DW Constitution - Repost

This is not amended to reflect the recent rules changes. This is the original document.

Preamble:

This document is intended to outline rules and guidelines governing fantasy baseball play in the league currently known as “Debate World”.

Keepers:

1. DW teams keep players from year to year each team is allotted 5 keeper slots which may be used to keep any players on a teams’ actionable roster.
2. A teams actionable roster is composed of all players on its roster (including DLs) at the end of the regular season. Any trades that are made during the DW offseason may transfer players from one teams actionable roster to another. Keeper “slots” may also be traded. Should a keeper slot be traded, the team receiving the slot may keep an additional player from its actionable roster with the other team’s keeper slot.
3. Whenever a player is called at the auction, a team may have said player on its actionable roster. Should it have the player on its actionable roster, the owner must decide within an appropriate time frame whether or not to keep said player, and, if so, what length of contract to sign the player for. A player who was not kept the previous auction may be signed to a one, two, or three-year deal. The player’s new salary, which is immediately deducted from the team’s remaining salary cap, is the salary from the previous auction plus 10*(number of years). If the player was not auctioned off in the previous auction, his salary is simply 10*(number of years). Once a team has spent all of its keeper slots, it no longer has the option of keeping players from its actionable roster. The actionable roster remains actionable, however, and the team may either sell the players on its actionable roster (presuming there is a willing buyer) or purchase another keeper slot.
4. Whenever a trade is made during the auction that involves a player, this player moves to his new team’s actionable roster if and only if he was on an actionable roster before. If he had already been drafted or kept, he moves to the other teams active roster and his new team is now responsible for his salary.
5. If a player is called, is on an actionable roster, and was kept during the previous auction, the player must be returned to the auction if his keeper contract has expired. If the player is still under contract (which will be the case if his previous keeper contract was for multiple years) the owner must decide whether to spend a keeper slot on honoring this contract or whether to buy the contract out. If the owner opts to buy the contract out, the player is then auctioned off. If his new auction price is less than his price under the old contract, the DW team buying out the contract must pay a penalty equal to the difference between the two prices. If the new auction price is greater than or equal to the contract price, the old DW team pays no penalty. If a manager opts to buy out a three year contract in its second year, his team must pay the buy-out penalty both during the auction in which that contract is bought out and during the subsequent auction (which would have been the third year of the long-term contract, had this contract been honored). In this case, the penalty for the subsequent auction shall be determined by the difference between the price that the player goes for (or is kept for) in the subsequent auction and the price the player would have had had the original contract been honored (assuming the subsequent price is smaller, otherwise the penalty is zero). If a player is not auctioned off than his auction price is considered 0 for the purposes of this article.
6. If a player is not on an actionable roster but is under a long-term contract, the team that released him during the regular season is responsible for all buy-out penalties. The size of these penalties is determined by the process described in paragraph 5.
7. If a player suffers a career-ending injury, any DW contract he is under may be terminated without penalty, and the player may be dropped from whatever active roster he is on at any time. This supersedes paragraphs 5 and 6.

The Auction

1. The Auction is the primary mechanism by which each the league currently known as “Debate World” (DW) shall acquire MLB players each year. The auction shall be held once per year at such time as shall be agreed upon by members of the league in advance, at the discretion of the commissioner. Unless otherwise decided upon by the league, the auction shall occur on-line, and conducted in 2 chat rooms set up and moderated by the commissioner(s). One chat room is strictly devoted to the calling of players, bids, and other “official” communications between bidding owners and the commissioner. The second chat room shall be for smack talking, dealing the dozens, making fun of other owners acquisition, and all other auction and baseball related banter. We shall try to finish the auction in one time period. If the auction is not completed within this timeframe a supplemental auction time will be determined by the commish.
2. Each owner shall be allowed to call players for auction in a rotating fashion determined by reverse order of the previous years standing. Any player available for acquisition in Yahoo Fantasy Baseball shall be eligible for acquisition by auction unless that player is already on a DW team.
3. Each DW team shall be allotted $500 DW dollars to spend on the players he acquires in the auction. Auctioning shall proceed by a simple “English” auction format with all bids being announced. All bids are binding and must be honored unless some other team enters a higher bid for the same player.
4. DW teams are required to draft the maximum number of players on a DW active roster for the season in question. For the purposes of this article only, “active” rosters do not include DL slots. The minimum bid on any player acquired during the auction is $1. DW owners may not make bids that their team will be unable to honor for salary cap or roster restriction reasons. No team may make a bid so high that it will not be able to spend at least 1 DW Dollar on each remaining empty active roster spot.

Rules Q & A - Email exchange

Adam asked (and Bill followed-up with):

"While we're talking about the Constitution I have two questions that will help in draft day prep:

1) If I were to cut a player that you are responsible for the contract and he goes for less than the keeper contract, I'm responsible for the difference between his new and old salaries right? Example: If I cut Carpenter ($42) and he goes for $35, then I would dump $7 from my salary. But if Carpenter goes for $42 or more, I am off the hook?

2) Multiyear keepers: Each GM can carry only 5 contracts beyond the upcoming season... I just want to make sure that all of the multiyear contracts that I have expiring at the end of the 2007 season don't count against those 5 contracts. Example: Utley, Carpenter, Gonzalez, Holliday are all 2 years keepers that expire at the end of 2007, so I could, in theory, sign 5 totally different players to 2 or 3 year contracts.

Adam"

Peter replied:

"I believe Adam/Bill are correct on both counts."

Offseason Rules Changes

From Peter's email of 2/28

Here are all of the rule changes that were adopted during the con-con:

1. We created an escrow system - All owners who wish to participate in the money must buy in before the season.
(Note: Buy-ins are $75, checks made payable to Peter McCollum, 18 Dravus St. #303, Seattle, WA 98109 - and must be postmarked by March 14, 2007)

2. Keeper/trade deadline is now August 31st.

3. We adopted Jake's "$1 injured players" rule. Here's his amendment wording: "Any player acquired by either free agency or trade who, at the time of the transaction, has sustained an injury that prevents him from playing again during the current season, shall be assigned a value of $1 for purposes of the salary cap. The player's keeper value remains his original salary at auction."

4. We adopted a new cash payout system. Here's how it was described on the ballot. All owners opting in to the system pay X amount of dollars in to the pool (X is a set amount determined by pool vote). All participating owners are paid for their share of points (value of each individual point is determined by participation level times $1 per point. i.e. 12 owners participating means each point is worth (12/14)*1=$0.86) and increasing bonuses are given to the 3rd, 2nd and 1st place money participating owners.
The buy-in is $75 per owner. Point values and 1st/2nd/3rd place bonus amounts are determined by final number of participants.

We also clarified a rule:

5. Owners who DFA a keeper under contract are responsible for that players remaining salary, minus the amount that player is taken for by another owner at the auction. DFAing owners may not bid on those players.

6. (In another email) I forgot to mention that we changed the in-season salary cap figures to 350/650.