Financial pages

The purpose of the financial and contract system is to attempt to create as real a baseball environment as possible to the league. This is as follows: With the salary cap and bonus awards, teams will have payroll commensurate to the ability of their team to compete. The cap ceiling is $65 million for the top team and a floor of $45 million for teams that are at the bottom of the league. The floor was set so that teams can remain competitive year in and year out, rather than have teams that can use only $20 million/season, as MLB does. While REAL team owners may not care about league competition, *I* do. Players will drafted by teams using the salary that he earned in 1998, as posted on the salary pages. When team rosters are filled out, each player is considered to have a ONE YEAR CONTRACT. When the season ends, all players who have 4 or more years experience CAN become free agents. To keep such players from becoming free agents after the season, each must be signed to a new contract before the free agency period starts.

*Example: Alex Rodriguez currently has 4 yrs experience. Therefore, he MUST be signed to a contract, or he can become a free agent. A contract proposal must be sent to the commissioner, who will then confer with the League Presidents on the fairness of the proposal, ie. just because he makes only $2.6 million for the upcoming season DO NOT meant that a contract for 5 yrs/$15 million will be approved.

This being said,I, as commissioner will try to keep salary growth down, as I WON'T make someone pay $15 million/yr for a player, such as Kevin Brown is to receive.

Players who have 4 years experience will be RESTRICTED free agents, meaning that the team for which they play for can match any contract offered by another team in the league. If that player is lost to free agency, additional draft picks will be awarded to the team who lost him. Players with more than 4 years experience will be UNRESTRICTED free agents, and can be bid on by anyone. (In the event that 2 or more teams offer contracts that are relatively equal, the League Board will choose a contract for that player to accept.)

Players with under 4 years of service DO NOT need to be signed to contracts and will be assigned a new one year contract equal to 150-200% of the previous year's salary, depending on his performance the previous season.

There are 3 roster sets. Active(25 man roster), AAA/DL(15 man), and Low Minors(10 man, prospect development). Players who are in the low minors for a full season WILL NOT accumulate experience and WILL NOT be paid a salary against the salary cap. Thus, prospects can be developed for each team with no cost to the team in terms of financial position or free agency.

The salary cap is, per the original rules as well as by opinion of most GMs, going to be strictly enforced. GMs must keep their roster costs under the cap or be faced with a penalty. That penalty will consist of having players dropped from the roster until the cap has been reached. Players dropped from a teams roster become free agents and can be signed by any team in the league except the team who had to drop them. The penalized team CAN resign them howevver if no one else in the league has interest in the 2 weeks following their release. (provided that the signing does NOT put said GM over the cap again)

For those players who do not have a salary listed, the following will prevail (this includes players signed as a free agents):
all players with 0-2 yrs. exp. - $170,000
players with 3-4 yrs. exp. - $250,000
players with 5+ yrs. - $350,000

The cash award system will be the benchmark guideline for team salary caps in yrs following the initial season but will not go below the $45 Million mark. All minor league contracts are for 1 yr only. Minor leaguers can be signed to contrats like all players on the major league roster, which follows.

All players on the major league roster with 4 yrs of major league service time must be signed to contracts during the year. If not signed, they will become free agents and can sign with the highest bidding team (with or without compensation, depending on the player). Teams can have no more than 4 players with 5 yr. contracts and no more than 5 with 4 yr. contracts. Contract values cannot be below 95% of their current major league salary (ie, Albert Belle cannot sign a 5 yr-$10 Mil contract). Those players with 4 yrs. or less not signed to long term contracts will stay on the roster and will recieve one yr contracts equal to a minimum 150%-200% of current contract price.

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