Start Off Filling Random Years (SOFRY) Progressive:
24 Team League - 6/4 Format. All players and all seasons are available.
Initial Draft:
Each owner will receive a list of 25 years drawn randomly from 1885-today. A year may appear twice or more in that draw. Upon filling the league we will have a complete 25-round snake draft. You will draft players to fill the years that you've been given. For example, if you want to draft Albert Pujols, you'll need to have a year between 2001-2023 on your list and that's the year of his career that you will use. There are no clones so once a player is drafted he is off the board. When you draft a player, you don't have to assign a year at that time. So let's say you have 2008 and 2009 on your list. You draft Pujols. You don't have to decide until after the draft which year to use for him and which to use for another player. You are only limited by the years drawn for you and the 140M league salary cap. It may be best for you to assign them though, so you can stay under the cap as you keep drafting.
Keepers/Cuts:
After the trade deadline, you'll receive a new list of 25 years for the following season. You will fit your 25 players into those slots as best you can. If you have a player for whom you didn't draw a year, you'll have to cut that player. You must keep all players that can fit onto your roster. Using the Pujols example, let's say you have 2021 on your list (his worst year) and that's the only year you drew of his career. You'll have to carry that season and keep him *unless* you have someone else you can roster for 2021 which leaves no spot for Pujols. You can't cut any players who can be slotted into unused years on your list. Any years you weren't able to fill with the players you have, you can fill in the draft. Keepers are due by season's end so the draft may begin promptly. When turning in your keepers you must assign players to seasons unlike the initial draft.
Subsequent Drafts:
The draft order in each round of the draft will be random. So you could draft 5th in the first round, 17th in the second round and so on. No need to tank as your record has no bearing on your draft position. A complete list of all the teams' keepers will be made available and updated as the draft progresses. So you'll know who you can't draft and everyone else is fair game.
Free Agents:
Some players have very long careers and therefore would almost never fail to have a year of their career drawn. In order to stimulate player movement there will be an individual multi-season player cap of 40M. So, let's say you use 2005 Pujols in Season 1. That's 8.021M (cut off at one decimal, 8.0M.) The second season, you use 2009 (9.5M.) You have now used 17.5M total. Third season, you use 2001 (7.3 brings you to 24.8.) Once that total reaches or exceeds 40M, you will automatically lose him as a free agent after the season that pushes him to the limit and he will be available in the draft. When a player is cut and drafted as a free agent, his 40M clock resets even if he's drafted by his previous team.
Trades:
Trades will only be allowed in-season before the standard 120-game deadline. There will be no offseason trading of players you can't fit in. Those players will be cut and placed in the draft pool. Trades do not have to fit your list of years as each owner has a different list and finding an owner to trade a 1939 player to for a 1939 player in return would be nearly impossible. You can trade a 1985 player for a 1939 and so on. Draft picks may be traded up to two seasons in advance. Trades will not reset a player's 40M individual cap. You must remain under 140M both before and after a trade however, so "cash" can not be included in trades. (Edit for Season 3: It has been voted that trades must be even in terms of players and picks. The same number of players and the same number of picks must go in each direction.)
AAA:
Each team will have two well below average fictitious players for trade balancing only.
IL/DL:
There is no injured list.
140M salary cap/40M player cap
No clones
No DH
Injuries off
Any ballpark is fine
Random alignment each season