Major League Baseball Dreams Rules
MLBD meta rules
These apply to you as a human being.
Slack
Our main form of communication within the league is via Slack. We realize not everyone can be available via Slack at all times, and not everyone is on/awake at the same time (we’ve had GMs covering 7 different timezones at once), but we do expect that you’ll be able to check Slack on a regular basis to keep up to date with league activity and respond to DMs from the commish or other GMs.
Activity
The most entertaining OOTP leagues are those with active GMs. We don’t require that everyone be active in the general Slack channels, but we do expect that every GM will export at least once a week during regular sim periods and always exports during key decision periods that can have a lasting effect on your team (e.g. arbitration, Rule V protection). One export a week equates to a month of game time, which even for a rebuilding team that isn’t competitive is probably longer than you should really let a team run itself. If you are not submitting exports regularly or miss key decision export windows, you will be warned via a Slack DM and removed from the league if there is no response. If you are going to be on an extended holiday, let the rest of the league know with a post in the #afk Slack channel. The commish is always available to help make changes for a team if they are unable to get an export in for any reason.
Tanking
There is a fine line between rebuilding and tanking. In the MLB, the team owners dictate that line and GMs operate under a threat of being fired for poor performance. However, because GMs cannot be fired in MLBD, the commissioner is responsible for ensuring that teams make an effort to remain competitive even during a rebuilding period. Examples of what would be considered deliberate tanking include, but are not limited to; demoting WAR+ players to the minors or holding potentially WAR+ players in the minors with no reasonable alternative on the major league roster, benching WAR+ players for extended periods in favor of poorer options, continuing to play players of below replacement value when there are attainable alternatives within free agency or on the waiver wire, keeping fewer than 25 players on the major league roster for extended periods of time. The commissioner will issue a warning for Slack DM and are open to a discussion on the rationale for any moves or lack of moves, but if the situation isn’t rectified the GM will be removed from the league.
Collusion
It is a rare problem but we need to be clear that collusion of any kind is not allowed. Any attempts by a group of GMs to agree to exclude another GM from participating in the league risk forfeiture of their second round draft picks. Any GM that attempts to run more than a single team will be removed from the league. If you share an IP address with another GM (for example, father and son or coworkers accessing OOTP at work), please tell the commissioner in advance as we do monitor IP addresses.
Budgets
GMs are expected to responsibly deal with budgets. Occasional deficits are ok, however, they should be rectified the following season. It is easy to game the budget system by making trades that add large amounts of salary in excess of the budget the owner has set for the team. The commissioner does not enforce the trade notice that state that a team cannot afford the contracts of the obtained players. We've always felt it was up to GMs to manage finances and make a corresponding move to offset the budget overrun. A GM who abuses this trust will be warned and put on restrictions. If the commissioner feels that a teams budget is "out of control", he will impose the following:- Any trade made will be required to reduce the current deficit.
- Any trades posted that add further to the deficit will be automatically vetoed by the commissioner.
- The time period of this restriction will be up to the commissioner, based on the state of the team's finances.
- Failure to get the finances back into a reasonable position will result in the deletion of the team's second round draft pick.
Trade watch
All new GMs will be under a trade watch for their first season in MLBD. The commissioner will monitor their trades and may ask that a trade be renegotiated if it’s unbalanced. As OOTP leagues progress, they develop unique balances between hitting, pitching, and positional strength, so we like to ensure that new GMs get a chance to understand the relative value of players within MLBD. The commissioner can always be asked pre-trade for help on structuring any deals.Sim info
We sim Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday each week during the regular season. Each sim is 7 games long, from Monday to Sunday in-game. The exception will be sims where we’d scheduled to hit a deadline (e.g. the trade deadline or roster expansions) where we’ll do a short sim, and then follow it on the next sim date with another short sim to get us back on the Monday to Sunday flow.
We run live sims using StatsPlus at 3:00pm PST for the weekday sims, and weekend sims are usually live but the time will vary more based on the commish’s schedule that day. We’ll announce any time changes via Slack.
Post-season sims are run every day with the schedule posted prior to the end of the regular season in Slack. In the case of any tie-breakers or deciding game 7s, we’ll generally try to get a quick export in from the relevant GMs and get the series closed out.
During the offseason, we’ll sim every day, with shorter sims during the early stage of free agency to give everyone ample chance to bargain with key players, and then moving to 14-day sims through the late winter and Spring Training period. The offseason will generally take about 2 weeks to get through before we’re ready for Opening Day. The offseason schedule will be posted to Slack during the World Series.
MLBD game rules
The rules covering MLBD gameplay. In general, we use MLB rules so anything listed here will be clarifications on how we handle instances where the limitations of playing OOTP don’t match the live implementation of MLB rules, plus a few instances where we’ve added some additional rules to improve parity and keep the league running smoothly.
Waivers
Waiver periods are set to 8 days. If a team claims a player off waivers and has a viable claim, the current team (the "waiving team") may choose one of the following options:- Arrange a trade with the claiming team for that player; or
- Rescind the request and keep the player on its major league roster (only if on revocable waivers); or
- Do nothing and allow the claiming team to assume the player's existing contract.
Waiver claim priority
OOTP is imperfect in how it handles waiver claims, so in cases where OOTP differs from MLB rules, we use the game rules. Claims for a waived player are 'on hold' until the end of the waiver period. That is, waiver claims are not on a first-come, first-served basis. The game takes note of all the teams claiming a certain player and processes those claims once the waiver period has ended.Similar to the MLB rules, teams from the AL have priority over teams from the NL in claiming players from the AL and vice versa. Priority is otherwise determined by reverse order of win-loss records as noted below.
If more than one club in the same subleague claims a player, the club currently with the worse win-loss record gets the player. (If fewer than 31 days have passed in the current season, then last season's won-lost records are used for this purpose.)
Managing players Designated for Assignment
During the regular season, GMs have several sims to remove a player from the DFA list before it expires, so any player who will have their DFA time expire in the next 7 days when the sim begins will be managed by the game AI. Players who can be demoted will be, but otherwise they will be released which means any players on a major league contract will be paid out for that contract under the standard game rules. During the off season, because the sim length is longer, giving the GMs fewer opportunity to handle the DFAs, the commissioner will handle them manually. However, you should attempt to handle them yourself as if the commish has to make moves on your behalf, you might not like the result.
Trade reviews
All trades are subject to review by the commissioner who may ask that the trade be renegotiated or veto it entirely. The goal is not to tell a GM how to run a team and this is rarely done outside of the review period for new GMs.
Trading injured players
Injured players or players on the DL, even if eligible to come off the DL and are no longer injured, cannot be traded. Players with DtD injuries who are NOT on the DL may be traded.
Trading Players to be Named Later
There will be no player(s) to be named later allowed in trades. OOTP does not include this function in-game, and it is simply too much work to keep track of outside of the game.
Trading International Complex players
If international complex players are to be included in a trade, the owning GM MUST move them to a minor league team before the trade can be processed.
Trading draft picks
Amateur Draft Picks may be traded and drafted players may be traded immediately after the in-game draft is processed. The status of traded picks is always current in the Google Doc draft pick table.We've done a bit of analysis on the MLBD draft history to give GMs a sense for the value of their draft picks, looking at a 5 year stretch where all of the drafted players would have finished their careers to give us a good set of data around lifetime value.
First round picks are very valuable. Over that 5 year span, only 20 players (including comp picks) didn't have a positive WAR for their career. The average career WAR for those 137 successful players was a bit over 19 WAR. Even if you figure you only get the 1st 1/3 of a players career and you'll rarely get full future WAR value in a trade, you'd still need to value a 1st round pick as 8 - 12 WAR. If we assume $6m per win, which is probably a bit outdated given our finances, that pick should be worth $50 - 75m dollars in deals involving salary dumps.
About half of our second round picks end up with a positive WAR career, averaging 10 WAR per player that makes it to the majors. Theoretically, this makes 2nd round picks 1/4 as valuable as 1st rounders, with double the chance the player fails to make the majors and half the expected WAR when he gets there.
The average WAR value of players in rounds 3 through 5 halves at each step again, although 3rd rounders are almost as likely to play in the MLB as 2nd rounders. 4th and 5th rounders rarely make it, with 9 and 4 players respectively for each season, on average, ever making it to the majors.
As a guide, if you are considering trading a draft pick, you should be looking to get:
- 1st - 19 WAR, $50m
- 2nd - 5 WAR, $15m
- 3rd - 2.5 WAR, $7m
- 4th - 1.5 WAR, $4m
- 5th - 1 WAR, $1m
Waiver trade rules (post trade deadline)
We allow waiver trades after the July 31 trade deadline. The standard waiver rules apply for teams claiming players on waivers. Players dealt after Aug. 31 are not eligible to participate in the postseason.
Trading pending free agents
Teams cannot sign a pending free agent to a below-market extension after the end of the regular season and then trade them before the amatuer draft of the following season. It's legal under MLB rules to do a sign-and-trade type deal, but the reality is no player would ever agree to signing the extension without negotiating it with the receiving team, thus having some control over where they are being traded. If there are any questions about an extension for a player in this scenario, the commissioner can make the final call on allowing the trade.
Rule V draft trades
Teams cannot trade their Rule V draft picks. However, you can trade a Rule V drafted player. The obligation to keep that player on the ML roster still applies to the receiving team.
Posting a completed trade
The two GMs involved in a trade must:- Post the trade in the #completed_trades Slack channel,
- The other GM should confirm by starting a Slack thread for that trade post. You can start a thread by right clicking on the trade post and selecting the thread option. Once the trade has been processed, the commissioner will reply in the same thread.
- The trade post in the #completed_trades Slack channel should include the player names, their position, their current league level, and if any salary is retained, where applicable. Any draft picks involved in the trade should specify the round. For example:
Boston sends:
SP Pedro Martinez (ML), 50% salary retained
1st round draft pick
Angels send:
SP - Babe Ruth (AA)
SP - Cy Young (WDL)
$5m cash - At least one of the GMs involved in the trade must also post the trade in-game. In the league transactions page, select Player Trade, then the other participating trade. Post the players, picks, and cash involved in the trade, from both sides, and then click Submit Offer. If the trade cannot be submitted, either because it would put your team over budget, involves a player you are acquiring in another trade, or must wait until after the draft or July 1 end of trade restrictions for recently signed free agents, please note this in your Slack posting.
Cash on hand
Cash on hand is capped at $30 million to start a season. Anything you have over that threshold will be automatically applied to revenue sharing by OOTP.
Rule V draft
We do Rule V in-game via lists. The MLB rules for the Rule V draft and draft eligibility are used. Sometimes OOTP does not handle Rule V returns correctly, so after you release a Rule V player, please post in the #completed_trades thread so the commissioner can verify that they were properly returned to their original team.
Free agent compensation
We use the older Collective Bargaining Agreement for free agent compensation. If a team signs a free agent that had been offered a qualifying offer from their previous team, their former team will receive a supplementary round pick to be made between rounds 1 and 2 in the next draft. The signing team will surrender the better of their 1st or 2nd round picks in the upcoming draft, unless their 1st round pick is a protected pick (currently the top 10 picks are protected).To help make this perfectly clear; a team with an unprotected 1st round pick and their 2nd round pick that signs a comped free agent will surrender their 1st round pick. That same team can then sign another comped free agent and will surrender their 2nd round pick as well. A team that only has one of the two picks, or that has a protected 1st round pick, can only sign a single comped free agent.
Any team that violates these rules will have the player released and will pay out the entire contract value for that player, and the player will be returned to the free agent pool.
The compensation period for free agents ends when the draft pool is uploaded to StatsPlus. This usually happens with the first regular season sim of the year.
Contractual bonuses
MVP, Cy Young, and other incentive awards are capped at an aggregate of 20% of the average yearly salary offered to the player. For example, if you offer a $1 million contract, you can offer a max of $200k in incentives. This is to stop teams from offering significant portions of a player's salary as bonuses they are very unlikely to receive, and still applies if the player has asked for those bonuses during negotiations.The accrual requirements for bonuses tied to Innings Pitched and Plate Appearances are also capped. You cannot offer incentives that require more than 650 PA or 220 IP. These are reasonable numbers that a normally healthy player can reach.
If you break either of these rules, the bonus amounts will be added as guaranteed salary to each year of the contract and remain as potential bonuses.
Team options rules
To limit the use of team options to sway players toward signing a contract whose terms they will never collect on, the following requirements must be adhered to:- All team options in contracts, whether free agent signings or extensions, must be accompanied by a 50% buyout. This is controlled in-game via OOTP.
- Vesting options may not be for more than 125% of the average salary of the last 3 guaranteed contract years.
- Vesting options have their accrual requirements capped at the following levels:
- 650 plate appearances
- 140 games played
- 220 innings pitched
- 25 games started
- 25 games finished
Signing young players to extensions
No player, except international and independent league free agents, can be offered more than a 1-year contract extension until they have gone through a full year of arbitration. After they have gone through one year of arbitration, the player can then be signed to contract extension for a maximum of 5 years in length. If a player goes through two or more years or arbitration, they can be signed to a contract extension with a maximum length of 8 years. If a player will not accept the appropriate contract length or shorter, you will have to give up and try again the next year. Violations of this rule will result in the extension being voided and the AAV for the deal assessed as a fine. Our normal rules for contractual bonuses also apply to these extensions.
Salary cap
MLBD has no salary cap and currently no plans to implement one.
Ticket prices
The current maximum ticket price is $40.
Buying players via trade
Players can be bought as it can be done in real life. However, to avoid potential abuse, the amount of cash that can be transferred will be capped at $5m. Any trades involving more than $5m will require permission from the commissioner.
Coaches/scouts
We do not use coaches or scouts.
Minor League roster rules
Minor League rosters have limits (except R leagues). Teams will be warned and then players will be reassigned or released if they are not complying with roster limits. The commissioner can accomplish this simply by running auto on the minor league setup for that team, allowing the AI to redistribute and release players as necessary. There is no roster minimum size and the game will fill in with ghost players as necessary.
Winter Development League
Each team has a "normal" AA team and also a Winter Development League team (it's the AA team in the system with the league initials "WDL". Winter League is a AA equivalent league that runs during the off season for 2-3 months. It is a chance to develop prospects or teach them new positions. You can move players from any other minor league level or MLBD (if options permit) to the WDL team to give them extra playing time. Just like the other minor league levels, it's not a requirement to fill rosters completely.
Hall of Fame and awards voting
The league has a Hall of Fame and full awards slate which are selected by the GMs via StatsPlus. Voting is announced via a news item in game and is appreciated but not required.
All-Star voting
Each season the current GM’s will vote via StatsPlus for the All-Star teams for the AL and NL. Voting is appreciated but not required.Amateur draft process
We run our amateur drafts via StatsPlus.After the draft pool is revealed in-game, the commissioner will load it into StatsPlus and GMs can start making draft picks immediately. We generally have a few days without a draft timer at the start of the draft to allow teams to review the pool before making their first selection. Once the draft timer is enabled, it will run weekdays from 10:00am to 9:00pm EST. The timer is paused at night and on weekends. The time allowed for each round is as follows:
- 6 hours for round 1
- 5 hours for round 2
- 3 hours for round 3
- 2 hours for round 4
- 1 hour for round 5+
To prevent the draft being delayed, and leading to future sims being delayed if we get to draft day in-game without having completed the draft, we’ll enforce the following rules:
- If you do not have a list set and your timer expires resulting in an autopick, you will be set to autopick for all subsequent picks. You must create a draft list to turn autopick off.
- If you have your team set to list pick, but have no players on your draft list, you will be set to autopick for that pick and future picks. You must then add more players to your draft list before turning autopick off.