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Note from the commisioner
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FEE'S
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- This league is free..... played just for fun, bragging rights, interest's sake....
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WHO'S IT FOR?
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- Enthusiasts.
- This league requires a long-term committment to, and enjoyment of, fantasy baseball.
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NUMBER OF TEAMS:
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- The league will consist of 12 "franchises".
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TEAM NAMES:
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- Team names will have the traditional sports format...
- A metropolitan city name followed by some nickname... nothing distasteful.
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"FRANCHISE" LEAGUE:
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- The league uses player salaries and contracts, with free agency and a rookie draft in the
offseason. A separate rookie draft will also occur in the middle of the season, usually in
the first week of June to correlate with the ML draft.
- Simulating a professional league, all players under contract remain on your roster for the
next season.
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SCORING:
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- We will use Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball to facilitate the league. The league will be a "Plus" league, with a price of $10.42 charged to each manager.
- The scoring will be rotissierie, head-to-head style in the
categories of:
Offense: R, H, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS
Pitching: W, L, SV, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP
*The Strategy*
- In General, the Rotissierrie style makes managers build more 'well-rounded' teams, finding
the pieces that fit together. It's not enough to simply find players who 'produce'...
you need players who compliment each other. This simulates the realistic challenge of
trying to build a team with good chemistry.
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ROSTERS/POSITIONS/# OF GAMES:
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*********************Roster Makeup*******************
You must have a minimum of 21 salaried players on your team. The other four roster spots are nonsalaried, and are good only on a daily basis (you can add/drop them, but at the end of the season they dont
belong to you anymore). People can choose to bid on them as a free agent if they have the
cap and roster space. That is because if you drop a salaried player, you must pay half
of his remaining contract in the full length of time. This is because if it did not occur
in this manner, there will be lots of droppings at the end of the season that allows
managers that make foolish transactions to get out of the deal a lot easier. Also, paying the
contract of a dropped player does not constitute one of your 21 salaried players.
You can pay off the remaining length of a dropped contract at one time. For example, if a dropped player
requires you to pay him $1 million for 2 years, you can instead choose to pay the player $2 million for 1
year, if you have the cap space. This decision must be made by the trading deadline (mid-August).
If a player retires or suffers a career ending injury,
etc, you pay half of his contract in full length.
The 4 non-salaried players are determined in a serpantine draft, just like the AAA, AA, and A
players. The #1 pick goes to the manager who finished in 12th place the year before.
Your roster can exceed the 25 man max. for major league players if you have a player on the DL.
You can have up to 28 players on your roster, only if the players exceeding 25 qualify as a minor
leaguer.
Minor leaguers: all of them free for 3 years, the fourth year they get a 100,000 contract. You can then restrict one minor leaguer per year, in their 5th year, by providing them a standard $4 million, 2 year contract.
- Our submitted starting lineups will have only traditional positions:
C
1B
2B
SS
3B
OF
OF
OF
UTIL
SP
SP
SP
RP
RP
RP
P
P
P
- We will use Yahoo!'s player positions, designating which players are "C", "OF", "SP" etc...
- Note these do change over time.
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THE SALARY CAP:
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- What could be more fun than simulating the distress of a salary cap ?
- Yes, our league will be spun around the concepts of finance, and monetary calculation.
- Each franchise will have a salary cap amount of $84 million. The value will increase by a set
amount as years go on. For example, finishing in 1st place will increase your cap by $1.6 million, with
each manager (up to 8th place), receiving $0.2 million less than the manager above him in the standings.
- You can't go over the salary cap limit in trades or free agent signings.
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PLAYER SALARIES/CONTRACTS:
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- Players must be under contract to play on your team. All contracts are "guaranteed".
- Contract amounts are in $ Millions, with $100,000 being the greatest limiting factor:
- i.e. "$5.2 million, $6.4 million, $7.7 million" etc... NOT $5.25 million etc...
- The Maximum Contract per season: there is no maximum, as long as you are able to have 21
salaried players on your roster.
- The Minimum Contract Amount per season: $100,000.
- The Maximum Contract Length is 5 years.
- The Minimum Contract Length is 1 year.
- The final (4) roster spot(s) can be filled by a player signed to an "Evaluation Contract",
explained below:
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Evaluation Contracts
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- Each team can have up to 4 players signed to an evaluation contract.
- Evaluation contracts carry no cost again the salary cap, and are valid until the end of the season.
- There is no cost for releasing a player with an evaluation contract, and signing someone else in his place.
- Players signed to evaluation contracts can be signed to a max. 2 year, $500,000
contract and then traded (assuming you have the cap room and a free roster spot).
-If you select a player that qualifies as a rookie as of May 1st or the trading deadline (mid-August), and he still qualifies as a rookie on June 1 or at the end
of the season, a penalty will be issued in which you lose the player, AND you lose your first round rookie
draft pick.
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FREE AGENCY (FA):
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*****************Free Agent Signings******************
We can accomplish this
bidding during our "winter meetings",
or just a time we set aside in the winter when everyone comes together to bid on
these players. Bidding will be in increments of $100,000.
- In the offseason, all players not under contract become free agents.
- All free agents will be available for bid at the same time, using a league message board.
- Bidding on Free Agents:
- FA Bids include ONLY THE CONTRACT AMOUNT, not the contract length.
- FA's are first "SECURED" by a team, then the GM sets the contract length to his/her design.
- Any contract SECURED at $10 million or higher must be assigned at least 2 years, max 5 years.
- For all other bids, the Minimum contract length is 1 year, Maximum is 5 years.
- Criteria for securing a free agent - what is a "BETTER BID"?:
- Players have 3 criteria in deciding which team to sign with - they are, IN THIS ORDER:
I. CONTRACT AMOUNT, not length
II. LOYALTY
III. SUCCESS OF TEAM
I. So, players will sign with any team offering a higher contract amount than all other teams.
II. But, the team that last held the player under contract is said to hold the player's LOYALTY.
- A team that holds the player's loyalty only has to MATCH THE HIGHEST OFFER, not beat it.
III. But, If two or more teams offer the same amount, and the team with loyalty CAN'T/WON'T match
the amount, the player will sign with the team that had the BETTER STANDING in the preceding year.
- The salary cap is a "hard" cap. You can not go over the cap to sign Free Agents.
- If you only have $5 million in cap room, the highest bid you can give to a FA is $5 million.
- You must also leave room in your bids to sign enough other FA's to have a salaried roster of 21.
-You can offer bids to multiple players at the same time,
but you must have enough CAP ROOM to sign all those bids.
- FA Bids can NOT be withdrawn.
- A team SECURES a player in one of two ways:
1. THREE FULL DAYS pass without the player receiving a better bid.
2. The team holds the best bid on the last day of free agency.
- Any free agents still unsigned when free agency ends, can only be signed to a max. 2 year, $500,000 contract.
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ANNUAL ROOKIE DRAFT:
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- Each Offseason and Midseason, Managers will convene for the annual 2-round Rookie Draft, sometime after
the World Series and in June. The Draft Pool consists of hitters who have played in 30 games or less and
pitchers who have pitched in 40 and 2/3 innings, or less.
- Order of Selection:
- Picks 1 through 12 follow in reverse order of the preceding year's regular season standings.
- Rookie Contracts:
- Players drafted in the rookie draft are given a contract of $ ZERO Million, for 3 years.
- Yes, THEY'RE FREE FOR 3 YEARS.
- The draft is such a crapshoot, but these free rookie contracts give us a fun, low risk, high reward draft.
- We also won't have to worry about clearing cap room to sign our rookies.
- It'll be free to cut them, if they disappoint.
- Good players still under rookie contracts will be valuable as they count 0 towards the cap...
making successful drafting important.
- In the 4th year, the rookie still belongs to your team, but requires a $100,000 contract if you choose to
keep him.
- Rookies not drafted in our rookie draft will not become eligible to sign "Evaluation Contracts", unless
they break the minor league requirements by June 1st, or after the midseason rookie draft,
and before the postseason rookie draft.
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TRADING PLAYERS:
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- All trades must fit under the salary caps of every team involved.
- Multiple team trades are allowed.
- Draft picks can be traded, but only the draftpicks for the following season.
- A trade deadline will be set each season.
*The Strategy*
- Groom a young dynasty? Or try to win now, and lure the big free agents next year.
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CUTTING A PLAYER:
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- You can free up a roster spot by cutting a player.
- But, his contract still counts against your cap UNTIL IT RUNS OUT.
- This can not be exempted, even if another team signs the cut player, or even if you re-sign that player.
*The Strategy*
- This makes long term contracts risky if you're not sure a player will still produce a few years down the road.
- You'll be carrying a player's dead weight if he retires before your contract runs out.
- Signing players to too short of a contract however, gives more risk of losing that player to free agency,
or paying a higher salary in future years.
-If you release a player that makes $4 million or
more, variations in the rules occur:
1). If you choose to re-add this player to your roster, you must pay him half of his original salary for the length of the previous contract.
2). If someone else adds this player to their
roster, they too must pay him half of his original salary for the length of the previous contract.
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BUYOUT RULE
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-If you have enough free cap room after free agency, and before the new season starts, you can "buyout"
the remaining years of a player's contract. I'll explain this with an example:
Abraham Lincoln, OF, has 2 years left on his contract at $5 million per season.
Unfortunately, Abraham's no longer the player he was when you signed him to that longterm deal.
So, say you didn't sign anyone during free agency, and you now have $12 million in free cap room remaining.
It may be beneficial for you to buyout Lincoln's contract this year - you'll have to cut him
from the roster, but by designating $10 million of your cap room this year, you'll have his
$5 million in cap money available for you next season which you wouldn't have if you didn't buyout
his contract. If you can fit the sum of a player's remaining contract under your salary cap, you
can buy him out.
-You can only buyout a player's entire remaining contract - you can't put him on a layaway plan.
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SIGNING FA'S DURING THE SEASON:
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- All free agents not signed in free agency remain FA's during the season.
- Teams can sign Free Agents during the season at a contract of $500,000, for up to 2 years.
- These in-season FA's can still be traded like any other player under contract.
- The team still holds LOYALTY over this FA at the end of the season.
- Yahoo! has a built in waiver system for determining which team gets to sign a newly released player.
-After the trade deadline, you can only sign players to a 1 year deal, and you cannot pay off contracts any longer.
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PRESTIGE POINTS (career accolades)
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- We need a way to keep score over our entire careers, for the length of our franchises, over several seasons...
- So, at the end of each season, we'll get "Prestige Points", based on our season standings.
- Obviously, finishing first during the season is a very prestigious thing.
- The champ will get 10 prestige points, and the rest go as follows:
1st place............. 10 Prestige points.
2nd place...............7 Prestige points.
3rd through 5th.......5 Prestige points.
6th through 8th.......3 Prestige points.
9th through 12th......1 Prestige points.
- Finishing 9th through 12th doesn't do much for your career, but you do get 1 participation-type prestige
point, and a good draftpick.
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GM APPROVAL
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- A league like this can only be worthwhile if you're playing with people you want to play with.
- So yes, your position as a Franchise GM lacks security ...
- At the end of each season, league GM's will send in approval votes of every other GM in the league.
- Either "YAY" or "NAY".
- Seniority:
- The longer a GM has been in the league, the more his vote counts towards ultimate approval.
- This makes your job more secure the longer you've been buddy-buddy with the other veteran GM's.
- We will use "Approval Points", for this..
- Each GM's vote counts for as many Approval points as the number of years they've been in the league.
- i.e.. if a GM has been in the league for 5 years, his/her vote counts as 5 approval points...
- A rookie GM's vote counts for only 1 approval point.
- GM's NEED 2/3 rds OF THE LEAGUE'S TOTAL "APPROVAL POINTS", in order to stay in the league.
- Criteria for your approval will be basically anything your fellow GM's see fit....
- For instance:
- If you keep making bad trades and diluting the league with your incompetence, other GM's may disapprove.
- If you're just generally a hard person to deal with, GM's may disapprove of you for that...
- If you continually take too long to respond to email's/trade requests, GM's may disapprove of you for that...
- But obviously, it's a popularity contest... if you participate alot and get along with everyone, you'll probably get approved.
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COMMISSIONER'S GENERAL PHILOSOPHY:
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- I wanted to make a competitive fantasy baseball league - a realistic simulation played over the long-term.
- FOR FUN, interests sake.
- Competition can be fun, but it loses perspective when things get distasteful, too personal, unclassy.
- I am not in this simply "to win", i don't really care if i win just as long as the game is
competitive and has some sort of social grace.
- There'll be times where GM's will just have to trust me, I don't see myself cheating just to win.
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RULES DISCLAIMER:
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- These rules are not written in "legal-eese"...
- I'm sure there are loopholes in them, specific situations unexplained.
- We'll cross any bridge when we come to it.
Addendum:
"This is just another attempt to level the playing field and make this league more realistic. Currently
any player that is waived has to go through yahoo
waiver process. right?
What I propose is that we allow any "salary player"
that is waived to go through what we could call
a "modified waiver wire". What that means is that it would work like real baseball. The worst team would
always have the #1 waiver spot. example If My NY Mets
had the worst record in baseball they would have the
#1 waiver spot for as long as they were that bad
regardless of how many times they actually claimed
players. This of course would be watched by Mark to
make sure an owner is not just dropping a player so
another team could pick them up. That team would not
have to put a claim in for him at all. This way they
would not lose there spot on the yahoo waiver system.
we could just send an email to mark or he could email us asking if we were interested in that player
whatever is easier. Mark would post a message telling
us what owner will be allowed to pick the player up. At that time Mark could either A)reduce the waiver period for that day and allow that owner with the
highest priority to pick them up or B)just let the
player go through waivers at which time the team that
wanted him could pick him up. I think this idea will
help make the league more competitive. "
Addendum #2:
"This idea has come up since we are not allowed to
resign players with years left on there contract (i,e give them a raise). At this time all players we
currently have under contract are deemed Restricted FA's when that contract runs out. I will use one of
players as an example. Randy Johnson is a FA next
year. The normal bidding process goes on (I don't not have to bid at all for his services).When the highest
bid has been reached all I have to do is match that
bid and the player is mine again. In this process you
are still paying market value for your player since everyone who bids obviously wants the player. I think this is a very fair way to give the previous owner
the best chance to keep any player(salary or rookie).
to add....the advantage is: currently, having a
restricted free agent only rewards you 100k in cap
space (since you only have to tie the highest bid).
But in our current format, your bidding against
yourself (ie, manger A bids 4 mill on the player, you
bid 4 mill, he bids 5 mill, you bid 5 mill). In the new method, if the player has been won by manager A for 4 mill, the option now goes to the original owner: do you want him for 4 mill, or does he get to
join manager A's team. "