League Rules

THE U: PREDICT THE UNPREDICTABLE

LEAGUE OFFICE

Commissioner: bigalroulo

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Contents

1) Logistics & Expectations
2) Schedule of Events
3) Contracts & Player Management
4) Transactions & Player Movement
5) Season & Post Season League Tasks

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1) Logistics & Expectations

A) The U: Predict the Unpredictable is a league that uses computer generated fictional players, all aged between 18 and 23 years old at the start of year one.

B) Once you've joined The U you are required to be active or you will be removed. If there is a situation where you can't be online in 7-10 days, send a message to the league office and let them know. Once you've been inactive for 10 days, you will be removed and banned from the league. No warnings or exceptions.

C) At any point if you have ANY issue or problem with anything that pertains to the league, a message to a member of the league office is recommended. The league office will ignore any issue unless extremely major that is brought up in the chat box. The chat box is used for respectful conversations or very basic questions and at no point should become hostile. Trash talking is permitted, personal attacks are not.

D) League polls can be utilized to resolve major issues within the league and a league message will be sent to explain the poll. Owners can discuss the topic of the poll in the chat box or via private message.

E) The league office has the ability to remove any owner from the league without any warning if that same owner breaks any rules, promotes breaking rules, or in all creates a negative atmosphere.

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2) Schedule of Events

A) Spring Training Begins (29 games)
B) Regular Season Begins (6 games per day, 4 hours gap between each)
C) All Star Break (Depending on schedule, around day 100)
D) Trade/Extension Deadline (Day 120, simulations stop for 2 REAL days)
E) Season Ends (Game 162)
F) Playoffs (Based on new MLB format)
G) Offseason begins & contracts must be signed for players you intend to keep.
H) Players & contracts progressed, aged and retired.
I) Rookie Draft
J) Trading Open
K) Free Agent Bidding (Multiple rounds, based on player rank)
L) Supplemental draft (To fill up rosters for teams below the player minimum)
M) Free for all free agency Open
N) End of offseason

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3) Contracts & Player Management

A) CAP SPACE- Teams in this league all start with 26 players in the majors and up to 40 players in their organization. The budget for each team is 200$.

GM's are responsible for monitoring this, the site does not. Be sure to get comfortable with the concepts of payroll, and leverage veteran GM's or your leadership team for any items you are unsure before you act. You must be at or under budget at all times.

B) ROSTER SIZE- MLB roster size is 26 and you must carry it through preseason, the regular season and the postseason. The roster size rule does not apply during the offseason period. You will be able to carry as much as 14 players in the minors. Should you not respect the roster size you will be penalized. 1st offense will result in a warning. 2nd offense will cause your team at fault to lose its 2nd round pick. 3rd offense will make you lose your 1st round pick.

If you still don't understand after three warnings, you to be terminated from the league.

C) PENALTY FOR GOING OVER BUDGET
You may NOT go over budget at any time. Should you go over budget, you will lose your team's 1st round pick in the following draft and the player(s) causing you to go over budget. You are responsible of your team budget. You have to stay at all times within budget. Should you not respect this rule more than once, you will be terminated from this league.

You will get a message warning you that you have gone over the maximum budget permitted during the course of the season and will be notified with the sanction. It is YOUR responsibility to remain within your allowed budget.

D) NEW GM RULES
The following rules have been instituted to make poorly run organizations manageable. Requests should be made to the league office prior to conclusion of season in which you join, or during the same offseason, whichever applies.

- CUTTING CONTRACTS- You are not allowed to cut players signed to contracts unless you are a new owner taking over a team that has bad contracts signed. If that is the situation you will be allowed to cut ONE contract. The player whose contract gets cut will immediately become a free agent and the team cutting him cannot re-sign the player until the next offseason free agency period. The player who gets cut may be put into a "special free agent bidding" situation at league office's discretion.

- SIGNING INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS - In Pennant Chase this often can be the difference between competing for a championship and struggling to survive in a league without big market payrolls. In this league, you will be allowed to offer a contract extension to a player who is in the final season of his contract (return to draft season). You could hold on to a player throughout his whole career as long as you can fit him in your payroll. Please note that on the manage contracts page when resigning a player you will still see: "You cannot extend a contract, so choose the number of years wisely". Please make abstraction of it as it will not apply to our league.

E) IMPORTANT FYI FOR ROOKIE GM?S: In Pennant Chase, when a player shows up on a contract page (the immediate page after clicking on your team name from league page, standings or anywhere else for that matter), he's always on your team one year longer than what the number actually says. For instance, an expiring contract (RETURN TO DRAFT) means that the player is in the final year of his contract, 1 year left means 2, 2 years left means 3 and so on and so forth.

F) PLAYER CONTRACT RAISES: When signing a player, you will need to deal with the raise that specific player is asking. If the player is asking for a 3$ raise per year, it is what it is. It's your decision to sign him or not. Contracts will not get revised by the league commission.

G) PROSPECT CREATION: There will not be any MLB prospect creation in this league, all players being fictional.

H) SLUMP BUSTER: We will not be using slump bust in this league.

I) FIRE: We will not be using FIRE in this league.

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4) Transactions & Player Movement


A) TRADES: In this league, you will be allowed a maximum of 10 trades per team, per season. Players and picks can be dealt, but you will not be allowed to deal cash. Again, make sure that the players you will be dealing for will not put you over the cap otherwise the trade will be reversed. Please notify the league commissioner if picks are involved. Only picks from the current season can be dealt.

B) DRAFT- There will be two rounds to the amateur draft. The amateur draft will take place after the playoffs. Teams will need to create their draftees list based on the player pool(top right of your team page) to insure that they may get the players they want if they choose to automate their picks. All rookies in the draft will be 18 years old.

YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TRADE AWAY YOUR 1ST ROUND PICK IN CONSECUTIVE SEASONS. The league will list the traded picks on the league page to keep track of dealt draft picks. Also, you will not be allowed to own more than three 1st round picks per year. There are no limitations for 2nd round picks.

Draft order for non-playoff teams in round 1 of the amateur draft will be determined by a draft lottery. The team with the worst regular season record will hold the best chances of winning the lottery. A team will be able to move up five spots from their ranking and won't drop more than one spot should they be lose out in the lottery. Therefore, the team with the league's worst record will draft either 1st or 2nd. The teams that had the 6 worst records in the regular season will all have a shot at landing the no.1 pick. I will be using the draftpicklottery.com draft simulator to proceed with the lottery. This rule has been put in place in order to prevent owners from voluntarily tanking to get the 1st pick year after year. Should you have a bad record at the end of the regular season you will still be able to get a good value pick no matter what. Draft order for playoff teams will be determined by team performance during the postseason. World Series champ will get the last pick of the round.

C) OFFSEASON FREE AGENTS- With contracts expiring at the end of the season, players in that situation will become free agents should they not be extended by their teams. Those free agents will be put into a bidding fashion, players going to the largest overall offer (number of years x dollars equals amount, thus a 3 yr/6M offer will better a 4 yr/4M offer). Bids of zero dollars will NOT be allowed. The maximum years for a contract will be 8 years. Maximum raise per contract year is 3$. The raise per year will be the same every year for the duration of the contract. All players listed under the free agent tab are available for bidding. Negative raises are not allowed.

All bids are to be in the following format: LAD SP John Doe $10/8yrs/$0=$80

Free agent bidding will be working in the following format:
- ROUND 1: Bids allowed on all players with a minimum player rank of 85. Since these players are top-tier players they must be offered a contract at a minimum of $10 per season.

- ROUND 2: Bids allowed on all players with a minimum player rank of 65. Since these players are mid-level players they must be offered a contract at a minimum of $5 per season.

- ROUND 3: Bids allowed on all remaining free agents, at a minimum of $1 per season.

ALWAYS make sure that your bids will not put you over your allowed team budget. If that would be the case, your bid(s) will be voided and you will be penalized by losing your 1st round pick in the amateur draft.

D) SUPPLEMENTAL DRAFT- Following the free agent signing period, teams who do not carry 26 players on their roster will take part in the supplemental draft in order to fill up their rosters. The team will get, through the supplemental draft, the total amount of players required to carry a 26 man roster.

E) IN-SEASON FREE AGENTS- After a player is dropped he will be placed on waivers. You can put a claim on a player you wish to add to your organization for as long as you have a spot available for him. If a dropped player goes unclaimed he will become a free agent.

E) TRADE DEADLINE- The trade deadline will be day 120 but may move forward or backward slightly based on the sim schedule. The league office will announce the trade deadline. Trading will be turned off after this day. Trades will be reinstated immediately after the draft. If the trade includes draft picks, the trade notice will need to be immediately sent to the league office for approval. If a player that is traded for has a contract, the new owner team is responsible for the remainder of the contract. Draft picks can be traded for current year only.

F) PLAYER POSITIONS- Every player in the league plays a single position only.

G) DISABLED LIST- Teams can use their minor league squads as injured reserve fill-ins but must sign the called up player to a contract. A player that gets injured is allowed to be put into the minors system as an injured reserve roster.

H) OFFSEASON PLAYER PROGRESSION- Players will be progressed once after each season. Players in the majors and minors are progressed the same amount. ALL PLAYERS ARE GETTING THE U PROGRESSION (unpredictable), hence the name of the league.

I) PLAYER EXTENSIONS - Contract extensions are meant as just one more option as a GM to retain talent if you so choose before losing a player to free agency and will promote player/team loyalty. You will be allowed to extend a player ONLY when he is in his RETURN TO DRAFT year. To extend him, you must use the MANAGE CONTRACTS link on your team page. From there you will be able to extend any of your players on an expiring deal.


J) STARTING PITCHER CONVERTED TO RELIEF PITCHER - Most importantly, know it is a permanent move. Teams may convert 1 pitcher per offseason.

- Past their prime pitchers are eligible every offseason until they retire to be converted from starting pitcher to relief pitcher. (35 OR OLDER)

- Once a starting pitcher hits 35, in the following offseason a GM can message the league office with the subject SP to RP Conversion along with the full name of the pitcher he wants to convert.

This process is manual but here are a few general guidelines to have some idea of what to expect: Stamina will drop significantly (30 pitches maximum). ERA & WHIP will drop (- 12.5%), W, L and IP will drop as needed to make sense (- 50%). BB/9 will drop by 1, K/9 will go up by 1, and of course stats like CG will zero out. As a best practice, you may want to wait until after player progressions take place to have a more clear picture of what you have.

K) RELIEF PITCHER CONVERTED TO STARTING PITCHER - Occasionally, in MLB a relief pitcher is converted to a starting pitcher. If a RP has a stamina of 50 or more pitches, he can be converted to a starter. His stamina will be increased to 90 pitches. ERA and WHIP will rise (+ 12.5%). H/9 and BB/9 will go up 1. K/9 will drop 1. W,L and IP will be doubled up, SV will zero out. The pitcher converted will need to be 30 or less in order to be eligible for the conversion.

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5) Season & Post Season Tasks


A) ALL-STAR PROCESS

- The All-Star break is a time where off days are granted to rest up your team so you can revamp your team for the stretch run. There will be 2 real days off and 4 sim days off for the All-Star break.

- We will play an All-Star game and All-Stars will be selected by the commissioner. All-Star teams will carry 30 players from each league. All-Star teams will be made up of 12 P, 2 C, 2 1B, 2 2B, 2 3B, 2 SS, 6 OF & 2 UTIL/DH. Every team is guaranteed ONE All-Star...just like real All-Star teams.

B) PLAYOFFS

- The playoffs are made up of 6 teams from each league as we will be using the new MLB expanded playoff format. There will be 1 day of simulated rest between the regular season and the playoffs and one day off after the wild card games. Should two or more teams have the same record after 162 games and be tied for a playoff berth, there will be an elimination game to determine who gets in. The team that will host the elimination game will be the one who had the best record against their opponent during the course of the regular season.

- Division winners own home field over wildcards regardless of records. The top Wild Card team also gets home field for round 1 of the playoffs. Home field thereafter is determined by better seeding.

- Each league has three division winners and three wild cards. The 2 division winners with the best record get a bye for round 1 and are the top two seeds. The division winner with the worst record is the #3 seed and will play host to the last Wild Card team. The top two Wild Card teams will face each other in the other round 1 series.

- Playoff seeding will be as follows:
No. 1 seed: Best league record
No. 2 seed: Second-best division winner
No. 3 seed: Third-best division winner
No. 4 seed: Best record among non-division winners
No. 5 seed: Second-best record among non-division winners
No. 6 seed: Third-best record among non-division winners

The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds get a bye in this format, while No. 3 seed will host the No. 6 seed in a best-of-three series. The same will occur between the No. 4 and No. 5 seed.

In round 2, the No. 1 seed will play the winner of the No. 4-No. 5 series, while No. 2 will play the winner of No. 3-No. 6. This is to keep series balanced, and to ensure that No. 1 isn't stuck playing against a division winner under any circumstances in the second round.

The two teams coming out of round 2 as winners will then face each other in the League Championship Series. The LCS winner moves on to the World Series.

MLB Wild Card round: Best of 3
MLB Division Series: Best of 5
NLCS and ALCS: Best of 7
World Series: Best of 7


C) OFFSEASON AWARDS
Each offseason the league will determine the Rookie of the Year, MVP and CY YOUNG winner in both leagues through a voting process.

There will also be Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. These awards will be given out by the league commission based on player stats at the end of the regular season.


---MOST IMPORTANT LEAGUE RULES---

** REMEMBER THAT THIS IS A GAME!!! **
**Understand that this is for FUN!**
**DO NOT make life miserable for other owners.**
**BE RESPECTFUL!**

Anyone who doesn't respect these rules will be terminated from this league and banned from returning to it.

Will you be able to predict the unpredictable?

League Settings

Year Range of Stats	2021 - 2021
Roster Size (Majors)	26
Roster Size (Minors)	14
Keepers	(40 keepers)
Change Stats Allowed
Free Agency	(waivers)
Drops
No-Drop List
Player Fatigue
Batter Injuries	(15 games max)
Pitcher Injuries	(15 games max)
Use Pitcher's HR Allowed Stats
Allows Max Surprise Bunts
Min Batters Pitcher Must Face	3
Slump Buster
On Fire	Classic
User Sims	(every 4 hours)