We, the People of the Rotisserie League, in order to spin a more perfect game, drive Justice home, kiss domestic Tranquility good-bye, promote the general Welfare in Tidewater -- where it’s been tearing up the International League -- and secure the Blessings of Puberty to ourselves and those we’ve left on Base, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Rotisserie League Baseball, and also finish this run-on sentence.
To assemble a lineup of 23 National League baseball players whose cumulative statistics during the regular season, compiled and measured by the methods described in these rules, exceed those of all other teams in the League.
1998 Amendment: Rosters were expanded to 25 players.
There are 12 teams in a duly constituted Rotisserie League composed of National League players.
A teams’s active roster consists of the following players:
Five outfielders, two catchers, one second baseman, one shortstop, one middle infielder (either second baseman or shortstop), one first baseman, one third baseman, one corner man (either first baseman or third baseman), one utility player (who may play any position including pitcher), and nine pitchers.
1998 Amendment: One additional utility player and one additional pitcher were added.
A Major League Player Auction is conducted on the first weekend after Opening Day of the baseball season. Each team must acquire 23 players at a total cost not to exceed $26. A team need not spend the maximum. The League by general agreement determines the order in which teams may nominate players for acquisition. The team bidding first opens with a minimum salary bid of $0.1 for any eligible plaayer, and the bidding proceeds around the room at minimum increments of $0.1 until only one bidder is left. That team acquires the player for that amount and announces the roster position the player will fill. The process is repeated, with successive team owners introducing players to be bid on, until every team has a squad of 23 players, by requisite position.
1998 Amendment: 25 players need to be acquired at a total cost not to exceed $28.2.
1996 AMENDMENT: The draft date shall be the first Saturday following the start of the regular season except when this is Easter weekend when it shall be the following weekend.
NOTE: Final Opening Day rosters for all National League or American League teams will be needed on Auction Draft Day. Because some teams don’t make their final roster moves until the last minute, even USA Today’s rosters, published on Opening Day, have holes. The best way to get the most complete, updated rosters is with membership in the Rotisserie League Baseball Association.
NOTE: The official source for the Dallas based leagues is USA Today (the daily newspaper) and USA Today Baseball Weekly because these publications are available nationally.
After the conclusion of the auction draft, in which teams acquire their 23-man active rosters for a sum not to exceed $26, owners successively draft up to 17 additional players in 17 separate rounds of selection. Initially, players acquired in this fashion comprise a team’s reserve roster.
1998 Amendment: Since the active rosters were expanded to 25 players, the number of additional players and rounds were reduced to 15.
NOTE: The order of selection stated above represents a change from early years of Rotisserie baseball, when teams selected in reverse order of the final standings of the preceeding season’s pennant race. By awarding the first selection to the highest finisher among second-division teams instead of the last-place team, we seek to offer an incentive to teams to keep plugging and a disincentive to finish last (i.e., in the past, a last place finish would be "rewarded" with the first farm system draft pick).
A Player may be assigned to any position at which he appeared in 20 or more games in the preceeding season. If a player did not appear in 20 games at a single position, he may be drafted only at the position at which he appeared most frequently. The 20 games/most games measure is used only to determine the position(s) at which a player may be drafted. Once the season is under way (but after Auction Draft Day), a player becomes eligible for assignment to any position at which he has appeared at least once. Players selected for the utility slot may qualify at any position.
NOTE: Two official major league sources for determining player eligibility are the National League’s Green Book and the American League’s Red Book. Both list appearances by position under fielding averages. The Red Book lists all players who appeared as designated hitters the preceeding season. Circulating an eligibility list by position before Auction Draft Day saves a lot of time. Prepare one yourself in March, when the Green Book and Red Book are published. Or obtain it with membership in the Rotisserie League Baseball Association -- our list is available at least five months earlier, so you’ll be able to spend the winter doing something worthwhile. Spend a few minutes before your auction to settle eligibility questions and assign eligibility to rookies. When in doubt, use common sense (instead of knives) to resolve disputes.
THE RESERVE ROSTER: A team’s reserve roster consists of those players acquired through the rotation draft, through trades, through demotions from the active roster, or through waiver claims. Any transaction (e.g., trade, demotion, waiver claim) that increases the size of the reserve roster beyond 17 players must be accompanied by a concomitant transaction (e.g., trade, promotion, waiver) that simultaneously returns the reserve roster to its maximum 17.
1998 Amendment: The reserve roster was reduced to 15 players.
The Rotisserie League has a schedule of fees covering all player personnel moves. No money passes directly from team to team. No bets are made on the outcome of any game. All fees are payable into the prize pool and are subsequently distributed to the top five teams in the final standings. (See Article VIII and IX.)
The salary of a player is determined by the time and means of his acquisition and does not change unless the player becomes a free agent by means of release or is signed to a guaranteed long-term contract. (See Article XVII.)
NOTE: Because you can commit only $26 for salaries on Auction Draft Day, and because you will keep some of your players from one season to the next, salaries are extremely important, particularly after the first season ends and trading begins. Would you trade Juan Gonzalez for Paul O’Neill? The Rangers wouldn’t, not even if Blowhard George threw in Yankee Stadium (which he would be only too happy to do, outfield monuments and all). But a smart Rotisserie League owner just might make such a deal in the off-season, because the $20-plus difference between Gonzalez’s and O’Neill’s auction price is enough to buy a front-line starter.
Maintaining accurate, centralized player-personnel records of salary and contract status is the most important task of the League Secretary, who deserves hosannas from the other owners for all the work he does.
NOTE: The $26 salary limit pertains to Auction Draft Day only. After Auction Draft Day, free agent signings and acquisition of high-priced players in trades may well drive a team’s payroll above $26.
All fees shall be promptly collected by the League Treasurer, who is empowered to subject owners to public humiliation and assess fines as needed to ensure that payments are made to the League in a timely fashion. The interest income from this investment can be used to defray the cost of a gala postseason awards ceremony and banquet. The principal shall be divided among the first five teams in the final standings as follows:
The following criteria are used to determine team performance:
Teams are ranked from first to last in each of the eight categories and given points for each place. For example, in a 12-team league, the first-place team in a category receives 12 points, the second-place team 11, and so on down to 1 point for last place. The team with the most total points wins the pennant.
THE FENOKEE IP REQUIREMENT. A team must pitch a total of 1000 innings to receive points in ERA and ratio. A team that does not pitch 1000 innings maintains its place in ERA and ratio ranking but receives one point in both of these categories with all teams below shifting up one point. (Thus, a team that finished third in ERA but did not have 1000 IP would receive one point in that category. The fourth-place team in ERA would now receive 10 points.) This rule was passed in 1988 in response to an "all-relief" strategy attempted by the Okrent Fenokees in the 1987 season. The strategy was not successful because Swampmaster Dan Okrent abandoned it after six weeks or so. But it might have worked, in more disciplined hands. Hence the new rule.
THE FENOKEE AB REQUIREMENT. A team must have 4250 at bats in the season. A team that does not have 4250 at bats maintains its place in the batting average ranking but receives one point in that category with all teams below shifting up one point. This rule was passed in 1991 in response to an "all-pitching" strategy attempted by the Okrent Fenokees in 1990. This time, the Beloved Founder and Former Commissioner-for-Life assembled an all-star pitching staff, Tony Gwynn, and 13 Ken Oberkfells (i.e., guys who didn’t play enough to bring down Gwynn’s "team" BA). The BFFCL hoped to amass 40 pitching points, 10 BA points, and 3 points in the other offensive categories to squeeze into the first division. The strategy was not successful because the Swampmaster abandoned it after six weeks or so. But it might have worked, in more disciplined hands. Hence the new rule.
The weekly player-performance summaries published in USA Today beginning in late April constitue the official data base for the computation of standings in Rotisserie League Baseball.
1995 ADMENDMENT: Since the advent of computer scoring, USA Today Information Center became the official source of stats. Before the beginning of 1995, USA Today became lured by the World Wide Web and changed their service to force their subscribers to use their software. An executive decision by the League Secretary was made to change suppliers to Stats, Inc., which is not only cheaper but also provides data to USA Today.
NOTE: When we first started out, we used The Sporting News. That was when TSN cared more about baseball than about all the Stanley Cup skate-offs, NBA playoffs, and NFL summer camping rolled into one (which, by the way, is what the Rotisserie League’s Founding Fathers believe should be done with them). Not for nothing was the Holy Bible known to baseball people as The Sporting News of religion. But that was then, and this is now. The Sporting News has passed from the last Spink to new owners who seem intent on taking the "Sporting" part seriously -- that is, covering other sports at the expense of baseball. A pity.
The effective date of any transaction for purposes of statistical calculation is the Monday (AL) or Tuesday (NL) before the commencement of play on those days. This is because weekly stats appear in USA Today on Tuesday for AL games through the preceeding Sunday and on Wednesday for NL games through the preceeding Monday.
1992 ADMENDMENT: With the advent of computers, statistical compilation could take place any day of the week. Since the Commissioner and Statistician was taking Master’s level classes at night while working full-time, noon Central on Sunday became the weekly deadline for both leagues. Once those classes finished, it was decided to keep the Sunday deadline because it was convenient for the Statistician and chances of postal mail getting interrupted by holidays would be diminished.
1990 ADMENDMENT: Retroactive transactions are due before the owner or the Commissioner leaves the Auction Draft room. If a draft is being conducted on the phone, any retroactive transactions must be phoned to the Commissioner’s home within 30 minutes of the conclusion of the draft.
NOTE: Stats are available weekly by WWW, e-mail, fax, and postal mail. Only recipients by ftp or e-mail are eligible to receive the raw data file.
NOTE: Keeping score is the only part of Rotisserie League Baseball that isn’t any fun. Unless you’re computerized, it’s tedious and time-consuming. And even if your league does have a computer wonk on board, it still means he or she can’t take a vacation between Opening Day and early October. (God forbid your league should go a week without standings!) The best solution: Let the official stat service authorized by the Founding Fathers do all the heavy lifting for you.
1990 ADMENDMENT: The league elected to withdraw $52 ($2 per week) from the prize pool to be donated to the Statistician for costs incurred in compiling and downloading the weekly statistics. Delivery costs are: by WWW are shared by the league statistician for the cost of the web space and the owner accessing their ISP; by e-mail is free; by fax is computed at the end of the season; and, by postal mail is subject to negotiation (whether stamped envelopes are supplied or estimated costs are pre-paid).
From the completion of the rotation draft until August 31, teams are free to make trades of any kind without limit (except as stipulated below). However, at no time can any team have on its active roster more players at a particular position than allowed under the rules of the auction draft (see Article III). A team may, however, be underrepresented at a position. So long as these strictures are adhered to in the immediate wake of a trade, teams may trade any number of players, at any position, irrespective of the number or positions of players being received in such trade.
ANTI-DUMPING: Players in the last year of a guaranteed contract or playing out their option year and players with a salary of $2.5 or more are considered "asterisk" players. Such players may be traded only under the following conditions:
ANTI-DUMPING REPEALED: Effective Opening Day, 1993, ANTI-DUMPING was repealed. The text is left in place so that newcomers to Ultra will know just what is being done away with.
An owner may demote a player from the active roster to the reserve roster, or promote a player in the reverse direction, at any time and for any reason, such promotions to take effect with the subsequent stat deadline. However, no player may be demoted without being replaced on the active roster by an eligible player -- that is, a player who fulfills position eligibility requirements (which may include shifting another active player into the demoted player’s position and the promoted player into the shifted player’s position) and who is currently on a major league roster and not on a major league disabled list.
Active major league players not on any Rotisserie League team’s active roster or reserve roster at the conclusion of the auction draft become free agents. During the course of the season the pool of free agents may also include minor league players not in any Rotisserie League team’s reserve roster who are promoted to an active major league roster; players traded from the "other" major league; and waived players who are not claimed. Beginning one week after the first standings report, and continuing through the season until the last weekly transaction deadline before September 1, such free agents may be signed, without limit, in the following manner:
NOTE: The provision regarding players acquired for a sum in excess of the customary $2.5 call-up fee is intended to discourage frivolous bidding for free agents. It is also intended to make teams who are most likely to benefit from signing costly free agents -- that is, teams still in the race for the first division -- pay for it dearly, by making such players expensive to dump the following season.
NOTE: Set up a simple, common-sense mechanism for handling the "sealed bid" part of the FAAB process. Nothing eleborate is needed. Price, Waterhouse need not be called in. Don’t permit bidders to make contingency bids (e.g., "If I don’t get Ruth at $2.9, then I’ll bid $2.5 on Gehrig, and if I don’t get Gehrig...") unless your League Secretary doesn’t have a day job.
1991 AMENDMENT: All bids are to be phoned to the League Secretary. It is decided that the League Secretary may not bid on a player after another owner has bid on that player. Contingency bids are allowed if the League Secretary personally takes the phone call.
1997 Amendment: Contingency bids may also be emailed to the League Secretary.
NOTE: The reason for the pre-September 1 deadline is to prevent a Rotisserie League team from completely restocking with $0.5 players when the major leagues expand their rosters to 40 in September.
NOTE: The mechanics of the "sealed bid" process will vary from league to league. Where practicable, as in leagues that have weekly meetings, the sealed bid should be just that -- a bid sealed in an envelope that is opened at the meeting. In other cases, it may be more efficient to recruit a disinterested party to record all bids and report them to the League Secretary for action. Whatever mechanism you devise, keep matters in perspective. These aren’t the secrets to nuclear fusion, for Einstein’s sake! So try to balance the gee of security with the haw of mutual trust.
Players are placed on waivers (a) when they cannot be accommodated on a team’s active or reserve roster, because of space and/or positional limitations and (b) under the rules governing the winter roster (see below).
If it chooses, a team may expand its roster for the pennant drive by promoting from its reserve roster an unlimited number of players, as the post-September 1 active-roster size expands to a maximum of 40 players. Such players may play any position.
1998 Amendment: Roster expansion is limited to 6 additional players for a total active roster of 31.
NOTE: A device for heightening the excitement for contending teams and for sweetening the kitty at their expense, September Roster Expansion will generally not appeal to second-division clubs.
A player who has been under contract at the same salary during two consecutive seasons and whose service has been uninterrupted (that is, he has not been waived or released, although he may have been traded) must, prior to the freezing of rosters in his third season, be released; signed at the same salary for his option year; or signed to a guaranteed long-term contract.
If released, the player returns to the free agent pool and becomes available to the highest bidder at the next auction draft. If signed at the same salary for an option year, the player must be released back into the free agent pool at the end of that season. If signed to a guaranteed long-term contract, the player’s salary in each year covered by the new contract (which commences with the option year) shall be the sum of his current salary plus $0.5 for each additional year beyond the option year.
NOTE: This rule is to prevent blue-chippers, low-priced rookies who blossom into superstars, and undervalued players from being tied up for the duration of their careers by the teams who origianlly drafted them. It guarantees periodic transfusions of top-flight talent for Auction Draft Day and provides rebuilding teams something to rebuild with. And it makes for some interesting decisions at roster-freeze time two years down the pike.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say you drafted Neon Deion Sanders of the Atlanta Braves for $0.2 in 1992, a fair price then for a football player with a strikeout swing, a questionable attitude, and too much jewelry. It’s now the spring of 1994 and Sanders, whose maturity has caught up with his raw talent, has become a power threat and a team player. You could let Sanders play one more season for you and get a tremendous return on your twenty cents, but that would be almost as foolish as Sanders risking his knees in the NFL. Taking a longer view, you daydream about Sanders’s power and speed numbers, assess your needs, project what’s likely to be available in the upcoming draft, cross your fingers against football injury -- and sign him to a three-year guaranteed contract. Sander’s salary zooms to $1.2 ($0.2 + $0.5 + $0.5), but he’s yours through the 1996 season. His signing bonus, which does not count against your $26 Auction Draft Day limit, is $1.8 (one half of 3 X $1.2). If he continues to mature as a ballplayer, you’ve got a bargain.
Effective October 15, each owner is required to submit to the League Secretary a list of 23 players, irrespective of position, taken from its combined active and reserve rosters, but one not including any players who have concluded their option year or the last year of a guaranteed long-term contract. This group of players becomes the winter roster.
For the first three seasons of the League’s existence, each team must retain, from one season to the next, no fewer than 7 but no more than 15 of the players on its 23-man roster. After three seasons, this minimum requirement is eliminated, the maximum retained. The minimum is removed because, after three seasons, a team might find it impossible to retain a specific minimum because too many players have played out their option.
NOTE: The April 1 roster-protection deadline was originally set to correspond with the end of the major leagues’ spring interleague trading period, a rite of spring that no longer exists. We’ve stuck to April 1 anyway, because it gives us a week or so to fine-tune draft strategies. Until you know who the other teams are going to keep, you won’t know for sure who’s going to be available. And until you know how much they will have to spend on Auction Draft Day, you won’t be able to complete your own pre-draft budget. So April 1 it is; don’t fool with it.
The Rotisserie League is governed by a Committee of the Whole consisting of all team owners. The Committee of the Whole may designate as many league officials as from time to time it deems appropriate, although only two -- the League Secretary and the League Treasurer -- ever do any work. The Committee of the Whole also designates annually an Executive Committee composed of three team owners in good standing. The Executive Committee has the authority to interpret playing rules and to handle all necessary and routine League business. All decisions, rulings, and interpretations by the Executive Committee are subject to veto by the Committee of the Whole. Rule changes, pronouncements, and acts of whimsy are determined by majority vote of the Committee of the Whole. Member leagues of the Rotisserie League Baseball Association may appeal to the RLBA for adjudication of disputes and interpretation of rules. The Rotisserie League has three official meetings each year: Auction Draft Day (the first weekend after Opening Day), the Midsummer Trade Meeting (at the All-Star break), and the Gala Postseason Banquet and Awards Ceremony. Failure to attend at least two official meetings is punishable by trade to the Cleveland Indians.
To consecrate the bond of friendship that unites all Rotisserie League owners in their pursuit of the penant, to symbolize the eternal verities and values of the Greatest Game for Baseball Fans Since Baseball, and to soak the head of the League champion with a sticky brown substance before colleagues and friends duly assembled, the Yoo-Hoo Ceremony is hereby ordained as the culminating event of the baseball season. Each year, at the awards ceremony and banquet, the owner of the championship team shall have a bottle of Yoo-Hoo poured over his or her head by the preceeding year’s pennant winner. The Yoo-Hoo Ceremony shall be performed with the dignity and solemnity appropriate to the occasion.
NOTE: If Yoo-Hoo, the chocolate-flavored beverage once endorsed by soft-drink connoisseur Yogi Berra, is not available in your part of the country, you have two options: (a) send up an alternative beverage, one chosen in the Yoo-Hoo spirit, as a pinch-hitter, or (b) move.