League Rules

MLB Career Stats
(Commissioner: CokeMachine)


1. League Concept and Structure

Don't you get a little tired of progressions and astronomical real and/or compiled stats, and having to try to predict how much a player will improve or decline with age. This league is for the baseball fan who wants less statistical variance - who wants to be able to draft Pete Rose, Willie Mays, Cy Young or other greats who don't typically do much in other leagues. It is for the fan who doesn't want to see that no-name guy in the league who hit .385 one year in 200 AB, but otherwise we wouldn't have heard of. This league differs from all others on this website in that the player statistics are customized to reflect their real MLB CAREER statistics. It includes the greatest players in MLB history (based on career accomplishments and/or rankings in significant statistical categories - see section #13 below for more details). The player's statistics are based on a player's AVERAGE SEASON (factoring in any season in which they appeared in at least 1 game). All stats are based on their average quantity per season, and then fudged up or down by 1 or 2 depending on the stat, to make the AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, and/or WHIP equal the player's career numbers as closely as possible. League structure (leagues/divisions/teams) is the same as current MLB structure except for team names being the current mascots (or closest thing to it for teams without mascots). The DH rule is in effect for all teams and all games.

2. Key League Settings

ENDURANCE:
Use player fatigue = YES. Thus, the Endurance rating for each player will be a factor. The Endurance rating shows how many consecutive days a player can play before becoming fatigued and needing a day off. Your rosters will need to account for a lot of backup players if you have low-endurance ratings. You can either proactively move players in and out of your lineups (will be user-simmed, so there will be time between games), or you can let the computer make those adjustments. It will be a good idea to have each position covered with at least 2 players who can play a particular position with either their primary or secondary position, to account for player fatigue and/or injuries.
INJURIES:
Injuries to both position players (batters) and pitchers is capped at 21 games at a time. I'm seeking realism on the injury front. This setting in combination with the player fatigue usage should force a lot of playing time amongst one's roster (as in real life) and a need for a complete roster, not just 6-7 superstars.
PROGRESSION AND PLAYER AGE:
Even though most players will show an age (by the time preparations are complete for Season 9), this is what the player's real age would be and has no bearing on their year to year performance. There is no progression, so relax and enjoy their true career averages. One exception to this is for players who are still ACTIVE in the majors. Their age is left as 0, so it is easier for the commish to remember who the active players are, and thus speed up the process at the end of each MLB season, and during the next available off-season of this league, where those player's stats will be "corrected" to factor in their most recent season.
ON FIRE:
There is no On Fire. They have had their careers and I'm seeking to be true to those career numbers and let them speak for themselves. No mysterious On Fire factors to worry about.
SLUMP BUSTER:
Well pros do have the ability to get extra work in if they are slumping, so we'll stick with the slump buster feature. As of Season 10, it will be limited to 10 calendar days per slump-bustered player (previously it had been available for the whole season (regular and postseason)).

3. League Code of Conduct

Vulgarity as interpreted solely by the commissioner is cause for immediate removal from the league. The Message Center and/or Draft Room chat boxes are no place for taking out grudges or bashing fellow owners who you feel aren't making good draft choices, who aren't good trading partners, etc. Leave the nasty trash talk out of this league and leave it to good-natured jabs at most. Also don't use the message center or chat box to advertise or seek owners for a different league (use the Public Board for that). If you've been asked to refrain from a particular line or style of conversation, and don't, you'll be removed.

Inactive owners will also be dropped from the league if corrective action isn't taken after receiving notice from the commissioner. Owners will be deemed inactive if they haven't signed onto the website within 14 days and their team is performing poorly due to inadequate lineup setting (players out of position, certain positions not filled, etc.). If an owner is dropped, the commissioner will set that team's default lineup until such time that a new owner joins.

4. Roster Size

Each team can have a maximum of 35 players on it (28 in majors and 7 in minors). Maximum number of position players on the active roster is 18, minimum is 14. Maximum number of pitchers on the active roster is 14, minimum is 10. If a team hasn't met the minimum for some reason after the draft/free agency signing periods, the commissioner will select players to get to the minimum.

5. Free Agents and Trades

There will be no limits on the number of times you can drop and add players from your roster. As I've invested enough time just getting the player database created, and don't want to spend a lot of time with trade analysis and tracking, trades will be limited to 20 per season (with the equality of players in this league, I would not anticipate much need to trade). Since multiple team ownership is allowed (one team in each league), 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 2 weeks (real time) pick up that player for your other team (after 2 weeks have elapsed (15th day and beyond), it is ok). If this is noticed as having happened within the 2 week timespan, the commissioner will remove that player from your 2nd team and notify you of why.

After the first 25 players are obtained via the Draft process (see #9 below), 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 #4 above).

The deadline for aquiring players via Trading or Free Agency will occur at the 140 game mark (when all teams have played 140 games).

6. Park Effects and Team Details

You will have the 1st 9 games of the season to determine what park effects may be most effective for your team, if any. Let the commissioner know of desired changes. No changes allowed to team name or stadium.

7. Year-to-Year Roster Turnover and the Retained for Next Year tag

We all have our favorite all-time players, and if you don't happen to get that guy in the first draft, don't fret. This league is intended to create an extremely high level of player turnover from season to season, so you'll get your shot at some of your favorite guys in upcoming seasons, because....

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 the 2 players signed to a one year contract. Each team will be able to sign 2 players they wish to retain for the upcoming season. Once this designation is made, these 2 players will become free agents at the end of that upcoming season.

8. Postseason

For each league, 3 division winners and 2 wildcard teams will make the postseason.

Tie-breaker scenarios will be followed as outlined at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_tie-breaking_procedures.

World Series home field advantage will be determined by the league with the advantage in the interleague play games, based first on winning percentage, and if equal, then on run differential, and if still equal, then on final regular season power rankings (league with the best avg power ranking per team is home team).

Introduced in Season 2, two wildcard teams (in each league) will play each other in a single game showdown. This will occur one day after the last regular-season game (including any one-game tie-breaking playoff games). The winner of this game advances to the next round. The home team for this single-game playoff is the wild card team with the best regular season record. If both teams have the same number of wins and losses, tie-breaking procedures are used (no additional games are played).

The division winners receive a bye as they await the result of the Wild Card Showdown. The winner of the Wild Card Showdown game will always face the division winner with the best record, regardless of division

After the conclusion of Wild Card Showdown there will be another off-day before the remainder of the playoffs begin. Thus the playoffs will follow the format of MLB as noted below:

Last Regular Season Game
OFF-DAY
Wild Card Showdown
OFF-DAY
LDS: Game1, Game2, OFFDAY, Game3, Game4, OFFDAY, Game5, OFFDAY
LCS: Game1, Game2, OFFDAY, Game3, Game4, Game5, OFFDAY, Game6, Game7, OFFDAY
WS: Game1, Game2, OFFDAY, Game3, Game4, Game5, OFFDAY, Game6, Game7

9. Draft

Planning note: It is always a good idea to have a fair (if not exhaustive) level of player rankings in the supplemental draft feature. Click on a free agent and then the "Add Player to Draft List" option. From there, you can arrange your picks in desired drafting order. That way, if you wind up not being able to make a draft pick, have connection issues, or otherwise miss your draft pick in a round, the auto-pick feature of the draft room will utilize the top available player from your rankings.

a) Draft Order is based on order of finish of the previous season, but with some randomness added into the mix to avoid teams tanking in one season thinking that will guarantee them a top pick the following year. The first 10 picks in the draft will be given to the worst 10 teams (per record and then per power rankings) from the previous season. A random drawing will determine the 1st round draft order amongst those 10 teams. The next 10 picks will be given to the other 10 teams who did not make the playoffs. Again, a random drawing will determine the 1st round draft order amongst those 10 teams. The last 10 picks of the 1st round will be determined by a random drawing from amongst the teams who made the playoffs in the previous season. The Draft will be conducted in snake order, so the last team to pick in round 1, will be the first team to pick in round 2, etc.

b) First we'll open the Draft Room and have a 3 round slow draft where everyone has 8 hrs to make a selection from the time you receive a message from the commissioner. You'll get an automatic message when it is your turn to draft. When the commish logs in and notices a new owner on the clock, he'll update the message box in the draft room with the deadline for that pick (not counting Midnight to 6AM Central).

c) Next we'll transition to a Daily Draft until each team reaches a roster size of 28 players. The Daily Draft allows you to rank players, and a round is run every 12 hours, giving you more control over the team you end up with. The daily draft only takes about 12 days to finish since it drafts two rounds per day. No one will be skipped in this league's draft. If you haven't pre-ranked players via the Supplemental Draft mechanism, you'll still get a player auto-picked for you.

d) With 28 of 35 roster spots completed, Free Agency will be opened up at a set date/time, allowing owners to select remaining Free Agents (on a first-come first-served basis) to round out your team.

10. Regular Season Simulator/Schedule

Each team will play a 162 game schedule, based on the actual 2018 MLB schedule. This will be done at a user-simmed pace. Since the real MLB schedule is utilized, built-in off-days are worked into the schedule, so your 4th and 5th starters will not get as much work as 1 thru 3, etc. But it is probably advisable to have a 5 man starting rotation for those times when your team is playing more than 5 consecutive days. Also the All-Star break will be factored into the schedule at the appropriate time.

11. SP to RP conversion

Beginning in Season 12, a Starting Pitcher can be converted into a Relief Pitcher, if requested before the 9th game of the season. The player's stamina will be trimmed to 40. This will be a one-time switch during the season, where the player will be given a "Switched to RP" player tag (so the commish can can remember to put that player back to an SP after the season concludes). The commish will not entertain switches of RP's to SP's, nor will he entertain normalizing a pitcher during the same season (i.e.-no flip-flopping during the season). A team can only convert one pitcher per season.

12. Awards

After the season is completed, MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and other awards will be dispensed.

13. League History

An ongoing list of great accomplishments will be retained as the season(s) goes along (no-hitters, hitting for the cycle, 4 homer games, etc.). If as you look through your box scores you notice an outstanding achievement, please let the commish know.

14. Player Database

All player data was derived from www.baseball-reference.com.

Prior to each season and before the draft, I will allow each manager to request one additional player for inclusion in the database. New players added will be announced on the front page. Once a draft starts, new player creation must wait until the next off-season. The player must meet the specifications listed below.

To qualify for this league, a player must have met the following criteria:
a) Batter had at least 3000 career At-Bats.
b. Starting Pitcher pitched at least 7 seasons with at least 1000 Career Innings Pitched.
c) Relief Pitcher pitched at least 5 seasons with at least 325 Career Innings Pitched.

Player ratings/positions:
a) No DH's in this league. Players who were primarily DH's in their careers will be listed at the position on the field they played most.
b) All Outfielders are listed as OF so there is no need to be concerned with specific OF positioning.
c) All player defensive fielding averages are based on their career marks at their primary position.
d) To qualify for a secondary position, the player had to have played at least 10% of their total career games at a position other than their primary position. In some cases, the IF or UT designation was granted if the total number of games outside the player's primary position was varied enough amongst several positions to warrant such a designation.
e) Pitcher stamina was calculated in the following way: SP's - (Actual career IP divided by Actual Games Pitched in) multiplied by 18; RP's - (Actual career IP divided by Actual Games Pitched in) multiplied by 20
f) Pitcher SP vs. RP determination - if 50% or more of their career appearances were starts, they were made a SP.

The following career leader lists were utilized to generate 98+% of the player database:
a) Top 100 Batting Averages, OnBase Percentages, Slugging Percentages, and OPS
b) Top 100 Games Played, At Bats, and Runs Scored
c) Top 100 Hits, Doubles, Triples, Homers, and Runs Batted In
d) Top 100 Walks and Stolen Bases
e) Top 86 Catchers Games Played
f) Top 54 First Basemen Games Played
g) Top 81 Second Basemen Games Played
h) Top 79 Third Basemen Games Played
i) Top 83 Shortstops Games Played
j) Top 186 Outfielders Games Played
k) Top 125 ERA and Games Pitched
l) Top 101 Wins and SO/9
m) Top 100 WHIP and H/9
n) Top 201 Saves and Games Finished

Original Player Counts (1228 player count):
90 - C (3.00 per team)
92 - 1B (3.07 per team)
91 - 2B (3.03 per team)
91 - 3B (3.03 per team)
92 - SS (3.07 per team)
271 - OF (9.03 per team - 3.01 per position per team)
256 - SP (8.53 per team)
245 - RP (8.17 per team)

League Settings