League Rules

Independent League Rules

Overview
• The Independent League is filled with okay baseball players, sometimes on their way up and sometimes on their way out. To run a successful franchise, you’ll need to figure out which players are good enough to help your team but not so good that they’ll move on to bigger and better pastures.

Player Pool
• Players are added using the Import Random Players function. Players can only join the league if they meet the following thresholds.

Hitters
• OPS: .875 or lower
• DWar: 1.5 or lower

Starting Pitchers
• WHIP: 1.20 or higher
• H/9: 7.0 or higher
• K/9: 9.0 or lower

Relief Pitchers
• WHIP: 1.10 or higher
• H/9: 6.0 or higher
• K/9: 11.0 or lower

• If a player in the league progresses past any of these limits, they will move out of the Independent League (retire).

Drafts
• All drafts run using the supplemental draft feature. Drafts will run one round at a time and happen once every 6-8 hours. So each team will be expected to rank at least the number of players that their pick is. If a team has the 5th pick in the round, then they’ll need to rank 5 players.
• All drafts will be snake drafts. That means it reverses order each round. The first pick of the 1st round (1) has the last pick of the 2nd round (40), while the last pick of the 1st round (20) has the first pick of the 2nd round (21), etc.
• All draft orders are determined in advance. Each year, all teams will pick 9 spots different than the previous year. So if a team picks 1st in year 1, they’ll pick 10th in year 2, 19th in year 3, 8th in year 4 and so on. That means no advantage to losing and no disadvantage in winning.
• The initial draft order will be picked randomly once the league is full.
• Initial draft will be 25 rounds.
• Future drafts will be 4 rounds.

Teams / Divisions
• There are 2 divisions of 10 teams (20 total).
• All team names, logos and fields are set.
• Owners can edit the park dimensions each year through Spring Training.

Rosters
• Maximum of 25 players on active roster
• Minimum of 9 pitchers on active roster
• Maximum of 5 players on minor league roster
• 5 man pitching rotation

Add/Drops/Trades
• Adds will be through waivers. The waiver order will be reverse of the draft order. One pickup per game. Unlimited trades. Commissioner can veto trades (I’ve never had to do this). Adds, drops, and trades will be turned off for playoffs.

Progression
• Players will progress until age 29, stay flat until 31, and regress at 32.
• There is no limit to the number of players that can be kept or the number of years a player can be kept.

Season
• Spring Training will consist of 12 games. We will use this to make waiver claims, clean up rosters, and test sims.
• Regular season will be 112 games (72 in division, 40 out of division).

Playoffs
• Division winners (2) and 2 Wildcard teams from each division (4) make the playoffs.
• If there is a tie for division winners, first tie-break is run differential, second is head-to-head record, third is division record, and fourth is runs scored (the highest wins).
• Wildcard seeding (2nd and 3rd) ties will be treated the same as division ties.
• Wildcard ties for the third spot will have a 1 game playoff that counts as a regular season game.
• Wildcard round will match the #2 and #3 teams from each division against each other in best of 5 series (2, 2, 1 format).
• Division Championship will match Wildcard winners vs Division winners in best of 7 series (2, 3, 2 format).
• League Championship is best of 7 series (2, 3, 2 format).
• Days off will be granted at the end of the season and at each switch in venue.

League Settings

Year Range of Stats	1871 - 2022
Roster Size (Majors)	25
Roster Size (Minors)	5
Keepers
Change Stats Allowed
Free Agency
Drops
No-Drop List
Player Fatigue
Batter Injuries
Pitcher Injuries
Use Pitcher's HR Allowed Stats
Allows Max Surprise Bunts
Min Batters Pitcher Must Face	3
Slump Buster
On Fire	Classic
User Sims