[MLB] Additional R&Rs

Some additional settings not included in my original email (but are in the commissioner’s note on the league page):

1. Max moves of 3 per week
2. No overall move maximum
3. 6 teams make the playoffs
4. Top 2 seeds get a first round bye
5. 8 bench spots
6. Everyone keeps 8 players plus 1 prospect (must be 23 years old or younger on last day of MLB season)
7. No positional restrictions on which players we keep 
8. Draft picks can be traded (the last 9 draft picks on each team are reserved for keeps so don’t trade those)*
9.  Initial draft will be snaking, all subsequent drafts will be non-snaking 
10. Initial draft order will be determined randomly by Yahoo, all subsequent drafts will be determined by final regular season standings with one minor twist: 
11. The 10^th overall team will have the first overall draft pick in subsequent years, 9^th place will have the second, AND THEN it will be the inverse rankings order (ie. The draft order will be 10^th, 9^th, 12^th, 11^th, 8^th, 7^th, and so on).  This is what I call an ‘anti-tanking’ mechanism which prevents teams from tanking for a draft spot while also giving the lower tier teams something to play out the season for.
12. The last 3 weeks of the MLB Regular Season will be the Pool's Playoff Period
    
    

*It’s best to check with me before executing a trade involving draft picks so I can ensure you are not trading reserved picks. I will reject any trades involving reserved draft picks.

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[MLB] Rules and Regulations

Rules and Regulations

ENTRY FEE:
The entry fee is $35 per manager per year for 3 years. Of that $35, $25 will go towards the current year's pool and $10 of it will be put into the cumulative prize pool. The top managers will be awarded that cumulative pool at the end of 3 seasons. I have chosen 3 seasons because I think it's a good test period and after that first 3 year cycle is complete, we can re-evaluate the entry fee, amount of managers, stats categories, etc. NOTE: after the 3 years we will still keep our teams and any new managers will be put into an expansion draft scenario. Additionally, if any manager chooses to bow out at any time, replacements will be waiting to overtake their teams although this is DEFINITELY NOT encouraged. Therefore, you will not be refunded for any money committed to the cumulative pool in previous or current years. Bowing out after a season has began will also result in no refund of your pool fee.

STRUCTURE:
The league will consist of 3 divisions, each with 4 teams in them for a total of 12 teams in the league. The top 6 regular season teams will make the playoffs. The format of this pool is HEAD-TO-HEAD. If you are unfamiliar with this, the nut shell explanation is that you will face a different team each week and will be awaded wins and losses based on the stat categories. Example: If you have more Home Runs than your opponent at the end of the current week, you will win that stat category and be awarded ONE league win. So, because there are 10 stat categories, the best case record for one team in one week would be 10-0-0. Hopefully that makes sense to you.

DRAFTING: The draft order in all drafts subsequent to the initial Year 1 draft will be determined by pool standings. However, The 10th overall team will get 1st overall pick, the 9th overall team will get second overall pick, and the rest of the order is inverse of the standings.

ROSTERS:
Each team will carry a roster of 22 players (1B, 2B, 3B, SS, C, LF, RF, CF, Utility, SP, SP, SP, SP, P and 8 bench spots). Teams will also have 2 additional spots for players on the injured reserve. You will not be able to put non-injured players on the IR. Each manager will be limited to 3 roster moves per week and each roster move will be processed the day after it was made. (The reason for these restrictions is because the intent of this pool is to detemine the best manager at operating a full team over the course of multiple seasons, NOT to see who's the best at logging on every day and adding free agents that play that same day in order to maximize the amount of games played for their team each week. As people who have shared pools with me in the past can probably attest to, I consider this practice to be a form of cheating and I believe it doesn't reflect the true fantasy sports acumen of the managers.) Trades are subject to my approval only. I will only reject outright ridiculous trades. This is in the interest of fairness to everyone else.

WAIVERS:
After the draft, all undrafted players are designated to the waiver wire. If you wish to claim a free agent off waivers, you must wait 2 days after doing the transaction to allow anyone with a lower waiver number to pick them up. The waiver order will be determined by the draft and works inversely. If Player A drafts 1st overall, Player A will be at the bottom of the waiver list. Once someone claims a player off waivers, they will be sent to the bottom of the list and everyone will be bumped up one spot. After a week of not being picked up, a player will be moved from the waiver wire to the free agency list. Free agents can be picked up and processed to your team within 1 day.

STATS:
The offensive statistical categories are as follows...Runs, Doubles, Home Runs, Runs Batted In, Stolen Bases, On base + Slugging Percentage. The pitching stat categories are as follows...Quality Starts, Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched, Earned Run Average, Strikeout to Walk Ratio

TRADES:
You CAN trade for draft picks in upcoming years but the last 8 draft picks for each team are reserved for keepers. Yahoo forces you to use draft slots to assign keepers so check with me before making a draft pick trade so I can ensure you aren't trading a reserved pick.

ROOKIES:
Any players that don't break Training Camp with their MLB teams will still be available to be taken in our drafts and from the free agency/waiver list. Similarly, most minor league players are available to be taken during the regular season and will be denoted by a red 'NA' indicating they are not currently on their club's active 25 man roster.

PRIZES:
YEARLY PRIZES:
-Best Regular Season Team : $200
-Playoff Winner (League Champion): $100
-Winner of 3 year cumulative pool: $360

Commissioner's Bonuses of $10 each (not taken out of the prize pool):
-AL MVP
-NL MVP
-AL Cy Young
-NL Rookie of the Year

More Rules and Regulations HERE

2011 - 2012 Year in Review

So after 7847 PIMs and 10012 blocked shots, the 2011 -2012 season is in the books. The Boozehounders ran away with the pool this year on the strength of (miraculous) breakout seasons from Milan Michalek, Scott Hartnell, and James Neal whom I will now refer to as the Triluckvirate. We also had yet another heated battle for the final playoff spot, however this time it was between the Ticklers and the Travoltas. It came down the very last minute of the very last game in the regular season and in the end the Travoltas pulled it out and slid into the playoffs. The Ticklers were left diddling their twine in the corner.

Overall, the offensive numbers were down across the pool, whereas a lot of the goalie categories were improved. This is probably due to the NHL, as a whole, getting better at defending in the 'new NHL'.

It should be noted that the power stat did not align very well with the standings this year meaning some teams got pretty lucky with the schedule and week-by-week sways in the performances of their opposing teams, while others (such as the Ticklers who missed the play-offs with the third highest overall power stat) got unlucky. That's the way it goes in head-to-head pools sometimes.

Final Cumulative Power Stats:

1. Travoltas - 1264.33

2. Beavers - 1103.31

3. Ticklers - 1002.33

4. Tso - 290.06

5. Booze - 163.16

6. Bracelet -  -21.26

7. Danglers -  -371.87

8. Naked -  -528.11

9. Problems -  -1220.7

10. Corn -  -1681.25

Some notable Power Stats:
-Best Week: Travoltas (Week 17), +319.7, 23G, 54P, 181 SOG, 67 BLK, led the league in power stat for 5/11 categories.
-Worst Week: Danglers (Week 1), -359.6, 16G, 10 PPP, 110 SOG, worst in power stat in 5/11 categories

Some notable Total Stats:
-Most Goals in one week: Tso, 27G (2nd: Ticklers, 26G)
-Most Points in one week: Tso, 64P (2nd: Ticklers, 59P)
-Best +/- in one week: Ticklers, +28 (2nd: Booze, +24)
-Most PIMS in one week: Problems, 82 PIMs (2nd: Corn, 79PIMs)
-Most PPP in one week: Tso, 33 PPP (2nd: Beavers, 23 PPP)
-Most SOG in one week: Travoltas,  236 SOG
-Most BLK in one week: Naked, 90BLK (2nd: Ticklers, 83BLK)
-Most W in one week: tie Tso, Beavers & Bracelet, 8W
-Lowest GAA in one week: Booze, 0.99GAA (2nd: Travoltas, 1 GAA)
-Most SV in one week: Tso, 328 (2nd: Naked, 376SV)
-Travoltas, Bracelet, Booze all had 3 SHO in one week

Yearly 'Awards':
-Pussiest Team: General Tso, 924 BLK (League Average: 1001 BLK) General Tso's Red Army of Cowards

-Most European, nancy-like team: First World Problems, 726 PIMs (League Average: 784 PIMs) He's got 99 First World Problems but managing a team of respectable men ain't one

-The 'New York Mets' award: Twine Ticklers He led the league for the first half of the season with a 'mysterious' plan and then took a hard fall in the second half.

- The 'Maple Leafs' award - Twelfth Bracelet, 167PPP (League Average: 235PPP) Severely below the league average here. Your team of non-powerplay time third liners made the playoffs which is weird and creepy.

-The 'Phillips Head' award - The John Travoltas, 1st in Power Stat, 4th in Points The last time I got screwed that hard, I was being raped in prison.

-The Most Positive Award - Twine Ticklers, +103 on the season I guess this is one thing to be 'positive' about. PUN!

- The 'Alan Bester' award - First World Problems, 62W (League Average: 74W) Alan Bester may have actually improved your goaltending this year.
-The 'Stone Cold Steve Austin' award: General Tso, 3.16 GAA in Week 9 And that's the bottom line because Cam Ward SAID SO

I was glad to see the competition pick up this season. At the end of last year's Review, I made a passionate plea to stop screwing around and it seemed to have worked. This pool was insanely competitive and really fun overall. I'm glad you all enjoyed it so much. Thanks for playing.

Make sure you get those keepers in by June 30th!

2010 - 2011 Year in Review

So after 3286 goals and 37508 saves, the 2010 -2011 regular season is over for our pool. We had a tough battle near the end of the season between Twelfth and Naked that we thought was for the final playoff spot. Unfortunately for Beavers, that wasn't the case. There was a year long battle for first overall between Tso and Travoltas but the Travoltas pulled away in the end.

Some notable Power Stats:
-Best Week: Travoltas (Week 9), +436.2, 9P more than anyone else, led the league in power stat for 7/11 categories.
-Worst Week: Puckaneers (Week 6), -383.6, 15SOG less than anyone else, worst in power stat in 6/11 categories

Some notable Total Stats:
-Most Goals in one week: Corn, 29G (2nd: Beavers, 27G)
-Most Points in one week: Corn, 68P (2nd: Puckaneers, 66P)
-Best +/- in one week: Tso, +29 (2nd: Two tied at +22)
-Most PIMS in one week: Naked, 106PIMs (2nd: Tso, 89PIMs)
-Most PPP in one week: Travoltas, 25PPP (2nd: Corn, 24PPP)
-Most SOG in one week: tie Travoltas & Puckaneers, 244SOG
-Most BLK in one week: Bracelet, 87BLK (2nd: Tso, 82BLK)
-Most W in one week: tie Tso & Bacon, 7W
-Lowest GAA in one week: tie Booze & Puckaneers, 1.00GAA
-Most SV in one week: Tso, 417 (2nd: Naked, 376SV)
-Naked, Bracelet, Beavers all had 3 SHO in one week

-Although leading in total goals on the season, Travoltas was bested by 6 other teams for most goals in one week
-Boozehounders accumulated an amazing +103 rating over the course of the season
-No one could break a 1.00GAA in any one week
-Corn was the only team to have a season GAA above 3.00GAA
-Travoltas had 36 more PPP than anyone else this year
-Travoltas led the league in SOG (3617SOG) but 4 other teams broke 3400 (Corn, Tso, Beavers, and Naked)
-All teams were responsible for 117SHO over the course of the season
-Final Boss was closest to even with a -2 +/- rating

Yearly 'Awards':
-Pussiest Team: Boozehounders, 824BLK (League Average: 1077BLK) Get in front of some pucks, you BUMS!
-Most European, nancy-like team: Puckaneers, 667PIMs (League Average: 852 PIMs) It doesn't surprise me that a dainty little Englishman would groom such a delicate team of cowards.
-The 'New York Mets' award: Twelfth Bracelet Even though it turned out that you were going to make the playoffs anyways, you still had an epic collapse at the end.
- The 'Maple Leafs' award - Boozehounders, 243PPP (League Average: 285.5PPP) That's what you get for putting together a team of third liners.
-The 'Al Gore' award - Box Canyon Beavers Sorry, I wish there was a recount. Didn't mean to lead you on like that.
-Most Tentative Team award - General Tso, 0 Trades executed, Waiver position at end of season: 1 In all honesty, I think it proves that you had the best draft of all of us. You did everything this year with the core group of guys that you drafted. You'd be better off with Zetterberg I think though.
- The 'Alan Bester' award - Corn, 45W (League Average: 70W) Alan Bester may have actually improved your goaltending this year.
-The 'Filthy Whore' award: Ray Whitney (LW, PHO) The amount of times he was picked up and dropped, by so many teams, is downright unsanitary.

It was a good season overall but we need to see more competition. The one thing that sucked about the season was the lack of partipation from certain teams at the end. Aside from it being unfair to face some opponents when you're weaker at the end of the year, and others when you're stronger at the beginning of the year, it's also not very fun. We should all try to compete at all times because every point could matter in the end. There is a cumulative pot and every point you ever earn gets added to the your overall total, which could mean significant prizes down the road.

The Puckaneers team is vacant for next season. Please let me know if you know someone who is interested in overtaking his team. The fee is $50 ($35 for next season + $15 for the cumulative pot)

His keepers will be as follows:
C Eric Staal
C Evgeni Malkin
C Alex Steen
C Jason Spezza
LW Ryan Smyth
LW Patrik Elias
RW Mikael Samuelsson
RW Ales Hemsky
D Michael Del Zotto
D Tobias Enstrom
D Dion Phaneuf
G Roberto Luongo

2010 - 2011 Power Rankings

Travolta	2865.092
Tso	2639.751
Naked	1634.808
Bracelet	1437.906
Bacon	416.2888
Beavers	-324.152
Corn	-955.626
Boss	-1917.74
Booze	-2390.17
Puckan	-3406.15

2010 - 2011 Stat Totals

Below is a screen shot of the stat sheet I have been keeping. The totals are not ranked in any manner. The teams are ordered by their matchups in Week 1.

Click it to enlarge it.

Stat Totals (As of November 6th)

Team	G	P	(+/-)	PIM	PPP	SOG	BLK	W	GAA	SV	SHO
Travolta	63	181	-5	211	69	664	204	12	2.53	680	3
Beavers	69	175	-3	162	57	678	201	10	2.05	485	4
Bacon	49	151	12	126	63	541	214	15	2.50	801	2
Boss	73	147	-27	180	53	606	219	11	3.12	711	0
Naked	59	159	2	197	69	606	186	11	2.87	865	4
Tso	61	178	33	243	65	613	209	19	2.94	999	1
Booze	49	140	15	213	55	581	188	15	2.16	569	2
Corn	62	184	-2	199	74	609	166	10	2.57	628	1
Bracelet	60	166	14	196	55	568	253	15	2.29	720	4
Puckan	60	174	-15	126	64	610	159	8	2.75	652	3