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League Rules
Topic Started: Dec 13 2010, 11:25 PM (1,498 Views)
Boston Red Sox
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League Rules

I. STAY ACTIVE: I will do an active check every couple of weeks, if you are not active, you WILL be replaced.

II. League Setup: There will be 16 teams in this league. Every team has a 25-man active Major League Roster along with a 20 man Farm System. Each team's starting roster consists of: C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, OF, OF, UTIL, SP, SP, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP. Prospects can be any position, no limits there. The only players eligible for the Farm System are all Minor League players and Major League rookies (according to MLB.com, A player shall be considered a rookie unless, during a previous season or seasons, he has (a) exceeded 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues).
-------a) We will have FOUR divisions (East, West, North, South), 5 teams in each division.
-------b) Rosters will EXPAND on August 1st each season. The actual # of players on your active roster will not increase, but ALL Farm System players (both frozen and un-frozen) will be eligible to freely come up to a team's active roster and sent back down, if desired, without having to start the player's s2 contract and Major League clock. This does not free up a spot in the farm system.
-------c) Everyone MUST keep a minimum of 22 players rostered on the Major League roster at all times. If you drop below 22 players after a transaction at any point, you will have until the next FAAB auction date to get up to the minimum. Every day (basically a week with free agent adds occurring just once a week) with under 22 players on the Major League roster is invalid and scores will not count.

III. Initial Keepers: Everyone will select an MLB team and choose EIGHT hitters/pitchers from the team's Major League roster along with THREE Minor League prospects from your chosen team. That means the draft would be 17 rounds. All Major League players chosen to be kept by an owner going into the initial season of this league will have their ESPN projected auction value assigned to him as his salary. Farm League players are not assigned a salary and are kept every year automatically, unless they are acquired in the auction draft or kept initially, in which case they MUST begin the season on the team's active Major League roster, and the player's 'clock' (s2 contract, more on this in a bit) begins.

IV. Auction Draft: Every team will begin with $260 which they have to spend on initial keepers (cumulative salary of all keepers is automatically deducted from everyone's auction budget by ESPN) and players in the player pool in the auction. Like a snake draft, everyone takes a turn NOMINATING a player to go up on the block. Everyone then has the chance to bid on the player. Bidding goes on until the clock runs down to 0:00, at which time the owner who has offered the most money receives the player. This is very simple, if you are unfamiliar with auction drafts, you should take part in a Mock Auction Draft on ESPN.com before we do ours, just to get the feel for how bidding and nominating goes.

V. Farm System Draft: Before the Auction Draft, the Minor league draft will take place on the Forum. The minor league draft consists of two rounds in which teams acquire farm players ONLY. Everyone will have 12 hours to post their selection when it is their turn to do so. If they do not post within the time frame, the next team may post their selection. The draft keeps going as planned, with the absent owner getting skipped, but they are able to come back at any point and post all selections they have missed.
-------a) There is a supplemental round for 7th-11th place finishers [set up this way so it's beneficial to be a good team and not tank] in the draft
-------b) International Free Agents who sign mid-season are eligible in the following season's Farm System Draft and can not be signed immediately after signing here in MLB. If you draft an International Free Agent who has yet to complete his contract with a Major League team, you are taking the risk that negotiations might fall through. If he doesn't end up signing and returns home for the season, you MUST drop the player since he isn't under Major League control. But because you are losing a Farm System draft pick in the process, you receive a compensatory pick in the following year's Farm System draft at the end of the comp. round.

VI. Farm System: Each team's Farm System will be listed and maintained on the forum. Everyone can own no more than 15 Farm System players at any time. All Farm System players are NOT assigned a salary. A player may remain on a team's Farm System roster until he loses his MLB Rookie status (according to MLB.com, A player shall be considered a rookie unless he has exceeded 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues). If you choose to call the player up to the team's Major League roster, their initial $5 s2 contract begins and their clock starts. This means their contract kicks in, and He CAN NOT go back to your Farm System once he is called up and his s2 contract begins. You have the option to keep any eligible player in the Farm System as long as you want until he loses his MLB rookie status. Once the deadline passes (reaches rookie limits), a decision must be made by the owner within 10 days whether to drop the player into the free agent pool and open up that farm system spot for a new (eligible) player to be added, keep him on the farm system roster and freeze him there for the remainder of the year (see section VI.b below for more on frozen players), or call him up to the Major League roster to start the $5 s2 contract (and drop another player if need be). An example...when Stephen Strasburg came up in 2010 mid-season, the Nationals would have the option to bring him up for the remainder of the season or keep him in the minors and KEEP FROM STARTING HIS CLOCK so that they could have him for the following 2 years and push back the year in which the initial s2 contract would expire.
-------a) See Section II.b for August Roster Expansion rules
-------b) If a Farm System player has been 'frozen', he is held in the Farm System for the remainder of the year but may still be brought up during August Roster Expansion (Section II.b). If a Farm System player who has been declared 'frozen' in the farm system for the remainder of the year is traded from one team to another, the new owner has 10 days to make a decision whether to call the player up and start his s2 contract clock or keep the player frozen themselves.
-------c) When making Minor League Add/Drops, there is a 1-DAY waiver period before you can re-add the player yourself. This means you can't drop Farm System player A, add Farm System player B, call Farm System player B up to your Major League Roster, then immediately re-add Farm System player A like nothing ever happened. Again, this only applies to YOURSELF!! If you drop a Farm System player, another team can add that player before the 1-day waiver period is over.

VII. Scoring: 7x7 head-to-head categories:
HITTERS: H (Hits), R (Runs), OBP (On Base Percentage), HR (Home Runs), RBI (Runs Batted In), NSB (Net Stolen Bases: SB-CS), FLD % (Fielding Percentage)
PITCHERS: W (Wins), K (Strikeouts), ERA (Earned Run Average), WHIP (Walks+Hits/Innings Pitched), SV (Saves), QS (Quality Starts), BSV (Blown Saves)

VIII. Salaries: Players acquired during the auction draft or weekly FAAB bidding [see: Section X] shall acquire “s2” contract status, meaning that they may be kept under contract for that season and the next (if desired) at the salary determined during the auction draft. A player under s2 contract status may be dropped at no penalty. If a player is kept for the following season (at the same contract price), his contract status becomes “s1.” A player under s1 contract status may be waived, but carries a 50% penalty to be kept on the cap for the remainder of that season. At the conclusion of the season in which the player is an s1, the player must be tendered a "Guaranteed Long Term Contract" (see: Section XI), given the Franchise Tag (Section XI.c) or be let go into the following year’s auction draft player pool (no penalty for this, the contract has simply expired).
-------a) Long-Term Disabled List Salary Exemption: If a player is placed on the 60-day disabled list by his Major League team, his owner here has the option to place him on the Long-Term Disabled List (LT-DL). This waives that player's salary for the entirety of his DL stint, NOT a roster spot. If you place a player on the LT-DL, you gain that cap space to add replacement player(s) while he is out, but you must clear the cap space back up for him once he is healthy and comes off the disabled list. You will have a week to do this. Just to reiterate, this only applies to players on the 60-day disabled list in ESPN.com's player bank, NOT the 15-day DL. The player MUST have the red DL60 next to his name on ESPN or else he is ineligible for the exemption. No exceptions to this rule!! If the player doesn't have the DL60 tag, you can't use the exemption on him. This is a long-term commitment to that player's injury/rehab, not a way to find quick plug-in's every other week when you have a player go down with injury.

IX. Salary Cap: The salary cap is set at $260. Teams MUST stay under this!! If you go over, all stats for the entire team will be forfeited every day until appropriate changes are made and the team is under the cap.

X. Free Agents/Waivers: Free agent bidding will take place every week until bidding ends on Friday @ 10:00 PM EST, when the highest bid on every available player will be locked in and processed automatically by the ESPN system. Teams will have $100 allotted for their Free Agent Auction Budget (FAAB) to spend on free agent acquisitions over the course of the entire season. Teams may place a bid on any player who is available in the Free Agent List, and the team with the highest bid 'wins' the player. If the highest bid for a player is a tie between multiple teams, highest (1 = best) waiver number gets priority. The Waiver Priority Order is posted and updated regularly, and can be found under the League Transactions section of the forum. Once you 'win' a player in the weekly bidding, you own that player for an s2 contract at whatever price you win him at.
-------a) There is a minimum bid of $3 on all free agents. There is no maximum bid, you can bid any amount of money left in your FAAB budget you wish as long as you stay under the $260 salary cap as a team.
-------b) See "Buyout Provision" below (Section XI.a) for details on how dropping a player will affect your salary cap.

XI. Guaranteed Long-Term Contracts (GLC): A player who has been under contract at the same salary for two consecutive seasons (s2 & s1 contract seasons) and whose service has been uninterrupted (that is, he has not been waived or released, although he may have been traded) must either be released (not kept), given the Franchise Tag (Section XI.c) or signed to a guaranteed long-term ("GLC") contract before year 3.
If released (not kept), the player returns to the free agent pool and becomes available to the highest bidder at the next auction draft. If signed to a guaranteed long-term contract, the player’s salary in each year covered by the new contract shall be the sum of his current salary plus $5 for each additional year added to his contract. The first year of the long-term deal is the same price as the expiring s1 contract year, after which the $5 will be added on to each year's salary. If signed to a GLC, the player that has received the GLC must be retained by the team that signed him to the GLC until such time that the contract has been completed, the player has been traded to another team in the league (along with his contract), or the “buyout” rules (described below) are invoked. A player may be signed to only ONE long-term contract, at the end of which he becomes a free agent or may be given the Franchise Tag (Section XI.c). Long-term contracts are entirely transferable, both in rights and obligations; the trade of a player in no way affects his contract status [meaning--if you trade for a player, you inherit his contract, both years and $$]. This also means long term contracts can be signed for as long as you want, but the longer you go, the higher the salary is going to increase (basically all back-loaded), which makes it difficult to move the player if his production drops off in the latter years of the contract, when he's being paid the most. Keep this in mind before you give a guy years on years on years, otherwise you end up with Jesus Montero or Peter Bourjos for five years (no offense guys...) and no one who will take that albatross commitment off your hands.
-------a) Buyout provision: To cut a player in an s1 contract or a player signed to a GLC, you must buy out his contract for 50% of the remaining value in each remaining year of the contract. This means that if you wish to cut a $40/s1, you must keep $20 on the cap. To cut a $20/L3 ($20 + $25 + $30), you must keep 50% of each year's number on your cap, so you'd have to keep $10, $12.5, $15 in the 3 years remaining on that GLC. If a player is bought out with an odd-numbered salary, ex: $3/s1 player, decimals will be used and the buyout would keep $1.5 on your cap.
-------b) There is no penalty for dropping a player in your Farm System.
-------c) Franchise Tag: Teams will have the option to 'Franchise' ONE player whose contract is expiring each year, meaning an s1 or L1 contract. You may tag him and his contract DOES NOT count towards your cap, meaning he's free for that one year but you CAN NOT drop him from your roster during that season. You only own him for that one year, after which he must be released into the following season's auction.

XII. Trading: The Commissioner will process trades once approved on the forum.
-------a) Once a trade is agreed upon by both owners, one of them MUST post the trade in the forum under Accepted Trades, and the other owner MUST post that he/she accepts the deal. Both owners are only committed to the trade when BOTH have posted that they have accepted the deal. From then, the trade is final, can't be modified, and will go up for league-wide vote for THREE days before it is processed.
-------b) All other owners post their opinions on the trade (vote YES/NO) for three days based on:
------------i) Collusion - Is one owner 'dumping' players to another team?
------------ii) Logic - Does it make sense for both teams?
------------iii) League Effect - Does it affect the competitive balance of the league?
-------c) I will make my decision based on league comments and voting. Once the decision is made, it is final. [Honestly, it's going to have to be REALLY lopsided to get vetoed]
-------d) Rookie Draft Picks can be traded. I am able to adjust people's FAAB, so you can trade FAAB money as well.
-------e) 2017 Trade Deadline is Saturday, August 12th @ 11:59 PM EST -- ESPN forces a 12:00 PM NOON deadline but anything goes until MIDNIGHT that night and I'll push it through manually.

XIII. Playoffs: SIX teams will make the playoffs, the 4 division winners + 2 wild card teams. The teams with the top two records in the league will receive a bye for the first week of the playoffs.
-------a) Remember, teams that finish 7th-thru-11th are given a compensatory Farm System draft pick (see: Section V.a)

XIV. Keepers: Each year, everyone can keep up to 25 keepers from your roster to be held over onto your roster the following year. Teams may decide to keep less than the maximum 25 players, and they will simply save money on their budget going into the following year's Auction Draft. As I stated earlier, the cumulative salaries being kept by an owner (all salaries still on the cap) are deducted from your budget going into the Auction Draft.
-------a) Your Farm System will automatically be held over for you from year to year.
-------b) See Section XI.c for Franchise Tag specifics.
-------c) As far as future seasons go, every owner is responsible to keep track of their players' salaries to make sure they can AFFORD the contracts they assign as the years go on. This means the +$5 escalating salary setup in all GLC contracts should be taken into account when assigning these to players! If you can't afford your players, tough luck and godspeed. That's where the 50% penalty for dropping all typically undroppable players (see: Section XI.a) will come into play, so buyer beware when throwing around money!

XV. The Forum: All trade blocks, communication and trade offers will take place on the forum. I will still process trades myself, so all offers and voting and the such will take place on the forum. There will be a chatbox on both the ESPN front page and at the bottom of the forum as well.

XVI. Be respectful to other owners, you will be warned and then removed if you continue to be a dick.
Edited by Chicago White Sox, Apr 20 2018, 08:21 PM.
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