| LEAGUE FORMAT |
- The league will consist of an American League and a National
League.
- The American League will use a designated hitter, while the
National League shall not.
- In the playoffs, the home team rules will be applied.
- Each league shall be divided into 3 divisions, each consisting of
4 teams.
|
| |
| SCHEDULE |
- The league will play a full 162-game season.
- Each team will play each other team in their own division a total
of 22 times, yielding 66 games. They will also play each team outside
of their division (but in the league) 12 times, yielding 96 more
games. There will be a day off after the last day of the regular
season.
- The wild card team will play the division winner with the best
record, while the #2 division winner will play the #3 division
winner. However, in the 1st round, the wild card team can not play
against a team in it's own division. In that event, the wild card
team would play the #2 winner, leaving the #1 and #3 division winners
to be matched up in the other bracket.
- In all rounds of the playoffs, home-field advantage will be given
to the team with a better record. The sole exception is that a
division winner always has priority over a wild card team.
- The Divisional Playoffs will be a best of 5 series, with games 1,
2, and 5 played at the stadium of the team with home field advantage.
- The League Championship Series and the World Series will be a
best of 7 series, with games 1, 2, 6, and 7 played at the stadium of
the team with home field advantage. There will be days off for
"travel days", and one day off between rounds of the playoffs.
|
| |
| PLAYOFF TIE-BREAKERS |
Divisional ties
- A 1-game playoff is held with home field advantage determined by
(1) better head-to-head record, (2) better divisional record, (3)
better +/-, (4) best finish to the season.
- If one of these teams would make the playoffs via Wild Card
anyhow, then we just use the tie-breakers to decide who gets the
title of Division Winner and who is Wild Card Winner.
Wild Card ties (2 teams)
- A 1-game playoff is held with home field advantage determined by
(1) better head-to-head record, (2) better +/-, (3) best finish to
the season.
Wild Card ties (3 teams)
- One team gets a bye. Two worse teams play each other first. All
home field advantages and seeds determined via the usual methods.
"Head-to-head record" here is determined by the composite record of
each team vs. all other teams involved.
Wild Card ties (4 teams)
- #4 @ #1, and #3 @ #2. Winners face off. All home field advantages
and seeds determined via the usual methods. "Head-to-head record"
here is determined by the composite record of each team vs. all other
teams involved.
Tie for division and Wild Card
- If there is a situation where teams are tied for a division and
they are also tied for the Wild Card with a team from another
division, then the division should be settled with playoff game(s)
first. After the division is settled, then the losing team(s) will
enter a playoff to settle the Wild Card spot. Example: Division 1 has
two teams finish tied with 90 wins each. Division 2 has a 2nd place
team with 90 wins who would be the Wild Card winner. The two teams
from Division 1 should first play their one-game playoff, then the
losing team will play the team from Division 2 to decide the Wild
Card winner.
|
| |
| PLAYER ELIGIBILITY |
- In order to be eligible for the current FPBL season, a player
must have accumulated a minimum of 75 PA (for position players) or 25
IP (for pitchers).
- In light of problems which arise when you analyze the average
playing time of C and RP, a new rule was put in place starting with
the 2001 season. A player also qualifies if they had 50 PA (for
players who only played catcher) or 15 IP (for pitchers with zero
games started) in the previous MLB season.
- No player signed after the final Saturday in August will be
eligible to play in the postseason.
|
| FREE AGENT DRAFT |
- The Free Agent draft will last for eight tense weeks during the
winter.
- Draft order will be set based on a team's winning percentage from
the previous season. We will use a method similar to the NBA's
ping-pong approach to create a new draft order for each week of the
Free Agent draft. The best, non-playoff team from the prior season gets 16
ping-pongs, all the way up to the worst team, who gets just 1 ball. The
8 playoff teams will always go exactly in order of their final
records (worst-to-first) to finish out a round. Note that the 16
teams who get balls are the 16 teams who didn't make the playoffs,
and not necessarily the teams with the 16 worst records.
- For the first week of the Free Agent draft, each owner will
submit a list of players they want (ranked in order of preference).
- As per the salary assignments of the initial draft, each owner
will be granted a maximum of one player from their list, and that
players' salary will be set at $5 million. Therefore, owners should
(a) not submit a list longer than their placement in the draft order,
and (b) consider listing only players who they are be willing to pay
$5 million for this season.
- Each subsequent week will follow the order of salaries described
in the Initial Draft. In other words, in the second week a team can
sign a maximum of 2 players at $4 million each. In the third week,
they can sign a maximum of 3 players at $3 million each. And so on.
- An owner is always free to list only as many players as they
would be willing to sign at that week's price, making it entirely
possible that they might not sign any players in that round. This may
be the case quite often, particularly for teams that are already
carrying a $57 million team salary into the Free Agent drafting
season. If a team wishes to skip a round entirely, they must send an
e-mail explicitely stating so.
- Once the season is underway, teams may continue to submit lists
of ranked free agent requests. Priority will be based on a team's
place in the standings following Saturday's results. Again, the draft
will be conducted in "NBA lottery style". The #24 team will get 24
balls for that weekend's lottery, the #1 team will get just 1.
Standing tie-breakers will be solved by tracing the franchise records
back. For example, if two teams are tied for the current season, then
the tie-breaker win goes to whichever franchise had fewer wins in the
previous season. During the season, teams may sign a maximum of one
Free Agent per week. Free Agent salaries will be set at $100,000
during the season. Free Agent draft lists will be requested by 11:00
PM CT on Friday nights, and results will be posted by Monday morning
unless otherwise noted.
- During the season, Free Agent wish lists will be requested by
11:59 PM EDT on Friday nights, and results will be posted sometime
Saturday unless otherwise noted.
- Addendum: A trade moratorium exist for all players selected during
the Free Agent Draft, until the conclusion of the draft in March.
- Addendum: The $5 million round will be replaced by an auction on/near
the date specified for the first round of the draft. Prior to the draft,
teams will be asked to submit a list of their top twenty free agents. A
composite list will be created and the top twenty five players will be
placed in an auction. If two owners max out a bid at $10 million, the owner
with the better free agent standing will win.
|
| |
| ROOKIE DRAFT |
- The Rookie Draft will be comprised of all players who are
eligible under the 75/50 PA and 25/15 IP rule and have not made
existed in the league previously.
- Draft order will be set based on a team's winning percentage from
the previous season. The worst team will be #1 in draft order, and
the best team will be #24.
- The rookie draft will be 4 rounds long
- 1st rounders selections will earn $500,000 in their first FPBL
season. Each subsequent round earns $100,000 less than the round
before it.
- If a team is lacking an owner, the league may draft for a team so
their picks will not go to waste.
|
| |
| ABSENT OWNERS |
- If an owner goes an extended period of time without any contact,
they will be in danger of having their team given to a new owner. The
commissioner will first try to contact the missing owner.
- Owners are encouraged to let the commissioner or other league
members know if they are going to be gone for a few weeks or if they
have a change of e-mail address.
|
| |
| SALARY |
- All teams carry a salary cap of $60 million.
- No team can sign a contract or get a player via trade when it
would result in the team having a salary of more than $60 million for
any season.
|
| |
| ROSTERS |
- Team rosters will hold no fewer than 30 eligible players and no
more than 35 eligible players.
- From Opening Day until August 31st, a team must have exactly 25
active players. On September 1st, a team can have between 25 and 35
active players. Teams may only carry 25 active players on their
roster for the post-season.
- On the weekend of no limit $100k signings, if a team does not
have 30 eligible players on their roster, the commish will
automatically assign $100k free agents to the team until they have
30, and possibly cut players off their roster to free up money to do
so.
|
| |
| STADIUMS |
- Teams must choose a present-day or historical stadium as the
model for their home park.
- All teams must remain in that stadium for at least two full
seasons before being allowed to move. A new owner will be allowed to
change their stadium immediately, but not if the season is underway.
|
| |
| CONTRACT EXTENSIONS |
- Owners can elect to extend a players' contract up to 4 years for
the following costs: Please reference your players' current salary
along the side, together with the month in which you are extending
it.
- Players whose contracts have not been renewed or extended by
11:59 pm EDT, September 15th, will be considered free agents for the
upcoming season.
|
| Current Salary |
Jan-Mar |
Apr-Jun |
Jul-Sep 15 |
| 100k - 900k |
400k |
800k |
1.2m |
| 1m - 1.9m |
500k |
1m |
1.5m |
| 2m - 2.9m |
600k |
1.2m |
1.8m |
| 3m - 3.9m |
800k |
1.6m |
2.4m |
| 4m - 4.9m |
1m |
2m |
3m |
| 5m + |
1.2m |
2.4m |
3.6m |
|
- All player salaries must be in increments of $100,000.
- The maximum salary any FPBL player can have for any season is $10
million.
|
| |
| RELEASING PLAYERS |
- If an owner releases a player, he must continue to pay 50% of the
players salary (rounded up) for the remainder of the contract. If the
owner who released him manages to resign him at the lower rate, then
his prior salary is replaced by the new salary (assumed to be a
1-year deal), but they still must also pay the 50% penalty on future
seasons. Those fees can be overridden by re-extending the player
contract over those seasons.
- For example, let's say you release David Cone from the $7.4
million contract he has. If you resign him as a Free Agent, you now
pay him at the new rate. You DO NOT have to pay $3.7 million on top
of that. So, if you pick him up in the $500,000 round, that's his new
salary. You would have saved $6.9 million on him. ($7.4m - $500k)
- There are exceptions to this rule. When a new owner takes over a
vacant team, they will be allowed to release players before Opening
Day and pay only 50% of the upcoming season's salary. (Subsequent
years will not be charged.) However, any player obtained in trade or
in Free Agency by the new owner is ineligible for this exemption.
- If a player is ineligible for the upcoming FPBL season, the owner
can release that player from the remainder of their contract. This
rule also applies towards players who currently owe "release fees" on
a player who is not eligible for the current season. (1/16/06)
|
| |
| SIGNING IN-SEASON FREE AGENTS |
- The cost to sign players who were released will start off being
equal to whatever their most recent salary was and will cut in half
(rounding up to the nearest $100,000) each week.
- For example, if David Cone was released from a $7.4 million
contract, then the first weekend as a free agent, he would cost $7.4
million for any team to sign. The following weekend, if he had gone
unsigned, his cost would drop to $3.7 million. Then $1.9, $1.0, $0.5,
$0.3, $0.2, and finally $0.1.
|
| |
| PLAYER USAGE |
- Players will be allowed to go up to 110% of their League Usage
(defined by DMB as their historical Plate Appearances or Batters
Faced), and then they will be unavailable for the remainder of the
season. In the playoffs, Usage will be limited to 20%. If a player
ever gets to 110% or more, the commissioner will see to it that the
player is benched the remainder of the season. However, it is
ultimately the responsibility of the owner to make sure that this
never happens.
- If a player gets to 150% or more of their Usage vs. either LHP or
RHP, they will also be unavailable for the remainder of the season.
This rule does not apply for players with 502 or more Plate
Appearances.
- Players who are overused are still available for postseason play.
- If a team runs out of available Usage at any position, the
Commissioner will attempt to automatically sign a player to the team
using Diamond Mind's draft utility in order to fill the spot,
provided the team has the money available to sign the player. If the
team has no money available, the Commissioner may begin cutting
players in order to free up salary.
- All players must appear at positions for which the current DMB
disk says they are eligible. However, there are some exceptions. (1)
A player eligible at LF is allowed to start RF and vice versa. (2) A
player eligible at CF can start in any OF position. (3) Any pitcher
may be assigned to a RP role during the playoffs only.
- Addendum: Starting with DMBv10, usage will be monitored by the software.
If a player exceeds the allowed levels, they will be replaced by
Replacement Level players. To avoid exploitation, penalities will be
included for players who grossly exceed usage levels.
|
| |
| GAME RESOLUTIONS |
All games will be simulated on the
commissioner's home computer.
Results will be posted on the league home page. |
| |
| TRADING GUIDELINES |
Trades may involve a combination of players
and upcoming rookie picks (for next season) only.
For example 2006 rookie picks may not be traded until after the
completion of the 2005 rookie draft.
Free agent draft selection cannot be traded, either directly, by
proxy, or by any other action that equates to the same results as if
the selection itself was dealt.
Any trade of a player, being traded in consecutive years, between the same
teams, will be heavily scrutinized for collusion and likely vetoed.
See the Weekly Event Dates for deadlines involved in trades.
You can also no longer trade picks (or players) to be named (or given)
later. All trades must involve immediate swapping of any picks or
players, and not be based on other factors including, but not limited
to, the performance of a player or team.
- A trade is official as soon as both teams involved have submitted
the trade to the league email.
- Following a trade, all teams involved must meet the correct
requirements for roster size and salary.
- Pending trades will be emailed to the league the day after the
deadline, at which time they become fair game for review by the
league.
- If any owner finds fault with a trade, they should e-mail the
Commissioner with their complaint.
- Please note that when a trade is made, all player's current
salaries and contracts go with them. If Player X is making 5 million
this season and still has 3 years left on his contract, when he gets
traded to the new team, he will still be making 5 million and will
still have 3 years left on his contract.
|
