League Rules

WELCOME TO MLB "Real Deal"! (Commish: yankeebb)(Vice: paul21)
Real Deal Rule Book: Everything you need to know about this league:

NOTE: for 2053 season I will be raising majors to 26 and lowering surprise bunt to normal or whatever the step down from often is.


Simple rules that cannot be broken

If you are to miss an extended period of time you must message the commish before you leave and try to at least estimate how long you will be gone. We dont boot people for being away from PC, but if we dont hear from you we have no idea if you're coming back, or when, and at some point we have to get a new owner.

Be respectful, in chat and even in private messages. Immature owners will eventually have to be let go.

Always try to improve your team. Rebuilding is a form of improving. I dont expect this to be a problem but if in the commish eyes you are doing something negative with your team for no valid reason, you will be questioned at the very least. All owners should watch that closely and report any possible issues to the commish. Trying out different players is not tanking. Benching a clear star for a dud is.

Any decision made by the commish is final. This is not a dictatorship, but the commish will make final decisions with honesty and integrity. Anything that needs to be put up for a vote will be.

Your starting lineup must consist of 5 SPs in the SP slots. You cannot run a team with less than that. Having less than 5 SPs on your major league roster will bring a warning. If you traded too many away, there are surely some in free agency. If not, you will be forced to trade for one. NOTE: because of off days, especially in playoffs, you can have just 4 man rotation. Point is, dont do that when you are in need of a 5th starter during regular season.

Your starting lineup must consist of players in valid positions. Having a player in a position that is not their primary or secondary is no good. Barring a huge amount of injuries I cant think of a reason this should ever come up, no team should ever have to do this. This is especially true with catchers. Playing a non-catcher there causes a lot of problems for your team. For that reason it's very important to have a backup catcher in the majors, in case of injury, rest, or pinch runner/hitter situation.

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ROSTERS, POSITION CHANGES

Teams are allowed to have a 40 man organization the whole season. During Spring Training a 40 man Major League Roster is allowed. However once the Regular Season starts it will be 26 majors, 14 minors (not counting draft picks). Not having a 25 man major league roster by opening day will result in the commish doing it for you, not necessarily the way you want it. This is how much having correct team rosters matters. Having extra players when other teams can't makes the realism and fun of this league drop, and is a form of cheating.

Your 40 man total roster can go over 40 if the cause is draft picks. For that reason the roster size is set higher than 40. There must only be 40 actual players on your roster, the extra room is for draft picks only.

Players in this league started with their 2012 stats. Players will not be asking for raises in the league. When their contract expires they will become free agents to be bid on by all GMs, there are no extensions, no tenders, no franchise players.

Players can change positions every off-season. . Players can change position at any age. Errors may be added to a player who changes position to account for the change of scenery. Dwar may be changed also to fit the parameters of the new position. This especially applies to moves to SS and OF. Real life MLB players can be changed to a position they have played before or play now. Created players can only be changed to their secondary position. If their secondary position is IF you can pick one IF position to make primary, and their secondary will remain IF. No player will be changed to UT or IF as primary, even if their MLB counterpart played every position. If that happens I'll likely be ok with making it their secondary.

NOTE: Drafted rookies cannot have their positions changed until their rookie contract runs out after two seasons.

Only 1 position change allowed per off-season (pitchers are separate).
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BUDGETS/CONTRACTS

AS OF 2036 SEASON all budgets set to $250 and will stay that way, no trading/gaining/losing of budget.

Contracts in this league can be a maximum of 8 years. Once contract ends they are free agents to be bid on by all.

NEW GMs taking over a team: You are allowed to request contract length change for up to 3 players when taking over a team. In some cases more than 3 will be allowed. So if you find a contract seems too short for a young or talented guy, or too long for an old (or no good) player, let commish know. If that player had already been signed to the max year deal (whenever that was) I will not extend it.

GOING OVER THE BUDGET DURING THE OFFSEASON: During the off-season if your team goes over their budget you will NOT be punished as this is allowed, but try to keep it to a minimum. During the off-season no games are being played so being over the budget does not cause a disadvantage for other owners. However by the start of season you must be back under the budget. Spring Training start should be a warning that you are running out of time.

GOING OVER THE BUDGET DURING THE SEASON: During the Season you cannot go over budget.

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TRADING

Trading opens after contracts are advanced (progression) and closed around game 120.

Trading of Draft Picks is allowed in this league. The draft has 2 rounds and you can trade draft picks for UPCOMING DRAFT ONLY.

No trading of budget/cap space.

The commish holds the right to veto a trade, or at least discuss a re-working of it with the owners involved. This is to make sure the integrity of the league stays strong and 1 owner cannot unfairly take advantage of either a new owner or an owner who doesn't understand player value. If both owners feel the need to have a trade reversed they can reverse it by asking the commish. . If an unfair trade is made but the League Office does not have a great idea on the unfairness of it, trade may be put up for league vote whether or not to accept. Trades will not be reversed unless the trade is completely unfair. It's only happened a handful of times. For the most part, you run the team how you want.
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REGULAR SEASON, ALL STAR BREAK, TRADE DEADLINE,PLAYOFFS

The regular season will involve 162 games of baseball. A recent real MLB schedule will be used.

Prior to the season we will have Spring Training which will be 20 games (10 a day over 2 days).

Morning sims -- 3 games usually between 9 and 11a Eastern
Night sims -- 3 games usually between 4 and 6p Eastern
On weekends it may be off by a bit.

The Playoffs work like MLB playoffs, off days when city changes and before start of new series.

As of 2054 season we are following MLB new playoff rules, with 3 division winners and 3 wild card teams. Tiebreaker games will only be played if there is a tie for the last wild card spot (starting 2055 season). Otherwise, H2H is tiebreaker for all ties. Next tiebreaker is division record and then league record.

Here are MLB playoff rules:

Six teams per league qualify: Three division winners and three Wild Cards
The top two division winners in each league get a bye to the Division Series.
The third division winner and third Wild Card (seeds 3 and 6) face off in the Wild Card round (best-of-three). Higher seed hosts all three games. Winner advances to face the No. 2 seed in Division Series.
The second and third Wild Cards (seeds 4 and 5) also play in Wild Card round (best-of-three). Higher seed hosts all three games. Winner advances to face the No. 1 seed in Division Series.
Division Series is best-of-five as it has always been; League Championship and World Series remain best-of-seven, with team with better regular-season record having home-field advantage.

Season ends
1 day off
wild card round (3 games, higher seed home for all)
1 day off
Division series (5 game series with days off after games 2 and 4)
1 day off after the last series finishes
League Championship (7 game series with days off after games 2 and 5)
1 day off after the last series finishes
World Series (7 game series with days off after games 2 and 5)


The All Star Break will take place after day 120. All Stars will be chosen by Pennant Chase. 3 PC days off will be granted. We will vote to add one more to each side.

Trade deadline will be after day 138.

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OFFSEASON

After playoffs end:

1. contracts will be advanced and players progressed
2. Rookie draft will take place, 2 rounds of slow draft so there are no auto picks and owners can get who they want. Ranking helps everyone.
3. A few days after draft we will start Free Agent bidding (see details below)
4. During the first 10 spring training games, waivers will be on to add a player after each game. After that, free agency will be open so any remaining FA can be added.


PROGRESSION

Player Progression happens each off-season after the advancing of contracts/ages. This will make players turning 28 or younger improve statistically (in real stats), and players turning 32 or above decline statistically (in Real Stats). Players age 29-31 will keep the same Real Stats during that time.


ROOKIE DRAFT

Rookies will be created by the commish. If you cant make the draft, it is very important that you use the pre-rank function, or else the game auto-picks for you, going for position of need, and pretty RANDOMLY (not best avail). You can also message the commish a draft plan (take best pitcher first, best hitter second, etc) but I would very much prefer you pre-rank instead as I don't want to be picking for 5-10 owners.


ROOKIE CONTRACTS AND ROOKIE EXTENSIONS
Rookies drafted will have automatic contracs as follows:

1st rounder - 2 years @ $4 each
2nd rounder - 2 years @ $3 each

When the 2 years ends and they are on expiring contracts, the commish will erase the contract so you can decide what to do with them next (re-sign, release, use just for current season).
Rookie contracts just make sure that no rookies are instantly free agents as you forgot to sign contracts, and also do they arent able to be signed to cheaply to 9 year deals (after 2 year improvement they'll cost a bit more). Also rookie contract are not mandatory! If you simply cannot afford a rookie contract or dont want to sign a player you drafted, let the commish know and the player will be moved to free agency. You cannot sign them to PC contract before the rookie contract runs out.

Players on rookie contract can be released at any time, but the same team then cannot try to re-sign them to PC contract.
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FREE AGENT BIDDING

Each off-season after the Rookie Draft there will be Free Agent Bidding. All players whose contract runs out will go into the free agent pool. There will be 3 bidding groups. Group One will be some (not all) of the top players at each position selected by commish. Group Two will be the rest of the top players at each position. Then Group Three will be bidding on any remaining free agent.

Commish will post the top and young players at each position, and you can only bid on those the first go round. Bids will be due in approximately 48 hours, sometimes longer. There will then be an update showing the leading team and the other teams that bid in parentheses, but not the dollar amount. Only the top 3 bidders can rebid, and there will be a 48 hour period to do this. This is to prevent everyone from just bidding $1 on all players so they can stay in the running. So as an example, if 6 people bid on player X in the first 48 hours, only the 3 who bid the most can re-bid the next 48 hours. There will be no further update the rest of the time and the winners will be announced soon after the re-bid round ends. The winning bid is total contract amount ($50 for 1 year beats $5 for 6 years which beats $3 for 8 years). You can bid $0, which means you get the player with an expiring contract so he just plays this current season (if no one outbids you). NO MORE $0/expiring bids. You would have only gotten them if no one else bid, and instead, you can do this at the end of FA through waiver process. If you are the only bidder on a player, you win that player. Whatever your bid was, as only bidder for the player I will lower contract to $1/yr. No reason to have you compete with yourself. We will then do a second round of bidding with the unbid on players and with some more added in. This will work same as the first group, with top 3 getting to bid again. After that is done, we'll have one more round of FA bidding, where you can bid on any remaining player. This bidding only lasts 24 hours with no update on bidding leaders, highest initial bid wins.

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To bid, please message the commish with the subject "(team name) Bids" and have all bids in the following format.
FORMAT: Position Full Name $ amount per year X total years = Total Amount (ex: $4 x 5 = $20).

I'm not strict about format, that one is just easiest for me since that is how I post results. As long as I know the player, years, amount per year, total, it's fine.

Bids can have raises in them, but only $1 or $2 (no negative raises). I don't want someone offering a contract that costs $1 year one and $100 year 10.

Commish will send his bids to the vice before bidding starts.
I as commish also can't rebid after the update since I'll know the amounts, but I can potentially state ahead of time that I want to raise it to X dollar amount if I'm not leading.

Your total bids CAN exceed your budget, with the understanding that you might not win them all and want to cover multiple bases. But there is a limit. I wont allow you to bid an absurd amount over your budget, and you cannot bid an amount on one player that takes you over budget. So if you have $50 room left, you cant bid $60 on a single player, but you can bid $20 on three players. Most of this is a judgement call by me and you'll hear from me if I dont like something about the bid.

BID YEARS LIMIT: Max bid is 8 years. No free agent contract can extend past age 35. So a 30 year old player can only be offered a contract with max 5 years. 34 years old and higher can only be offered a 1 year deal (which is technically two since you get them expiring the next season.) If they are still good they wont retire at age 35, but you cannot sign them past.

RETIREMENT: If a player is not signed to a team when the regular season starts, they may retire earlier than age 35. No player will retire while signed to a contract.


STARTING PITCHER CONVERTED TO RELIEF PITCHER ? most importantly, know it is a permanent move.

-Past their prime pitchers are eligible every offseason until they retire to be converted from Starting pitcher to Relief pitcher. (30 OR OLDER) only 1 conversion per team per offseason. These requests must be after progressions but before regular season starts. Only players signed to a contract can be converted (to avoid picking up a free agent, requesting a conversion, then dropping them soon after and keeping others from using the player as an SP).

-Once a Starting pitcher hits 30 every offseason a GM can message the league office with the subject ?SP to RP Conversion?, & the full name of the pitcher he wants to convert.
This process is manual but a few general guidelines to have some idea of what to expect. Stamina will drop to 35, WHIP will drop 10% since BB and H will. W, L?s and IP?s will drop as needed to make sense (est. 50%) , So BB/9, H/9, and K/9 will improve about 10% and of course stats like CG will zero out.

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NEW RULES
Max contract changed from 9 to 8 (season 37)
Max contract changed from 10 to 9 (season 36)
All budgets set to 250 (as of season 24)
No more cap trading (as of season 24)
Using real MLB scheduled with off days (as of season 23)

SP stamina to be capped at 125 (as of season 12)
stopped capping at some point
SP stamina to be capped at 130 (as of season 48)

RP stamina to be capped at 40 (as of season 12)
stopped capping at some point, for now will leave as is

slump buster lowered from 10 games to 5 games (as of season 12)
slump buster turned off for playoffs and tiebreaker games (as of season 10)

RETIRING PLAYERS

Players will probably retire when they are 35 or over and remain unsigned after FA bidding period. Unsigned players may also retire earlier if their stats are so bad they serve no purpose to a team (bad hitting, bad defense, low speed, etc)

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My intention is for this league to last forever, or as close to forever as is reasonable. Of course there will be turnover, real life takes precedence and sometimes there is no more room for PC, or at least you have to cut down on PC time. But I hope to keep the same large group of owners together for as long as we can stand each other. It's much more fun playing with the same group season after season.

Good luck to all. I want everyone to feel like there is a direction their team can go to be competitive now or in the near future. Any suggestions, comments, civil criticism for how the league is run is always welcome.

--- yankeebb

League Settings

Year Range of Stats	2012 - 2012
Roster Size (Majors)	26
Roster Size (Minors)	25
Keepers	(40 keepers)
Change Stats Allowed
Free Agency
Drops
No-Drop List
Player Fatigue
Batter Injuries	(5 games max)
Pitcher Injuries	(6 games max)
Use Pitcher's HR Allowed Stats
Allows Max Surprise Bunts
Min Batters Pitcher Must Face	0
Slump Buster
On Fire	Classic
User Sims