Rules
**Temporary Rules for 2021 Season**
  • Teams will use a 26-man active roster during the season, instead of the normal 25.
  • All games (AL and NL) will utilize the DH in all games.
  • Whether or not these rules will continue past the 2021 season will depend on the MLB season and the commissioner's discretion.
Calendar of Events
Date Event
2020-12-26 New owner dispersal draft (approx)
2021-01-03 Teams are allowed to release players and make trades
2021-01-10 Stadium relocation is no longer allowed
2021-01-15 All teams must be under salary cap
2021-01-16 / 1:00p EST Rookie Draft
2021-01-19 List of thirty six players for Auction to be submitted to Commissioner
2021-01-21 Auction schedule is announced
2021-01-23 Auction begins
2021-01-23 Trade moratorium on players selected in Free Agency begins
2021-01-23 Teams are no longer allowed to release players
2021-02-13 Free Agent draft - 3M round
2021-02-20 Free Agent draft - 2M round
2021-02-27 Free Agent draft - 1M round
2021-03-06 Free Agent draft - 500k round
2021-03-13 Free Agent draft - 100k round
2021-03-14 Trade moratorium on players selected in Free Agency ends
2021-03-14 Teams are allowed to release players
2021-03-31 Last day to sign players in first signing period
2021-04-01 Opening Day (approx)
2021-06-30 Last day to sign players in second signing period
2021-07-31 Trading Deadline
2021-08-31 Last day to be on roster for playoffs
2021-09-01 Rosters expand beyond twenty five players
2021-09-15 Last day to sign players in third signing period
2021-10-01 Playoffs begin (approx)
Weekly Events
Date Event
Monday New Manager Profiles used for weekly simulations
Tuesday / 11:59p PDT Deadline to release players
Tuesday / 11:59p PDT Deadline to submit trades
Thursday / 11:59p PDT Deadline to petition pending trades
Friday / 11:59p PDT Deadline to submit waiver wire claims
Saturday Results of outstanding trade challenges posted
Saturday Results of waiver wire claims posted
Saturday New league zip posted
Sunday / 11:00p EDT Deadline to submit new Manager Profile for upcoming week's games
League Format
  • Favorite Pastime Baseball League is comprised of two leagues, an American League and a National League.
  • The American League will use a designated hitter, while the National League shall not.
  • Each league shall be divided into two divisions, consisting of six teams each.
  • The two division winners, along with the two next best teams, will represent their league in the playoffs.
  • In the playoffs, the home team rules will be applied.
  • MLB divisional and wildcard tie-breaking rules will be used when necessary.
  • The American League and National League champions will meet in the James Huang Memorial Championship Series.
  • All owners are expected to obtain a copy of the season disk from Diamond Mind Baseball. If Diamond Mind Baseball can verify the purchase by each owner, the champion of the the James Huang Memorial Championship Series will be granted the season disk awarded to the league for the following season (per Diamond Mind Baseball's discretion).
Schedule
  • The league will play a full 162-game season.
  • Each team will play each other team in their own division a total of eighteen times, resulting in ninety games. They will also play each team outside of their division, but within their league, twelve times, for a total of seventy two games. There will be a day off after the last day of the regular season.
  • The division winners, based on record, will be given the first and second seed in the playoffs, while the wild card teams, based on record, will be given the third and fourth seeds in the playoffs. In the divisional round, the first seed will play the fourth seed, while the second seed will play the third seed.
  • 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 five series, with the first, second and fifth games played at the stadium of the team with home field advantage.
  • The League Championship Series and the World Series will be a best of seven series, with the first, second, sixth and seventh games 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.
  • Tie-breaking procedures will be used to determine which team has home-field advantage in the World Series.
Game Resolutions
  • All games will be simulated on the commissioner's home computer using Diamond Mind Baseball v11.
  • Results will be posted on the league home page.
Stadiums
  • Owners must choose a present-day or historical stadium as the model for their team's home park. If a historical park is chosen, a specific season must be included in the request as park factors tend to change from year to year.
  • 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.
Tie Breakers

The following rules will be used to break any ties between two teams:

  1. Head to head record
  2. Divisional record
  3. Pythagorean record
  4. Coin flip
Player Eligibility
  • In order to be eligible for the current season, a player must have accumulated a minimum of seventy five plate appearances or twenty five innings pitched.
  • A player who has eligibility at the catcher position will be eligible for the upcoming season if he has accumulated a minimum of fifty plate appearances. A pitcher who has not started a single game will be eligible for the upcoming season if he has accumulated a minimum a fifteen innings pitched.
  • No player signed after the final Saturday in August will be eligible to play in the postseason.
Player Usage
  • Players will be allowed to go up to 110% of their allotted usage (defined by DMB as their historical Plate Appearances or Innings Pitched), and then will revert to replacement level for the remainder of the season. During the playoffs, usage will be limited to 20%.
  • If a hitter gets to 150% or more of their usage vs. either LHP or RHP, they will also revert to replacement level for the remainder of the season.
  • Players who are overused during the season are still available for postseason play.

All players must appear at positions for which the current DMB disk says they are eligible. However, there are a few exceptions:

  1. A corner outfielder is eligible to play in either right or left field.
  2. A centerfielder is eligible to play any of the outfield positions.
  3. In the playoffs, a starting pitcher is permitted to pitch out of the bullpen.
  • In order to curb blatant exploitation issues, owners will be penalized wins, which will have a direct impact on their standing for the rookie draft, free agent draft, and salary cap calculations. A team will receive a win penalty for every 100% of over usage they accrue.
  • If a team receives a penalty of at least five wins, they will be barred from the rookie draft lottery, even if their record suggests inclusion. If an owner's team receives a penalty of at least ten wins over the course of two consecutive seasons, they will be asked to leave the league, pending a legitimate excuse to explain their inactivity.
Rosters
  • Team rosters will hold no fewer than thirty eligible players and no more than thirty-five eligible players.
  • From Opening Day until August 31st, a team must have exactly twenty-five active players. On September 1st, a team can carry more than twenty-five active players on their roster. Teams may only carry twenty-five active players on their roster for the post-season.
  • On the weekend of the 100k free agent signings, if a team does not have thirty eligible players on their roster, the commissioner will automatically assign free agents to the team until they have a legal roster.
Salary Cap
  • A team's salary cap will be based on their three-year winning percentage, factoring in any win penalties they may have accrued during that time. Salaries will then be calculated based on a normalized distribution, with a minimum salary of 57M and a maximum salary of 63M.
  • By default, new owners will start with a salary cap of 60M. Eighty-one wins will be applied for the years in which they were not in the league.
  • No team may sign or acquire a player via trade when it would result in the team either exceeding their current salary cap in any of the player's contract years and/or exceeding the roster limit in a given year.
Contracts

Owners can elect to extend a players' contract up to four years for the following costs:

Current Salary January - March April - June July - September 15th
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
  • Players whose contracts have not been renewed or extended by the end of the third signing period, will be considered free agents for the upcoming season.
  • When a new owner assumes control over a franchise, the owner will be granted a one time exception, allowing them to extend any player on the previous year's roster as if it were the second signing period.
  • There is no upper limit on a player's salary. Players who are under contract prior to the 2017 season will be granted grandfathered status and have a maximum salary of 10M.
Releasing Players
  • If an owner releases a player, he must continue to pay 50% of the player's 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.
  • 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 are currently owed a release fee, but are not eligible for the current season.
Dispersal Draft
  • A dispersal draft will occur in any year where multiple owners will be joining the league at the same time.
  • All players under contract from the previous season, from the teams of which the new owners will be assuming control, will be eligible to be selected. The draft selections for the upcoming rookie draft, currently owned by these teams, will also be eligible to be selected.
  • All players under contract for the upcoming season, as well as the draft selections, must be selected during the dispersal draft. Players not under contract for the upcoming season may be selected, but will have their contracts immeditately renewed as if they were re-signed during the second signing period.
  • Owners may pass their selection ending their draft, once all mandatory players/draft selections have been selected.
  • The draft order will be randomly selected, and follow a double-sepertine order (1-2-3, 3-2-1, 3-2-1, 1-2-3).
  • Owners may trade players and picks during the draft, with the other new owners.
  • The disperal draft will occur approximately one week before the start of the off-season. The commissioner will make a best effort attempt at finding a time that works for all parties involved. If for any reason, an owner is unable to make the selected time, an existing owner, from a team in the opposing league will be selected on their behalf.
Rookie Draft
  • The rookie draft will consist of four rounds.
  • All players who have not appeared active in any prior season and have met either the 75/50 PA or 25/15 IP thresholds, will be available in the draft.
  • The draft order will be set based on win-loss record, from worst record to best record, with the exception that all the teams who finish in the bottom twentieth percentile will be placed in an equally weighted lottery to determine draft order. Based on a normal distribution, this will be approximately five teams. For each round of the draft, a separate drawing will occur, possibly resulting in a different draft order for each of the four rounds.
  • All teams with records below 70 wins, will have the difference in their win totals, added to the baseline of 70 wins. For example, 70 wins = 70 wins, 65 wins = 75 wins, 60 wins = 80 wins, 50 wins = 90 wins, and 40 wins = 100 wins. The adjusted win total will be used to determine the draft order.
  • If the league is missing an owner, or a team owner is absent from the draft and does not provide a list of players from which to select, the commissioner will act as the de facto owner during the draft.
  • Draft picks will not be skipped due to absence.
  • All first round selections will earn 500k in their first season. With each subsequent round, the starting salary will decrease by 100k. Any players not selected in the draft will go into the free agent pool.
  • The rookie draft will occur on the third Saturday of January, starting at 1p EST.
Free Agency
  • Free Agency will be divided between an auction and a weekly draft.
  • Following the rookie draft, owners will be asked to submit a list of their top thirty six most desired free agents. The commissioner will then create an auction schedule of the thirty six most sought after free agents and distribute it to the league. The auction will begin one week after the rookie draft and last for approximately three weeks.
  • The auction will take place Slack and each player will be given their own channel. An auction will end only after a full twenty-four hours has elapsed on the last legal bid. To ensure that each auction is easy to monitor, do not make any non-bid post in a player thread.
  • An owner is permitted to make a bid as long as it is divisible by 100k and is greater than the previous bid. For a bid to be legal, the owner's bid on the current player, plus any currently winning bids on other players in the auction, plus 100k per player needed to reach thirty active players, cannot exceed the team's salary cap. In addition, the addition of the player cannot result in the team exceeding the roster limit.
  • In order to prevent auctions from being dragged out indefinitely, any auction that lasts more than four days (96 hours) will go into a blind auction stage where all teams who have bid in the final 24 hours may make one last bid in secret, and the highest bid wins. The team with the highest public bid before the blind bid stage will have the tiebreaker advantage.
  • Four weeks after the rookie draft, the weekly Free Agent draft will begin.
  • 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 round of the Free Agent draft. The best, non-playoff team from the prior season will get the most ping-pong balls, while the worst team, will get the least amount of ping-pong balls. The amount of ping-pong balls will be based on the Fibonacci series. The eight playoff teams will always go exactly in order of their final records (worst-to-first) to finish out a round.
  • For each week of the free agent draft, each owner will submit a list of players they want to the commissioner's email account. The owner may specify a series of rules in which they would like the players taken from their list, such as "select at least 1 SP by the 2nd pass."
  • For the first week of the draft, a team may select up to three players at 3M each. For each subsequent week of the draft, a team may select as follows: four players at 2M; five players at 1M; fifteen players at 500k; thirty players at 100k. By the conclusion of the draft, all teams must have a legal roster.
  • An owner is allowed to list as many players as they would be willing to sign at that week's given price. It is also possible that due to the size of their list, a team may not sign any players in a given round. If a team wishes to skip a round entirely, they must send an e-mail explicitly stating so.
  • At no point during free agency, may a team exceed either their salary cap or the roster limit to select a player. Any player selected in either the auction and/or the weekly free agent draft cannot be traded until the conclusion of free agency.
Waiver Wire
  • The free agency style lottery will be used for the waiver wire. Once the season is underway, teams may submit lists of ranked free agent requests. Priority will be based on a team's place in the standings following Saturday's results. The team with the worst record will be given twenty-four ping pong balls, while the team with the best record will be given one ping pong ball. If two teams have the same record, the playoff tie breaking rules will dictate who has higher priority.
  • Teams may sign a maximum of one free agent per week.
  • If a player is cut during the season, their salary will be halved (rounded up to the nearest 100k) for each subsequent week they are free agents. For example, if a player has a salary for 5M and is cut on Tuesday, they are available to be selected on Friday at their current salary. The following week, the player's salary will be 2.5M, then 1.3M, then 700k... 400k... 200k... and finally 100k.
Trading Guidelines
  • Trades may involve a combination of players and rookie selections for the upcoming draft. In addition, as long as the trade is deemed to be fair, trading assets to clear salary is allowed.
  • 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 between two teams who have traded that same player since the start of the previous season will be heavily scrutinized for collusion and likely vetoed.
  • You cannot trade rookie draft selections (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.
  • Any trade that is agreed upon in principle, prior to first day of the off-season or involves draft selections for the following season, prior to those selections being officially granted to the team, will be vetoed by the commissioner, if and only if, sufficient evidence regarding details of the trade is provided by a third-party. The details of that evidence, and the identity of the third-party, will not be shared with the offending teams.
  • A trade is considered pending, and cannot be amended, once both teams involved submit the trade to the commissioner.
  • Pending trades will be posted to the league in a timely matter, 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. The commissioner reserves the right to nullify any trade. Trades are only final once they are affirmed by the commissioner later in the week.
  • Traded players will be available for use by the new team beginning the week after the trade deadline that has been met. For example, with a Tuesday trade deadline, players traded on Monday will be available for the following week; however, trades made on Wednesday will require an additional week of waiting time, during which players will still be available to their original teams.
  • When a trade is completed, player contracts are transferred with the player.
  • Players and/or draft picks involved in a pending trade can themselves be traded. If for any reason the commissioner nullifies the initial trade, all subsequent trades will be nullified. No exceptions will be granted to work around deadlines.
  • See the Weekly Event Dates for deadlines involved in trades.