1. General Overview
2. Schedule and Playoffs
3. Sim Schedule
4. Submitting Your Roster
5. Player Usage
6. Roster Limits
7. Payroll Caps
8. Contract Renewals
9. Free Agency
Period
10. Rookie Draft
11.
Releasing Players
12. Low Minors
/ Free Agents During the Season
13. Trades
14. Contract Extensions
15. Fair Play
16.
Expansion Rules
1. General Overview
The United League is an alternate history baseball simulation using
Out of the Park Baseball 10.
Owners manage teams composed of historical major league players on
fictional teams. The premise of the league is the major leagues went
bankrupt in 1950 and a smaller league emerged in its place (see
league background).
The league began with eight teams in 1951, expanded to 10 in 1955
and to 12 in 1962.
The Commissioner is responsible for:
* Simulating games, maintaining rosters, completing transactions,
and updating the website
* Keeping owners informed of general league news
* Clarifying, modifying, and enforcing league rules
* Ensuring all trades are in the interest of league fairness
* Acting as final arbiter in all disputes and rule interpretations
* Recruiting new managers as needed
Owners are responsible for:
* trying to field a competitive team in good faith
* submitting lineups and rosters regularly
* participating in contract extensions and drafts
* writing a brief year-end summary each season
Owners who miss several sims without
notification will be considered inactive and may be replaced.
* Teams with inactive owners may fall temporarily into league
control. The commissioner may run the team on an interim basis or
appoint another manager to do so.
* Interim-managed teams may not initiate any trades, but during the
free agency period the commissioner will manage or delegate their free
agent bidding.
* During the amateur draft, the computer will make selections for
the inactive team.
2. Schedule and Playoffs
* The league consists of two seven-team divisions and plays a 156-
game balanced schedule.
Each team
plays every other team 12 times. The team with the best
regular season record wins the President's Trophy and $3
million.
* Playoffs: Four teams qualify. Division winners are #1 and #2
seeds and get home field advantage in Semifinal Series. Two
team with next best records (regardless of division) are #3 and #4
seeds. #1 plays #4 and #2 plays #3. Winners meet in World Series.
All series are best-of-seven with home field switching 2-3-2.
3. Sim Schedule
* The league simulates a half month at a time, to the 1st and 16th
of each month. In close pennant races, September may be played in
three sims.
* The sim schedule varies based on the
time commitments of the commissioner and owners. Check the league
website for the current sim schedule.
* The sim sometimes takes two nights to
complete, due to the large number of files to be uploaded and
the time required to update Circuit Clouts. The commissioner will
notify the league if the sim is delayed.
4. Submitting Your Roster
* Make sure you are using the most current league file by checking
the league home page.
* If you do not wish to make any changes, send an email to the
commissioner with “no changes” in the subject or body. to avoid the risk of appearing to be an inactive owner.
* Lineups vs. left-handed and right-handed pitching should be
completed by the owner.
The DH lineups do not need to be complete since the DH rule is not
in effect.
* Depth charts should be completed to instruct the game's AI how to
handle substitutions during the course of the
sim.
* Active rosters are limited to 25 players, expanding to 40 in
September.
*
The league default is 5-man rotations.
5. Player Usage
* Players may play only positions where they have
a position rating or 2 or more,
except in extreme circumstances, such as injuries to all players
rated at a position.
* The exceptions are:
-- outfielders, which may play
all three outfield positions,
and
-- leftward moves along the defensive spectrum, from more skilled
to less skilled positions.
*Defensive
Spectrum (1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS) - Players may play a position for
which they have no rating, provided the new position is to the left
of a position where they have a position rating.
* Only players with a catcher rating may play catcher.
Managing Your Team
Management of your roster consists of six phases throughout the
year: payroll cap
calculation (mid October), contract renewals (October/November),
free agency period (February), rookie
draft (March), trades (through Aug. 1), and contract extensions
(throughout season).
6. Roster Limits
During the season (April 1 to October 1), your roster must meet the
following requirements:
* Payroll must be below your payroll cap.
* Roster must contain
between
48 and 52
players
(changing to 50 to 55 in 1976).
If you are over/under this range on Opening Day, the Commissioner
reserves the right to add/subtract players.
* Both your UL and Triple-A teams must have at least two rated
players at each position, where "rated" means a minimum position
rating of 2.
7. Payroll Caps
* Payroll caps are calculated each October after the World Series.
Each team's payroll cap is determined by the formula (Revenue + cash
+ $5 million), where revenue is calculated as a three-year average.
* The Contracts page is the authoritative source for payroll caps.
The "Current Budget" listed on your Front Office page should be the
same number, but when they differ go by the one listed on the
Contracts page.
* The maximum salary cap is $72 million.
* A team's payroll cap may not change, up or down, by more than $5
million each year.
* The league minimum salary is $350k. There are no minor league
contracts.
* No team may execute any transaction (including contract renewal
or trade) that pushes their payroll above their payroll cap,
unless the overage is eliminated on the same
sim day with another transaction.
* The Cash Maximum for each club is $10 million. At the end of each
season, any cash holdings above this amount will be distributed through revenue sharing.
8. Contract Renewals
* GMs may negotiate player contracts at any time during the season.
Only players in the final year of a contract are eligible for
renewal.
Players whose contracts end fall into three categories
* AUTO extension (+) --- Players with less than 5 years of major
league service time (MLST) can be renewed for one year at the same
salary or released.
* ARB eligible (Arb) --- Players with
5-9 years of MLST are eligible for salary arbitration. You have the
right to retain these players on a one-year contract, but an
arbitration panel will determine the salary.
* FREE AGENT (FA) -- Players with more than 9 years of MLST are
eligible for free agency. If you do not renew the contracts of these
players, they will go into the pool of free agents.
Sequence of decisions
* After new payroll caps are released, you will be asked to decide
which ARB eligible players you would like to take to arbitration.
All other players will drop into the free agent pool.
* Arbitartion panels will make their
salary decisions, which are final and irreversible.
* If arbitration decisions push your payroll over your cap, you must
take appropriate measures before Opening Day (including releasing AUTO renewals, making
trades, opting out of FA) to get it under the cap.
* After arbitration hearings, you will be asked to decide which AUTO
renewal players you wish to keep. These players
are signed to one-year contacts at the same salary. All other
players drop into the pool of free agents.
9. Free Agency Period
* The Free Agency period is February. There will be three rounds of
normal bidding, (through Feb. 7, Feb. 14, Feb. 21) plus
two additional auction rounds.
* Clubs over their payroll cap may not participate in free agency
bidding.
* The minimum bid for a player is $300k.
* Any free agent signing that puts a team over its payroll cap will
be immediately disallowed, and the player involved will return to
the free agent pool.
* FA auction rounds
* After the third round of FA bidding, GMs may
bid on the remaining unsigned players.
* GMs will email a list of
players and salary offers to the Commissioner.
All bids are for one year.
* Bids
are resolved in descending order, with ties broken in favor
of the club with the worse record in the previous season.
These
signings will occur outside the game, so greedy players who were not
signed during the FA period will be forced to accept smaller
salaries. This is a good way for teams to fill out their rosters on
the cheap to meet the minimum 48 player roster requirement, so GMs
should budget some funds for this. This rule will also prevent
greedy players from becoming perpetual holdouts by forcing them to
accept smaller contracts.
10. Rookie Draft
* All major league players with at least 1,000 career at-bats or 300
career innings pitched are eligible for the United League, as well
as selected players who narrowly miss these thresholds.
Players will enter the draft the same year as their
real-life major league debut.
* Rookie Draft occurs on March 1.
* Rookie class will be published in mid-January, but rookie ratings
are subject to change until just before the rookie draft.
* Draft order is determined by reverse order of finish. Ties
will be broken by head-to-head record, then head-to-head runs.
* Draft order will be Straight, 1-14, 1-14, etc. and will last
4 rounds
(56 picks).
* Teams may
not pass a round, but may switch to computer picks at any time.
* Draft picks may be traded.
* All rookies are signed to
three-year contracts at fixed salaries.
* 1st round picks: top 5 draft
picks will earn salaries of $2500, $2400, $2300, $2200, and $2100
(in thousands) respectively. All other 1st round
picks will earn $2000
* 2nd round picks will earn $1500 (first
six) and $1000 (last six)
* 3rd round picks will earn $750 (first six)
and $500 (last six)
* 4th and 5th round
picks will earn $350.
* Undrafted rookies will become free agents and will be assigned to
teams in the Double-A American Association (see Rule 11. Low
Minors).
11. Releasing Players
* The only time of the year you can release players for free is when
they are out of contract between Oct. 16 and Jan. 1.
* There are
two specific sim cycles devoted to releasing players: one just
before Arbitration hearings, and one just after.
* You may
release a player under contract at any time, but you must buy out
the remainder of his contract.
* Any player released may not be signed by the same team for at
least 30 days.
12. Low Minors
/ Free Agents During the Season
*
On Opening Day, all unsigned free agents and undrafted rookies will be assigned to
teams in the independent, Double-A level American Association.
*
AA players are treated the same as free agents may be signed to a league minimum
contract (300k/1 year) at any time after the first sim of the
season.
* Beginning March 1 (after Free Agency), teams may claim any
unsigned free agents or undrafted rookies on a first-come basis, to
300k/1 year contracts.
* To claim a player email the Commissioner and the
player will be added to your roster.
If you sign the player in-game, please notify the Commissioner so he
can update the Contracts page.
*
If
multiple teams claim the same AA player during the same sim, the team with the worst record from the previous season gets the player.
* Players will remain in AA until they either retire or sign a
contract with a UL team.
13. Trades
* Teams may trade players, draft picks, and cash.
* Trade deadline is August 1.
* Teams must honor the remaining terms of all player contract, both
salary and remaining years.
* Teams may not execute any trade that causes them to exceed their
payroll cap.
* A team already over its payroll cap may not execute
a trade that increase its payroll.
* Executing a trade:
- Both parties must send a confirmation email to the commissioner.
- All trades will be processed as soon as
possible.
- The Commissioner reserves the right to
disallow any trade deemed grossly unbalanced or harmful to the
league.
14. Contract Extensions
* You may offer extensions at any time during the season.
* Veterans with at least 9 years of major league service time (MLST) will
be lost to free agency unless they sign a contract extension.
15. Fair Play
* All owners should in good faith try to be competitive and field
their best team. No team should deliberately lose games for any
reason or engage in behavior that could be harmful to the league or
its players.
16. Expansion Rules (1974)
Protected Lists
-- Each team will submit a protected list of 18
players plus a "pullback" list of 9 additional players that
will become protected as the team loses players to the draft
-- The first player drafted -- 3 additional players are protected.
-- Second player drafted -- 2 additional players are protected.
-- Third player drafted -- 1 additional player is protected.
-- No team may lose more than 8 players in the expansion draft.
After the 8th player is picked, the rest of the roster becomes
protected.
What it means: teams will only lose 1 of their top
22 players, 2 of their top 25, and 3 of their top 27. The expansion
teams will start off very weak compared to the LA/SF and DAL/MAN
expansions.
Expansion Draft
-- Draft will last 35
rounds. 70 total picks.
-- Denver/Montreal will get first two
picks of 1974 rookie draft.
-- Winner of Denver/Montreal coin
toss gets to choose between 1st pick in expansion draft or 1st pick
in rookie draft.
Date of Draft
-- The expansion draft will
occur in October, between the end of the World Series and the
arbitration hearing. Expansion teams may draft players on
expiring contracts who are FA eligible, but will only have two weeks
to sign them, and if the player does't sign a contract he goes into
the FA pool.