Phase One Draft
Phase One - Submission
Each owner will submit a list of players. This list must
meet the following criteria:
- Only those players on the master roster
may be included at this time.
- All mandatory positions must be filled
- 14 position players, 5 starting pitchers, 5 relief
pitchers, and 2 spot pitchers.
- The list must also have at least one
player in each field position. This is determined by the
primary position of players on the master roster. Once
the season begins, you can use a player at any primary or
secondary position for which he is listed. For the
purposes of the draft, however, you must adhere to the
primary positions.
- Pitchers, regardless of position
designation, can fill either a starting or reliever role.
- The list can include up to the roster
limit of 40 players.
- Owners may optionally rank players in
order of importance (see Resolution below).
- The salaries of the players must fit
within the salary cap.
The idea here is to pick a team as though you were
going to get every player. The problem is that several
teams will choose the same players. There may be some
strategy in not selecting certain popular/expensive players.
If a team submits an improper draft list
- Not enough players - or missing
positions
- The League Office will pick the
player making the most money to fill the missing
position and still keep the list under the salary cap.
- If multiple positions are missing,
see the guidelines used for Inactive Owners to fill the
draft list.
- Too many players - Too many players
above 250 salary - Over the salary cap
- If more than 40 players are
submitted, the League Office will randomly remove
players from the list until it is at 40. If a player
selected to be removed is the only one eligible to fill
a given fielding position, or if he is a pitcher and his
removal would leave the team with fewer than 12
pitchers, he will be retained.
- If the team is above the salary cap
or has too many players making more than 250 on the list
(you can have a maximum of 28 on your "major league"
roster), then the League Office will begin removing
players starting with the players making the highest
salaries, until the draft list is legal.
Phase One - Resolution
Players who are selected by only one team are awarded to
that team. For example, if an owner is the only person to
draft Jacoby Ellsbury, he's on the team. More likely,
however, is that several teams will draft Ellsbury, so he is
not put on a roster. It's highly improbable that an owner
will have exclusive claim to all 40 roster spots, which
leads us to the Phase One Resolution Process.
During this phase, owners sit back and wait for their
rosters to be filled - usually within about a week. All the
"exclusive" draft choices will be awarded to their
respective teams, although for the time being they will not
be officially added to the roster.
Then, the remaining players that have been drafted by
more than one team will be compiled into a list sorted in
this order:
- Players drafted by the most teams.
- Players with the highest salaries.
- Numerically, by position number in baseball scoring
(OF = 7, DH = 8 in this case)
- Alphabetical by player's last name.
After the above list has been completed, the League
Office will begin placing these players, one-by-one, onto
the teams. The player currently at the top of the list is
eligible to be placed on any of the teams that initially
drafted him.
The team that gets him will be chosen using the following
criteria, in order:
- The team with the most room under the salary cap.
Another way to put this is the lowest total salary of all
awarded players. (Total team salary is an initial rough
guide to team strength).
- The team with the fewest signed players in that
category (position player, starting pitcher, or relief
pitcher), based upon the primary position designated for
that player.
- The team with the fewest total number of signed
players.
- The team without a qualifying starter at that position
(based on the player's primary position on the master
roster).
- Player ranking (see below).
- Random drawing
Thus, at the beginning of the draft, many of the player
awards will be done via the ranking and/or random drawing,
since most teams will have zero players.
Player Ranking
As teams pick players for the draft, they may optionally
give each player a rank of importance, entered via the web
interface for selecting players in the draft.
Details:
- "1" = the highest rank; "40" is the lowest rank; An
unranked player is shown as "0"
- Ranking players is optional
- If you give 2 players the same rank, both will
automatically be changed to the lowest of your ranked
players, with the higher salary getting the higher rank.
- In this tiebreaker, the team that gives the player the
highest rank gets him. If multiple teams give the same
rank, they advance to the random draw.
Typically, about the first 8-14 players are placed on
teams that have no one on the roster yet. Because we start
with the players picked most often, you'll want to make sure
you give ranks to the players you think other teams will
pick. It might be a waste of your effort to rank your entire
draft list -- but it doesn't hurt anything (and in the end,
you really don’t know which players will be the ones
selected most often).
Note: if you are participating in a LIVE draft and don't
show up for the draft, the league will use your ranks to
determine the order of drafting players for you.
Resolution Examples
Example A: At the start of the draft, Albert
Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, "Rookie Phenom", and "Japanese
Import" are the most-chosen players - by 14 teams. ARod has
the highest salary, so he is considered first. Since all
teams have 0 players and 0 salary, ARod is awarded via
random drawing, let's say to "Team X". Now we consider
Pujols. If Team X has listed Pujols, it is now eliminated
in tiebreaker 1, because everyone else has total salary =
0. Again, we will have to go all the way to the random
drawing, and "Team Y" wins. Now, between Rookie Phenom and
Japanese Import, both have a salary of 100, but Phenom is a
catcher (2) and Import is a shortstop (6), so we award
Phenom first in the same manner - with Team X and Team Y out
of the running. If Phenom and Import both played shortstop,
then Import would be awarded first (tiebreaker #4 - last
name).
Example B: Further on in the draft, we're awarding
players chosen by three teams. "Grizzled Veteran" has been
chosen by Team X (3400 under the cap), Team Y (5675), and
Team Z (1345). Since Team Y is the furthest from reaching
the salary cap, it gets the player.
Exception for Commissioner Teams
If the Commissioner/League Office has a team in the
league and it is involved in step 6, it is not considered
for the random drawing until at least 8 players have already
been awarded.
Uniquely Drafted Players
After all contested players are awarded, players drafted
only by one team will be added to the proper team. This was
a big change from our initial league in 2000, because adding
these players first unintentionally penalized the teams who
attempted to sign a lot of players or might have been taking
a gamble on a few rookies or relatively unknown players.
Phase Two
After Phase One, most teams will not meet the roster
minimum of 26 players. At this time, all teams will go
through a special free agent signing period. In a manner of
speaking, this is more like a traditional list draft, and is
similar to the weekly transactions throughout the season,
with these exceptions:
- Before this phase begins, all teams in the league will
get an extra 10 million Benchwarmer Bucks.
- Teams submit an eight-round draft sheet, while the
weekly transactions are only four rounds.
- At the beginning of each round, the selection order is
changed. Teams with the most room under the cap draft
first.
- There are no cuts in this phase.
- Players will only be awarded to a team if he fits
under their salary cap AND the team has enough cash to pay
for any remaining unfilled positions / roster slots.
- Teams may list an alternate selection for each round -
if the primary player is already taken, or cannot be
awarded for reasons mentioned above, then the alternate is
checked.
- If the alternate can also not be placed on the team,
then the team's next round selection (and alternate) will
be moved up to the current round.
- If, after this 8-round submission, there are still
teams that do not meet roster minimums, then this phase
will be repeated. All teams are eligible to participate
in any phase. Typically, we can fill the rosters in
three 8-round submissions. Sometimes we need four
submissions until all teams are legal.
If a team misses the posted deadline for selection or
does not submit a list for Phase Two, then they will receive
no players in the first eight-round selection. They will
have a chance to submit a list for a second or any
subsequent run-throughs. Typically, this deadline will be
at least three days after the draft results are posted -
sometimes as long as a week.
The goal in Phase Two is to get every team to a legal
roster - with 14 hitters, 12 pitchers, and every
fielding position covered. That's not to say that the
roster will good - minor league players will
be used to fill roster minimums - but you'll have normal
free agency for the remainder of Spring Training to fine
tune the roster.
If a team misses several deadlines in the follow-up
signing periods, then the League Office may fill their team
for them - using the methods described in the Inactive
Owners section of the rules. For returning leagues, this
policy is used only at Opening Day, but in startup leagues,
it is important for all teams to meet minimum levels so that
free-agency and trading can begin. Another option may be to
call an end to Phase Two and the team will fill the final
spots during the Free Agency period.
Late Season Drafts – Exceptions to Phase Two
Additional Rounds
For leagues drafting later in the pre-season, the League
Office might increase the number of rounds in a Phase Two
submission to more than 8 in order to allow the teams to
reach a legal roster more quickly.
Calling an Early End to Phase Two
If only a few teams are slightly short of a legal roster
and the beginning of the season is drawing near, the Office
may call an end to Phase Two and allow the league to go into
Free Agency. If the teams without a legal roster missed a
Phase Two deadline, it is almost certain that Phase Two will
end early. (So, in mid-to-late March don’t skip the second
submission of Phase Two thinking you’ll have the third
submission all to yourself).
Free Agency
At this point, now that each team has a legal roster, the league will enter a Free Agent signing
period to allow the teams to fill out their rosters. Actual
dates will be communicated from the Commissioner's Office.
See Roster Changes for selection details. Selection order
will be based initially on room left under the salary cap,
and will continue as a normal league in the off-season (as
teams select a player, that team goes to the bottom of the
order, which is maintained from week to week). Trades will
also be allowed at that time.
Transaction Order exception: If Phase Two was
stopped by BWB before all teams had a legal roster, those
teams missing roster spots will be at the top of the
transaction order.
Typically at this point, new leagues will follow the same
once-per-week transaction schedule. However, if the draft
rounds were completed late in the pre-season, it is possible
that the selections will occur more frequently and/or teams
may be allowed to pick more than four players per
transaction period.
Notes
Until the season begins, there is only a 50% salary
rebate for players cut from rosters. Teams get no rebate
when cutting a player making a salary of 200 or below.
2009 Change - Because
teams can get in somewhat of a salary cap jam during the
draft and they don't have full control over every action in
the draft (due to the list-submission and resolution
process), new leagues can make cuts in the first two normal
transaction periods after the Phase Two draft is done and
receive a 100% salary rebate on cut players.
There is still no rebate for players with salaries of 200 or
below. For late-drafting leagues, if this 2-cycle
period extends into the regular season, that's OK.
Returning teams are limited to just 5 million bucks that
they can bring into a season. Anything above that is
removed before the start of the season. First-year teams do
not have that limitation. If they have 15 million left on
Opening Day, they get to keep it.
All teams get an extra 2 million to spend on Opening Day.
Live Draft Option
As new leagues join the BWB Universe, owners will have a
choice of entering either the standard, list draft process,
or participate in a new, experimental live draft. Why
"experimental" when all sorts of leagues on the Internet do
this now? Starting a league in BWB with a draft brings a few
interesting problems, including: Salary cap, 16 teams per
league, and 40-man rosters.
If we draft an entire team, it will take a full day,
maybe two! So, the draft will allow teams to draft in a live
manner the first ten players for their rosters. At a minute
a pick, that's still over 2.5 hours. Once the live draft is
over, teams will then enter the normal Phase 2 process of
the draft as described above.
BWB does not expect to build its own draft interface for
the 2008 season (and probably not in 2009, either). Instead,
we'll use some kind of pre-existing Internet chat interface.
There will be limited draft sessions available, but in the
heart of the drafting season (late Feb. and early March),
we'll try to present a wide array of days/times. Starting in
January, 1 or 2 draft sessions should be available each
weekend.
League Package Drafts
New BWB leagues that join as a full 16-team league are
welcome to conduct their own drafts upon joining and devise
their own methods for how many players to select and other
draft rules. They'll just need to fit into certain
guidelines and then report the results to the BWB office.
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