League Constitution - Grand Fantasy Baseball

I. OBJECT
To assemble a lineup of 26 baseball players whose weekly statistics, compiled and measured by the methods described in these rules, facilitates a first place finish in the 'Grand Fantasy' League ("The League").

II. LEAGUE, DIVISIONS, AND TEAMS
The League will be signed up under Yahoo Fantasy Baseball.

The League shall consist of one division.

There shall be a maximum of 14 teams, but always an even number of teams. Owners must register on Yahoo, where they may remain anonymous, but must submit their real names and e-mail addresses to the Commissioner, and be in good financial standing with the league in order to receive the league password. An owner can have an interest in only one team, a violation results in expulsion from the league. Three recorded complaints received by the Commissioner against any owner, for other rule violations or behavior not in the best interest of the league, will be grounds for termination from the league at the conclusion of the season. Owners agree to remain active through at least the end of the regular season, in order to maintain the competitive integrity of The League.

III. SCORING CATEGORIES & STATISTICS
Head-to-Head category points style, including the following Hitting and Pitching categories:

1. Hitting

2. Pitching

Each week, owners compete in a head-to-head matchup against one team. Each statistical category counts as one game, with the win going to the team that finishes the week with the highest total in that category (Ties are permitted).

Each weekly win-loss total is added to the cumulative season record, which is then used to determine team standings and playoff seeding. Standings are based on each team's overall winning percentage, which is calculated by taking a team's win total and adding half of that team's tie total and dividing the sum by the total number of games the team has played.

A team's pitchers must accumulate no fewer than 7 innings during the week, except when Yahoo declares an exception (e.g. All-Star week). Failure to achieve this minimum will result in forfeiture of all pitching categories for that week. Stats relative to the entire league are irrelevant; only the results for your team and your opponent's determine the W-L-T record for each weekly matchup.

Daily lineup changes are permitted, but no stats accumulated by a player on a day when he is assigned a Bench spot will count in the standings. Lineup changes can be made as long as the player is not locked into their position, and can be made days in advance. Players are locked once their game has begun. All scoring decisions are the responsibility of Yahoo. There will be updated stats and standings each day, and occasionally, corrections are made to "official" stats.

IV. ROSTERS
A team's active roster consists of the following 10 hitters and 8 pitchers:

Position eligibility for all players will be determined by Yahoo, and are subject to change within the season. A player does not gain eligibility at a "new" position until Yahoo upgrades his status.

In addition to the active roster spots, there will be 8 Bench spots and 3 DL spots. A player may not be moved to the DL unless he is on the MLB disabled list and his Yahoo status is changed. When a player is moved to the DL, an owner may select a free agent to fill his roster spot. However, before a player can be restored to active duty, there must be an available roster spot, meaning someone (not necessarily the "replacement") must be released. Once on the DL, a player may stay there for the entire season, even if they return to real-life action. However, once a player comes off the real-life DL, the owner will not be able to complete any transactions until they remove them from their team's DL. The owner will be able to make intra-roster moves (switching players between bench and active) regardless of a player's DL status.

V. DRAFT ORDER
Draft order will be randomly generated 30 minutes prior to the scheduled draft time. The nomination order for the auction draft will be circular. For example, if 12 teams are drafting, the nomination order will be 1-12, 1-12, etc.

VI. DRAFT
A player draft is conducted using Yahoo's Live Auction Draft sometime in the month of March. The exact date and time will be decided by February 20. The maximum budget for the draft will be $260, but may be as little as $160 for a team, depending on the cost associated with each team's keepers. (See Section VII on Keeper Rules). During the draft, teams take turns nominating. A player auction begins once a nominating team places an opening bid on a selected player. Team managers may bid whatever amount they feel a particular player is worth. When a single high bid remains, the player is awarded to the winning team and the bid amount is deducted from the team manager's funds. This process repeats until every team's roster is completely filled.

Teams have 30 seconds to nominate a player for auction. If no player is selected within the time limit, the system will automatically nominate the first player in their nomination queue. If a team does not have any players in their queue, the player with the highest pre-rank value order balancing a player's roster will be nominated.

When a player is nominated, the default opening bid is $1. This amount can be increased by the nominating manager before submitting.

Once a player is nominated, he appears "on the block" and the auction begins. The nominated player's information and statistics are displayed once they are nominated. The auction clock will count down from 30 seconds. Any bids made within 10 seconds will reset the clock to 10 seconds. The player is awarded to the manager with the highest bid when the auction clock counts down to zero.

During an auction, managers can automatically bid $1 more than the current high bid, or manually enter a dollar amount. Managers can bid up to a dollar amount that allows them at least $1 for any remaining roster slots.

VII. KEEPER RULES
Owners will be able to keep players for up to a total of $100. The total value of the kept players will be deducted from that team's budget for the upcoming draft. Drafted players can be kept at their drafted value plus an additional $5. Free Agents picked up before the trade deadline can also be kept at their FAAB value plus an additional $5. Any player picked up after the trade deadline is ineligible to be kept. Players must also be on the team's roster at the end of the season (the player may be in a DL slot).

Teams must submit their list of desired keepers to the commissioner no later than 2 weeks before the scheduled draft. The commissioner will review the submissions to ensure they comply with the keeper rules. Final lists of keepers will be published for the whole league no later than 7 days before the scheduled draft. Owners are not required to publicly announce their keepers prior to this event. No changes will be permitted after the keeper list is published to the league.

VIII. STANDINGS & PLAYOFFS
The Regular Season league standings will be updated by Yahoo after each week's match ups. The playoffs will take place during Weeks 23, 24, and 25. The first six teams in the standings will compete in the Championship bracket; the 7th-12th ranked teams will compete in the Consolation bracket. In the case of ties, Yahoo's automatic tiebreaker rules will apply; there is no appeal process.

The 1st and 2ndplace teams receive a bye in their group; 7th and 8th place teams a bye in their group. The other playoff teams play a one week quarterfinal match up. Those winners meet the seeded teams in a one week semi-final match up, then the two remaining teams in each bracket play a match up in Week 25 to determine the winner.

***If the league has less than 10 teams, the playoffs will consist of Weeks 24 and 25 and will have 4 teams in the Championship bracket.

IX. TRADES
Trades may be made at any time following the draft until the date set in the "Last date to trade a player" setting for the league, which will be as late as the Yahoo system allows. This is usually within the first week of September. In the event of a trade involving uneven numbers of players, Yahoo will not permit the transaction unless an appropriate number of players are released. There will be no limits to the number of trades a team can make during the season. Offseason trades are not allowed.

When a trade has been agreed upon by two managers, the trade will be open for review by the league for 2 days. If 1/3 of the managers vote against the trade during the review period, the trade is vetoed. Yahoo rounds their fractions up, so in a 10 team league, 4 votes would be required to veto the trade.

X. VOTING
Unless otherwise stated, all votes conducted by the league will be a 2/3 vote to pass. The votes will be phrased such that a yes vote will allow the action to take place, ie. if the vote is on a change to league rules, a vote of yes approves the change. Any team that does not vote will be counted as automatically voting yes. If less than 1/3 of the teams vote against the item and the rest do not vote, the item will pass since the "non-votes" will be converted to yes votes.

XI. IN SEASON FREE AGENTS
Transactions may be made beginning immediately after the population of the teams following the draft, through the end of the regular season.

***Starting in the 2013 season***
Continuous Waivers will be implemented, where every player not assigned to a team will be on waivers at all times. Waiver claims will be processed seven days a week and the player will go to the team that places the highest FAAB bid. If multiple managers place an equal bid on a player, the waiver claim is processed based on waiver priority order. Each successful claim moves a manager to the end of the waiver priority list. A bid of $0 may be placed for a player. Each team starts the season with a FAAB budget of $100.

XII. OWNERSHIP AND EXPANSION
When an owner departs the league during the offseason, the Commissioner shall appoint a replacement to manage that team.

In the event that expansion of the league is agreed upon, the existing owners must submit their keeper list to the Commissioner four weeks before the scheduled draft. The Commissioner will post the final keeper list three weeks prior to the draft. Over the next two weeks, the new managers will have the opportunity to select non-kept players off of the rosters of the original teams at the keeper price, up to $100. The total keeper amount for each team will be deducted from the auction draft budget. The order of selection for the expansion managers will be randomly determined and will follow that order in a circular manner through the duration of the expansion draft.