League Rules

1. LEAGUE STRUCTURE - Two divisions of 4 teams each. Each Owner will have one team in each division. The DH rule is in effect for all teams and all games.

2. ROSTER SIZE - Each team can have a maximum of 30 players on it. Maximum number of position players on a team is 18. Maximum number of pitchers on a team is 14. We will not utilize the minor league farm system option, so anyone not on the 8 teams will be available for free agency pickup.

3. FREE AGENTS/TRADES - There will be no limits on the number of times you can drop and add players from your roster, nor how many times you can trade between your team and other owner's teams. You will not be allowed to trade players between your two teams. You will not be allowed to drop a player from one team into Free Agency, and within 3 weeks pick up that player for your other team (after 3 weeks have elapsed, it is ok). If this is noticed as having happened within the 3 week timespan, the commissioner (Ross) will remove that player from your 2nd team and notify you of why. At the end of each season (after the World Series), all players on each roster will be returned to the free agent pool. The only exceptions will be players tagged with the Franchise Player or Retained for Next Yr labels (See rules #6 and #7 below).

After the initial Draft (see rule #9 below), no free agent moves will be allowed until after the 1st game of the season has been played). Once the first game of the season has been played, all teams are free to alter their teams via free agency as much as desired (as long as the roster size makeup adheres to rule #2 above).

Free Agency will be turned off after the last game of the regular season. No trades or free agent pickups allowed during the playoffs or offseason.

4. EDITING PARK EFFECTS AND TEAM DETAILS - You will have the 1st 6 games of the season to detemine what park effects may be most effective for your team, if any. After the 6th game, your ability to update the Park Effect will be turned off. This will also be your deadline for determining your team logo, your team name, and your team stadium name.

5. SLUMP BUSTER - The Slump Buster feature will be available for the whole season (regular and postseason).

6. FRANCHISE PLAYER - Each team, at the end of the regular season, will be able to designate one player with the Franchise Player designation (if they have no such player already designated as such), meaning he will stay with that team for as long as the team owner wants him. This player will not be placed back into the free agent pool ever, unless the owner changes his mind and trades the player. A trade of a Franchise Player is the only way to dispose of him, you will not be allowed to drop a Franchise player.

7. RETAINED FOR NEXT YEAR - Each team, at the end of the regular season, will be able to designate 3 additional players they wish to retain for the following season. Once this designation is made, the player will become a free agent at the end of the following season. This tag only allows the player to stay with the team one more year at max.

8. POSTSEASON - 2 division winners and 4 wildcard teams will make the postseason (i.e the two worst teams will not make the postseason).
8a. The division winners will get a 1st round bye in the playoffs and will be considered the #1 and #2 seeds in the playoffs. If both division winners have the same winning percentage, the team with the higher power ranking will be considered the #1 seed, otherwise it will be based upon winning percentage.
8b. If there is a tie for the division lead there will be a one-game playoff to determine the division winner. Advantage in the head-to-head matchup will be the first tie-breaker to determine home field advantage for that one-game playoff. Power ranking will be the second tie-breaker to determine home field for that one-game playoff.
8c. Differing from the regular season which requires a starting pitcher to have 4 days of rest between starts, in the postseason this will be changed to 3 days of rest needed, allowing for a #1 start to potentially pitch games 1, 4 and 7 of a series.
8d. Each team will get 4 days of rest after day 162 before the start of the playoffs. Exception would be for teams participating in a one-game playoff on day 163 - they would get 3 days rest after day 163 before the start of the playoffs.
8e. Home/away and rest day structure for each playoff series: 2 home, 1 rest day, 2 away, 1 home, 1 rest day, 1 away, 1 home, 1 rest day.
8f. Injuries will still be applicable for the playoffs.
8g. First Round:
--The first round will start on day 167 essentially.
--The highest power ranked wildcard team will host the lowest power ranked wildcard team, with the highest ranking wildcard team having home field advantage in the 7 game series. The second highest ranked wildcard team will host the second lowest power ranked wildcard team. If that system would create a same-owner matchup, the matchups would be changed to assure that wasn't the case.
8h. Second Round:
--The beginning of the 2nd round will assume time is allocated for 7-game series' in the first round and 1 day of rest after the first round, so the 2nd round will start on day 177 essentially. Each division winner will thus get 14 days off (or 13 if they are in a one-game playoff) before they start play in the 2nd round. Each wildcard team winning the second round will get 1 day off as a minimum (if they went 7 games). For each day earlier they clinch the 1st round, they will earn the applicable number of days of rest prior to the 2nd round.
--The #1 seed will host the lowest ranked wildcard team remaining. The #2 seed will host the highest ranked wildcard team remaining. If that would create a same-owner matchup, the matchups would be changed to assure that wasn't the case.
8i. World Series:
--The beginning of the World Series will assume time is allocated for 7-game series' in the 2nd round and 1 day of rest after the 2nd round, so the World Series will start on day 187 essentially. Each team winning in the 2nd round will get 1 day off as a minimum (if they went 7 games). For each day earlier they clinch the 2nd round, they will earn the applicable number of days of rest prior to the World Series.
--If the #1 seed going into the playoffs is still "alive", they earn home field advantage. If the #1 seed has been eliminated, but the #2 seed going into the playoffs is still "alive", they will earn home field advantage. If both top seeds were eliminated in the 2nd round, the home field advantage will be determined by power ranking at the time the World Series begins.

9. DRAFT
The Draft Room will be utilized in the off-season to re-populate the team's rosters. The World Series winner will get the last pick of the 1st round (#8 overall), but the 1st pick of the 2nd round (#9 overall). The World Series runner-up will get the second to last pick of the 1st round (#7 overall), and pick second in the 2nd round (#10 overall). The first 6 picks in round 1 will be determined by winning percentage (prior to the playoffs), with the worst team picking first in round 1, but last in round #2. The draft will snake in this manner until all rosters are completely filled again.

10. REGULAR SEASON SIMULATOR SCHEDULE
10a. Each team will play a 162 game schedule, rotating play amongst the other teams in a 3-game series fashion. However, an individual owner's East team will never play their West team, unless in the World Series.

10b. Assuming availability, I will run the site's simulator sometime prior to 9:30PM every night. I will simulate one game per team, meaning the regular season will at best complete in 162 days (23+ weeks). It is hoped this schedule will allow each owner the best possible ability to manage strategies and make adjustments from game to game as necessary, with time to review the results of each game and make modifications to their rosters, lineups and/or strategies in time for the next game.

10c. An exception to rule #10b: If after a particular night, a signficant player is injured, and that player isn't replaced in the lineup, I may refrain from a night's simulations in order to allow one extra night to make an adjustment.

10d. Another exception to rule #10b: If a known issue arises in either household (or with a particular owner) represented in this league (illness, travel, etc), causing that owner to be unable to participate as he/she desires for a short-term period, simulations will be halted until such time that the owner decides to let the simulator handle their moves and/or the owner is able to resume the desired participation level.

10e. Postseason simulations will be handled one game at a time and at a pace agreed upon by the involved owners. Some games may be simulated in the company of all present (particularly the World Series).

11. LEAGUE HISTORY
a) Each player can be clicked on to see a summary of their performance within the year and/or for their career (similar to baseball card statistics).

b) With the League History button, you can see who the single season record holders and/or career record holders are for virtually all categories of statistics, as well as seeing what your team staistics were each season.

12. PLAYER DATABASE
We have been provided with the All-Time Greats database by the site administrator. The default database represents great single seasons by various players in the history of baseball, but did not include many players of the deadball era and earlier.

Any player represented who played after 1900 will not be further modified or have a --2nd season version-- created. For example, Barry Bonds is listed as having his 45 homer/230+ walk season represented. I will not create a 2nd version of Barry to represent his 73 homer season. I will also not create a 2nd version of Babe Ruth to represent his best pitching season, and John Ward will only have a pitching season represented.

I will create more players to add to the database (representing their best single season performance) and am open to suggestions of what/who to add, based on the criteria noted below:

a) Batter played in at least 75 games as a batter during the selected season.
b) Starting Pitcher pitched in at least 80 innings in the selected season.
c) Relief Pitcher pitched in at least 45 innings in the selected season.
d) The season was from 1879 or later.
e) No batting averages over .457 (sorry, just can't accept Tip O'Neill's season of hitting .485).

Once a season starts, any new players requested to be created, will need to wait for the offseason.

The website's commissioner tools has an import utility which makes it easy to find and bring in a single season for any player in history. I have proactively brought in hundreds of new batters already (as of 01/23/2010). To do so, I looked through the top-100 lists of all-time single season records (for virtually all important statistical categories) and brought in great seasons from all players represented in each category's top-100. However, for some of the players from pre-1900 who have very high batting averages, the data imported into our league seems to have lowered the batting average and turned that high batting average into their on-base percentage instead.

I have left that incorrect data as is (maybe there's evidence that the stats were wrong?), so review any player you wish and if you find a player you want corrected prior to the draft, let me know. I will only correct the numbers for player seasons between 1879-1900. If no requests for corrections are made prior to the draft, the numbers will not be changed for that player.

Again, I will add more player seasons on request, prior to the draft, if there are other players desired.

13. MIDSEASON ALL-STAR BREAK REST PERIOD
After 81 games have been played, a 3-day rest period will be simulated into the season, to allow pitchers and injured players additional time to heal and be ready to go for the 2nd half of the season.

I will also announce who I have picked for the All-Star team (40 players selected). No game will be played, but 40 players will be singled out for their performance thus far in the season.

14. POSTSEASON AWARDS
After the season is completed, MVP and Cy Young awards will be awarded. Most likely we will let the site determine who the winners are via the MVP/Cy Race button (which can be viewed all during the season to see who's leading the races for these awards). The winners of the award will have a note designating their accomplishment within their player card (the player card is what you see after clicking on their name).

15. FUN STUFF
Time permitting, I will write up stories of each game/series when the simulations are done each night. If there was nothing extraordinary about a particular game, the story may be quite brief. If there was great drama, extraordinary accomplishments, injuries, etc., the stories will be longer. These stories will be featured at the top of the league's home page. An ongoing list of great accomplishments will be retained as the season goes along (no-hitters, hitting for the cycle, 3 homer games, etc.).

League Settings

Year Range of Stats	1870 - 2010
Roster Size (Majors)	30
Roster Size (Minors)	0
Keepers
Change Stats Allowed
Free Agency
Drops
No-Drop List
Player Fatigue
Batter Injuries	(10 games max)
Pitcher Injuries	(10 games max)
Use Pitcher's HR Allowed Stats
Allows Max Surprise Bunts
Min Batters Pitcher Must Face	0
Slump Buster	(unlimited days)
On Fire	Classic
User Sims