League Rules

Welcome to the MLB 2022 League.

Commish: tacomaboy
Vice Commish: Open
Vice Commish: Open

Feel free to email the league office at any time with any questions.

NOTE ON INACTIVITY: This league is made to be thrilling an a realistic break from the real world, which requires active owners to manage rosters, make trades, and sign free agents. If you do not log onto PC for 7 consecutive days, you will be booted. If you don't open league messages sent out within 7 days of it's sending, you will be booted.

1. OVERVIEW/LEAGUE SCHEDULE

A. World Series ends, deadline for contracts to be signed with players you want to keep: Rookie, PC, Arbitration, Franchise, or Tender.
B. Rosters are cleared.
C. Players & contracts progressed (increase before 28, decrease AFTER 32), aged and retired. 1 position change, prospect creation, potential changes, player boost, and stadium renovations may be proposed to the league office.
D. Trading turned back on.
E. FA Bidding begins.
F. Rookie draft takes place at an agreed upon & announced date.
G. Day 1 - Opening day takes place on an announced date. Sims are set for 6 hour play. 1 position change, SP to RP conversions, prospect creation, and Stadium renovations are closed.
H. All Star Break – will match MLB All-Star Break in real MLB schedule being used.
I. Trade Deadline – Day 130.
J. Day 183 - Season ends, playoffs follow.
K. Off-season (back to A)


2. TEAM FINANCES

A. Cap Space
- 50 keepers
- $250M cap space
- Permitted to sign 1 player in free agency to an expiring contract

B. Cap Penalties
- You can go over during offseason, but must be under by opening day
Penalties:
- $0-$5 over forfeit 2nd round draft pick
- $5-$15 over forfeit 1st round draft pick
- $15+ over forfeit all draft picks

3. NEW CEO SECTION

- The following rules have been instituted to make poorly run organizations manageable. Requests should be made to the League Office within 2 weeks of joining if you joined in the middle of the season, or before the season begins if you joined during the off-season.

A. Cutting Contracts
- New CEOs are allowed to cut players signed to contracts. If that is the situation you will have a one time chance to cut and/or reduce contract years on no more than 3 contracts at no penalty. This must be done by deadline as messaged by the commissioner.

B. Important NOTE for Inexperienced CEOs
- 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. I.E Expiring means 1 (or at the end of the current season he’ll be FA), 1 means 2, 2 means 3 and so on and so forth. This is because the contracts on your “My team page” actually show what your budget is going to be for next year. Odd nuance indeed, but it is what it is, it's a great site in spite of this oddity. **NOTE: each year in free agency, each team is permitted to sign one player to an expiring contract (to have them for just a single season**

4. OFFSEASON TASKS

A. Draft
- 3 rounds, can be traded picks up to 3 years in advance.
- Varying potential (S, A, C, U, F)
- Based on last season’s record

B. Real Life Prospects
- Every off-season, a team will be permitted to have one prospect created from their team's real MLB minor league system.
The prospects will be created to become average players as they progress but will NOT BE SUPERSTAR MVP CANDIDATES unless they progress that way.
- Real Life prospects will have some traits that mirror their real counterparts. For instance, a speedy outfielder will have a higher speed stat line.
- Two way prospects will be created both as a hitter and pitcher and will count as ONE prospect request
- Prospect rights can be traded but restricted to only the next 3 submissions. If you trade the prospect rights, the other team gets to choose an additional prospect from either their own real MLB system they want created or from the organization of the team they received the rights from. “Real Team” Prospect’s age will be 20 regardless of their real age at the time of creation. Once you request a prospect and the league office begins creating that prospect, your prospect for that season is locked and cannot be changed.

C. Potential Changes
- If your team had 100+ losses in the previous season, you can to switch one player to S potential
- If your team had 93-100 losses in the previous season, you can switch one player to A potential

D. Position Changes
- You can swap primary and secondary positions (without fielding penalty), change primary position according to below, change secondary position according to below. Fielding pct will decrease by 0.01.
Options:
C → 1B
1B → LF, RF, CF*
2B → 1B, 3B, LF, RF, CF*, SS*
SS → 2B, 3B, 1B, LF, RF, CF*
3B → 2B, 1B, LF, RF
OF → 1B, 2B
DH → 1B
SP → RP
RP → SP
- For SP → RP conversions, H/9 will decrease by 1, BB/9 will decrease by 0.5, K/9 will increase by 1.0, IP will be halved until less than 100, stamina will be placed at 40. If a starter has real stats of less than a 1.20 WHIP, he cannot be converted to a RP
- For RP → SP conversions, H/9 will increase by 1, BB/9 will increase by 0.5, K/9 will decrease by 1.0, IP will be doubled until more than 150, stamina will be placed at 85. If a reliever has real stats of less than a 1.00 WHIP, he cannot be converted to a SP

*indicates player must have more than a 1.0 dWAR to switch to this position, and fielding PCT will decrease by 0.02 (ex: .990 to .970)
Position changes can be traded – 1 per offseason.

E. Player Boost
- Each off-season (after progressions), a team may request no more than 2 players (1 hitter and 1 pitcher) and both must be 28 years of age or younger.
Boost Options are:
Hitters:
energy (CAN NOT EXCEED 162 GAMES) - will go up 3 games
fielding (CAN NOT EXCEED .990) - will go up about .007
speed (CAN NOT EXCEED SPEED OF 8) - will go up 1
Pitcher:
SP stamina (CAN NOT EXCEED 100)-will increase stamina 3-5
RP stamina (CAN NOT EXCEED 27)- will increase stamina 1-2

F. Off-season Stadium Renovations
- $3M of cap to change 1 side of stadium
- $5M of cap to change both sides

G. Off-Season Free Agency
- 2 rounds
- Round 1 bids sent to commish
- In order for a player to qualify for Round 2 of bidding, the player must either:
- Have been bid on by 5+ teams
- Had top bids within 10% of one another (total amount offered)
- Round 2 will be chat box bidding.

- Minimum contract offers:
To sign a 0 year deal (expiring): $0 per year
To sign a 1 year deal: $1 per year
To sign a 2 year deal: $2 per year
To sign a 3 year deal: $3 per year
And so on and so forth through as many years as you’d like in free agency.

5. CONTRACT SYSTEM

A. Contract Progression for prospects
- Option 1 (for owners who would like to spend less to start, and more later): Prospect Tag = Rookie Contract (4 years) → Arbitration (3 years) → PC Contract (4 years max, will be 5M more than Arbitration) → Franchise Tag (optional)
- Option 2: Regular PC Contract (max 10 years) → Franchise Tag (optional)

C. Rookie Contract
- Rookie Contracts are $3M/4 years or up to age 24
- This contract can be offered in the league's first season to someone who was a rookie in real life in 2022.

D. Arbitration
- Arbitration is for 3 years. Price of contract is as follows, with an increase of 1M each year:
- 40-50 rank: $7 per year (then $8M in the second year, and so on)
- 51-60 rank: $8 per year
- 61-70 rank: $9 per year
- 71-80 rank: $10 per year
- 81-90 rank: $11 per year
- 91-95 rank: $13 per year
- 96-100 rank: $15 per year

E. PC Contract
- Can be for up to 4 years and will be $5M more than their Arbitration deal.

F. DFAs
- Players can be DFA’d at any time. Teams must pay for half the player’s contract over a remaining 10 years maximum.


G. Franchise Tags
- Will retain a player for two years extra if they are going to hit free agency. Pay scale:
- SP $20M
- RP $15M
- C/1B/3B $15M
- SS/2B $18M
- OF/DH $15M

H. Player Tenders
- You can choose to tender any and as many players as you’d like in the offseason. It is high risk since if you do get the player back, the contract is as follows:
- 1st Round Pick Tender = $30M (player can return for a 1 or 2 year contract)
- 2nd Round Pick Tender = $15M (player can return for a 1 or 2 year contract)
(Tender contract values will be announced prior to off-season commencing.)

**NOTE** A player coming off a Franchise tag cannot be tendered. A tendered player CAN be franchised but not vice versa.

6. IN-SEASON

A. Schedule
- We will be using real-life MLB schedules, going in reverse. So first 2022, then 2021, then 2019, and so on.

B. Playoffs
- The playoffs are made up of 6 teams from each league (modeled after real life MLB playoff scenarios)
- Each league has three division winners and three wild cards.
- Format will be:
- Wildcard Series = 3 games
- League Divisional Series = 2-2-1
- League Championship Series & World Series = 2-3-2
- Tiebreakers:
- Division - head to head
- Wildcard - head to head, then intra division record (vs division record), then inter division record (vs rest of respective league)
- Day Off Granted
- Wildcard Series = 1 before game 1
- Divisional Series = 1 before game 1; 1 after game 2.
- Championship Series & World Series = 2 before game 1; 1 after game 2; 1 after game 5.

C. Awards
- Some awards will be voted on by PC users, others will be chosen by the commish.
- Voted awards: MVP, Cy Young, ROTY, Mariano Rivera/Trevor Hoffman Award, World Series MVP
- Commish-picked awards: Hank Aaron Award (will be based on PC rankings), Silver Slugger Award, Gold Glove Award

D. Relocation and Team Name Changes
- CEO Baseball will follow MLB so no relocation or expansion until such happens with MLB. When a team moves or changes their name in MLB, we will respond accordingly in this league.

League Settings