CANDIDATE RULE SET

I've been thinking about this for a while, and here it goes... my candidate for a cash-based auction league. I'm going to not use numbers here, since when I do, everyone always freaks out and focuses more on the numbers than on the ideas ("Howie Kendrick isn't a 13th rounder!").

I'm going to follow this up with a discussion of the ideas that went into this, but I want it out there.

1. GENERAL:

1.1 Our league is a 10-team league with a 40-person roster.

1.2 Every owner receives an equal annual budget in two lump sums: one at the All-Star Break, and one at the end of the season. The owner's budget is supplemented by awards for performance and leftover money.

1.3 Of those players on the roster, 25 are acquired via auction/contract, and 15 via our supplemental reserve draft.

2. PLAYER MANAGEMENT

2.1 Players are either under contract (UC), drafted, or free agents (FA). During the course of a season, the only way a player's status changes is from FA to UC. If a player is UC or drafted at the start of the season, he stays that way until the last day of the season.

2.2 A player becomes under contract from either the auction (FA to UC), promotion (drafted to UC), or in-season acquisition (FA to UC).

2.2.1 The full sum of the contract must be paid. If a player is traded, the trading owners can decide on how the contract is to be paid. If a player is cut, the cutting owner is responsible for the contract in full, unless the player is later picked up by a new owner, who pays a pro-rated sum for the time spent on the new team.

2.2.2 A player can remain UC during the off-season, but the owner must pay the player a raise. Otherwise, the player becomes an FA until the next year's auction/draft.

2.3 A player becomes drafted via the 15-man supplemental player draft.

2.3.1 A drafted player remains on the roster at no cost to the owner for three seasons, unless an owner nominates him during the auction. After three seasons, the player returns to the FA pool unless the owner promotes the player to UC by paying him the league minimum for his third year of service.

2.3.2 Drafted players can be cut and traded like UC players, though the only way for a player's clock to promotion to be reset is to have him be redrafted.

2.3.3 An owner may never have more than 15 drafted players on his team. If an owner acquires a drafted player via trade, and that would put the owner's total over 15, one of the owner's drafted players must be promoted to UC.

2.3.4 An owner may promote a drafted player at any time during the player's service. At that moment, the player becomes a UC with a league minimum contract, paid in full at that season's end.

2.4 Free Agents are everyone else: UC players who don't have their contracts renewed during the off-season, unkept draftees, etc. FAs can be acquired at the auction/draft before the season, or via mini-auction during the season.

3. AUCTION

3.1 The auction takes place before the season begins. Owners announce before the auction what contracts they are renewing for UCs, in order to establish the FA pool (everyone else, which includes drafted players and FAs from the previous year).

3.2 Players can be put on the block at any time by any owner. Bidding starts at the league minimum.

3.3 The auction ends when every owner has 25 UCs (renewed contracts + new acquisitions). (NOTE: though the auction ends with each roster having 25 UCs, over the course of the season that number can change, of course.)

4. SUPPLEMENTAL RESERVE DRAFT

4.1 The draft follows the auction, using the thereby reduced FA pool.

4.2 The draft order is determined by team position at the end of the previous season.

4.3 If an owner is keeping drafted players from the previous two years (who have remained unnominated at an auction), then the owner forfeits the lowest available draft picks for those players.

4.5 The draft ends once every owner has 15 drafted players (kept draftees + new acquisitions) or 40 total players.

5. MINI-AUCTION

5.1 The mini-auction is for acquiring FAs during the course of the season. An owner nominates a player for the league minimum on the yahoo! msg board. Over the next three days, other owners can outbid the nominator by posting higher bids on the board. At the end of three days (using the board's timestamp), the owner with the highest bid signs the player.

5.2 Signing a player, of course, means that there is an extra player on the mini-auction winner's roster. The owner must, then, cut a different player, who maintains his UC or drafted status for the rest of the season.