League Rules - Revised & Updated

[Former Rockies GM (Peter)]

1. PURPOSE

The purpose of this league is to provide a franchise and the tools necessary to assist a general manager (GM) in managing their team in a dynasty setting. Our meaning of dynasty refers to the ability of each GM to keep their team’s roster fully intact year after year. The league will provide a means for competing where the mastery of several elements is essential for success. Those elements include salary cap management, daily roster maintenance, trading and prospecting. The only requirements are that a GM:

1. Exhibit a high level of sportsmanship by respecting all other GMs participating in this league; respect the decisions of the Commissioner’s Office; and,
2. Remain active throughout the year.

2. FRANCHISE

Each participant in this league will select their own franchise name. The franchise will be used as a vehicle for building a personal fantasy baseball dynasty. Your franchise nickname (e.g. Rockies) cannot be changed; however, the other name may be changed as the GM sees fit, e.g. Mudville Rockies.

In addition, each manager will choose a logo that represents their franchise and will be used as means of quick identification on the bulletin board. You may change your logo but it must have some affiliation with your franchise.


3. ROSTER

1. Each franchise will maintain a “40-man” roster. This roster must include a minimum of 20 major leaguers (active - players that can accumulate stats) and a minimum of 10 spots reserved for minor league prospects (any player who meets the prospect status listed in 3.3). Additionally, every franchise MUST field a legal active lineup on CBS during the regular season or face appropriate disciplinary actions.
2. Only players active in the MLB can accrue stats for this league.
3. A certified MKIA MLB season of playing experience (primarily for the purpose of determining MKIA prospect status) equates to a total of >=54 games played or >=150 ABs for batters and >=10 starts for a SP and >=50 IP for a RP/SP
4. Prospects may also accumulate stats.
5. Your 40-man roster must have a minimum of 10 spots reserved for MKIA minor league prospects. A prospect must meet the MKIA prospect status criteria as of the start of the current season.
6. At the end of the year, ANY prospect player that no longer meets the prospect status criteria specified in 3.3 must be moved to the MLB roster (for protection) by the start of the Winter Meetings deadline or be released to free agency otherwise.
7. Whether a GM is signing a free agent, waiving a player to free agency or trading with another franchise, you as the GM will have 72 hours to legally complete the transaction and update your franchise's roster. If a GM fails to legally complete the transaction and update his/her roster in a timely manner, the GM will be prohibited from engaging in either free agent contract offers, if the offending transaction is an FA signing or player drop, or trades with other teams, if the offending transaction is a trade, for a period of one week or until the transaction is legally completed and the roster is updated - whichever is LONGER.

4. SALARY CAP & SALARIES

1. The salary cap for each franchise was set at $100 million for 2008.
2. There will be a $2 million annual increase to the salary cap (every year after 2008) to adjust for inflation.
3. Your team must remain under the designated salary cap at all times or your team will be deemed "invalid" for collecting stats will face appropriate disciplinary actions, including loss of free agent auction privileges and CBS roster management privileges -- salary cap observance is also required for future years, and the Commissioner's Office will monitor cap issues via the league spreadsheet.
4. In addition, any trade or free agent signing that puts a team (further) over the set salary cap may be automatically vetoed by the Commissioner’s Office unless the GM has identified, at the time of the trade or FA signing, appropriate measures to promptly eliminate the problem.
5. There will be no exchange of salary cap during trades.
6. The league minimum for prospects is $300,000 while that for non-prospect MLB players is $400,000.
7. The maximum contract length allowed if the AAS equals the league minimum is 2 years.
8. The maximum contract length if the AAS is less than $500K is 3 years.
9. Cot's Salary Site WILL be the basis for determining real life MLB salaries in this league.
10. Real life bonus payments will not be included in real life salaries for our purposes -- we will only assume the real life base salaries as reported by the Cot's site.
11. Any future contract option years will not be recognized. A contract option year will only be recognized if exercised for the current year, which effectively converts it to a guaranteed year, when the real life contract is assumed (whether for Franchise Player purposes or for the league's inaugural season), and no contract period may exceed 7 5 years.
12. Once a minor league prospect player has reached the career cumulative "one MLB season of experience" criteria, that player will lose MKIA prospect status in the following year and be protected and signed to an annually renewed 1-year contract for up to 3 years at either his real life MLB base salary *or* his original MKIA prospect signing salary, whichever is greater.
13. Minor League prospects (and prospect protected players) can be released, without penalty, between the end of the regular MLB season and the start of the next season. If released at any time during the regular season, the franchise remains responsible for 1/2 the player's salary for that year as usual.
14. Major League (non-prospect) players may be released to free agency at any time during the year w/ 1/2 the remaining contract owed.
15. If a player's contract expires normally, becomes FA at the end of the year and is not "franchised" nor "restricted", you may remove him from your team without further penalty.

5. FREE AGENCY

1. Contract Signing Rules: The salary for any given year of a contract cannot vary from the contract's Annual Average Salary (AAS) by more than 40%, ie. 60% of AAS <= any given year's salary <= 140% of AAS.
   
   For example, if a players annual average salary is $5,000,000 per season, the lowest salary that can be offered is $3,000,000 and the highest salary that can be offered is $7,000,000.
2. Contracts may not exceed 7 5 years in duration.
3. To sign a Free Agent, post a new thread in the appropriate section with the title "players name" Then submit an AAS bid. The bidding will continue until no one has submitted a bid for a period of 24 hours. Once the 24 hour period has expired, the winning franchise must decide the length of the contract and yearly breakdown of the contract based on rule 5.1 For example if the winning AAS bid is 5,000,000, then you decide 4 yrs of length or 20,000,000. the contract will look something like this (under the 5.1 rule):
   
   07- 3m
   08- 5m
   09- 5m
   10- 7m = 20m
   
   Bidding could take up to a few days to finalize, so this will be the breakdown of how the bidding will work.
   
   
   1. From the time the bid starts to the 48 hour mark, all bids must increase by at least $25,000.
   2. From the 48 hour mark til the 96 hour mark, all bids must increase by at least $100,000.
   3. After the 96 hour mark, all bids must increase by at least $500,000.
   
   The minimum increment for the next bid is determined this way:
   
   Current High Bid < 500K ---------> 25K minimum increment
   500K <= High Bid < 1M -----------> 50K
   1M <= High Bid < 2M --------------> 100K
   2M <= High Bid < 4M --------------> 200K
   4M <= High Bid ---------------------> 500K
4. From September 1st til the end of the season, NO 1-year deals will be allowed. The player auction must start before the 1st in order for it to count as a 1 yr deal. This will prevent a team from offering a huge contract for less than a 30 day period.
   
   Below are some key points to keep in mind
   
   RULING: The league’s minimum salary requirement is $400,000 per year, except for drafted prospects. The longest you may sign a player to contract at the league minimum is two years. The longest you can sign a player to a contract with an average annual salary of less than $500,000 per year is three years.

6. DROPPING A PLAYER TO FA

1. A GM has the right to waive any player to free agency. To waive a player and drop him to free agency, you must post them in a new thread under the section titled "Free Agents". This will make permanent the decision to waive a player to free agency. Once posted, there is no turning back.
2. When a player is designated a Free Agent, the team remains responsible for half of that player’s salary for the duration of the contract. Such salary responsibility may be paid in one of 3 ways as follows:
   
   
   1. If the player is released no later than the regular in-season trade deadline, then it may be paid in full in the current year at the time of player release to free the team from all further obligations;
   2. Spread over the life of the contract with payments equal to 50% of the salary in each year.
   3. Remaining amounts may be paid in full during any subsequent preseason (ie. between the 1st day of a new fiscal year and the last day before that regular season begins)
   
   3. However, in the case 6.2.ii only, if the player is signed to a contract by another franchise, continued responsibility for that player's salary may be reduced or negated in full depending on the degree to which the new salary exceeds the 50% level in any contract year. I.e. required to pay difference between the player’s old contract and the player's new contract, not to exceed half of the old contract. If the player’s contract with his new team is higher than his contract was with the old team, the previous owner will no longer be obligated to pay any further reparations for the player and thus no further penalty on that franchise's salary cap.
   
   If the player is signed to a contract by another franchise, continued responsibility for that player's salary will be reduced in part or full depending on the degree to which the new salary is less than the salary being written off. If the player’s contract with his new team is higher than his contract was with the old team, the previous owner will no longer be obligated to pay any further reparations for the player and thus no further penalty on that franchise's salary cap.
   
   Example: Player A salary: $4M (2010), $5M (2011) can be written off as: (i) $2M (2010) and $2.5M (2011) or (ii) $4.5M (2010)
   
   If the player signs a new contract of $3M (2010), $6M (2011) the team will be credited with either (i) $1.5M (2010) and $2.5M (2011) or (ii) $4M (2010)
3. If for whatever reason you drop a minors player to free agency during the reglar season, the penalty is for that GM to pay the player 1/2 the amount for the remainder of the season. This also applies to players under the 3-year rule following loss of prospect status since such players are only signed to annually renewed 1-year contracts.
4. Once you waive a player, you may NOT bid on him and offer him a new contract until a period of 2 weeks 30 days have passed.

7. TRADING

1. Each GM is required to should ideally have Yahoo IM access. This is the preferred method of communication for this league and its GMs. This last option is a requirement This is strongly recommended for participation in this league. Yahoo IM allows for quick and easy communication with the Commissioner's Office and other GMs in our league. We believe this requirement will increase trade activity and overall interest in the league.
2. A trade can involve many types of collateral. These types include major or minor league players or minor league draft picks.
3. Trades may NOT include cap funds.
4. Any trade negotiations that conclude in an agreement must be posted to the bulletin board under the section entitled Trade Review. All terms of the trade must be listed here. It is required that one team involved in the trade post the agreement and terms, while the other team formally accepts the trade as listed. Please review the terms carefully.
5. Once the trade is formally accepted, the Commissioner's Office will review it and either approve or reject and process the trade within 48 hours or so unless the trade appears likely to be controversial and require additional time for review -- during the slower parts of the offseason, the trade review/processing period may run longer at the Commissioner's Office's discretion. If you spot any significant error(s) before the trade is approved, you may petition to have it rescinded. Once the deal has been approved, however, it becomes official and finalized, and the trading GMs will have no further recourse.
6. Please list the contracts and salaries of all players in the trade. The Commissioner's Office will have a league spreadsheet accounting each team's players and salaries and will make sure a trade does not put a team over its salary cap for any current or future year nor exceed relevant roster limits for the current year.
7. The annual trade deadline will be Aug 31, 11:59pm PT. Trade activity will re-open the day after the World Series ends shortly after the end of the regular season.
8. RFA and Franchise Tags and MiLB Draft Picks may be traded. However, future tags and MiLB Draft picks may only be traded upto 15 months ahead of their usual usage period, ie. no earlier than 2 offseasons ahead of time, in order to help preserve the long term health and viability of each franchise (in case change of management becomes necessary in the future).

8. NORMAL CONTRACT EXPIRATION

1. Each off-season, there are always a number of players who have had their contracts expire. These players naturally become free agents and, as such, are available to accept contract offers being made by other GMs in the league.
2. Free Agent Year Rule: (Only applies to drafted players and/or players originally acquired via prospect signings and does not apply to any player with a MKIA League contract) The following rules are intended for your initial roster assembled with players acquired as keepers, drafted or via trades (although some of them have been extended to apply to all drafted players, players originally acquired as prospects and franchised players beyond that).
   
   
   1. Rule #1 – Any player you acquire prior to the end of the draft will result in you assuming his current real life contract(s).
   2. Rule #2 – If the player you acquire is a real life free agent you will assume whatever contract(s) or contract extensions he signs or options exercised by either the player or his team prior to the opening day of the 2006 season. No contract extensions or options will be recognized however after the start of the 2006 season.
   3. Rule #3 – Any player you acquire will be considered a free agent at the end of the real life contract(s) he is under when he is added to a league roster. If a player is drafted in December and only has 1 year remaining on his contract and signs an extension prior to 12:00 AM PST on Opening Day this league will deem the player a FA at the end of the extension or after 7 5 seasons whichever is shorter in length. If he has 7 5 years remaining on his deal he will be a free agent after that 7th 5th season regardless if he signs an extension or has an option exercised at any point during the contract.
   4. Rule #4 - If a player is acquired who has not met the MLB service limits as defined, that player may be protected for an additional year at his current salary. If, at the start of a season, a minor player exceeds the service limits, that player may be protected for an additional 3 years w/ an annually renewed contract at their actual MLB salary or their original MKIA AAS whichever is greater.
      
      It was intended that (iv) above would also apply to players with less than 3 years of MLB service at the start of the 2006 season. Any player who would have met the eligibility criteria to be placed on the minor roster at the start of the 2004 and 2005 seasons, will be protected at their MLB salary for the 2006-07 and 2006-08 periods, respectively.
3. Restricted Player: You will be allowed one (1) Restricted player each season. Restricted players are Free Agents who can be made contract offers like every other Free Agent, with two main differences:
   
   
   1. The restricting team may require bidders to offer a contract with a minimum number of years. (In the event that no restriction is placed on the contract length, bidders may offer a contract of any duration up to the maximum of seven (7) 5 years.)
   2. At the end of the RFA auction period, the restricting team will have at least 48 72 hours to match the winning offer w/ the benefit of a 15% "hometown" discount. If the restricting GM chooses to match the winning contract offer (w/ the "hometown" discount), then he/she will be allowed to "restructure" the (discounted) "matching" contract so that it best fits the team's payroll and then re-sign the player. The "restructured" contract must, however, still have same contract length along w/ the same discounted average annual salary. If the GM fails to respond or chooses not to match the best contract offer made to the player, then the player will sign with the new team that made the winning offer at that given offer.
4. Franchise Player: You will be allowed to designate one (1) player each year as a Franchise Player. This player, who may be eligible for free agency, will be forced to re-sign with his current team. In this specific case, the MKIA team will assume the player’s real life MLB contract(s) at its/their based salaries (sans all future option years of all types) w/ details provided by the Cot's site. If the salary received puts the team over its salary cap, the team will have 72 hours to correct the situation. This ensures that whatever contract(s) in existence for that player in the current year will be applied.
   
   NOTE: Assumption of the real life contract(s) will remain tentative (while counting against salary cap) until the start of the regular season at which point the then finalized contract(s) will be commmitted w/ no further changes assumed/applied, except where corrections are made by the Cot's site.
   
   NOTE 2: Due to the complexity of real life contract extensions and such (along w/ how we handle all sorts of option years), for simplicity and consistency, the franchising team will get *all* continuously guaranteed years (upto the 5 max) across *all* signed contracts, if extensions involve multiple separate contracts (vs one single, reworked contract). However, they must all still be signed and effective before MLB opening day as usual.

9. POSITIONS & SCORING

1. Your total roster (including minor league players) will be included on your roster for CBS Sportsline and will be eligible to accumulate stats for your team. You will have the option of selecting the players to fill the following “active” positions on your roster. Only “active” positions will accumulate stats throughout the course of the season and determine how successful your team is. The active roster spots are as follows:
   
   
   1. C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, UT, UT
   2. 8 Active Pitchers (can be starters; middle relievers; set-up men; closers)
2. The roster is also comprised of 23 inactive spots as follows:
   
   
   1. A minimum of 3 bench spots
   2. A minimum of 10 spots reserved for MKIA prospects
   3. 10 spots which may be filled w/ both non-prospect MLB players and prospects
3. Positional Eligibility - A player must have played either 20 games at a position in the previous season or 5 games in the current season to be considered eligible for a position.
4. Players may be moved in and out of the “active” position spots on a daily basis. The statistical categories that will be tabulated to determine the league champion each year are split into two major areas. Pitching and hitting.
5. Scoring categories are:
   
   
   1. Hitting: OPS, Runs HR's, RBI’s, SB's, AVG
   2. Pitching:: Wins, Saves, Holds, ERA, WHIP, K'S
6. Only the 17 “active” players on your CBS roster can accumulate stats if they are "active". The remaining reserve and minor players will not be able to accumulate stats unless they are exchanged for active players.

10. ANNUAL MiLB DRAFT

1. Beginning in 2007, an annual draft for MiLB players will be held during the preseason (most likely in March).
2. The draft will be comprised of 5 rounds.
3. The draft order will be based on reverse of final standings from the previous MKIA season -- and this is not a snake draft.
4. MiLB salaries:
   
   
   1. 1st round picks @ $500k,
   2. 2nd - 5th round picks @ $300k
5. MiLB eligible players are not eligible for the FA market in the year that they are acquired by a real life MLB team in that year's MLB June amateur draft until after the next MKIA MiLB draft is completed. And the MiLB FA process will remain locked during the offseason until after the completion of this draft.
6. Foreign professional players are not eligible for the MKIA MiLB draft until they have signed with an MLB team. And only those who either have at least some prior regular season MiLB experience in the USA *or* are under the age of 25-yo before the start of the draft will be eligible.

11. FUNDING

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[1] Since we have migrated site hosting from CBS to Fantrax (using their free, basic hosting service), we no longer incur an actual site hosting fee and will simply redistribute the funds for that former cost back into the prize fund pool while keeping the annual league fee at $20/year as the league agreed. We will also continue to collect the league fee at the beginning of each year when league activity resumes at full swing prior to the 1st activity deadlines (ie. Franchise and RFA tagging) for the new year.

[2] $20 x 18 GMs = $360

[/s]
League Payout:
[1] $160
[2] $90
[3] $60
[4] $30
[5] $20 (ie. equiv to league fee)
[/ul]
[3] Please send check or PayPal payment to co-commish Man (Dodgers GM). He will collect the money and act as league treasurer to disperse the money for items (and payouts) as they are required:

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12. WINTER MEETINGS

As in real life, there is a period of time following each season in which teams assess their strengths and weaknesses and begin to plan their preseason activities for the upcoming new year. For the purposes of our league, you will have to wait until the “Winter Meetings” for most of those activities, including free agency, although trade activity will remain open throughout the offseason. Outside of trade activity, each team will have to wait until the New Year to put their well laid plans to action.

The League Office will remain minimally open (mainly to handle occasional trade activity) during the offseason until it officially reopens for full league activity at a yet-to-be-determined date some time around mid-January of each year, which will be the start of the "Winter Meetings".

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

For clarification, please note that the MKIA prospect status is determined using the player's career MLB experience, not single season experience. If the prospect's cumulative career MLB experience has exceeded the equivalent of "an MLB season" (ie. 54 games or 150 ABs for bats, 10 GS or 50 IPs for pitchers) by the end of a season, then he loses that prospect status going into the next season.

[Former Rockies GM (Peter)]

It was decided prior to the start of the 2008 season that Tags would be tradeable. The Rules have been adjusted accordingly.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

All,

Please note that there was a mistake in the rules revision update above regarding minimum increments for FA bids. The absolute min FA bid increment (for first 48-hour) is actually 50K, not 25K, as stated in the following amendment:

mlbknowitalls.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rules&action=display&thread=87

We will correct the big post at some later date. In the meantime, this should clarify for you which is the correct minimum.


This notice is now obsolete due to the recent rule change for determining the minimum bid increment. And the big, revised rules post above has been updated accordingly.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

FYI, the LO is currently in the process of updating this big revised/updated rules post to reflect agreed upon rule changes and clarifications.

You can generally spot rule changes w/ either bolded red text or crossed-out text, whichever's applicable, although some of the older rule changes still have this treatment. Some newly spelled out clarifying rulings also receive this treatment while others that are purely of the clarification nature (based on pre-existing precedent rulings) may not receive this same treatment.

NOTE: As usual, if any rule amendments are somehow overlooked or inaccurately applied to this big revised/updated rules post, they will still supercede prior rules previously written in here (and elsewhere in the rules section).

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

For clarification about franchise names, going forward, each new GM may change his franchise's team/nick name only once -- and only during the initial month or so when the new GM takes over the franchise.

However, since this was not made clear before, new GMs who recently joined the league may still opt to change their franchise's team name, if done so w/in the week.

The location part of franchise name may continue to be changed as before.

Thanks for your cooperation.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

Updated for new prize payouts as a result of migrating site hosting from CBS to (free) Fantrax.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

Please note that Proboards had apparently made some changes in recent past that broke some of the formatting bbcoding used in the main Rules post above (and maybe some other rules posts as well), which inadvertently caused some of the rules text to become hidden (on top of some noticeable/visible broken bbcoding).

The LO will look to fix the broken bbcodes (probably removing them and reformatting the texts accordingly) over this weekend.

This is a notice to alert everyone so there's no confusion about why the main Rules post is being updated -- there are no actual rules changes involved in this.