League Rules
1968 Baseball Card League1. Basic Pitch: This league begins in 1968, and uses real stats. Non contract.
You get all the players on your 1968 roster with 55 AB and 21 IP. A player is yours until you cut him or trade him, or he retires. If a player on your team has a “gap” year (a missing year due to injury, military service, too few AB or IP, etc), be sure he gets AB or IP for your team, so that he will be returned to you after the gap year.
We will each have a team in the NL and in the AL. The order of selection for team #2 will be the inverse order of your first team’s wins in 1998. You may not trade players between your teams. This is a boot-able offense.
When you join, put the letter of your desired draft slot in the chatbox: first come, first served.
When we reach the point where we pick teams, you will be notified by personal or league-wide message. You will have up to 24 hours to make a pick, from the time of the announcement, if you have first pick, or from the time the person before you picks. We hope you will pick a lot sooner, but know that after 24 hours, I will allow the next person on the list to make their selection: you can still select from the available teams after that.
2. How are players acquired?
First season USED? 1968
Minimum AB/IP? 55/21
Are duplicate players allowed? If not, how are duplicates resolved? You get everybody on your 1968 roster, even if one of those players is also on another roster. However, in subsequent seasons, imported players only go to the team where they had the most AB or IP in the import season.
ANY ISSUE ABOUT WHICH TEAM A PLAYER BELONGS ON MUST BE RAISED PRIOR TO THE FIRST GAME, OR THE RIGHT TO APPEAL IS WAIVED. Once a player “suits up” for a game, he belongs to that team.
3. Updating personnel:
Progressions: type: Real. If a player has a gap year, make sure you get him some at-bats or IP, so that when he “unretires”, the computer knows to return him to your team.
Imports and Minimums? 21 IP, 55 AB
Stat changing? Unnecessary.
Trades? Yes; as many as you want. But, no trades, or waivers, after game 140 and before the end of the World Series.
Anyone can question the fairness of a trade, and forward a review request to the trade review committee. I will appoint the members of this committee, and majority rules. If for some reason there is a tie (as with an abstention), the Commissioner will break the tie. The Commissioner will oversee the performance of this committee. Requests to have trades reviewed must be made within 1 week or 20 games from the trade, whichever comes first.
DRAFT: Yes. Every offseason you can protect up to 22 players by signing them to a 1-year contract. Every unprotected player goes into the free agent pool, and teams will draft them.
The order will be the reverse of last season’s regular season record, with 2 exceptions:
The World Series winner always picks last.
The worst 25% (approximately) of the league will be entered into a weighted draft (to discourage tanking). I use a random generator to set the order. I welcome any league member who wants to witness the lottery process to attend via Google Meet; however, you must message me with this request, and your email address, before the end of the World Series. Once I do the lottery, I will not re-do because you did not message me in time, and you missed the lottery as a result.
The draft window will be 30 minutes. You are invited, and encouraged, to pre-rank. I check to see who has pre-ranked at the beginning of each round. If you have pre-ranked, I will select for you at the beginning of your turn. If you tell me that you will be there to pick in person, I will wait 10 minutes for you to make your presence known (not to pick – to let me know that you are there, and are deliberating.) After 10 minutes, if you are not there, I will pick for you. If you did not pre-rank, and you are not present, after 30 minutes the computer will pick for you. It is not always what seems like a rational choice.
I do this because it has been my experience that when I am present, the draft runs smoothly, and every time I am not, all shenanigans break loose. I am fine with being present for the whole draft, but I don’t want to spend my whole life doing that. Please be present or pre-rank.
THERE ARE no substitutions with the draft. I go back and forth on this: helping one owner in the moment often hurts another owner later in the draft. Be careful with pre-ranking: make sure you see the right team’s name: if you have the Giants and the Cardinals, you could be ranking the Giants picks for the Cardinals instead.
Free agents/waivers? Yes; after the draft, and once games start.
This draft serves 2 purposes: 1) it fills the holes that can be created by using real stats. 2) it allows teams that are “have nots” to get better at the expense of teams that are “haves”. Just because you have a bad team in 1998, it doesn’t mean that you still have to be bad in 2008. Since every franchise has up-and-down periods, this allows for quicker recovery.
4. League set up, number of games, rotation size, injury length, and roster size:
162 games, 5 man rotations. 26/9 rosters. Injuries: 8 for hitters, 11 for pitchers.
5. Playoffs: To be determined when I know how many owners and teams there are.
Rough idea: There are 10 teams in each league. The top 5 teams in each league make the playoffs; the regular season champions get “byes” until the League Championship Series.
Round 1: Best-of-3: 5 @ 2, 4 @ 3. All games in host city. Reseed
Round 2: best of 5: 3 @ 2. 2/2/1
Round 3: LCS: Wild card Champion @ Regular Season Champion. Best of 7
World Series: best-of-7.
Rules about ties for a playoff spot:
A wild card team never hosts a series against a non-wild card team.
If teams tie for a playoff spot:
⇒ If both teams would be “in”, use head to head record as a tiebreaker. Run differential is the 2nd tie-breaker.
⇒ If one is in, the other is out, 1 game playoff (@ head 2 head winner)
In addition to a Cy Young and a MVP Award, there will also be a Manager of the Year Award given to the owner with the best combined record. In the event that some owners own more teams than some other owners, it will be the best combined winning percentage.
MY BASIC EXPECTATIONS OF EACH OWNER:
⇒ Your commitment is season to season. When you join, you will be expected to actively run your team until the end of the season, which is when the regular season ends for non-playoff teams, or when your playoff team is eliminated. If you quit mid-season without my blessing, I will share this information with other commissioners.
⇒ Actively running your team means that you read messages once per day, meet all deadlines, and communicate any difficulties to the commissioner.
⇒ I will provide a minimum of 48 hours between a posting of a deadline, and the deadline. Ignorance of the deadline will not be an excuse for failing to meet the deadline.
⇒ If you will be away, and unable to get your messages, give the commissioner advance notice. Inactivity for ten (10) days, or repeated failure to meet deadlines, may result in your being booted from the league.
⇒ Every owner is expected to field a team (9 pitchers and 11 fielders) every game. Failure to do so, making the sims not run, results in a forfeit.
⇒ Read and be familiar with the rules immediately upon joining: it may affect your desire to be in the league, or your desire to pick a certain team.
Please keep all conversations clean
Please don't be rude to fellow owners
Please be active, if not active for 14 days you may be removed from the league
We all love baseball and that's why we're here. So Just have fun and enjoy!
General rules:
Each offseason, you can switch a SP to RP, or a RP to a SP, but stamina will remain “as is.”. You can change it back the next offseason if you like, but no changes between first pitch and the last out of the World Series.
You can switch a player’s primary and secondary positions if they played 50% or more games THAT season at their secondary position, or at least 25% of their games for their career at their secondary position.
During an offseason, a player can be switched to the position they played most in their career, regardless of the requirements of General Rule #2.
You can switch a DH to his secondary position, as long as he has a fielding percentage.
Off season duties:
Real progression after world series.
Imports: You get all the imports from the next season that are not already in the league (21 IP/55 AB minimum)
Stat changes: Unnecessary
Sign 22 players to a 1-year contract to protect them from the Draft.
Clear unsigned players from the rosters
Draft. Lottery used. My target is 4 rounds, but I will base it on how big the free agent pool is.
Turn drops and trades on
Opening Day
Elastic Clause: I reserve the right to create new rules as necessary to deal with problems as they arise.
Some leagues use fictional player progression. To learn more about how players progress, check the Player Potential page.
League Settings
| Year Range of Stats | 1871 - 2025 |
| Roster Size (Majors) | 26 |
| Roster Size (Minors) | 7 |
| Keepers | |
| Change Stats Allowed | |
| Free Agency | (waivers) |
| Drops | |
| No-Drop List | |
| Player Fatigue | |
| Batter Injuries | (5 games max) |
| Pitcher Injuries | (8 games max) |
| Use Pitcher's HR Allowed Stats | |
| Allows Max Surprise Bunts | |
| Min Batters Pitcher Must Face | 1 |
| Slump Buster | (15 days) |
| On Fire | Uses WAR |
| User Sims | (every 3 hours) |
