We are a progressive league, in which we play the history of baseball, year by year beginning with 1986. You draft a player at the beginning of his career and hold on to him until you feel like trading him, dropping him, he retires, or is violently taken from you.  What makes this league unique is the use of relegation and promotion similar to that of European Football. Teams who perform poorly are relegated.

 

Initial Draft: The first draft will consist of 24 owners (teams) drafting 25 players + 3 AAA real life players. Salary cap for the first season is $80M per 25 man roster and an additional $5M for AAA. The selection of prospects (as the rule is defined in the Year 2 Draft) will be limited to only the first three rounds in the initial draft. Divisions for the first season will be determined randomly.

 

Year 2
The top 12 teams from the inaugural season will be placed in Serie A (National League) while the bottom 12 teams will be placed in Serie B (American League). Teams in the Serie A league will have a salary cap of $80M while teams in Serie B will have a $70M cap. This rewards teams who do well. Year 2 divisions will be randomly aligned. 

 

Draft order will be determined by final records at the end of the season. The order will be determined in reverse order of wins from the inaugural season. Teams that did not reach the playoffs the previous season are ranked in reverse order of their records (so the team with the fewest wins is awarded the first selection). Teams who make the playoffs will fill in the final 8 draft slots. The four teams who lose in the NLDS/ALDS will be placed in picks 17-20 based on reverse order of regular season wins. Teams losing in the ALCS/NLCS will be placed in picks 21 and 22. The WS loser will be placed in pick 23 and the WS winner will pick last.

Supplementary Round: After the initial 25-man roster round, it may be necessary to have an extra round in which you can drop and add players at will (only one drop-add per hour, though). The objective of this round is mostly just to get people under the salary cap.

AAA Round: After the Supplementary Round, we will have an AAA round, in which you can take three more players for a grand total of $5 mil or less. We'll go by the regular draft order.

 

Year 3 Draft and onward
Continuing the theme, the nine teams who finish at the top of Serie A will remain in Serie A. The three teams with the worst record will be relegated to Serie B. The three qualifying teams from Serie B will be promoted to Serie A. The other nine teams from Serie B will remain in that league the following year. 

Here is the roster kicker: the teams being promoted will be able to take one player from the teams being relegated. Each team being relegated is permitted to protect one player on their roster.  The best team in Serie B will have first choice of a player from one of the three teams being relegated.  The 2nd best picks next and then the third best.  Only one player from each relegated team can be chosen, however.  So, each relegated team will lose one player and each promoted team can essentially steal one player.  This will help with the offset in the salary cap and also keep the league extremely interesting as each team could technically go from Serie B to WS champ of Serie A in two years time.

 

The draft will be determined as follows: Teams failing to be promoted will be listed in reverse order of wins from 1-9. The three teams who are relegated will be placed 10-12 in reverse order of regular season wins. The three teams being promoted will be placed 13-15 in reverse order of wins. The 7 teams who do not make the NLCS and are not relegated will fill in slots 16 through 22 in the draft. The Serie A (NL) loser will pick 23^rd and the winner will pick 24^th. 

 

Divisions for Year 3 and onward will be determined by previous year’s wins. The top six teams from Serie A will be placed in one division. The bottom six from Serie B will be placed in one division. The other six teams from each league will be placed in the opposite division.

OTHER ISSUES:

AAA: You can use only the players you draft for AAA, not the ones invented by the SIM. You can use these players at any time during the season. But you cannot transfer players from your 25-man-roster to your AAA roster, or vice-versa, before the season starts. This would be a back door toward getting around the salary cap.

Also, you cannot carry players over from season to season in your AAA roster. You can, however, carry over players that you drafted in a AAA round within your 25-man roster. It's just that the actual AAA roster must be empty in the off-season.

You can trade both drafted AAA and SIM-invented AAA players. The only reason you'd need to trade SIM-invented players is to make trades go through that the system won't accept. You still can't use them on your team.

Salary Cap: The salary cap for the 25-man roster is set at $80 million, with the AAA cap at $5 million for Serie A. The salary cap for the 25-man roster for Serie B is set at $70M, with the AAA cap at $5M.

Prospects: Prospects are players who played in the majors but didn't have enough IPs and ABs to qualify for a SIM season. You can only pick (or have) one prospect on your team at a time. This applies to the current draft and also to past ones -- if you picked a prospect in 1995 who doesn't start in the SIM until 1998, you cannot take another prospect until the 1998 draft. Also, you can only pick a prospect in the first round.

 

Trades: You cannot include cash in trades -- this messes with the cap. Also, you can only trade picks if they're from the upcoming draft or the one after that.  

Injured Reserve can only include players who you had previously but are going through a year in which they don't garner enough stats to be included in the SIM.

 

Keepers: You are responsible for posting all your keepers each year. If one year you forget to mention someone who is on Injured Reserve, for example, then you lose him.

Missed Picks: If you miss your draft slot, you can make up that pick any time. However, everyone after you must keep to their exact time slots until you pick. Normally, of course, if everyone ahead of you is caught up, you can make a pick any time, even if it's well before your time slot. 

 

After you pick, please smail the two owners whose picks are next. And please post the name of your pick in BOLD.

Never Over 25: You can never go over 25 players on your 25-man roster, not through trade, not mid-draft, not under any circumstances.

 

No DH, No Waiver Wire

Also, I've picked out two people on WIS to help me with the league.  I'm assuming a few hiccup issues will arise in the first year so the three of us will try to make a decision to help the entire league.  I figure three minds is better than just mine.