New League Setup

League Info Overview

Name: Dynasty Grinders – A Fantasy Baseball League

Description:

Dynasty Grinders is a sixteen-team dynasty fantasy baseball league. The league uses a head-to-head schedule with a scoring format that is related to FanGraph’s OttoNeu experience. Dynasty Grinders is a high-effort-high-participation league, with participation expectations that to go well beyond traditional leagues.

Expectations:

To be successful in Dynasty Grinders, daily participation is necessary during the regular season. For those who have other commitments, an owner partnership (co-ownership) is recommended. During the off-season participation is still required, as there will be events and various calls to action. Communication is key. SlackChat is a smart phone/tablet/browser chat application that our league will be married to for the majority of day to day communication. Finally, all extended league based conversations and discussions will be held on the league’s message board. If you feel that you cannot communicate in both of these ways frequently, this league is not well suited for you.

Competition and Fairness:

We’re all adults here. Transactions will not be peer reviewed with the expectation that we’re all committed to the long-term health of the league in some way. Trades that include future assets (draft picks) will require advance financial commitment. Teams that are determined to be abandoned by a league-wide majority vote can be replaced in-season. Those teams will forfeit their fees and winnings.

League Structure

The League:

There will be sixteen teams in one division. Teams play head-to-head in a regular season schedule for twenty weeks. After the regular season there will be a three-week postseason. Followed by an eventful off-season.

League Schedule:

The league’s annual schedule will follow this template:

• Oct XX – Trade window opens
• Oct XX – Rule discussion begins
• Oct XX – League fees are due from new owners
• Nov XX – Poll day for rule change votes
• Nov XX – Next regular season schedule release
• Nov XX – Player salary allocations due
• Dec XX – Cost controlled arbitration day
• Jan XX – First roster cut-down
• Feb XX – Second roster cut-down
• Feb XX – Minor league roster expands by 5 players
• Feb XX – Player universe locks
• Feb XX – Minor League Player Draft
• Mar XX – Next regular season schedule release
• Mar XX – Major League Auction Draft
• Apr XX – Regular season begins
• Jul XX – All-star break pool week
• Jul XX – Next season’s fees due
• Aug XX – Trade deadline window closes
• Aug XX – Post-season begins
• Sep XX – Post-season ends
• Sep XX – Free agent and waiver wire closed
• Sep XX – Payouts allocated

Roster:

Each team will be allowed to roster 30 active players. Players moved to the injury list will not count against the active roster. Teams will be allowed unlimited disabled list spots. Once a player is activated from the disabled list by his real life team, owners will have three days to remove him from the DL before they will be locked from transactions.

In addition, in the inaugural draft each team will start with a minor league roster of 15 minor league players. Roster eligibility will be determined by FanTrax. Players that are minor leaguer (green flag) may not be kept on the active roster for longer than one week. If a minor league player is carried on the active roster for more than one week, that player will be released into free agency to satisfy this rule.

Owners may leave players in the designated minor league portion of their roster for as long as they wish. You do not have to promote your players when they are promoted by their MLB team or at any point based on their MLB service time.

Every year the minor league roster will increase by five player slots in perpetuity.

Starting Lineups: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, UTx2, SPx7, RPx3

Regular Season:

The inaugural regular season schedule will be a random draw. The 20-week regular season will feature each team playing each other one time, with five teams playing each other a second time.

After the inaugural season, the regular season schedule will still feature each team playing each other one time, but the remaining five weeks will be created match-ups based on last season’s results.

The first week often features games that start before opening day, occasionally in other countries. Games happening the Sunday before opening day will count in the first week. All other games prior to opening day Monday, will not count.

Regular Season Schedule:

The regular season schedule is 20 weeks long. Each team plays every other team at least once. Each year each team will face another team for a second time. In the inaugural season, the schedule will be randomized. In subsequent seasons, the repeat match-ups will be weighted based on the previous season’s finish. Each team will randomly play two teams from their post-season bracket along with one team from the other three brackets twice in the following season.

All-Star break week:

The all-star break week often features four or five off days for most teams. To deal with the awkward break in schedule, there will be a pool play week in lieu of a truncated or extended regular season week. During this week we will feature several mini-contests declaring winners to the owners of the home run derby champion, all-star MVP, owner of the players who play the most innings during the All-Star Game, and finally all the points scored that week by each team will be added up and whoever has the most that week wins.

Postseason:

Based on the regular season head to head standings (total points scored being the “if necessary” tiebreaker), the top six teams will qualify for the postseason championship bracket, where the top two teams that qualified for the bracket receive a bye.

Once placed into each bracket. The match-ups for the first round will be seeded by total points scored. Winners of the first round will face off to determine a bracket winner. The losers of each round will face off for 3rd place.

Playoff rounds are one-week long and have identical rules to the regular season.

Player Universe:

Players from all 30 MLB teams are eligible to drafted. All players signed to professional contracts by any of the 30 franchises prior to the universe lock date are eligible to be drafted or signed. In particular if international free agents sign after the lock date, they will not be eligible until the following season.

Position Eligibility:

Hitters gain additional positional eligibility when they record a minimum of 5 games played at that position during the season. To carry eligibility forward to the next season they will have to record a minimum of 10 games played.

Pitchers gain eligibility for the SP role after one start. They gain the RP role after two relief appearances.

All rookies, minor leaguers, or players who miss full seasons will retain eligibility defaulted by the Fantrax system.

Scoring:

Dynasty Grinders will be using a modified OttoNeu points system. The system is based on wOBA and FIP production which assigns values to events that are likely to turn into run production or run prevention. Read about wOBA here and FIP here. It’s important to understand them.

 

Hitters	Pts	Starting Pitchers	Pts	Relief Pitchers	Pts
Singles (1B)	5.6	Innings Pitched (IP)	7.5	Innings Pitched (IP)	0.75
Doubles (2B)	8.5	Strikeouts Pitched (K)	2	Strikeouts Pitched (K)	2.5
Triples (3B)	11.3	Hits Allowed (H)	-2.5	Hits Allowed (H)	-0.3
Homeruns (HR)	15	Home Runs Allowed (HR)	-12.5	Home Runs Allowed (HR)	-5
Walks (BB)	3.5	Walks Allowed (BB)	-3	Walks Allowed (BB)	-0.5
Hit by Pitches (HBP)	3.5	Hit Batsmen (HB)	-3	Hit Batsmen (HB)	-0.5
At Bats (AB)	-1			Saves (Sv)	2
Stolen Bases (SB)	2.5			Holds (Hld)	1
Caught Stealing (CS)	-3			Earned Runs Allowed (ER)	-2

Limits:

Each weekly match-up will be limited to 7 starts to be used among Starting Pitchers. Once the 7 start limit has been reached, any points recorded by SP past this limit will not count.

There are two limitations with the Fantrax system that require addressing. Fantrax does not currently lockout starts from happening if the last start and any extra starts occur in the same day. The extra start(s) (determined by time of the first pitch of that game) will be manually removed.

Also, if a starter is in the starting line up on his off day and he happens to pitch in relief, those stats will be erased and the team will not cost a start. Fantrax will default to counting this as a start, so this requires manual fixing.

These limits and workarounds are necessary evils, and will be self-policed. Let’s be gentlemen.

Drafts

Auction Draft:

• Style: Auction
• Budget: $500
• Minimum players drafted: 30
• Maximum players drafted: 30
• Minimum player bid: $1
• Winning bid becomes player’s salary.
• Player Pool: Determined prior to draft, must be 40-man roster eligible or voted into the active draft pool prior to draft by league.
• Draft order: Random
• Time: Live (via live video chat) It’ll be a long day.
• Trades: Trades are live during draft. Auction budget is an asset that can be traded.
• Dropping Players: Not allowed.
• Quirk(s): Before auction, there will be a minor league straight draft. Draft order will be determined by cap space post-auction, where the team with the most money left over gets the first pick (inaugural draft only). Highest paid player will function as the tie-breaker.

The auction draft occurs annually prior to the MLB Regular Season. The auction draft will always precede the annual minor league draft.

Leftover auction funds are lost.

Inaugural draft differences: There are two distinct differences that will be noticed from the inaugural auction draft compared to subsequent auction drafts.

Minor League Draft:

• Style: Straight
• Rounds: 5
• Player Pool: Players signed to professional contracts to a MLB franchise prior to a date set at draft time.
• Time: After the active draft, using fantrax, offline draft.
• Draft order: Reverse order of previous year’s standings.

You will draft until you have exhausted all of your draft picks or until your minor leagues are full, whichever comes first. If you have more empty minor league roster spots than draft picks, you will not be given free picks to fill your roster and will have to wait to do so until free agency opens. If you have more draft picks than roster spots, those picks will be effectively lost.

Inaugural draft differences: Because there’s no previous year standings to draw the draft order from there will be three major differences in the inaugural minor league draft.

1. Style: The draft will be a serpentine (snake) draft.
2. Rounds: 15 rounds in the inaugural draft to properly fill rosters.
3. Draft order: The draft order will be determined in the auction draft.

Dynasty Rules – Keepers

Major League Keepers:

Eligible: All players drafted in auction draft or those kept from previous seasons.
Cost: All players kept will receive raises of $2.
Cuts: Players cut prior to draft can be cut at no cost.
Minimums: Must have enough room in budget to roster 30 players post-draft.

Greed Players:

The allocation system gives a $15 budget to each team in the league. The team can allocate this budget towards players on other teams. Each team must allocate at least one dollar to every other team. At the end of the allocation period, all players have their salary increased by the amount allocated towards them. Allocations take place after the initial off-season salary increase, so any allocations will be in addition to the $2 increase each player gets at the end of the season. Players with the top 30 salaries are not eligible for allocation.

Cost Controlled Keepers:

All players acquired through the minor league draft are cost controlled eligible. They are free to keep until after their first MLB season.

1st off-season: $1
2nd off-season: 20% of FanGraphs Auction Calculator Value (or +$2, whichever is greater)
3rd off-season: 40% of FanGraphs Auction Calculator Value (or +$2, whichever is greater)
4th off-season: 60% of FanGraphs Auction Calculator Value (or +$2, whichever is greater)
5th off-season: 80% of FanGraphs Auction Calculator Value (or +$2, whichever is greater)
6th off-season: Graduate to Major League Keeper eligibility.

Free Agent Acquisitions:

All major league players acquired via free agency start with a $3 salary. They are eligible for keeping, will receive the minimum $2 raise, and be eligible for greed votes.

All minor league players acquired via free agency that have not spent any time on the major league level during the season in which they were added are eligible for cost controlled keeping. This rule exists to prevent teams from adding players immediately upon their first MLB promotion and getting with them the value of cost control status.

All players who are cut, but picked up during the waiver period, retain keeper eligibility at their current value or stage of cost control.

Salary Cap:

There’s only effectively a salary cap during the pre-season auction draft. During the regular season, the only penalty for going over $500 budget is knowing that you will not be able to keep everyone going into the next season.

Penalties:

There are no penalties for cutting players, buyouts or otherwise.

Transactions:

Trading:

All trades are made within Fantrax between the two owners. Draft-day trades that might require other means of submission must be announced to the whole league during the draft. Draft day auction budget is a tradeable resource. Trading minor league draft picks is allowed. In almost all cases, trades will not be subject to review or veto. But the commissioner does hold the right to oversee things in favor of long-term league ownership stability. The trade window will be closed from the trade deadline (Thursday of Week 17 at 11:59 PM/EST) until the end of the post-season.

Waiver Wire:

All players who are cut during the regular season are subject to the waiver wire for three days. Waiver wire claims are made based on reversed order of the standings from last year, each claim moving the claiming team to the back of the list. All players claimed retain their salary status. In the interest of fairness, adding players will be done via a free agent auction budget (FAAB) system. Each team will begin the year with $150 worth of FAAB. This is separate from a team’s auction budget. We will use a blind bid system where the highest bid wins. You pay what you bid (not $1 more than the next highest bid). Minimum bid is $0. Winning bid does not become salary (refer back to Free Agent Acquisitions). Tie bids will be broken based on current standings. Bids process daily at 11 AM/EST. FAAB budget is not available for trade.

All players not claimed become free agents and lose keeper eligibility. The inaugural season waiver wire will be a reverse order of the first round of the inaugural minor-league draft.The waiver wire is closed during the off-season.

Free Agents:

May be added at anytime at will. Players will be eligible the day of their pick-up as long as their game has not started. Free agency is closed during the off-season. Please refer to Free Agent Acquisitions above.

Offseason:

The offseason begins when the postseason ends. After the final games are finalized, the trade window opens again. All non-keepable players are dropped and the waiver-wire and free agent pool are closed and locked.

With any league, there’s always room to evolve and change, and this will be the time to bring up any rule discrepancies. All rules will be open for discussion. Rule changes can be proposed with a clear change, a timeline for the change to occur, and purpose. Proposals will be voted on by all sixteen members, and with ten votes, a league rule will be changed per the proposed timeline.

After voting day, the league regular-season schedule will be released for the following season.

In November each team will submit their salary allocations for the other teams following those rules.

In January, cost controlled arbitration will occur per those rules. Also teams will have a deadline to cut their rosters back to the maximum size (rosters could be inflated due to trades, or carrying injured players from the previous season). The first round of cuts will be to get your roster under roster limits only. You may remain above the $500 budget at this point.

In late February/early March the final roster cuts will be due. At this point, you will need to comply with the $500 budget and have at least $1 to spend at auction per active roster spot available. In each the major league auction draft and the minor league draft, you’re not allowed to draft beyond the maximum roster limits.

Following the second cut deadline, the minor league roster limit will be increased by 5 players.

Three days prior to the auction draft the player universe will be locked. Then the drafts will occur, and before you know it, the regular season starts for the next year.

League Fees and Rewards:

With interest in keeping Dynasty Grinders competitive from week 1 through week 24 every year, the payout system is designed to reward continued interest. While we’re all clearly not in the league for the money and solely in it for the pride alone, dangling a carrot never really hurt anyone.

Annual League Fee: Each year there will be a $155 league fee to participate in Dynasty Grinders. $150 will be entered into the prize pool, $5 to pay for FanTrax. To join Dynasty Grinders you will be asked to pay for two-seasons in advance to encourage a strong commitment to the league’s health and long-term success.

League fees will be held by LeagueSafe. It’s safe, secure and insured. They have zero fee options available, and also have options for convenience at a reasonable price. How you pay in and get paid out is up to you. There’s no fees for holding the money or moving it from year to year, etc. Very convenient.

Trading future draft picks requires that at least a $50 deposit is made for each season that you trade into the future. If for whatever reason you decide to quit before that season is played, your deposit is credited to the future new owner.

League dues are due each year prior to the All-Star Break. If you decide that you are leaving the league at the end of the season you will have to announce it at that time. Transactions from that point forward will be subject to league vote to ensure competitive balance.

Annual League Rewards:

The 20-week regular season will crown a regular season champion. First place will be awarded to the best head-to-head record, and in case of tie, most points scored. Payouts are as follows:

$150 – Head-to-Head Regular Season Champ
$150 – Most Regular Season Points Scored
$850 – Postseason Championship Bracket Winner
$400 – Postseason Championship Bracket Runner-Up
$250 – 3rd Place
$175 – 4th Place
$150 – 5th Place
$150 – 6th Place
$75 – 7th Place

Finally there will be a $50 kitty for the commissioner to disperse funds. These funds will be used for league purposes only, such as championship swag, or other incidental costs.

Expectations:

Commissioner Expectations:

The commissioner is expected to organize the league calendar, manage various events, handle fee collection and reward dispersal. The commissioner has the final say on rules and discrepancies. That being said, the role of the commissioner is to be a leader to steer the ship, set the owner participation standard, and to ultimately create an environment to be enjoyed for years to come.

Ownership Expectations:

The role of the owner is to be a ready and willing participant in the league. Participation is measured by participating in events, playing fantasy during the regular season and providing regular communication throughout the year. You’re making a commitment not only to the commissioner, but to everyone else in this league. Most of all owners are expected to have fun.

Credits:

These rules and league inspirations come from many sources. First and foremost I need to thank Tom Tango and his book, The Book. The book inspired me originally to look for and create a different fantasy baseball. Also need to thank FanGraphs’ OttoNeu game. They popularized the format and gave it the life it needed to get off the ground, and some of their dynasty elements carry over here. Michael ‘Jay’ Johnson of the FFABL for allowing us to borrow us some inspirations. Michael Green for Dy-Nasty, who inspired many ideas and provided a platform to truly reenergize my passion for fantasy baseball. Andrew Bailey for letting me bounce various ideas and concepts on him to pick apart meticulously. Finally, for my wife and family for loving baseball with me, and letting me have the free time necessary to fulfill my fantasy baseball addiction passion

FanTrax Rules:

This section is purely a copy and paste of the settings from FanTrax to keep all possible rules in one place. All rules above supersede any potential conflicts below. Potential conflicts should be addressed unless FanTrax presents limitations that we are overruling. 

Changes:

Edited 2/3/2016:

Expectations: Changed the chat application from GroupMe to SlackChat. (clarification)

Major League Keepers: Minimums: Must have enough room in budget to roster 30 players post-draft (clarification)

Free Agent Keepers: Removed information about free agents not being keepable, added following language: All major league players acquired via free agency start with a $3 salary. They are eligible for keeping, will receive the minimum $2 raise and be eligible for greed votes. (changed by vote)