Post by bgreene33 on Oct 6, 2008 12:57:29 GMT -5
IN GENERAL:
A GM will submit one, and ONLY ONE, bid per player in which they are interested. These bids (assuming a GM bids on multiple players) will be submitted via a PM to the MLBPA account. Only the league office has access to this account. This bid must include the following to be considered valid:
*Number of years of the contract offer
*Total amount of the contract offer
*Average Annual Salary ("AAS")
*a breakdown of the contract per year or note it will be evenly spread.
Example:
Boston Red Sox offer Player A:
5 year contract worth $48.5M
AAS: $9.7M
2006 - $7M
2007 - $9M
2008 - $11M
2009 - $11M
2010 - $10.5M
Failure to use this format and include the 4 criteria listed above will result in an invalid and voided bid. It will be each GM's responsibility to be sure he submits a proper bid.
There are limitations as to how high or low any single year's salary may be, as follows:
The highest single year salary of a contract may not exceed AAS times 2.5.
In addition to Rule 7 minimum salary limits, the lowest single year salary of a contract may not be less than 40% of AAS.
ANNUAL SALARY ALLOCATION LIMITS WITHIN A CONTRACT:
These Rules apply for Backloading and Frontloading!
Backend loading of contracts is a concern of the league. Those contracts sure feel good to the bid winner since those latter years can get loaded up, allowing current year salary to stay lower and manageable and help prop up AAS.
The league does recognize a stronger need for escalating contracts for unproven minor leaguers, so they should get more flexibility. Prospects are usually not subject to much bidding. However, MLB players with 4 years or more are highly subject to FA bidding, and usually less risky than minor leaguers.
The league imposes 3 different limitations to help minimize abusive back loading. Those three categories are:
Minor leaguers
MLB players with AAS < $8M
MLB players with AAS 8M or more
Minor leaguers:
Until a player has a Major League AB or IP, the player can be bid on as a Minor League player. All minor leaguers will be given AAS contracts only. This is to retain prospect protection for minor leaguers that are signed throughout the year. The player will then be owed that amount throughout the time he is in your farm system and during his prospect protected major league years. For example:
Boston Red Sox offer Minor Leaguer A:
AAS contract worth 650 K
AAS: 650 K
Once a Minor League player has at least 1 AB or IP in the majors, they can no longer be bid on as minor league player and will not be given PP status. This means they will fall under the rules of regular MLB players
MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS
Until a player has a Major League 150 AB or 50 IP, the player can be bid on as a Minor League player. All minor leaguers will be given AAS contracts only. See IFA (International Free Agent) post for IFA rules
MLB Players with AAS < $8M:
The total of salaries in the first 1/2 or last 1/2 of the contract (in years) may not exceed 70% of the total contract dollars. If a contract covers an odd number of years, 1/2 of the middle year of the contract is counted in the last 1/2 of the contract.
Example - Player with a 5 year contract totaling $35.5M (AAS = $7.1M) and annual salaries of $2.84M, $2.84M, $2.84M, $9.23M and 17.75M. This contract is legal from standpoint of low (40% AAS) and high (250% AAS) yearly salaries. BUT, the last 1/2 of the contract has salaries of $28.4M, or 80% of the contract, and is, therefore, invalid. An additional $3.55M would have to be moved into years 1 or 2.
MLB Players:
The total of salaries in the first 1/2 or last 1/2 of the contract (in years) may not exceed 70% of the total contract dollars. If a contract covers an odd number of years, 1/2 of the middle year of the contract is counted in the last 1/2 of the contract.
Example - Player with a 5 year contract totaling $100M (AAS = $20M) and annual salaries of $8M, $8M, $8M, $26M and $50M. This contract is legal from standpoint of low (40% AAS) and high (250% AAS) yearly salaries. BUT, the last 1/2 of the contract has salaries of $28.4M, or 80% of the contract, and is, therefore, invalid. An additional $15M would have to be moved into years 1 or 2.
A bid submitted is permanent - once a bid is made, it MAY NOT be withdrawn, so make sure of your bid before you make an offer. You are obligated to that offer. If you decide that you are adamant about pulling your offer from the table, then you must request this in writing from the Commissioner's Office. If approved the Commissioner's Office will delete your offer. This will only happen in the rarest of cases.
PRIORITY LISTS
In some situations there may be more players up for bid in which your roster/cap does not allow you to have, but would like to take a stab at all of them in hopes of landing 1. In that case you may send a priority list.
Example- You want 1 of Player A, Player B, and Player C. You would make bids for all 3 with a message of your intent to win only 1 or 2 of these players. Send a list in the order you want to win them, and this will avoid going over roster limits, or your salary cap.
1. Player B
2. Player C
3. Player A
OFFSEASON (beginning this offseason):
Salary cap and roster (# of players) limits will be handled differently in the off-season and in season. Please refer to each section below for the specifics.
Starting after the winter meetings in December, Free Agent bidding will be held each year.
During the off-season bidding, each calendar week will feature either Restricted Free Agents or a player position as a guideline to that week's bidding. You may ONLY bid on a player in that category that week.
All Restricted Free Agents ("RFAs") will be bid on in the first week of the auctions. Please carefully review all rules for bidding on RFA's as they are significantly different from unrestricted FAs.
Each week thereafter, a field position (i.e. OF, CI, MI, C, SP or RP) will be open for bidding. You will only be allowed to bid on players who played that position each week....i.e. only OF may be bid upon during a week designated for OFs. Bids on a player not at that position will be invalidated.
Monday 12:00 A.M. EST - each week, the position category for that week will be posted to the "Contract Offers" link on the league page. You may bid on ANY free agent qualifying under that week's field position category. For end of 2009 year FAs, the listing of players in the General Board dictates the position under which they may be bid. Unlisted FAs and minor leaguers must be bid on based on their predominant position played in the 2009 season. Players may be listed until Thursday 11:59 PM PM Eastern.
**NOTE - GMs do NOT have to list a player's name or their intention to bid on the league page on any player. The fact that a GM bids and what player(s) a GM bids on are known only by the league office. That gives each GM some degree of secrecy as to your bidding each week. However you may NOT bid on any player that has not been posted at all. In other words, you do not have to do the posting in order to bid on a player, nor do you have to declare your intent to bid, but only players who have been posted are up for bid.
Friday 11:59 PM EST - each week, the deadline for bidding. The submitted bid via PM is date and time sensitive and it dictates if the bid is on time or late. Late bids will be invalidated. No exceptions.
Sunday 11:59 PM EST - the winning bids will be posted under that week's thread in "Winning FA Bids". For RFAs, a further process is noted. For unrestricted FAs, the winning GM must update his roster and team salary information within 72 hours.
With regard to adherence to salary cap and roster size, Full Count will relax the general rule during the off-season only to allow some flexibility in light of the blind bidding system. Each GM will be allowed to carry up to 5 extra players at any point in time during the auctions. During this off-season exercise, each franchise will be able to exceed their salary cap by up to $10M. You can utilize trading to free up roster and salary cap space. **A word to the wise...bid prudently.
Keep in mind that the roster and cap overages are total amounts...a GM cannot have 4 extra players from each week's bidding sessions. If a team has 4 too many players on it, it must deal 1 or more away in order to bid in the next week's session.
All salary caps and rosters must be in full compliance by the 2009 season's Opening Day (first MLB game of season). Failure to be in compliance will mean no stat accumulation on CBS.
IN SEASON:
Once the regular season begins, the process of FA bidding changes slightly since there will be no weekly randomly drawn batches of players on which to bid.
There will be, however, weekly bidding deadlines to help create an environment of fairness and promote GM activity.
Player Identification - In order sign a player to a 50-man roster, a GM must first indicate interest for that player by posting that player's name, position and ML organization on the league page under the section titled “Contract Offers”.
Players may be posted at any time, however, bids will be counted every Friday at 11:59 PM EST. In order for a player to be eligible for bid in a given period, he must be posted by Thursday at 11:59 PM EST.
Blind Bidding - Once a player is listed, any GM may submit a blind bid to the MLBPA account. Any PM submitted prior to a player being listed will be invalidated. Bids may be submitted until the weekly deadline of Thursday 11:59PM EST. Any bid received after the deadline will be invalidated. No exceptions.
Be careful to not exceed your salary cap. If this occurs, the commissioner’s office will send you an email mandating that your team make arrangements to waive players in order to bring the current salary within your team’s salary cap. You will have only 72-hours to do this. If you fail to comply, the League Office will automatically drop your most recently signed player to free agency in order to bring your team under the required salary cap maximum. Or if you sign someone and you don't place him on your 45 man roster within 72 hours he becomes a free agent again. At this point the League Office will notify the league of the player who has recently become a free agent and list them under the area title “Player Releases”. The League Office will review each 50-man roster often to make sure you are complying with your team’s assigned salary cap. Remember that player’s salaries do change.
A GM will submit one, and ONLY ONE, bid per player in which they are interested. These bids (assuming a GM bids on multiple players) will be submitted via a PM to the MLBPA account. Only the league office has access to this account. This bid must include the following to be considered valid:
*Number of years of the contract offer
*Total amount of the contract offer
*Average Annual Salary ("AAS")
*a breakdown of the contract per year or note it will be evenly spread.
Example:
Boston Red Sox offer Player A:
5 year contract worth $48.5M
AAS: $9.7M
2006 - $7M
2007 - $9M
2008 - $11M
2009 - $11M
2010 - $10.5M
Failure to use this format and include the 4 criteria listed above will result in an invalid and voided bid. It will be each GM's responsibility to be sure he submits a proper bid.
There are limitations as to how high or low any single year's salary may be, as follows:
The highest single year salary of a contract may not exceed AAS times 2.5.
In addition to Rule 7 minimum salary limits, the lowest single year salary of a contract may not be less than 40% of AAS.
ANNUAL SALARY ALLOCATION LIMITS WITHIN A CONTRACT:
These Rules apply for Backloading and Frontloading!
Backend loading of contracts is a concern of the league. Those contracts sure feel good to the bid winner since those latter years can get loaded up, allowing current year salary to stay lower and manageable and help prop up AAS.
The league does recognize a stronger need for escalating contracts for unproven minor leaguers, so they should get more flexibility. Prospects are usually not subject to much bidding. However, MLB players with 4 years or more are highly subject to FA bidding, and usually less risky than minor leaguers.
Minor leaguers
MLB players with AAS < $8M
MLB players with AAS 8M or more
Minor leaguers:
Boston Red Sox offer Minor Leaguer A:
AAS contract worth 650 K
AAS: 650 K
Once a Minor League player has at least 1 AB or IP in the majors, they can no longer be bid on as minor league player and will not be given PP status. This means they will fall under the rules of regular MLB players
MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS
Until a player has a Major League 150 AB or 50 IP, the player can be bid on as a Minor League player. All minor leaguers will be given AAS contracts only. See IFA (International Free Agent) post for IFA rules
The total of salaries in the first 1/2 or last 1/2 of the contract (in years) may not exceed 70% of the total contract dollars. If a contract covers an odd number of years, 1/2 of the middle year of the contract is counted in the last 1/2 of the contract.
Example - Player with a 5 year contract totaling $35.5M (AAS = $7.1M) and annual salaries of $2.84M, $2.84M, $2.84M, $9.23M and 17.75M. This contract is legal from standpoint of low (40% AAS) and high (250% AAS) yearly salaries. BUT, the last 1/2 of the contract has salaries of $28.4M, or 80% of the contract, and is, therefore, invalid. An additional $3.55M would have to be moved into years 1 or 2.
MLB Players:
The total of salaries in the first 1/2 or last 1/2 of the contract (in years) may not exceed 70% of the total contract dollars. If a contract covers an odd number of years, 1/2 of the middle year of the contract is counted in the last 1/2 of the contract.
Example - Player with a 5 year contract totaling $100M (AAS = $20M) and annual salaries of $8M, $8M, $8M, $26M and $50M. This contract is legal from standpoint of low (40% AAS) and high (250% AAS) yearly salaries. BUT, the last 1/2 of the contract has salaries of $28.4M, or 80% of the contract, and is, therefore, invalid. An additional $15M would have to be moved into years 1 or 2.
A bid submitted is permanent - once a bid is made, it MAY NOT be withdrawn, so make sure of your bid before you make an offer. You are obligated to that offer. If you decide that you are adamant about pulling your offer from the table, then you must request this in writing from the Commissioner's Office. If approved the Commissioner's Office will delete your offer. This will only happen in the rarest of cases.
PRIORITY LISTS
In some situations there may be more players up for bid in which your roster/cap does not allow you to have, but would like to take a stab at all of them in hopes of landing 1. In that case you may send a priority list.
Example- You want 1 of Player A, Player B, and Player C. You would make bids for all 3 with a message of your intent to win only 1 or 2 of these players. Send a list in the order you want to win them, and this will avoid going over roster limits, or your salary cap.
1. Player B
2. Player C
3. Player A
OFFSEASON (beginning this offseason):
Salary cap and roster (# of players) limits will be handled differently in the off-season and in season. Please refer to each section below for the specifics.
Starting after the winter meetings in December, Free Agent bidding will be held each year.
During the off-season bidding, each calendar week will feature either Restricted Free Agents or a player position as a guideline to that week's bidding. You may ONLY bid on a player in that category that week.
All Restricted Free Agents ("RFAs") will be bid on in the first week of the auctions. Please carefully review all rules for bidding on RFA's as they are significantly different from unrestricted FAs.
Each week thereafter, a field position (i.e. OF, CI, MI, C, SP or RP) will be open for bidding. You will only be allowed to bid on players who played that position each week....i.e. only OF may be bid upon during a week designated for OFs. Bids on a player not at that position will be invalidated.
Monday 12:00 A.M. EST - each week, the position category for that week will be posted to the "Contract Offers" link on the league page. You may bid on ANY free agent qualifying under that week's field position category. For end of 2009 year FAs, the listing of players in the General Board dictates the position under which they may be bid. Unlisted FAs and minor leaguers must be bid on based on their predominant position played in the 2009 season. Players may be listed until Thursday 11:59 PM PM Eastern.
**NOTE - GMs do NOT have to list a player's name or their intention to bid on the league page on any player. The fact that a GM bids and what player(s) a GM bids on are known only by the league office. That gives each GM some degree of secrecy as to your bidding each week. However you may NOT bid on any player that has not been posted at all. In other words, you do not have to do the posting in order to bid on a player, nor do you have to declare your intent to bid, but only players who have been posted are up for bid.
Friday 11:59 PM EST - each week, the deadline for bidding. The submitted bid via PM is date and time sensitive and it dictates if the bid is on time or late. Late bids will be invalidated. No exceptions.
Sunday 11:59 PM EST - the winning bids will be posted under that week's thread in "Winning FA Bids". For RFAs, a further process is noted. For unrestricted FAs, the winning GM must update his roster and team salary information within 72 hours.
With regard to adherence to salary cap and roster size, Full Count will relax the general rule during the off-season only to allow some flexibility in light of the blind bidding system. Each GM will be allowed to carry up to 5 extra players at any point in time during the auctions. During this off-season exercise, each franchise will be able to exceed their salary cap by up to $10M. You can utilize trading to free up roster and salary cap space. **A word to the wise...bid prudently.
Keep in mind that the roster and cap overages are total amounts...a GM cannot have 4 extra players from each week's bidding sessions. If a team has 4 too many players on it, it must deal 1 or more away in order to bid in the next week's session.
All salary caps and rosters must be in full compliance by the 2009 season's Opening Day (first MLB game of season). Failure to be in compliance will mean no stat accumulation on CBS.
IN SEASON:
Once the regular season begins, the process of FA bidding changes slightly since there will be no weekly randomly drawn batches of players on which to bid.
There will be, however, weekly bidding deadlines to help create an environment of fairness and promote GM activity.
Player Identification - In order sign a player to a 50-man roster, a GM must first indicate interest for that player by posting that player's name, position and ML organization on the league page under the section titled “Contract Offers”.
Players may be posted at any time, however, bids will be counted every Friday at 11:59 PM EST. In order for a player to be eligible for bid in a given period, he must be posted by Thursday at 11:59 PM EST.
Blind Bidding - Once a player is listed, any GM may submit a blind bid to the MLBPA account. Any PM submitted prior to a player being listed will be invalidated. Bids may be submitted until the weekly deadline of Thursday 11:59PM EST. Any bid received after the deadline will be invalidated. No exceptions.
Be careful to not exceed your salary cap. If this occurs, the commissioner’s office will send you an email mandating that your team make arrangements to waive players in order to bring the current salary within your team’s salary cap. You will have only 72-hours to do this. If you fail to comply, the League Office will automatically drop your most recently signed player to free agency in order to bring your team under the required salary cap maximum. Or if you sign someone and you don't place him on your 45 man roster within 72 hours he becomes a free agent again. At this point the League Office will notify the league of the player who has recently become a free agent and list them under the area title “Player Releases”. The League Office will review each 50-man roster often to make sure you are complying with your team’s assigned salary cap. Remember that player’s salaries do change.