Rules and Operating Policies

Updated 2/20/23

General League Info

The Billy Martin Players League shall use the AL DH settings for “ERA” for each BMPL season. Additional settings:

Dues

The current annual fee is $15.00 (subject to change). Additional contributions above the minimum fee are appreciated. Dues must be paid before free agency commences. Dues are primarily used to pay for website hosting, domain, maintenance and development. You must have a validated, purchased version of the version of DMB software that the league is using and the latest MLB season disk.

League Structure

The BMPL shall consist of 24 teams, divided into 2 leagues, each league with 3 divisions of 4 teams.

Each team will play the 3 divisional rivals 14 times (42 total games) and the 20 remaining teams 6 times (120) for a 162 game schedule.

Expansion

Any expansion plans will be initiated and organized at the commissioner’s behest and require league vote and approval.

Franchise Rules

Stadium

Franchises may change stadiums one time only (during current owners reign), and the decision must be taken in the off- season. Franchises assigned to abandoned stadiums receive the replacement stadium as their new venue.

Roster Requirements and Gameplay

All franchises must have at least 35 total players. The league website is the official source of record for rosters.

DMB Profile

• All franchises are required to supply a valid 26-man roster of active and eligible players for each period. A player who is out of usage cannot remain on your 26-man roster. After September 1, you may expand your roster to 30 active players.
• Each team must have two players rated at every fielding position on their 26-man DMB profile roster.
• Pitchers must have a relief rating to relieve, and a starting rating to start.
• Position players can be used in a position at which they are not rated, but their performance will likely suffer (per DMB)
• The BMPL uses the DH and all eligible hitters can be assigned to the DH role.

Profile Submissions

DMB roster Profiles are due on Thursday by 9:00pm EST. Please include your team name in your profile filename.

Free agents acquired after the official Free Agency period has ended can only be signed to 1 year contracts at $500,000.

Player Usage

Rules

• Player usage will be set at 120% overall, and 150% for right and left-handed PA. Whichever comes first.
• Players who have 550 total PA are not subject to right and left-handed limits. They are only subject to the overall 120%.
• Starting pitchers are limited to 2x their historical number of starts.
• Batter usage percentages are based on Plate Appearances (PA). Pitcher percentages are based on Batters Faced (BF).
• When you trade for an expired player don’t forget you can’t play him because the usage will be reset on your team to 0 (in DMB Database). You must hit the “Show combined Stats” box to see the actual totals.

Usage Fines/Penalties

If you do not have any usage issues in a given year, you will receive a $3M bonus.

The penalty fee structure for usage misses (any usage issue/ineligible player active in a profile after the profile submission deadline of 8p ET on Thursday) will be as follows:

First offense: Free

Second offense: $500k

Third offense: $1M

Fourth offense: $2M and/or potential termination of ownership

Teams that run out of eligible players and are not able to resolve themselves in a timely manner will be assigned players by the commissioner from the available player pool, going with the highest number of PA available regardless of abilities.

Discontent

Players must receive 55% of their historical usage, or they may be claimed by other franchises as “discontent.” Prior to Free Agency Auction, in reverse order of finish (tiebreaker is run differential), general managers may claim a discontent player from any other team. The claiming team receives the player and his existing contract. This process may go two rounds. Players not claimed will remain with existing team.

The following conditions will exempt a player from being eligible for that years discontent draft:

• The player who has a contract expiring at the end of the season (these players fall back into the free agency and the 15% discount still applies to any players that are re-signed)
• The player has summer draft status, whether carded or not
• The player has less than 100PA or 30IP in historical MLB stats
• The player has been designated as a Franchise Free Agent

Free Agency

Minimum Free Agent Salary by Contract Length

• 1-year Contract: $500,000
• 2-Year Contract: $1,000,000
• 3-Year Contract: $2,000,000
• 4-Year Contract $4,000,000
• 5-Year Contract: $8,000,000

Franchise Free Agent (FFA) Designation

Each team may choose to extend an expired contract (1 player) for 3 years.

• The salary is $8M or current contract value, whichever is higher
• You may not choose the same player for consecutive extensions
• Franchise players are eligible to be traded, like any other player. A team may have more than one franchise contract if they trade for these players.
• Each team may only assign a new franchise contract if they do not currently have a franchise contract on their books
• FFA’s are eligible for contract buy-out (see below)

Bidding

• We have 7 open bids available per team with a 24-hour turnaround for closing.
• Once you retract a bid on a player you will no longer be able to bid on him at any point during that league year.
• Owners limited to 3 retractions. After (3) retractions, exceptions will only be allowed for clear mistakes (i.e. an extra ‘0’).
• Players who ended last season on your team and are now a Free Agent will come at a 15% discount (to previous owning team only) on their total contract if won during free agency. This discount cannot take you below any of the annual contract length minimums outlined above.
• To outbid a current bid you must increase the current bid value by at least 20%
• A single bid cannot exceed the amount of available funds by an owner (Illegal bid). It is permitted to have the total amount of bids got over the amount of available funds but the owner must get back under budget promptly should this scenario wind up putting an owner over budget. This will result in immediate suspension from bidding until owner can get back under budget.
• Illegal bidding may result in suspension/termination from bidding
• Owners who lose out on a player due to a single illegal bid will be awarded that player at the yr/$$ they would have won the player. The event manager will determine the best process for this given the unique nature of the scenario.

Contract Management

Contract Buyouts

Each franchise may declare one player a “bad contract” during the offseason adjustment period. Before any trading or other transactions, the contract may be terminated at a cost of 70% of the total future contract value.

Players who become seriously ill or die while under contract may have their contracts voided by the commissioner, assuming the death occurred after the player was acquired.

In-Season Payroll Administration

• Your payroll must equal at least 75% of your budget at the deadline for submitting your Period One profile
• You are not permitted to go over budget as a result of any transaction during the regular season.
• Free Agents signed in-season can only be signed to a one-year contract. Costs for free agents signed during the season are as follows:
• Prior to Period 7 being played: $500k
• Between Period 7 and 14: $375k
• Between Period 14 and 21: $250k
• After Period 21 has been completed: $125k

Offseason Payroll Administration (prior to Free agency)

• Offseason adjustments (extensions, promotions, etc.) are facilitated immediately following the completion of the World Series. Finances are updated and posted as itemizations publically in the forum (for full transparency), before the offseason trade window re-opens.
• You must be under budget to place bids in free agency.

Free Agency Period Payroll Administration

• You may go over payroll during the official free agency period but must attempt to comply via trade or sale shortly after going over. You will not be able to place any bids while over budget (see Free Agency rules, above)

Fines

Failure to comply with the payroll rules by the start of the regular season shall result in the following fines:

• $1,000,000 fine against the following years payroll for each violation
• You will also be assessed an overage amount fine against the following years payroll: Amount over + Amount over x .5
• Example: If you go over by $600,000 you will have a total fine of: $1,900,000 ($1,000,000 + $600,000 +$ 300,000)
• If an owner fails to attempt to get under budget in a manner that impacts game results, commissioner may intervene and take actions from contract/player removal to owner expulsion from the league.

Trades

Trading is a right that carries responsibilities to the competitive well-being of the league. The commissioner must approve all trades. In the highly unlikely event of a vetoed trade, the commissioner or his agents would recommend a means to make the trade acceptable. It is not anticipated that any trades would be vetoed; this is a protection clause.

1st year owners will have an oversight committee approve trades to avoid an experienced team from fleecing a rookie team.

Timing/Cost of a Trade

• The trade deadline will be set each season to align with the end of the period closest to the end of July. The specific trade deadline date will be communicated prior to the start of the season once the schedule is made.
• Trades in the offseason and before June 30 are free. The date is based upon the DMB/league schedule. All free trades must be completed by profile submission during the period in which June 30th falls.
• Trades completed in July have a $500,000 transaction fee charged to each franchise.

Trade Parameters

• There are no future considerations allowed in trading.
• Player loans are forbidden; no team may expect to receive the same player back from a previous trading partner within the same year; this would be sufficient grounds for a trade to be voided.
• Trades of newly signed free agents will not be allowed until after period four of the season. Must have commissioner approval for exceptions.

Financial Impact

• Players are traded with their full, existing contracts. Players with a Summer Draft status and have not appeared in an MLB game will count against the receiving team’s salary (even though they didn’t count against the sending team’s salary).
• Each franchise must have sufficient remaining funds to make an in-season trade to cover the new payroll projections.

The Summer Draft

Overview

• The summer draft will be a 3 round quickly paced process
• You will have 4 hours between the hours of 10:00-22:00 EST to make your picks
• The draft will take place roughly in the first week of August. Specific dates will be announced early in the season.

Picking / Preparation

In the event you are not prepared you will be skipped. You may present your pick any time after your window has started. You may have another owner represent your team if you are unable to make your picks. Please be prepared prior to draft so the draft does not get delayed.

Details

• The draft order is worst-to-first based on the previous year’s final regular season records. Tiebreaker is run differential (lower goes first).
• Any form of A/AA/AAA players who have not appeared in an MLB game. (No College or high school, No Japanese leagues). Commissioner uses MILB to confirm legal picks.
• Players must have appeared in the Minors on or before June 1st.
• Any player being brought up to the Major League level by May 31st 23:59 is not available for our summer draft. Any player brought up to the Major League level after June 1st 00:00 is eligible.
• Drafted players assigned a 5-year contract at $500,000/year
• Their salary does not count as long as they remain un carded (i.e. have yet to appear in a MLB game). The contract does count if traded to another team.
• Once a player is carded they must be promoted to count against your team’s payroll before the following year’s free agency period begins. They do not need to be promoted in real-time with when the MLB promotion happens, just the following year.
• After 5 years - players may be renewed with a single 3-year contract
• When traded, renewal rights will also convey to the new owner
• You may choose to drop a summer draft player at any time

Franchise Revenues

Revenue Model: Win and Revenue Tiers

For every additional win within a ‘win tier’ teams get an extra $500k added to their revenue.

Example: If a team wins 88 games, they'd get $90M for reaching the current 80-win tier, plus an additional $4M for the 8 wins over 80 (at $500k/per) = $94M.

Revenue caps/limits are: $77.5M to $95M. No team is eligible to earn more or less than this range from regular season win revenue.

Revenue Bonuses

Post-Season Payouts:

• $250,000 per win
• $2,000,000 bonus for reaching Playoffs
• $1,000,000 bonus for reaching World Series
• $1,000,000 bonus for winning World Series

Regular Season Event bonuses

• No Hitter: $1,000,000
• Hit for Cycle: $1,000,000
• Perfect game: $2,000,000

Owners are responsible for checking their box scores for these events and notifying the commissioner.

Additional Bonuses

Profile submission - $100,000 (per period submission if there are no profile problems) Ad hoc requests from commissioner - $100,000

Recruitment Bonus

A finder’s fee of $1M to will awarded to any owner that brings in another owner and remains active in the league and continues in the league after that. This should help provide incentive for additional recruitment. Existing owner will receive the payout as follows: $500,000 payable immediately during the offseason prior to new owner starting and $500,000 payable during the offseason after the new owners 1st year, provided the new owner is committed for a 2nd year.

Post-Season

Schedule/Matchups

• There will be one day off inserted between the last day of the regular season and the first game of the playoffs.
• The three Division Champions and one wildcard per league will play a best of seven series. In the Division Series, the wild card team plays the divisional champion outside its own division that had the better record, with the remaining two teams playing each other in the second Division Series for each league. The teams with the best regular season winning percentage have home field advantage in a 2-3-2 format. (Note: Matchup rules were updated for 2023 with an owner-approved vote)
• H2H record breaks ties for playoff entry and seeding, followed by divisional record, if required. (Note: Tiebreaker/seeding rules were updated for 2023 with an owner-approved vote)
• The League Championships will use 2-3-2 format.
• The Miller Cup Championship Series will follow the same principles of seeding. Home field advantage is shifted in odd/even years. Robinson League team representative has home field advantage during even years. Gehrig League team representative has home field advantage during odd years.

Playoff Usage Rules

Catchers

• 250 PA + Unlimited starts
• 100-249 PA 3 starts
• 99 PA or less no starts (can be on active roster)

Starting Pitchers

• 125 IP + SP Unlimited starts
• 90–124 IP SP 1start
• 89 IP or less not starting in the playoffs

Batters other than catcher
• 350 PA + Unlimited starts
• 100-349 PA 3 starts
• 99 PA or less no starts (can be on active roster)

Relief Pitchers
• RP 35 + unlimited appearances

• RP 34 or less 2 appearances

Additional Playoff Usage Details

• Players who have 100+ PA vs. LHP are eligible to be used as a "Side Specialist" vs lefties during an entire Playoff Series (regardless of games). A "Side Specialist" must be declared prior to a series starting. If you use someone as a "Side Specialist" then they must limit opposite side at bats as much as you can manually: Can't be in opposite side Starting line-up, Can't be listed as PH vs. opposite side, and have the PA vs. opposite side setting set to 0 via “View Player Settings” – “Playing Time Limits”.
• Hitters may remain active on the player roster after start thresholds have been met.
• Starting pitchers must have 10 MLB starts and 90+ IP to start a game in the playoffs.
• Players that have both Starter and Reliever eligibility may only be used in one role (Starter or Reliever) during playoffs.

Playoff Rosters

• Playoff rosters will be set at 26 players.