Just saying ...

I've never seen Albert Pujols and Umaga in the same place at the same time.

Urologists' GM focuses rage on Jeter

In a drunken interview with the BBC, Meaty Urologists GM Eric "Mr. Perfect" Ferguson took Derek Jeter to task for no apparent reason. "That guy owes me money," Ferguson said. "I mean, if you 'borrow' a dollar for a soda, shouldn't you at least attempt to pay it back? Forget that dude. Forget him right in the forgettin' ear!" Ferguson's tirade continued after he finished off a turkey sandwich that he removed from his pants. "And let me tell you something about clutch. I had to pee all the way from Columbia to St. Louis last weekend, but I held it the whole way. The whole way! That is performance under pressure, my friend. Jeter would have pissed himself five times, and then he'd have asked to borrow a pair of pants. "But you wouldn't get those pants back! Uh uh!"

Hardcore League Rules 2011

The idea behind this league is to create a fantasy baseball experience that is more like real baseball. Rather than overhauling your roster each season, this league will allow owners to retain quite a few of their players from year to year without locking those players up forever. It will also allow you to develop a small farm system to support your team. This type of league definitely requires a commitment of multiple seasons, so please be serious about it if you would like to join.

Scoring Format:

We will use ESPN’s head-to-head system, 6x6 scoring. Each week, you match up against another team and compete head-to-head in each of the 12 categories (BA, HR, RBI, SB, R, OBP, W, Sv, ERA, WHIP, K, Holds). One “win” is awarded for each category you win that week, max of 12. Ties are recorded as ties. Best record at the end of the season wins, no playoffs. Weeks run from Monday to Sunday

Payout:

Each owner must submit a $50 entry fee prior to the draft.

During the last 4 weeks of the season, a bracket style tournament will be played. The teams ranked 7th-10th in the league will play in week one. The winners will join the top 6 teams to finish the tournament over the last three weeks. Tie break scenarios will be determined by taking the prior weeks stats and determining who would have won the prior week. The winner will receive $100.

The overall winner for the entire season (including the September tournament) will receive the remaining $400 pot.

Initial Player Auction:

Player selection will be done auction style. High bid wins the player. Minimum auction increment is $250,000. The auction will continue until all teams have filled their 30 man active roster with salaried players. Only Non-AA eligible players (no MLB experience) may be drafted in the auction draft. Then, a draft will be held to fill out everyone’s 10 man AAA roster and 10 man AA roster. These players will have a salary of $0 until they are called up to your active roster. See Minor League Roster section for more details.

For all following years’ auctions, the auction pool would consist of any players whose contracts are up and any players (major or minor leagues, college, Japan, etc.) that are not signed for the upcoming season.

For the minor league draft, the bottom 5 teams from the previous season will be thrown into a lottery where there will 75 balls available. The last place finisher from the previous year will receive 25 of these balls, 9th place will have 20, 8th place will have 15, 7th will have 10, and 6th will have 5. Once the order is determined, each owner will select a player until their AAA and AA rosters are filled. At the start of the second round, the same order from the first round will be applied, this will not be a serpentine draft. A team retaining players at AAA will still start drafting in the first round of the draft, giving all owners equal access to new minor leaguers regardless of how many minor leaguers are kept from season to season.

A second mid-season draft will take place between the actual MLB draft and the leagues trade deadline. This will be the only period in which non-active MLB players can be picked up mid-season. This draft will be limited to players that meet the AA roster criteria and owners will have to drop existing players on their AA roster prior to the draft to accommodate the acquisition of their drafted players. Any player released after the preseason drafts is not eligible to rejoin the initial owner's team during the mid-season draft. The draft order will be the same as the preseason minor league draft. Players selected through this draft will have an initial salary of $0 and will be treated as any other minor league player would. Owners will be asked to submit a list of dropped players at least one week prior to the mid-season draft.

Long Term Contracts:

After the auction and before opening day, each owner must decide how long of a deal he would like to sign each of his players for at the winning price. Each owner can hand out up to 10 multi-year deals (max of one 5-yr deal, two 4-yr, three 3-yr, and four 2-yr). The owner is then on the hook for that deal until the contract is over. All contracts are guaranteed money and will count against your cap in future seasons. Only players acquired in the auction draft are eligible for a multi-year contract.

When handing out contracts, all available contracts can be downgraded in number of years at the time of signing. Example: you would rather use your 5 year deal as a 3 year instead.

All long term contracts that are traded for must be honored by the receiving owner. Contracts received in this way will count towards your 10 multi-year deals during the next offseason. If you enter the auction with more than 10 multi-year deals on your roster, you will not be able to sign any players you acquire at the auction to multi-year deals.

Salary Cap:

The draft day salary cap will be $85 million. After that, you have an extra $5mil to play with, either to sign players or make trades, bringing the in-season cap to $90 million. The cap is a hard cap and your contract commitments must stay below the cap all season. Any transactions that will take you over the cap will not be allowed. Unused money from the draft will be rolled into your in-season cap so you will still have full access to any leftovers.

The reason for the number $85 million is to allow published fantasy dollar values for players to be somewhat useful. Take a player’s dollar value in your magazine times the minimum bid and you have a ballpark of what their price should be in this league

Roster Size:

Rosters will be 50-man, with 25 active players in the lineup. Lineup is 10 P, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, LF, CF, RF, 2 OF, 3 Util, 5 Bench, 5 DL. These 30 active spots must be occupied by salaried players at all times, from the end of the auction to the last day of the season. The other 20 spots will be 10 your AAA club and 10 for your AA club, with substitutes and prospects making up those spots. You can assemble your AAA roster however you’d like. Players on your AAA roster can be anyone, major or minor leaguers, college, high school, Japan, etc. Players on your AA roster are restricted to only those players that do not have any MLB experience and do not have a salary. MLB experience is defined as 1 AB or o.1 IP.

Disabled List spots still count against your salary cap. When a player is re-activated from the DL, he must be moved to the active roster first before he can be sent down to AAA. This means you must clear an active roster spot to bring him off the DL. Also, once a player is off the actual MLB DL, you have two transaction periods to activate him or he will be released and your cap will be charged.

Waiver Pickups:

Instead of just adding players from waivers, there will be a posting process and each time you sign a player, it will cost against the cap. To help with this, the salary cap will go up $5 million on Opening Day. Each week, you may submit waiver claims on players. This waiver claim must be sent to hard.core.league@hotmail.com

Send an email with the player’s name in the subject and who you would like to drop in the body. On Sunday, the commissioner will check the league email address to see who has put in claims on which players that week. Waiver claims run Monday through Sunday, in order to have the chance to put him in your lineup for the next sunday. The Sunday before the last week of the season is the last available week to acquire players via free agency.

The first owner to request a player gets him, but his salary is determined by the number of other owners that put in a request. The player’s salary will not be revealed until the next week when the waiver claim takes effect. You will still be responsible for the salary of the player you release in order to make your claim since all contracts are guaranteed.

Example: I claim Tyler Johnson first, but 4 other owners also submitted a claim on him later that week. Johnson’s salary is the league minimum times the number of claims = $1.25mil.

If an owner wins a waiver claim but the salary would push him over the cap, his claim is thrown out and proceeds to the second person to submit a claim. Salary drops by $250,000. This prevents owners with no cap room from running up prices. All free agent moves will be made by the commissioner to ensure that the waiver claim process is followed.

The commissioner will be the only one with access to the transaction email account. To ensure that there is no cheating or running up prices, if the commissioner is the last one to submit a claim on a player, his claim does not affect his price. If anyone feels that there is something sketchy going on, let the commissioner know and a forward of all the emails can be requested.

Minor League Rules:

Whenever a player is recalled from the Minors to your active roster, you are required to send a transaction email telling the commissioner who you’d like to send down or release from your active roster. If the player getting called up has a salary of $0, it will jump to $250,000 once you call him up so you must have the available cap room to make that transaction. If his salary is greater than $0, his salary is already counted against the cap so no change is made.

Any minor league player may be dropped at any time, just like an active player. In order to add a player to the minor league roster during the season, he must be added through the Waivers system. All added players must be added to the active roster first before being assigned to AAA, so you will have to jockey your roster in order to pick up someone for your AAA squad. This also means that he will have a salary and that the advantage of a $0 salary only applies to minor leaguers added through the yearly draft. Non-active MLB players may not be selected through the free agent process If a player is sent down to AAA, then that player must remain at AAA for 2 weeks with the exception of any DL related incident. This is to avoid moving both pitchers and position players in and out of roster spots to gain advantages both on innings and at bats. Any disregard for this rule will result in a two week freeze of the culprit's roster that will not allow any free agent pickups, AAA callups, or AAA demotions. The second offense will result in a 4 week freeze, third in 6 weeks, etc.

If a non-rookie is sent down to AAA and has a salary greater than $1,000,000, then that player must clear waivers during the next full waiver week. If multiple owners bid on that player, the owner who is currently lower in the standings wins the bid. If a bid is placed on that player, the bid winner must take on the remaining prorated salary of that player during the current season and the full contract for any remaining years that player is signed for. If the bid winner does not have enough salary to take on the player then the next lowest owner in the standings who placed a bid wins. If no other members placed a bid, then the player remains on the initial owner's AAA roster.

Rookie Rules:

If a player under your control has not yet reached career 130 AB, 50 IP, or 20 appearances in the Majors, he can be retained for the next two seasons for his season-ending salary without using a multi-year deal on him. The season in which he reaches career 130 AB, 50 IP, or 20 appearances in the Majors, he can then be retained the for the next two seasons for his season-ending salary. A player retained in this way will become a “restricted free-agent” after the season, meaning that when he’s auctioned off, you have the choice to match the high bid and resign him. During the auction draft, the owner with the high bid has the opportunity to offer one final bid before the owner with the restricted rights decides to match that bid. Waiver claimed players are still eligible for the rookie rules. Rookie rules still apply if a player is traded.

Example:

2007: Colby Rasmus is drafted with a $0 salary. He does not play in MLB in 2007 so his owner can keep him for 2008 for $0.

2008: He gets 100 AB in MLB. If activated in this league, his salary 2009 is $250,000. If not activated, his salary 2009 is $0.

2009: He gets 500 AB in MLB. If activated in this league, his salary 2010 is $250,000. If not activated, his salary 2010 is $0. His 3 year clock starts.

2010: He has a salary of $250,000

2011: He has a salary of $250,000

2012: He is a restricted free agent during the auction draft.

Trades:

The trade deadline will be August 15th. When a player is traded, his salary will be pro-rated by month. A player with a $6million contract traded at the end of June will see each team split his cap number in half. Same player traded in the end of August will have $5mil charged against his original team and $1mil against his new team. For trades in the middle of the month, we will round to the team who had him the longest that month. Players making the league minimum will be charged against the receiving team’s cap. All partial increments caused by pro-rating will be charged to the receiving team. A player’s remaining years on his deal follow him to his new team. Between the draft and opening day, the "rights" to players acquired in the draft and have not yet been signed to a contract may be traded. The acquiring team may then sign them to a long-term deal. The acquiring team must take on at least half of the player's remaining pro-rated salary.

Example: Alex Rodriguez has a salary of $10M. He gets traded on June 1st. His salary is prorated by 4/6 = $6.66M. His final salary is rounded up to the nearest $250K = $6.75M

Since this league is a long-term proposition and not a one-shot deal, there will be no vetoes on trades. Anything goes as long as the cap numbers and years work. This could be changed in the future if we see some really shady deals going on, but for this season let’s try this.

Players may be traded for other players, other contracted players, AAA players, AA players, draft picks, cash, or nothing at all. For cash trades, the cash amount must be greater than or equal to the players being received prorated salaries.

In the event a draft pick is acquired via trade and the owner does not have capacity on either their AAA or AA rosters to accommodate the draft pick, the pick will be skipped during that draft. It does not go back to the initial owner.

Player to be Name Later trades must be finalized within two weeks of the trade announcement and cannot be a player initially named in the trade announcement. The non-veto concept also applies to PTNL trades.

Option Years:

When handing out multi-year deals, you also have the option of handing out one each of 4 types of option years: Club Option, Player Option, Vesting Option, and Buyout Option. All options that are picked up add another year of service at the player’s current salary.

A Club Option allows the owner to decide whether or not to pick up the player’s option for an additional year at the same price. A Player Option is determined by a coin flip prior to the auction draft. A Vesting Option gets picked up if a player reaches his appearance clause (500 AB for hitters, 162 IP for SPs, 50 IP for RPs) in the last year of the deal. A Buyout Option gives the club the option of picking up the extra year, or paying half of the player’s salary to buy out his extra year. The owner must decide this by draft day of the season after the expiration of the contract.

Club, Buyout, Player, and Vesting options may be included in trades and are not restricted to any team. If an option is traded, the new owner must automatically pick up the option year.

A fifth option is the Free Agent Rights Option. Prior to the auction draft, each owner can choose one player picked up via free agency from the prior season, prior to September 1st, to receive restricted rights for in the upcoming auction draft. If owner A initially picks up player B mid-season and trades that player to owner C, owner C may use the Free Agent Rights Option on player B, but owner A may not. Free agent rights may be included in trades. Each owner may offer this option to only 1 player.

Blog:

The commissioner will run a blog that will have all the league financial information and full 50 man rosters on it. It is also where we will post weekly waiver claims. Owners are encouraged to post articles about the league or their teams on the blog. The site is hardcoreleague.blogspot.com.

Penalties:

Any free agent acquisition made outside of the waiver process will result in that owner losing waiver privileges in a 3-strikes-your-out manner. 1st time- 1 week. 2nd time – 2 weeks. 3rd time – no more adds for the rest of the season. In other words, don’t do it.

Failure to submit a list of multi-year contracts before MLB Opening Day will result in all of your players being signed to 1-year deals.

Stated Exclusions & Additional Rules:

At this time, there are no mechanisms for contract insurance, full buyouts, incentives, Rule 5, or cash considerations.

Expansion procedures are not yet decided and will be proposed as the situation arises.

Players listed on the MLB DL can be added via waivers or traded.

Player retirement will be verified by MLB and all contracts will be voided at that time. In-season retirement will pro-rate that player’s salary against the cap.

A player released by an MLB team still counts against the salary cap with no pro-rating.

A 2/3rds majority is required to remove an owner from the league. If this occurs during the season, the commissioner will be responsible for fielding a competitive lineup each week for the abandoned team. No trades will be allowed with an abandoned team.

A simple majority (51%) is required to remove the commissioner from his office. Such a removal does nothing to his status as an owner in the league.

Once accepted by the league, a simple majority vote is required to make offseason changes to these rules.

These rules are intended to be all-encompassing but we know that is impossible. Any “loopholes” are unintentional and are not to be exploited for one owner’s advantage to the disadvantage of the other owners. All rules disputes or any situation not explicitly stated in these rules will be decided by a vote of the owners. Such a vote can be called by any owner.