Rules

Brewers League Baseball Rules

(updated 6/13/22)

1. Participation

Owners Expectations
- Responsible for participating regularly. This includes:
  - Conducting yourself appropriately and professionally at all times. This includes your interactions with other GMs.
  - Exporting on a regular basis
  - Mandatory participation in league events (drafts, votes, etc)
  - Posting occasionally on the forums
  - Responding to trade offers in a timely manner
  - Notifying the Commissioner if you’re going to be away for more than a week
  - Notifying the Commissioner if you can no longer participate or are considering stepping down
  - Make best effort to manage all levels of your organization
  - Reading and understanding the rules
  - Asking questions if you don’t understand something about the league, the game or the rules
- Owners will be replaced at the discretion of the Commissioner if they fail to meet the expectations listed above.

2. LEAGUE SETTINGS

24 Fictional Teams
Domestic League (DH) – Ale Division, Lager Division
Import League (DH) – Stout Division, Bock Division
Playoffs – 12 teams (4 division winners plus 8 wildcards)
Minors – 4 levels (AAA, AA, A, R)
Feeder leagues – 3 leagues (NCAA, Cape League, High School)
Coaches/Scouts – Enabled
Injuries – Set to low. Career Ending Injuries are off but can occur during an injury setback. CEI’s can be revived by the Commish to the original injury time if desired by the GM.
Storylines – Off.
In-Game suspensions – Set to Low
Injured list – 14 days
Ratings System – All ratings are on a 20-80 Scale. (Overall ratings are off)
Rule 5 Draft is disabled

3. SIMULATION SETTINGS

Simulations will be run every other day. Each sim covers 7 days of in game time during the regular season.
All Transactions and Exports are due by the time posted in the previous sim thread.
Exceptions
- If a one game playoff is needed at the end of the regular season an extra sim will be run. The sim will take place on the next scheduled sim day OR after all participating teams have submitted an export.
- The sim schedule may be modified for events such as the trade deadline, September 1st roster expansion, postseason and off-season.
- The sim schedule may be modified as necessary. The Commissioner will provide prior notification before doing so.

4. ROSTERS

BLB has a limit of 26 roster spots.
- BLB rosters expand to 40 during Spring Training and 28 from September 1st until the end of the regular season.
AAA, AA, and A have a limit of 26 roster spots.
The Rookie League has a limit of 35 roster spots and will expand to 45 for several sims after the amateur draft in order to let GM’s adjust for incoming rookies.
No player in Rookie League may be 22 years of age or older. Since this can’t be governed in game it will be checked by the commish on a regular basis. Any players found to be 22 years of age or older will be DFA’d.
No player in A ball may be 25 years of age or older. Since this can’t be governed in game it will be checked by the commish on a regular basis. Any players found to be 25 years of age or older will be DFA’d.
Position rules – Players on the active roster should be used in their actual positions, except in cases of emergency. Rosters should be run the same way an actual team would be, i.e. backups for each position, 2 catchers, etc. Minor league teams don’t have to follow any position rules as players can learn new positions.
Postseason rosters – All players on the 40 man roster are eligible to be selected for the 25 man postseason roster.

5. TRANSACTIONS

Waivers. There are two types of waivers in OOTP:
- Outright waivers: Outright waivers are in effect when you manually move a player into the Waivers section of your transactions screen. This is usually done to get a player off your team’s 40 man roster or to demote a player who is out of Option years.
  - Waivers and claims are processed in the game.
  - The Waiver period is 14 days

The trade deadline is the Tuesday of the 2nd full week of August.
Trades must be posted in the Trade Announcements forum. Posts should contain the players name, position and current league level. Both owners need to post in order to make it official and each should include a quick sentence or two explaining how the trade helps them.
Free Agent signees may not be traded before June 15th of the season for which they signed a BLB contract.
Trades can include Players, Cash or Draft Picks.
Draft Picks
- It is the responsibility of the team(s) including draft picks in a trade to verify that they do still in fact hold said pick(s). If it is discovered during the processing of the trade that the pick(s) have already been traded the transaction may be put on hold until corrections are made by the trading teams.
- Draft picks can only be traded 5 years into the future. (Next draft, plus 4 more years)
Designated for Assignment (DFA)

The DFA period is 21 days.
If a player’s DFA time runs out transactions will be handled by the game which will release the player

6. CONTRACTS

- A Team Option must contain a minimum buyout equal to:
  - (A) The difference between the highest guaranteed year salary and the amount of the team option (provided the option year $$ > the highest guaranteed year $$),

- - (B) 10% of the amount of the team option,
  - Whichever amount is greater.
- Vesting Options are not allowed.

Only one Team Option may be used per contract, and it must be in the last year of the contract. This prevents people from stacking Player Options after the Team Option.
Players cannot be signed to contract extensions until after they have received their second arbitration contract. Players become eligible for contract extensions once they have two “Received a 1-year contract worth a total of $xx through arbitration.” in their player history.
For each contract year, the $$ value of an individual season must be at least 50% of the highest guaranteed season value

7. OFF SEASON RULES AND TIMELINE

Start of Offseason to December 1st
- Arbitration contracts are awarded. Team options can be accepted/declined. Scouting/player development budgets may be changed.
Free Agency to Spring Training (5 sims)
- 16 days per sim from December 1st until February 1st, then the final Free Agency sim to Spring Training.
Spring Training to Opening Day (2 sims)
- You can activate anyone on your 40 man roster during this time.
- Players without options remaining will need to clear waivers in order to send them to the minors after Spring Training ends.

8. AMATEUR DRAFT

The Amateur Draft is 10 rounds
- All rounds will be conducted using the online Draft Utility
- The CPU will pick for any Owners who don’t make their selection in the allotted time. After the CPU picks for a player, they will remain on “CPU control” until they inform the commish they have returned.
- The draft results will be entered into the game during the draft day SIM.
- Draft order is determined by the previous year’s standings. Ties are resolved by the Standings from two years ago.

9. FINANCIALS

Cash Maximum
- The Cash Maximum is $20 million. At the end of the season anything over $20 Million in cash will be lost.
Ticket prices – maximum ticket price is capped at $20.
Profitability
- Any team with an Ending Balance of -$20m or less in two consecutive seasons will enter the BLB Debt Control Protocol.
  Once in the Debt Control Protocol, the cumulative effect of trades made in the current season must not increase in payroll.
  This will be calculated cumulatively during a season. (IE if payroll is lowered by a trade the team can increase payroll in a subsequent trade up to that amount)
- An accounting ledger of each team in the protocol will be kept and posted in a public spreadsheet for reference.
  Changes in payroll will only consider the player’s salary in the current season and will not be pro-rated.
  For this purpose “current season” is the first day of the off-season to the last day of the following post-season.
- A team will be removed from the Debt Control Protocol after finishing a season with an Ending Balance greater than -$15m.

10. COACHES and SCOUTS

Personnel signings take place in the game.
Teams should fill all available Personnel slots.

11. STADIUMS

Modifications – During the Off-season modifications can be made to your Stadium using the provided Excel spreadsheet. Proposals may be denied if it is determined the Owner can’t afford the modifications.
All Stadium Changes come from CASH. If you don’t have enough CASH, you can’t make the changes.
Mods take place between the beginning of the off-season and the start of Spring Training.
A team may only add seats 1,000 units at a time.
No stadium will have a capacity greater than 45,000.

12. END OF SEASON AWARDS

Awards are determined in game.

13. HALL OF FAME

Nominations
- The HOF Ballot will be generated by the HOF Utility (included with StatsLab) based on the selection criteria as established by the HOF Committee.
- Any owner can submit a player not selected by the utility as a write-in candidate to be considered for the following year’s ballot.
- The nominating owner should post their justification including a summary of their career, accomplishments and highlights for consideration by the HOF Committee.
- Players must wait three seasons after they retire before being nominated.
Voting
- Voting will be held during the early part of the season with Inductions happening near the All-Star game.
- Every owner must vote.
- A Player needs to receive 70% of the votes to be elected.
- A Player needs to receive 40% of the votes to remain on next years ballot.
- A Player can be placed on the ballot for five years before being removed if not elected

14. FAIR PLAY

All fair play issues should be brought to the attention of the Commissioner.
As a General Rule, everything you do should be for the betterment of your organization. You should run your team as an actual Baseball team would. In most cases, common sense should prevail.
Potential Issues Include, but are not limited to:
- Losing intentionally to get a better draft position. This does not mean you can’t play prospects when the rosters expand.
- Signing FA’s during the season or off-season just to trade them.
- Large amounts of cash being used in trades. This isn’t forbidden, but will be examined more closely.
- Changing players’ positions to help during contract negotiations.
- Placing players on the 60 day DL that aren’t injured for an extended period of time.
- Collusion. (Working together)