Hi Guys & Gals,
I'm operating 2 Contract Leagues, that are heavily endorsed by none other than Soresheets Owner, Jeff Barton. We have a few openings for the 2021 season. This is a capsule of what we have to offer.
* The BL NCML will be going into Year 7, while BL Connie Mack 2 will be going into it's 6th Year.
* You WILL SEE Players you could ONLY TRADE FOR, in Normal Scoresheet Leagues, BECOME FA!
* Heavily into MiLB, with 2 / 5 Round Drafts every year for MiLB Players ONLY.
* There are NO PENALTIES LEVIED for retaining MiLB Talent.
* MiLB Players Are Under Your Control for @ Least 3 Years AFTER their MLB Debut.
* We build Franchises rather than JUST Teams.
* 20 Team Leagues, with 6 Teams making the Playoffs. However they are Very Challenging Leagues.
* 36 Player Rosters.
* 15 MiLB Rosters, with no in season limit.
* 21 Keepers, so the FA Draft lasts 15 Rounds.
* We Hold Bi-Weekly 3 Round Waiver Drafts from the 1st week in April - the End of August.
* May sign Players to 2-6 Year Contracts.
* Every owner may sign 1 Player to a Franchise Contract for 2-6 Years. TWICE!!! Franchise Players DON'T COUNT Against your 50 Year Cap, Nor Does ANY Player NOT SIGNED to a Contract OR ANY Player with 1 Year Left on Their Contract..
* There's a 50 Year Cap, set on Player Contracts Per Team, with NO In Season Cap.
** Contract Leagues which use Years for their Caps Rather Than $$$, are MUCH BETTER, as Owners MAY ALWAYS Draft the BEST Player Available, while Leagues which use $$$ FORCE Owners to Draft LESSER Players, in order to Stay Under the CAP.
* We currently have 14 owners that Like These Leagues So Much, They Have Franchises in BOTH Leagues.
* We ARE on Facebook Under "Connie Mackers"
* We Keep Intricate, Up to Date Spreadsheets.
* We Trade Year Round with the ONLY Exceptions being the Playoffs ( Scoresheet) & while Owners Assign their Contracts (Us).
These openings won't last long, so Don't Dally!!! If you're interested or have ANY Questions, Please Contact:
Don Mearns (Commissioner) @
dlmearns@frontier.com
AVAILABLE TEAMS:
BL NCML: Teams #5, #10 & #15!
BL Connie Mack 2: Teams #11 & 15!
Here are some Key Elements of our Contract Leagues!!!
Franchise Tag
The Basics –
The franchise tag allows a team to extend a player after his contract expires for up to an additional 6 years without any penalty. The seasons under the tagged contract do not count against a team’s limit. That is, if you tag a player that has a 6-yr contract, those 6 seasons do not count against the 50 years a team can allocate. Of course, once you extend the player to a regular contract, the years would again count.
Eligibility –
First, a player must have at least 3 years remaining on his contract to get tagged. Players with only 1 or 2 years remaining on their contract are ineligible to be tagged, and the only way to retain them would be extending them at a penalty.
Players that have been extended at the ‘+5 penalty’ cannot be tagged, and that player will necessarily become free agents when their extension expires.
While you can tag R1 and R2 players, there is not any good reason to do so since they do not require a contract to be retained.
A single player can be tagged a maximum of two times.
Teams cannot take away a tag from a player once it has been applied until the original contract expires. Therefore, you cannot move tags from one player to another when the tagged player has an active contract.
Trading the Tagged Player Away –
If you make a trade where you sent your tagged player to another team, you do not get your tag back until the initial tagged contract of that player expires. In addition, once you get the original tag back, the same eligibility rules apply, where you can only apply the contract to a player with at least a regular (non-penalty) 3-yr contract. For instance, if you trade a tagged player who has a contract ending in 2020, you get the tag back after the ’20 season and cannot apply the tag to any player who has a contract expiring in ’21 or ’22.
Trading For A Tagged Player –
When you complete a trade for another team’s tagged player, the tag travels with the player, enabling the new team to extend the tagged player without any penalty. The tag, however, returns to the original team once the original contract expires. There is no trading for tags independent of trading for tagged players. Teams cannot move that tag from one player to another. If a team has more than one tagged player on a team, all tags act independently of each other. That is, if your original tag renews while you have another teams tagged player with 2 years remaining on the contract, it does not apply to eligibility rules regarding your team’s tag. Even though you would have a tag on a 2yr contract, you could still tag a player with 3 years remaining.
Executing a Tag –
Simply, when the original tagged contract expires, you can extend that players contract without any penalty. Let’s say you have a player who is originally signed through the 2018 season. Once the 2018 season is completed, that player has zero years remaining and a tag. After the 2018 season, a team is free to extend that player, without penalty, for up to 6 seasons. Prior to the 2018 season, there is no action a team would need to take to retain the tagged player.
New Owners Rule –
If a new owner comes into the league with no player with a franchise tag, due to a tagged player being traded away without another tagged player from another team on the roster, a new tag will be granted. The old tag will still be available for another team on the originally tagged player, but when that tagged contract expires, the tag will cease to exist, given that it has essentially been replaced by the new one. The new tag adheres to all the normal rules and restrictions.
Strategy I: Managing the Tag –
The franchise tag is a very powerful tool, and it requires roster-planning ahead of time to make the best use of it. You can keep an elite player for a longer period while getting the benefit of not counting longer contracts against your cap, or you can use the tag more frequently to continually extend your core players while maintaining more flexibility and less risk. Properly utilizing the tag requires planning on what players you plan to tag in the future to maximize the benefits and avoid making mistakes. If you have a star R3 player you ‘might’ plan to tag in the future, and your current tagged player has 3 years on his contract, you would have to make sure to give the R3 star a full 6-year contract. Giving him 5 years would make him ineligible to be tagged given he would only have 2 years when the current tagged player’s contract expires. Likewise, if you had an R2 that ‘maybe’ you would have interest in tagging, while you plan on tagging your first round FA pick from this season, you couldn’t give your free agent more than a 4-year tagged contract if you still want your R2 player to be eligible for a tag down the road (by giving him a 6 year contract next season when he is an R3). Part of the strategy is planning ahead and part of it is remaining flexible to changing conditions and allocating your overall contracts to help create that flexibility. Whatever you do, making sure the best players are tagged is essential. If you tag a player that drops off in performance, the tag loses a lot of value.
Strategy II: ‘Don’t ever trade your tagged player away without getting one back in return.”
There is some merit in this idea you might have heard from Don. The case for this concept is that tags are very powerful, and no matter what you are getting in return, having no tagged player on your roster means maintaining a weakness moving forward. This idea stresses that you have to make sure you get substantial value in any trade involving your tagged player, and you have to make sure it is really a blockbuster deal to even consider making such a move. Don’t enter trades involving tagged players lightly. If you give up a tagged player for too little, it would be quite difficult to get back similar value in other trades. If your tagged player is an elite player, he is the closest thing you have to an untradeable player.
Strategy III: Teams overvalue tagged players – trade yours and make off like a bandit.
Given the last strategy point is what some folks will tend to hold, they will not only highly value their own tagged player, they will also potential covet your tagged player. This presents an opportunity to command a hefty ransom to trade your tagged player. Keep in mind, not all tags are equal. Some players with tags are younger, some are older. Some tagged players are simply not as good, and some tags are on contracts that expire sooner than others. All these factors play a role in how much a tagged contract is worth in a trade. Given the value many will rightfully place on a tag, teams can get a good return. For rebuilding teams, this could result in a deal to acquire a core of prospects. For contending teams, it might give the edge in the current season to get necessary key pieces for the stretch to go after a title. Tags are valuable, but it would be advisable to keep an open mind about what you can get in return for a tagged player, given specific circumstances.
Author: Brad Matthews
2021 Off-Season Guidelines
Contract Years Available
In 2021, you will have 50 contract years available to allocate, regardless of whether you are in NCML or Connie Mack 2. Please note that 1-yr contracts DO NOT count against your books (except in the case of an extension). A 2-yr contract counts 2 years, but next season you retain the player with 1 year left on the contract, while both years come off the books.
Teams need to be at or below 50 contract years at the off-season protection deadline and when allocating contracts prior to the start of the season. Teams cannot exceed 50 years during these points of off-season. If a team goes above this limit during the off-season – which is not recommended, they will have to make moves to get back under by these points. However, there are no restrictions on how many contract years a team can have on their roster in-season.
Who can you automatically keep?
Automatically teams retain the rights to (with the caveat teams will protect 21 MLB players):
Players under contract (including tagged players), retained on the 21-man protected list
Players with rookie status (R1), can be protected using back end draft picks and automatically retained into the next season without a contract
Players that used rookie status in 2019 or 2020 (R2 & R3), must be protected on the 21-man protection lists, R3 players would need a contract to be retained past the current season, R2 players you retain rights to automatically next season without a contract
MiLB eligible players (-R1), protected on the 15-man MiLB roster outside of the regular MLB roster. MiLB players have this status for the entire season.
It is important to note there is NO PENALTY for releasing players with contracts prior to the protection deadline to get years back on players not worth keeping. Teams can clear years and roster spots by releasing players in the off-season prior to the protection deadline without restriction. After a team elects to retain a player by keeping them on the roster through the protection deadline, the years will be on the books and teams cannot get years back through releasing that player.
However, teams that release or trade tagged players do not get the tag back until the original tag is scheduled to expire. (For instance, if a player has a tagged contract through 2020 with an option, the team does not get the tag back until after 2020…and the next time the team will be eligible to exercise the option tag will be 2023 – given that a player will need three years left on their contract in 2019 to be eligible for the tag.)
Who are free agents?
Free agents in 2021 are any players without a contract whose rookie year was 2018 or earlier, or players not protected among 21 MLB players on a team. (Note for the 2021 season, you will retain the rights to 2018 rookies but need to give them a contract to keep them beyond 2021.)
Free Agent Types include:
· FA-1: These players went undrafted before the season and were claimed on waivers in-season. Note – if a player was drafted, he will not qualify as a FA-1, even if he was later released and claimed by another team.
· FA-2: These are players taken in the 2nd half of the off-season draft
· FA-3: These players have multi-year contracts that have expired OR were taken in the first half of the off-season draft and not given a multi-year contract.
· FA-4: These are players that have already received an extension and not eligible to be extended again. They necessarily will be free agents and there is nothing a team can do to retain them.
Note: In the excel file, each team’s roster has been broken down to show the status of every player, including those under contract, MiLB, rookie, and 2nd year players, as well as (FA1, FA2, FA3 & FA4).
Can free agents receive a contract extension?
Players can receive a new contract depending on type.
FA-1 players can receive a new contract without penalty, but can only be extended 3 yrs. If a team extends a player 1 yr, that year does count against the books.
Among all a team’s FA-2 players, one player can receive a new contract without penalty. The player in this case can be extended 6 yrs, and a 1 yr extension still counts against the books. All additional FA-2 players on a team can only be extended by using the (+4 Penalty Rule). The FA-2 exception is designed to provide a reward for owners that make good picks late in the draft.
FA-3 players can only be extended using the (+4 Penalty Rule).
FA-4 players cannot be extended.
How does the (+4 Penalty Rule) work?
The (+4 Penalty Rule) works by adding the number of years remaining on the extension with 4. That number is how many years count against a team’s books. The maximum (+4) extension is 4 years. Here is what the penalty looks like:
1 yr extension = 5 penalty years
2yr extension = 6 penalty years
3yr extension = 7 penalty years
4 yr extension = 8 penalty years
As the years progress through an extended contract, years come off in accordance with how many years remain. For instance, in a 3 yr extension at a penalty the first year counts 7 years, the second year counts 6 years, and the third year counts 5 years.
A player can only be extended in this fashion one time before becoming a free agent, and a player cannot be tagged after extended using a (+4 Penalty Rule). A team with a player extended at a penalty can release or trade the player to get the years off of the books, during subsequent off-seasons.
Can a team extend and trade a player?
The quick answer is it depends based on FA type. In the interest of making the situation more realistic and protecting the quality of free agency, certain restrictions are necessary.
Players must be extended before they are traded. Teams cannot trade players without a contract, so such trades of extended FA1 and FA2 players cannot occur prior to the protection deadline. These players can be traded after the protection deadline and prior to the Free Agent Draft, and beyond.
FA3 players that are extended with the (+4 Penalty Rule) cannot be traded until the following August. Since many of these will be elite players, this restriction is to protect the free agent pool and prevent an incentive to extend and trade a player.
When extending a player at a penalty, the penalty will remain on the books of the extending team unless the team trades or releases him. If a team extends a player, his contract will necessarily be on the books for that season.
Since teams must extend a player before trading him, this means if a team that deals away one of their FA-2 players, they cannot extend a second FA-2 player without penalty (and that second FA2 is treated as an FA3). FA-2 players extended without penalty can be traded once the season begins. Before then, a team cannot have two FA-2 players extended in the same off-season without penalties on their roster.
FA-1 players can be traded without penalty or restriction after the protection deadline once they are extended. Again, the max extension for a FA-1 player is 3 years.
How will the contract system affect the draft?
The draft starts in round 21 due to the way Scoresheet is set up (I personally would have protection start in round 36 and work the up, rather than starting in round 1 and working their way back, but that would require more making all players rookies during the off-season). This season we will require teams to all protect 21 MLB players (21 players that do not qualify for MiLcool smiley. If this does not work as well as we hope, we can look at doing this a bit differently next season, but the reason behind requiring this as both a min and max is to eliminate uneven rosters and empty roster spots for some teams at the end of the Free Agent Draft.
There are two ways this system affects roster strategy. First, the system rewards developing a team’s own talent. Since fewer players will be available for the draft than standard leagues, there will be less quality depth available in the FA Draft overall. Hence, even if they are not core players, having first and second year players with good potential or performance become more important to being competitive. Second, being aware that there is not as much quality depth in the FA draft should direct a team’s planning in the off-season in terms of how contract years and roster development are planned .
It is also worth noting that in this system, elite talent can make it into free agency. Players that without question would be protected in any standard league can and will still make it to free agency. Whereas initial off-seasons have had weaker draft pools, as the league matures we should start to see the FA draft pool getting stronger, with many players who would never see free agency in a standard league.
What are my choices for protecting rookies (R1)?
If a player has MLB playing time or any kind and no longer has eligibility to be on the MiLB roster, he will need to be on the MLB roster and protected as part of the 36-man roster. Keep in mind, this R1 or -R1 status, as with any status, is determined and set for the following season during the off-season and cannot change until the season is completed.
The main choice is that you can protect rookies (R1) using back end draft spots, like standard Scoresheet leagues. Note, we are keeping (-R1) MiLB off the regular roster, unlike standard leagues. Teams can elect to protect R1 rookies as part of the 21-man protected list if they need the players to fill to get to 21, however, teams can retain R1 rookies outside the 21-man protected list using back end draft picks.
Author: Brad Matthews
Amended 1-1-21 Don Mearns
Here are the new rules for our leagues, strictly due to Covid:
* All player Contracts Remain the same as they were to start the 2020 season! There will be NO Normal Loss of a Year. NOT EVEN players that were Extended, by using the (+4 penalty rule), that would normally become automatic FA & enter the 2021 FA Draft. Like 2020 Never Happened!
* All (-R1), (R), (R1), (R2) & (R3), WILL ALL Retain those Desgnations, like 2020 Never Happened!
* Any player, Not Actually Signed to a Contract, WILL become a FA & enter the 2021 FA Draft, UNLESS said owner wishes to sign them to a Contract for the upcoming 2021 season, following the Normal Rules for (FA1, FA2 & FA3) Players.
* ANY Players that Made Their MLB Debut in 2020, WILL REMAIN (-R1 or (R). Like 2020 Never Happened!
NOTE: Because of this change, the Normal Once a year Protection of 15 MiLB Players, every March, WILL BE CHANGED to 20!!! In this way owners won't Forced to Drop some of their MiLB Players that would Normally have become (R1), (R2) or (R3)!
We're Treating the 2021 season like 2020 NEVER HAPPENED!!! I felt this was the best way to handle last years abreviated 60 game schedule, even though SS Actually 2B that.
Contact Don Mearns @
dlmearns@frontier.com
Take Care!!!
Don L.