1) This theme league will consist of 18 seasons, 1971-1979 and 1980-1989.
2) Teams will be made up of players from the actual real-life rosters of two MLB franchises for that year.
3) The inaugural draft will be a 2-round snake draft (order randomized based on Pick 3 lottery – lowest number to highest) in which each owner will draft two 1971 teams.
4) Owners will have rights to all players that played for the two teams they’ve drafted. Where a player played for more than one team during that year, the owners of those teams will compete for these ‘shared’ players. A shared player can be claimed by a team that shares their rights at anytime that they are available starting at the autodraft and anytime they are on the free agent wire.
5) Each season an owner will have rights to two teams. After the season ends each owner will announce which team they will be keeping and which team they will be dropping. An owner can keep one team for as many seasons as they like but will have to drop the other team each season. So, after the season there will be12 keeper teams and at least 12 unclaimed teams.
6) The 12 dropped/unclaimed teams after each season will be drafted to be second teams for the following season. The draft will be based on the season’s standings. The 4 teams with the worst records will have their order in the top 4 drafting spots determined by Pick 3 lottery. The next 4 picks will go to the remaining teams not in the playoffs, in reverse order of finish. The 4 playoff teams will draft in this order: wild card, division winner with worst record, division winner with second best record, team with best record.
The tiebreaker will be run differential
7) From 1977 on (with the addition of the Mariners and Blue Jays) there will be two additional teams that can be picked in the offseason draft (I expect they won’t be picked until we get into the 80s). After this point there will be two unclaimed teams after the draft. The players who’s rights belong solely to these teams will be FA available to anyone from the AD through to the trade deadline. Players who are shared between an unclaimed team and an owned or drafted team will be the sole property of the owned/drafted team.
8) Trades are allowed as long as you are trading a player you have rights to. A team receiving a player can only own that player’s rights for the duration of time his rights would have been owned by the team that traded them. You must declare the terms of the trade (this year only, this year and next, etc.). If you trade a player for the length of time that you have his rights, you are obligated to keep the team he played for the duration of time that he played for that team. So if you have a team that had a player for 5 seasons and you trade that player with no limitations, you must keep that team for 5 seasons. You cannot have two teams for which you have made this type of trade, since one team must be dropped after every season.
9) Your ballpark must be one belonging to one of your two teams that season. Given teams will change, your ballpark can change from season to season.
10) Pitchers will hit 1971-72. DH will be used from 1973 onward.
11) ***Division alignment to be determined.
12) Salary cap will be $80 million.