Baseball Draft Rules

The Baseball Draft invites users to build the best fake baseball team in history. The following is a full post from Commish Inty, outlining the rules for the Fourth Draft.

The Participants
1) The Commish - That's me. I'm going to keep the draft going by moving along the selection process (see below), posting games, posting results, and generally keeping the game moving forward.

2) The GMs - that's you. The twelve of you ... so far. New parties interested can express so in this thread until we announce we've reached the point you cannot. From there, each GM will assemble your team, put together lineups, and rotations, set strategies, and respond to the ebbs and flows in your attempts to win. You're really the owner, GM, and Manager of your team all in one. Or sometimes Shaq cosplays as you filling all those roles.

ASSEMBLING YOUR ROSTER
At the start of the game, every team is given the following assets:


 * 40 Draft Picks
 * $75 in Intybucks
 * 3 Keeper Slots

These assets are all tradeable, and can be used in each phase outline below as appropriate.

There are Four methods for roster assembly:

1) The Carryover from Previous Draft
''GMs who played last year and chose to carry-through were able to use mechanisms to carry over a number of players into this season. These are the foundation of the rosters. If you are new to this season, since you can't carry over players, you'll get additional draft picks. Which brings us to ...''

2) The Draft
''We will be doing forty rounds of drafting in a snake-style draft. Each player in Major League Baseball History (American League, National League, Negro Leagues, The American Association, the Union Association, the Players League, and the Federal League) and Minor League Baseball is eligible to be drafted and/or rostered once.(as an homage to the Jedi and Starfighter drafts, and their Anakin/Vader dynamic, we will allow two Babe Ruths - One Pitcher, One Outfielder. No other exceptions)''

''If you would like to get a scouting reports on player(s) you are considering drafting, requests can be placed in thread or via PM to the commissioner. They will be sent via PM, and each scouting report will cost $1 in Intybucks.''

Important Notes

1) Due to the nature of record keeping with the Negro Leagues, not all players will successfully import into OOTP. Generally speaking, the more info is on B-R, the better, but a bio and stats on B-R does not guarantee they will be able to be imported. Obviously, if I produce a scouting report, the player can be imported, but if you have a question about someone, you can simply ask if they can be and I'll check, no scouting report needed. I've had to refund a couple of scouting report requests on account of this.

2) Since a number of folks have asked ... typically speaking, the magic number you want to look for in a shortened season is 150 at-bats. Higher than that, and the system will start to pro-rate (but possibly not give durability); lower and the system will weaken, no matter how good those at-bats were. For pitchers, 15 IP for relief / 60 IP for starters. However, I will warn that typically pitchers who don't reach the threshold of 100+ IP lack serious durability.

''Unlike previous drafts there are no restrictions and requirements on which positions must be filled. However, you cannot play pitchers as position players (and vise versa), so you really should draft both pitchers and position players.''

When drafting a player, please use the following to make things easy on me: Name - Position (year)

The year is important as the OOTP simulator will look at the current year and two previous years (if possible) as well as player ratings in the database to determine performance level.

3) Free Agency
Once the draft is finished, we will open free agency.

''For the first 48 hours of free agency, we will use a waiver wire system, with the standard order from even numbered rounds being the waiver wire order for each claim. Once we are beyond that, it will be declared in the thread, and we will go to a first-come, first-serve claim basis for free agency.''

To sign a free agent will cost $5 in Intybucks.

''You must have a total number of at least 40 players on your roster; 25 on the active roster and at least 15 on the inactive roster. There is a link at the bottom of this post with the roster information.''

If you are unable to get to a total of 40 players when this phase comes to an end ...

4) Inty Assignment
''I will assign players to your roster. Most of them will be on the level of terrible players I thought were good in my naive innocence growing up as a Cleveland fan, or perhaps worse and much worse. So, if you want to avoid Pat Tabler or something on your roster, you should avoid this being necessary. Though, I hope you don't. Once everyone is at 40 (or more) players on the roster, we are ready to move forward with the next phase''

SETTING OF BASE STRATEGIES
There are both mandatory and optional strategies:

Mandatory Strategies

 * Choosing a home ballpark. You can choose any ballpark that has been used in the AL/NL (current or historical) or des


 * ign your own, provided it meets MLB guidelines for new ballparks.
 * Choosing a location. You can pick pretty much any city on the planet.
 * Choosing a nickname.
 * Choosing a manager. You can use a historical manager, or you can create your own - see this post in the last thread to see the guidelines and options.
 * Setting a standard lineup vs. RHP and a standard lineup vs. LHP
 * Please note, there is no designated hitter, but unlike with WIS, you can bat the pitcher in any slot in the order.
 * Setting a standard rotation - you can pick a rotation of any size between a one-man rotation and a six-man rotation. You must also decide whether your rotation is strict order, strict with flexibility to allow higher rested, or to simply always start the highest rested pitcher in the rotation. You must also decide if you want to allow starting pitchers to pitch in relief.

Optional Strategies

 * Setting a logo and/or brand colors for your team.
 * Setting a capacity and/or ticket prices for your stadium (if custom - historical parks will get their historical capacity, but you can still set ticket prices)
 * Assigning Depth Charts for each position (up to two backups, plus a defense-only sub). You can also set the depth-usage strategy, with options of Never, If Starter Tired, or every nth game, with n from 1-10, 12, 15, or 20.
 * Assigning a preference order for pinch hitters and pinch runners (in general, or vs LHP/RHP)
 * Assigning primary role (Closer, Stopper, Setup, Specialist, Middle Relief, Long Relief, and Emergency SP) and secondary role for any pitcher that can come out of the bullpen.
 * Set strategy for the following for general, and for close/late games (if you are interested in this, we'll talk about it, rather than make this post even longer):
 * Stealing Bases, Base-Running, Hit and Run, Sac Bunt, Squeeze play
 * Pitch around, Intentional Play, Use of Infield in, Use of Infield Shifts
 * Hook starters, Hook relievers, Favor L/R, pinch hit for pitchers, setting of max pitch counts, use of the "opener" strategy
 * Situations where you would use defensive substitutions and response to an opponent using an opener.
 * Note: Instead of hand-picking each of these, you can choose an over-arching strategy - traditional, balanced, small ball, moderate small ball, sabermetric, moderate sabermetric, tactician, moderate tactician and completely unorthodox.

''For all Optional Strategies, you can simply not do it. In this case, we'll use the sim defaults and that's 100% okay.''

THE SEASON
''I will be posting a week at a time (a week in the game, not IRL - will be both slower and quicker depending on things). You can make adjustments or just let it fly with your standard lineups and pitching rotations. I will then post results and do some key recaps (and some happy helpers might chime in as well).'' We will play a 162-game season (plus All-Star festivities), with the league divided into two divisions.

''A note about this sim: I can't control every individual game. I will do my best to ensure that your specific choices for specific games happen, but there is a non-zero chance that the sim/manager will overrule my inputs and go with something else. Unlike with WIS, I can't go back and "re-sim". Please, just accept this as part of the game, and hopefully it doesn't have an impact to change overall standings. But, we aware of it, and do your best to not bust my chops when/if it happens.''

''At the end of the season ... the best teams will make ...''

THE PLAYOFFS
''The winners of each division, plus the two teams with the best records will make the playoffs. Each series is best-of-seven in a 2-3-2 format for home/away, and you will be allowed to set strategy, lineup, and pitcher for each game.''

''The winner of the playoffs gets a prize given out by the mods - colors for I don't want to guarantee an amount of time, plus title. Bragging rights for-ev-er. And their name - okay, Star Wars Boards username - etched in the history books.''

THE CARRYOVER TO NEXT SEASON
''That's right. We're playing for keeps! Again.''

''Everyone playing in this draft and continuing to the next season gets three keepers. Any three players on your team you want to bring through and make sure you have them next season – they are yours to take. But, you can keep more … if you want to, that is.''

''Keeping a fourth player will cost you your first-round draft pick in the next draft. Keeping a fifth player will cost you your second- and third-round picks. Want a sixth? You’ll forfeit your picks in rounds 4-6. A seventh? Pony up all five picks from round seven thru eleven. Picks from round 12-17 can net you an eighth, and rounds 18-25 can net you a ninth.And, giving up rounds 26-40 can get you a tenth.''

So, if desired, you could keep an entire starting team – all eight position players and two pitchers (or any combination of ten players – four starters, a closer, your outfield, your shortstop, and your catcher, for instance).

''You can also keep fewer carryover players. If you want to keep only two, you’ll net an additional pick at the end of the third round in the next draft. Only want to keep one? You’ll net additional picks at the end of the second and third round, and if you don’t want to keep any, you get additional picks at the end of each of the first three rounds.''

''Keepers is also a tradeable asset. You can trade another team your right to carry a player (or two or three) as part of a trade. So are future draft picks. You can go to the trade deadline and offer up your first round pick next year to get that ace pitcher at the deadline! (Of course, if you trade away a future pick, you can’t use it to keep additional players … so plan your strategy wisely. Once your keeper train derails, you can’t get it back on the tracks).''

You also carryover any unused Allocation Money to next season.

Anyone who plays and wants to play again in the fifth draft will be allowed to carry-through, and we will always allow Expansion Teams to join.