Running Year-Round
Since February 1997!
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League Rules

First of all, this is a SIMULATION league, *not* a Rotisserie league. While we use real players, they are not connected what happens to the players in real life. They all have ratings from 0 to 99 which determine how well they perform at different things. Over a third of the players (and more as seasons go by) are computer generated. That's how we play year round.

General Rules

  • Owners, send all lineup changes to "lineups" at this domain name. Include your starting eight (nine for AL) in their batting order, your four or five man rotation, and the other players on your major league roster not to exceed 25. You may also keep up to 15 players on AAA/DL (combined) and 10 more on LOW. To place a player on LOW, they must be 26 or younger and have no experience.
  • If you would like to sign free agents, check the free agent list and send me your pick(s). NOTE: Free Agent signings are NOT first-come, first-served. When a player is picked by one or more teams, the team with the worst record of those who picked him by the time of sims gets first dibs on that player.
  • On the batting and pitching ratings of the rosters: B- Bats, CH- Contact Hitting, PH- Power Hitting, SP- Speed, Fielding Ability, AS- Arm Strength, GF- Ground/fly, PL- Pull, vL- Vs. Lefties, Sc - Scoring Position, CL - Close and Late, EN- Endurance, CO- Control, HR- Hold Runners, FB- Fastball, CB- Curveball, CU- Change-up, SI- Sinker, SL- Slider, KN- Knuckleball, SC - Screwball
  • For pitchers, any pitch that has a rating under 30 will not be used in a game.
  • Every season in mid-June of league time, there is an amateur draft of computer generated players. They are not good players when they are created, but they will get better as time goes on.
  • All players picked in the Amateur Draft will be placed in LOW minors first and then AAA if there is room, unless given *specific* instructions otherwise on where to place players taken with certain picks. If you do not have those instructions and you have no room on your roster, then your pick will be skipped.
  • Only picks in the next two amateur drafts are eligible to be traded.
  • When trading, each owner must log into the website and submit the trade on the trade proposals page. A trade may be editted or cancelled by either owner at any point until both owners have clicked on the "Confirm" button. Only then is the trade official and submitted to the commissioner for processing.
  • There are two trading deadlines in the league, August 1st and September 1st. After August 1st, all trades between two different leagues must pass through waivers. After September 1st, all trades must pass through waivers. With waivers, the trade is announced to the league. Any team with a record that is worse than one of the teams involved in the trade may claim one or more players involved in the trade. At that point the original trade is void. Then the team that has the claimed player(s) and the team who claimed the player(s) then will either work out a deal on their own or no deal will go through.
  • EXCEPTION TO WAIVERS: Trades between two teams that are both mathematically eliminated from contention (ie, it is not possible for either team to make the playoffs) may be made without having to pass through waivers.
  • Playoff rosters must be set by the first game of the playoffs. Once playoffs begin, you may only move players between Act and AAA/DL between rounds, and then only batters for batters and pitchers for pitchers. Also, no free agent signings are allowed once the playoffs begin.
  • You may use a 3-man rotation in the playoffs if you wish, but you must supply a fourth (or fourth and fifth) "starter" to designate as your placeholders in the rotation as extra relievers. The game requires at least four men in a rotation to run, so you must designate at least one placeholder. Keep in mind however, if all relievers are used, these pitchers could still come into a game, so don't just throw anyone in there.

Salary Rules

  • Every team has $100mil budget each season. This budget applies to all salary/cash obligations that your team has.
  • There is a hard cap of $130mil. The total value of all players physically on your roster cannot go over this amount.
  • Every team must hold at least 35 players on ACT/AAA during the season. The two exceptions are the offseason before play begins and the period between when the Amateur Draft is announced and the Amateur Draft itself.
  • Minimum salary is $500k.
  • Contract lengths are from 1 to 5 years.
  • Anyone not under a previous contract signed from the FA pool any time other than the Free Agent Auction is signed for minimum salary and a two-year contract.
  • Players dropped mid season from one team and picked up by another continue their old contract.
  • Any player who was dropped mid-season by a team and is not signed by another team by the end of the season will have his contract nullified.
  • Amateur Draft picks are signed at minimum salary.
  • Once out of LOW, players may not be placed back into LOW.
  • All young players will receive salary arbitration after their 2nd and 4th years of experience. Arbitration salaries will be based on half the amount of the salary of a comparable player.
  • Cash may be traded by itself or in conjunction with covering the salary of a player under contract.
  • If traded by itself, only cash from the current season may be traded
  • If traded to cover the salary of a player, cash may be traded up through the length of that player's contract as long as it is tied to that specific player.
  • Unused cash does not roll over to the next season

FA Auction Rules

  • Bidding is done via website using an eBay-style system, with highest salary per season winning the bid.
  • A bid may be placed on any Free Agent for any contract length between 1 and 5 seasons.
  • Like eBay, the bid you place is a maximum. Therefore, the actual winning bid on a player will be .01 mil higher than the second place bid, regardless of what the actual maximum was on that bid.
  • You may revise your bid upwards on any player however many times you like. However, if you wish to pull out of bidding for a player, enter a bid of 0. You will then be barred from bidding on that player for the remainder of the round.
  • While all owners may bid on any Free Agent, the team who currently holds the FA has priority on re-signing the FA. If that team's bid is within 90% of the top bid, the original team keeps player.
  • Bidding goes until all FA Impact Players have been taken.
  • Bidding on Impact Players will be split up into rounds so that teams can focus on specific players each round and if they do not win the bid then they can refocus their efforts on other players.
  • Owners can bid on any non-Impact Player during any round of bidding. Player goes to whatever team had highest bid on that player in each round.
  • If an owner bids on multiple players and cannot afford all, preference will be given to the players with the highest max bid.
  • If multiple players have the same max bid, then preference is given in order of when bid was placed.
  • All trades and roster cuts are suspended during the free agent auction. However, you may move players up from LOW to AAA/Act during the auction. These moves must be in no later than 24 hours before the end of a round to guarantee they go into effect for that round.
  • Owners may use the Auto-Bid system to bid for their team automatically if they choose to do so. The auto-bid system will bid on all Impact Players in each round, determining the bid made on each by their total rating and how many players of that position are already on a team's roster. You may also set a cap on the highest amount you would like the auto-bid system to bid on any player. If auto-bid is turned on or off, it stays on or off until changed by the owner.
  • Reserves may be set up for each round to save a certain number of roster slots or a certain amount of cash. If you want at least 5 roster slots to stay open in any given round, then you would enter 5 as your roster slot reserve. Reserves are reset between each round.
  • You may set up groups of players in each round such that if you win one player in that group you will not win any of the others in the group, regardless of whether you had high bid. If you are winning one player in a group, then the computer ignores any bid for any other player in that group. For example, if Round 1 has three 1B in the round and you only need one 1B, you can set all three players to a group and when calculating winning bids, the computer will ensure that you only win one of the three. Groups can be set on the FA Auction Rounds page for the current round.

Spring Training Rules

  • You may allocate up to 100 training points to EACH player, in 5 point increments.
  • Each category that a player trains in has a minimum. This minimum is the number of points needed to maintain that player's current rating in that category. Allocating less points means that rating will drop, most of the time severely. Allocating more points than the minimum means that player will improve in that category if they have not already reached their potential for that category.
  • The categories you may train in are (with minimums in parenthesis):

    PITCHERS:
    FA (10)
    AS (10)
    HdRn (10)
    CO (15)
    EN (10)
    Each pitch (10)

    BATTERS:
    FA (5 to maintain, 20 are needed to improve)
    CH (20)
    PH (20)
    SP (20)
    AS (10)

    Therefore, a pitcher with 4 pitches has 95 points used up to maintain their current ratings and 5 points to improve elsewhere, but a pitcher with only 2 pitches has 75 points needed to maintain their current ratings and 25 points to improve elsewhere. And your standard batter with only 1 position to train on FA has 75 points used up to maintain their current ratings and 25 points to improve elsewhere.