Additional Scoresheet Baseball Rules

Late Return of Ranking Sheets

If you miss the deadline for submitting your ranking sheet, you may delay your entire league's draft. Thus we ask that you do follow all of our published deadlines. In fact, we would appreciate your submitting your ranking sheet a couple of days before your actual deadline if possible. If you mail your initial ranking sheet before your postmark deadline, we will attempt to move you to an earlier drafting league, meaning you may receive your first results sooner.

However, it can be a disadvantage to turn in your ranking sheet more than a few days early. Therefore, we suggest you mail in your sheet about 2 days before your postmark deadline. (If you choose to mail us an overnight letter, please sign the signature waiver so the Post Office can just put it in our PO Box.) You can also fax or e-mail us your ranking sheet, or you can send it in from our web site. If we do not get a ranking sheet from you, and we are unable to reach you, we will draft for you using the order of the player lists (again with one inning pitched being equivalent to 2 plate appearances). Please, if you miss your deadline for any reason, give us a call as soon as possible! We would hate to have to draft for you. After all, we're all in this to add to your baseball enjoyment.

Lineup Changes and Trades

Each week your team will play 6 or 7 games, playing a total of 162 games. The week's games are all played on Mondays, and are based on the player's performance in the majors during the previous week. Lineups are turned in before you see what your players are actually doing in the majors that week.

You can make unbalanced trades (for example, 3 players for 2) and trading of players is allowed until early September. There is no specific charge for trades, other than the fee for the new lineup card to include your new player(s). If you turn in your new lineup using the web-based lineup form on your league's web page there is NO charge for your new lineup. However, if you want to send in lineup changes by postal mail, fax or regular e-mail then lineup card changes are $3 if you change one side, or $5 if you change both sides. We must hear from both of the teams involved in a trade before putting the trade through. Scoresheet does review all trades for fairness to eliminate collusion.

Questions about drafting

Each year we receive many questions regarding our draft procedures. The question most frequently asked is: "Can an owner draft a player to fill a position other than the one at which he is listed?" In other words, many of you want to do something like draft a guy we might have listed at SS to play 2B for you, and then receive another shortstop in the draft, instead of a second baseman. Once the season starts you can play a player at any position without an out of position penalty, as long as he meets our requirements to qualify at that position. But for draft balancing purposes, a player ONLY counts at the position he is listed at on our player lists. This firm rule has been developed to limit complications as much as possible. We also believe that your team will be more successful in Scoresheet Baseball if you use your players only at positions for which they qualify.

There are also some owners who write out multiple draft scenarios, asking us to draft different numbers of players for certain positions. For instance, one might request: "If a short reliever that I have listed in my top 30 picks is still available then I'd like two short relievers before I get a starting second baseman, but not before I get a starting shortstop." These drafts by mail are conducted by computer (player numbers are entered, then the computer does the actual draft), therefore there are obvious limits to drafting flexibility. Also, if we tried to manually draft and included every owner's individual request for draft balancing, we would never get the season started on time. Since we want everyone in the same league to draft using the same rules, we firmly adhere to the drafting rules listed in this packet.

Plus option

To allow owners more flexibility in the draft, we do have an "advanced option" you can use. By putting a plus sign (+) next to a player's number on your ranking sheet, you may draft that player even if you already have someone at that position. For instance, you may have already received someone as your starting shortstop, but a second SS remains still undrafted when his spot on your list is reached. If you have a plus sign (+) next to the second SS's player number you will get him as a backup, even if you're still missing some starters elsewhere. NOTE: A plus sign will only override roster balancing for one extra player at each position. For example, you could get a second third baseman, or a 6th starting pitcher, before you get a starting catcher. However, you will NOT get more than one backup at a position before you get a starter everywhere else. Once you get a plussed player he does count at that position. We feel the number of times you should use this option is very limited - in fact we feel most of you will not use it at all. After all, our roster balancing procedures are designed to help you get a balanced team.

Miscellaneous Rules

1) You are starting out with a 35 man roster, and it will grow during the season as you take part in supplemental drafts, or make unbalanced trades. But, you may not list more than 30 players on a lineup card. Any players not listed on a lineup card WILL stay on your team's roster, and will automatically be used before any (AAA) players are called up.

2) Your team will not have more than 8 pitchers and 16 position players appear in a single game.

3) Player stats are adjusted for the major league they play in. If you have Mike Mussina, and he is traded to the NL in mid-season, you do still get to use his stats. But, since the average ERA in the AL is different than the average ERA in the NL, we will adjust his ERA accordingly. (However, inter-league play will have NO effect on Scoresheet statistics. If your player is on an AL team then he as treated as if he plays in the AL, even if that week his major league team plays against a NL team.)

4) Once again, if you are in a Scoresheet American League that is drafting by sending lists to us, you can draft any player that is on the 2009 Scoresheet AL player lists, even if they have been traded to the NL. Any player that is on our 2009 NL list will not be eligible for you to draft for the entire 2009 season. (If you are unsure if a player is on our NL list you can/should still list him - we will just skip over him if he is not eligible.) There are many players that have not yet signed with a major league team as of January 17th (when we finalized these player lists), and so are not on either list. You are allowed to draft such a player only after he is under contract to (or drafted by) an AL team or an AL owned minor league team. If you list such a player you must include his full name, current team affiliation, and position, for him to be added to our eligible lists.
5) Unfortunately, the Postal Service is not perfect. We can't do anything about lost or delayed draft lists and/or lineup changes - once games are played they are final.

6) 10 team draft-by-mail leagues are split into two 5 team divisions. At the end of the regular season the 2 division winners, along with one wild card, make the playoffs. The division winner with the best record will get a bye in the first round, with the other division winner playing the wild-card team. Playoffs are a best of 7 series, using the whole season's stats, with September performances weighted more heavily.