---AVG.
---Walks
--Pitchers
---Wins
---Strikeouts
---Saves
---Holds
---E.R.A.
---W.H.I.P.
2. DL Eligibility
- You will have 7 days from when the player comes off the MLB DL to remove the player from your list.
- If this is abused, you may be subject to loss of draft picks.
3. Playoff Format
- The league consists of no divisions.
- The top 2 teams will receive first round byes in the playoffs.
- The next four best teams will receive wild card bids.
- ONCE THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN, ONLY PLAYERS ON A LEAGUE MINIMUM CONTRACT CAN BE ADDED.
4. Salary Caps & Player Contracts
- Franchise budgets are capped at $100 Million.
- Teams must have a minimum of $75 Million per season of roster salary used per season.
- Contracts are guaranteed, although they can be terminated at any time, Franchises will be responsible for the players "Buy-out" which would be 50% of players total remaining salary which would count towards your season salary
- There will be no maximum salary in terms of dollars but there is a Max in years, No player can be signed for more than 4 years.
- There is no limit to how many 4 year contracts a franchise can sign.
- Bids are only in integers (eg. 1mill, 2mill...NOT $5.25 mill etc...)
- Here is an example for bids, if you place a 4 year/$12 Million offer, than what that means is you are paying your player $12 Million a year, the $12 Million is not the total amount, its the yearly amount.
- Minimum bids are $0 million, 1 year deals. There is no maximum bid.
- Teams can only sign players to Minimum deals which is for 1 season in the event you need to fill-up your rosters. Any signing done during the season will be for the league minimum and WILL NOT count towards your salary cap.
- The number of transactions allowed in the regular season is 65.
- Example of a line-up
C - 2 yr./$4 Million
1B - 3 yr./$12 Million
2B - 1 yr./$3 Million
3B - 3 yr./$20 Million
SS - 4 yr./$5 Million
LF - 3 yr./$8 Million
CF - 1 yr./$6 Million
RF - 2 yr./$4 Million
DH - 2 yr./$2 Million
SP - 4 yr./$20 Million
SP - 1 yr./$1 Million
RP - 3 yr./$4 Million
RP - 2 yr./$2 Million
P - 1 yr./$8 Million
P - 3 yr./$1 Million
P - 1 yr./Minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
Bench - 1 yr./minimum
**Notice how the bench players are all minimum contracts, that's because if you choose to spend all $100 Million on starters, its completely your choice but in order to fill your line-up you would need to pick up free agents but they can only play on your team for the remainder of that season. You'll be able to re-sign those players to Multi-year deals at the end of the year
5. Terminating a Player Contract
Penalties
- Contracts may be terminated at any time to clear cap room, however, Buy-Out money will still count against your cap, as follows:
Example:
Team A has a player that has a three year contract:
2010 - $7 million
2011 - $7 million
2012 - $7 million
Total Contract: $21 Million
- Team A would be responsible for the cap penalty of $11 Million if the player clears waivers.
- New team would receive the player at the standard minimum contract.
- If another team claims the player off of waivers, they are responsible for the FULL contract.
- There is no cap penalty for the following season, player is off the books...
- ONCE THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN YOU CAN ONLY DROP MINIMUM CONTRACT PLAYERS
- In the event that a player under contract dies, the contract for that player will be terminated from a GM's roster.
- If a GM signs a player and that player were to suffer career ending injury or if a player isnt on an official MLB roster at any time during the contract he was signed for, the GM is still responsible for the contract, his contract cannot and will not be voided. The commissioner will consider it simple bad luck and nothing more.
6. Trades
- Owners may trade any combination of players, prospects, and/or draft picks, as long as both teams do not exceed the salary cap or roster size limit.
- Owners who feel a trade is unfair must submit their reasoning to the Commissioner.
- All trades are subject to Commissioner approval.
7. Offseason Free Agency
Bidding
- Bidding will be done via offseason message board.
- Once you have posted a bid on a player, you cannot remove the bid. No editing.
- The maximum number of years of a free agent contract is 4 years.
- There is no maximum dollar amount, however, you cannot exceed your cap at ANY time.
- The minimum bid in free agency is a League Minimum contract for 1 year(1yr/min).
- You cannot exceed the active roster limit of 25 players at ANY time.
- Any player signed during the FA period cannot be released or traded until the FA period is over.
- A bid is secured when it remains the high bid for 2 consecutive "End of Day" postings.
Bids are ranked in the following order:
1. Higher dollar amount - Higher total salary outweighs higher yearly salary.
2. Equal dollar amount, with less years but more money
- e.g., 3 years/$4 Million will beat a bid of 4 years/$3 Million
3. Equal dollar amount, with "loyalty" (explained below)
4. Equal dollar amount, with higher "prestige" (explained below)
5. Last season's standings - If all things are still equal, the player will sign with the team who finished higher in the standings in the previous season.
Loyalty
- Franchises retain loyalty on all players on their roster at the end of the season. During offseason FA, you only have to match the highest bid on your free agents to retain them. All things being equal, players wish to re-sign with their current teams.
Prestige
- Prestige points are awarded for various accomplishments, including league standings and end of year awards. (explained in "9. League Dynamics")
- Only Prestige Points earned in the past 3 seasons will be considered during FA. Players would prefer to sign with a team that has had some recent success, assuming bids are equal and neither team has loyalty.
8. Farm System
Draft
- Our Draft will begin approximately a week after the MLB Draft concludes.
- Draft order will be the reverse order of standings from the previous season.
- Draft picks can be traded at any time.
- During the Draft, all draft selections are final once they have been posted to the message board. No editing.
- Draft eligible players include those players drafted during the current season's MLB Draft and the previous year's international signing period.
- If a player does not sign a contract with his Major League team, it has no bearing on his status within your organization. You will have the rights to that player when/if he is drafted in subsequent years.
- No maximum amount of players on your farm team.
- The only way to acquire farm team players is via draft or trade.
- Farm players can be traded at any time.
Limits
- A farm player will be considered a farm player until they reach their limits: 130 ABs, or 50 innings pitched, or 30 Major League pitching appearances.
- Before a farm player reaches their limits, the owner is free to use the farm player on their active roster, but is not responsible for the farm player's contract. (in other words, they are free of charge)
- Once a farm player reaches their limits, their contract will kick in. The owner will have 72 hours to decide whether to keep the player under their new contract terms or release the player into free agency(with no penalty)....OR....
- Owners may "option" the player during their first season, providing they have the cap space to carry the new contract terms. The player's contract will count against the cap, but not against the active roster.
- Optioning a player is only applicable during the 1st season that the player reaches his limits. This protects the owner against a surprise call up that wasn't planned for (e.g., a player jumping from AA to MLB unexpectedly).
- When season 1 concludes, the player is treated as any other active roster player.
Farm Contracts
- Round 1 (Picks 1-6): 4 years/ $2 Million (0)
- Round 1 (Picks 7-12): 3 years/ $1 Million (0)
- Round 2: 2 years/ League Minimum (0)
Once the initial farm contract is up, owners will choose to claim arbitration(displayed in parenthesis) on the player after each season, for the next 3 seasons. The contract will increase by $1 Million per season, or the owner can elect to release the player into free agency(with no penalty).
For example:
Season 1 - 4 years/ $2 Million (0)
Season 2 - 3 years/ $2 Million (0)
Season 3 - 2 years/ $2 Million (0)
Season 4 - 1 year/ $2 Million (0)
Season 5 - 1 year/ $3 Million (1), or free agency
Season 6 - 1 year/ $4 Million (2), or free agency
Season 7 - 1 year/ $5 Million (3), or free agency
Season 8 - Free agent
If the owner declines arbitration, they do not retain loyalty.
9. League Dynamics
Prestige Points
- We need a way to keep score, over the long-term. We will do so using "Prestige Points" - points awarded for advancing into the playoffs, as follows:
1st Place (Winning the championship) 15 Prestige Points
2nd Place (Making it to the championship) 10 Prestige Points
3rd to 6th Place (Making the Playoffs) 5 Prestige Points
7th to 12th Place (Missed the playoffs) 0 Prestige Points
Bonus Presitge Points
-If you have a player who wins an end of year award you will receive extra Prestige Points:
- Cy Young Award - 2 Prestige Points
- MVP Award - 2 Prestige Points
- Rookie of the year - 1 Prestige Point
- As explained earlier, Prestige Points earned in the past 3 seasons will be one of the tiebreakers used during the free agency period.
End of Year Voting
- Obviously, a league like this is only fun if you enjoy the people you're playing against. At the end of each season, GM's will vote "Yay" or "Nay" on the approval of all the other GM's. You need at least 2/3rds of your approval votes ("Yay") to remain in the league the next season. So yes, your job here does lack security.
- GM's can approve or disapprove in any fashion they see fit: If you are not active in the league, if you are unpleasant to deal with, or if you make bad deals and are diluting the league with your incompetence - these are all issues left to the discretion of the voter.
- The league for the enjoyment of competition, but some sort of social grace is expected from all involved. Sports - related trash talk is good, anything personally offensive is unwanted.
- These rules are not written in stone and I'm sure we'll have to continue to make modifications as we go.