DRAFTS ARE FUN! This league will conduct a 24-person draft, where there are 24 positional "buckets", where each person will pick one player from each bucket.
Upon entry into this league, each owner will select a unique *season* between 1963 & 1992, inclusive. The season you select will not directly impact the strength of your roster so there is no advantage to picking early. You are simply determining which players are being added to the draft pool. The owner of each season will submit (in a site-mail to me) a 24-man roster (13 hitters and 11 pitchers). Unlike versions 1 & 2, this roster has a salary cap of $100 million. And it's important to draft the best $100M roster you can. Don't roster a bunch of "screw-your-neighbor" type players. You will find out why shortly.
We are using years 1963-1992.
Initial Roster Build Rules
1. You must select 13 hitters and 11 pitchers. Draft a 24-man team as if you were entering it into a single-season $100M theme league. You may include a $200K players, if you wish.
2. You will select one full-time 1B, 2B, 3B, SS and 3 full-time OFs, each of these players must have at least 600 PA/162.
3. You will select one "starting" catcher who should have at least 500 PA/162.
4. You will select one "backup" catcher who should have at least 100 PA/162.
5. You will select 4 bench hitters with the following requirements
Bench1 should be a corner infield (either 1B or 3B... can be both) - no PA or salary requirement
Bench2 should be a middle infielder (either 2B or SS... can be both) - no PA or salary requirement
Bench3 should be an outfielder - no PA or salary requirement
Bench4 (any position) should be a good pinch hitter (salary must be between $500K and $2M in salary)
6. You will select four starting pitchers (must be designated as SP) that total at least 950 IP/162. The fewest IP/162 for any individual SP is 150. There is no lefty/right requirement.
7. You will select seven "other" pitchers (SP or RP) with < 150 innings. The total cumulative IP of these seven pitchers >= 400 IP/162. This means the minimum number of innings from your 11 rostered pitchers is 1350.
Please roster the hitters in this exact order to make it easy for me to allocate the bench positions properly
Starting batters
Backup catcher
Bench1 - Corner Infielder
Bench2 - Middle Infielder
Bench3 - Outfielder
Bench4 - Pinch hitter
The salary of this 24-man roster must be no greater than $100 million.
Bonus Players
After you determine your 24 man roster, please add two bonus players (one hitter & one pitcher). The bonus round hitter can be a solid starting hitter or a strong bench player (somebody who may be desirable in the Round 25 draft). There is no minimum PA requirement. The bonus round pitcher can be a starting pitcher or a reliever and there is no minimum inning requirement. Please try to make your bonus players desirable, even if they aren't expensive.
The Draft
Once all the rosters are submitted to me, I will post all 24 player buckets. Each bucket will have 30 players in it, one from each team. Since there are 24 owners and 30 seasons, I will fill out the rosters for the 7 seasons left over, after 23 people have signed up. In theory, I will have the 7 least desirable seasons.
Now, here's the key to drafting --> You cannot roster more than ONE PLAYER FROM EACH SEASON. So if you draft 1964 Sandy Koufax, you can not draft any other players from 1964. Also, this version will have a "NO CLONES" rule. So if you have '64 Koufax, you no longer can draft '63, '65 or '66 Sandy Koufax. As the draft progresses, there will be opportunities to skip ahead since those picking in front of you won't be able to draft from certain buckets and/or can't draft from certain seasons. Since there are 30 seasons and 24 drafting rounds, you will have 6 seasons un-represented on your team after the 24-round draft is completed.
The first round of the draft will be determined randomly, but each successive round will be based on lowest cumulative salary. Also, the division alignment will be based on final team salary (the four most expensive rosters will be in the NL East).
What about the 25th Player?
The 25th round will contain the 60 bonus players (pitchers and hitters) from the 30 seasons. The draft order is the same as the other rounds (lowest cumulative salary drafts first). Each owner will only be able to draft from the 6 seasons they did not select during the 24-round draft. At the end of this round, every owner should have 25 different seasons represented on their roster.
How does the salary cap work?
The salary cap for your 25-man roster varies based on how many of your players (from your 24-man submitted roster) were not drafted. The formula is $112 million minus 10% of the total salary of your season's undrafted players. So if you had a $6 million hitter and a $7 million pitcher go undrafted, your salary cap is $110.7 million. If you are drafting expensive players, you may find that your round 25 choices are limited. Since I am building rosters for 7 seasons, the season with the fourth highest (i.e., median) salary of undrafted players will count toward my salary cap formula.
Getting Stuck
Like in version 2, we have 30 choices in each bucket so it will be a lot harder to get stuck (but not impossible). If somehow you still end up getting stuck and have to pick a default player, you will simply choose any <300K player from a season you didn't already draft. The player must be the same position/bucket that you defaulted at. You will also draft last in the round 25 draft. If you get stuck in round 25, then you the same rule applies - you must take a <300K player from one of the seasons you don't have represented on your roster.
Going over your salary cap in the 24-round draft is the same as getting stuck. You are not allowed to pick a player that would put you over the $112M cap, if there is a cheaper player available. If you have no other option, then you will instead select a <300K player.
The "undrafted players" part of the salary cap formula is only determined at the end of round 24. So it's possible to draft up to $112M by round 24, then see your salary cap drop below your current salary right before the round 25 draft... at which point you will get a <300K player in round 25.
Other Details
Eligible Seasons: 1963-1992
Salary Cap: $112 million minus 10% of undrafted players' salary (will vary by each person)
DH: No
WW: No
AAA: No
Injuries: No
Trades: No
Clones: No
Ballpark: Must use a park that one of your drafted players played in during that season
Alignment: Based on final team salary (Top 4 salaries in NL East)
When sending me your roster via site-mail, it's easiest to simply copy/paste the entire roster from the Team Center (please - no editing. Any edits you do make more work for me). Roster the bonus players at the end of each section, so It's easy for me to identify.
7/20/2022 9:18 AM (edited)