International Internet Baseball League – IIBL

International Internet Baseball League Rules and Constitution

Diamond Mind Baseball – PC

This is Version 10 of the rules (12/08/2011)

1. Introduction

Welcome to the IIBL Baseball League using Version 10 of Diamond Mind Baseball, a statistically-oriented and text-based baseball game. The IIBL league consists of two conferences of 12 teams divided into six team divisions. Owners of each team must own a copy of DMB as well as the current season disk.

2. How To Play The Game

While it is preferred that all managers have unlimited slabs of time and play all of their games via Net Play, most don’t, and as such, road games are usually played by the Computer Manager, the procedure follows:

Check the visiting team’s roster for 25 active players. If one of the visiting team’s players has an extended injury (15+ games), try to contact the owner for a replacement player. If the visiting team’s last series was a home series, you probably can just go ahead.

When starting the game, please allow for manual input by selecting the Human for both teams under Scheduled Game Options.

Pitchers

Please use the following order when selecting a pitcher for your opponent when playing against the computer manager:

1. If there are specific e-mail instructions use them.
2. If there are no computer instructions, please let the computer manager select. If the computer manager selects a tired pitcher please skip this step.
3. Please manually select a rested starting pitcher who has had the most time since his last start.
4. It there are no rested pitchers, please select the tired pitcher who has had the most time since his last start.

Hitters

When inputting the visiting lineup, PLEASE USE ONE OF THE SAVED LINEUPS IN THE MANAGER PROFILE. All managers will maintain at least one lineup vs. LHP and vs. RHP. If they have more than two lineups some managers will send an e-mail to their opponents specifying which lineup they want to use against a specific pitcher. Please respect that as well.

You should choose the preset lineup which best fits the situation and use it accordingly. Some common sense will be required at times. That may extend to replacing players who were previously injured, catchers who were tired, and other lineups that have a missing positional requirement.

Please select Other Actions, Computer Manager only as a last resort.

3. Schedule

The IIBL schedule will be a full 162-game season. Starting with our replay of the 2010 season we are switching to a schedule without inter-league play. Each team will play 18 games against the other 5 teams in its division and 12 games against the six teams in the other division.  The decision to eliminate inter-league play will be reviewed again before each season.

The commissioner will attempt to send a new series out several hours after the time that the results for a series are due. Ideally this will result in a series being played every four days; there will be times when this pace cannot be maintained.

At the end of the season, the four division champions will make the playoffs. Four wild card teams will also make the playoffs, the non-division winning teams with the two best records from the Marvin Miller Conference (comprising the Ebbets and Shibe Divisions), and the non-division winning teams with the two best records from the Donald Fehr Division (the Forbes and Crosley Divisions). The wild cards will play the first round playoff series against the division winners with the division winners having the home field advantages in a 2-3-2 format. There will be one off day for each change of venue. There will be two days between the regular season and the start of the first playoff round and two off days between each subsequent playoff round.

The winners will go on to face the conference winners, with the conference winners having the 4 home games. The two remaining teams will play in the IIBL World Series in a 2-3-2 format with the team with the better record having the 4 home games.  All playoff games will be Net-played.

4. Rosters

During a season replay each franchise will carry a total of 35 players on their roster; with 25 active/available players, and 10 farm team players. Please be sure that your roster is well balanced. You will need backup players at different positions and good pitching depth. There is great flexibility in position eligibility (see rule 9.8). Because catching is scarce, teams are limited to drafting three catchers if the result is that they have more than 900 PA for those whose primary position is catcher. However, all teams must have at least 550 catchers’ plate appearances at the start of the season. Otherwise, there are no position limitations for each team; you can assemble your roster any way you wish, but plan ahead.

Rosters will expand to the full 35-man limit at September 1 on the calendar of the season. Playoffs and World Series will be 25-man rosters. Rosters can be changed between playoff series. In order to be eligible for the playoffs, a player must have a) been acquired before he was 80% used in the regular season, and b) been on the 35 man roster continuously from that point on (if applicable).

Players sent to the Farm leagues must be sent to the minors for a minimum of 15 days, except if an injury necessitates their recall.  Unsigned players sent down three times in a season will be considered on waivers and will be eligible for any team to claim them. Signed players may not be brought up at all, either for the remainder of the regular season or the playoffs, if they have been farmed three times. This does not apply to players placed on the DL as a result of injuries, although the DL requires a minimum 15 day stay as well.

5. Signed Players And Free Agents

There are two signing dates, a preliminary one in April which is the deadline for all non-”rookies” to be signed to a contract for the following year. A second deadline will take place during the actual MLB All-Star break where owners may finalize their rosters by adding, deleting, or replacing “rookies”. A rookie is designated as a player appearing for the first time on a Diamond Mind disk. The list is usually available on the DMB web site

During the season, each team must submit a list of signed players they wish to contract until the following year. This provides the base list of team rosters for the following season, as well as establishing the draft rounds in which a team is eligible to participate the following year. Unless traded, a signed player will remain on a team’s roster until after the following year’s draft, at which time all contracts “expire”.

At the first signing deadline in April (S1), teams must sign at least 12 but no more than 18. These players are considered contracted and all other players on your roster are Free Agents whose rights will return to the Draft Pool after the season is over. You must sign at least 12, even though some may be rookies and may be replaced at the second deadline at the All-Star break (S2). Once a veteran is signed at S1, he cannot be unsigned, and a veteran unsigned at S1 cannot be subsequently signed.

If a veteran is traded after he is signed, it does not affect the draft status of either team. Like always, if a signed player is traded for an unsigned player, the pick is lost. Below please find a chart what happens when you trade a veteran for a rookie between S1 and S2.

		Team A trades
	signed status in bold	Alou (signed veteran)	Alou (unsigned veteran)
Team B trades	Blanton (signed rookie)	A: Blanton may be replaced (or dropped if Team A has more than 12 signed including Blanton) at S2.B: Alou must be part of signed 12-18 at S2	A: Blanton may be replaced (or dropped if Team A has more than 12 signed including Blanton) at S2. Blanton, or his replacement, does not count against Team A’s 12-18 man roster.B: Alou cannot be added by Team B’s 12 at S2, but loses the draft pick for having signed Blanton and having traded him for an unsigned player. For purposes of B’s 12-18 man roster, Alou takes up a spot, though his rights are not retained.
	Blanton (unsigned rookie)	A: Blanton may be added to the signed roster at S2 (at the cost of the relevant draft pick), but Alou also counts as one of the 12-18, even though he now belongs to Team B.B: Alou’s rights are retained, but he does not count against Team B’s 12-18 signing list.	A: Blanton may be added at S2 (at the cost of the relevant draft pick).B: Alou may not be signed at S2.
	* After S1, number of players traded must be even on both sides. (Throw in player you would have had to cut to make up numbers.) If trades between S1 and S2 involve multiple players, refer to chart above for each pair, matching signed status first, and then veteran status, in that order
	* After S1, if a signed rookie is traded for an unsigned rookie, the status of both players are reversed. However, modifications to both players can be made at S2.

The Commissioner will post a file listing all signed rosters and the draft rounds each team may participate in during the following year’s draft. Teams who fail to submit a signed list will have a signed player list created for them by the Commissioner.

All players are considered to be unsigned during the period between the draft and Signing Day when teams must submit new signed rosters as per the 12/18 rule.

Signed players remain signed for the entire season. Teams may not release a signed player unless in a trade to another team. The team accepting the signed player inherits his signed status and the responsibilities therein. However, the trading of a signed player does not affect either team’s availability of draft picks for the following season. Unsigned players and free agents may NOT be “signed” during the season for any reason, and signed players may not become unsigned players for any reason. Signing merely binds a player to a contract to “protect” him through the following year’s draft. After Opening Day, teams may trade for any players regardless of signed status but must maintain a minimum of 10 signed players at all times. The 12/18 player limitation will not be in effect again until after the next year’s draft when new signed rosters are due.

If a manager signs a player who is not on the Player disk for the following year, the League will create a player with that name that has no stats and must reside on your Farm Team all year. If the player is not active during the second year, he may not be retained any longer and will be a free agent upon his eventual re-entry into the League.

Free Agents may be claimed anytime during the season on a first-come, first served basis. After the season is over, and until the draft is complete the following season, the Free Agent Pool is unavailable and frozen. Free Agent claims are not official until confirmed by the Commissioner.

6. Draft

The player draft is conducted prior to the start of every season,  it occurs during December and January.

The order of the draft will be determined by the team’s final [home] W-L record. The 35 rounds will then be as follows:

1. Rounds 1-12 : Already done by virtue of the minimum 12 signed players.
2. Round 13 : Each team gets one pick. The team with the best record that did not make the playoff drafts 1st, the non-playoff team with the second best record drafts 2nd, and so on and so forth. Playoff teams will draft 17th through 24th, with the first round playoff loser with the worst regular season record drafting 17th. The Conference championship losers will draft 21st and 22nd, the World Series loser 23rd and the World Series Winner 24th.
3. Rounds 14-19 : The order of drafting follows the ‘normal’ order, i.e. the team with the worst record drafts first. This order for playoff teams is as above. Team participation depends upon how many signed players are on the roster. A team signing 12 players (based on final lists at S2) will draft in each round. A team signing 14 players will skip rounds 14 and 15 (the two players over the 12 minimum are considered “drafted” in these slots). A team that signs the maximum 18 players will skip all six of these rounds. These rounds are locked in by the original signed rosters; teams ending the season with less signed players than they started the season with do NOT improve draft status. Teams who add signed players do not lose their picks.
4. Rounds 20-35 : All teams participate until they reach 35 players.
5. Supplemental: All teams who have not yet reached 35 players through round 35 will continue to draft in the same order until their rosters are full. Teams who through trade ended up with less than 12 signed players or teams who traded signed players or multiple picks for single picks or unsigned players will fall into this category.
6. If a team reaches its 35-player limit before Round 35, it will stop drafting at that point.

Soon after DMB releases the new season disk (usually in the mid December time frame) owners will be required to purchase the disk and confirm to the commissioner that they have purchased the disk.  Upon doing so, they will receive a disk from the commissioner with the current rosters and with the draft picks configured in the DMB draft utility.  Several days afterwards the draft will commence.  In this preliminary period two picks will be scheduled per day, each occurring 12 hours apart. They will be announced via e-mail to all league members. As soon as the previous pick is announced, it is allowable and encouraged that the next pick will be made as soon as possible. Often it may happen that 6-7 picks are made in a day. This does not mean that the owner drafting next has until their scheduled date/time to make the pick, but neither are they required to make their pick within 12 hours which would normally be the case had the pick before theirs been made at its scheduled date time. They are encouraged to make their pick within a reasonable amount of time.

Ordinarily there will be a live draft conducted in January to get through about round 20 or 21.  It is conducted in an internet chat room. In the draft for the 2010 replay there was such rapid progress in the preliminary period and there was so much difficulty in finding an acceptable date for the live draft, that the live draft was skipped. It is possible that this will become the new norm for the draft.

If the live draft is held, in order to get the live draft done quickly and efficiently, there will be a trading blackout of picks in rounds 13-19 starting 6 hours prior to the draft until the conclusion of the live draft.  Any manager unable or unwilling to attend the live draft may submit a list to the Commissioner of desired picks and have the Commissioner act as proxy. Any manager who does not submit a list or participate in the conference will have his team drafted by the League Office to the best of their judgment. Please be as specific and organized as possible if you send a list. You can also have a friend or fellow owner draft for you if you so desire. The DMB computer drafting system will pick for all teams not submitting lists.

After the live draft, or in the neighborhood of rounds 20 or 21, the remaining rounds will be via drafted via lists, with 27 picks taking place each day. In this way, since there are 24 teams,  3 teams will have 2 picks each day, with the remaining teams having one and different teams will pick first each day.

7. Trades

There are three periods of trading during the year: In-season, Off season, and the period between the end of the draft and Opening Day.

In-season trading may take place from the start of the season through game 96 after which trading is suspended. In-season trades must have an equal number of players changing teams so teams always have 35 players on the roster. In other words, throw the player into the deal that you would release if it were an unbalanced trade, and let the other team drop him and claim a free agent to replace him.  The trade must be confirmed by both owners and the commissioner before the current period deadline for it to take effect in the next period. There will be no “player to be named later”.

In-season of trading of future picks will be subject to the following limitations

- 13th round picks cannot be traded

- Only picks for the next season can be traded

- Picks forfeited due to signing over the minimum signing number cannot be traded, likewise, if it is before the final signing deadline, if a pick has been traded, a signing cannot be made if it would require the traded pick to be forfeited.

- A team may not trade more than 6 more picks than they have traded for and they may not be allowed to trade this many.   Factors such as the picks being traded, how long the owner has been in the league, will be taken in to account by the commissioner when reviewing trades.  For example, an owner without a number of years of experience would not be permitted to trade picks 14 through 19 because they would be crippling the future of the franchise and they would not have a proven track record of returning to the league, year after year.

Off-season trades are permitted between the end of the World Series and the draft. Because the 35 man limit and the Free Agent pool are not applicable during this offseason period, teams are permitted to construct trades involving any combination of signed players and draft choices they wish. After the offseason trading deadline, the pre-draft rosters are finalized. Teams will then draft as per the rules to fill out their 35-man roster.  Offseason trades may include picks for the upcoming draft without regard to the number of picks already traded.

After the draft there will be an announced trading period before Opening Day. Players may be traded and free agent claims may be made according to the rules; the start of this trading/claiming period will be announced during the draft by the commissioner. This will usually be 24 hours after the draft so that the post-draft rosters can be checked by all teams prior to claims being made. During this week all players are considered unsigned players; their status for the upcoming season is only established when final signed rosters are posted by each team in adherence with the 12/18 rule. The Commissioner will announce the signing deadline, sometime early in the season. Trades may not include future draft picks.

Once the commissioner confirms the trade, you may then make the trade on your own disk and generate a new Manager Profile. The commissioner is never under any requirement to confirm a trade considered unbalanced, made under mistaken assumptions, or considered not in the best interest of fair competition in the league. To that end, the commissioner may appoint an advisory panel, who will openly discuss the merits of the trade, but in the end the commissioner’s verdict is final.

8. Governance

The distribution of the file will be spread out among the commissioner, the advisory board members, and other interested and capable members. The website will also be spread out to promote more content.

9. League Settings

Here are the settings that we are using:

1. Injuries – Yes. Cumulative injury limits will be set in IIBL as follows:
1. For Batters that are not catchers: The maximum number of days a player may miss due to a DMB injury is set to a formula part determined by the number of games played, and part determined by the number of games spent on the disabled list. [=AVERAGE(162-games played,162*% disabled/100)]. A player’s number of games injured will include the game in which the injury occurred. Once a player’s injuries exceeds the number of days arrived at in this formula, he is set to iron and injuries commuted to zero. However, all batters, regardless of their status, can be injured for up to 5 games during the course of the year should the play so dictate.
2. Catchers: The maximum cumulative number of days missed for any catcher is 15. After that he will be set to Iron and any further injuries will be commuted to zero.
3. Pitchers: The formula for pitchers is largely the same as for non-catchers, but games played is determined by a formula of 4.5 x games started, plus 2 x games relieved.
4. In the playoffs, the maximum days of injury will be equivalent to the (162-GPE)/10 , where GPE (or Games Played Equivalent) equals the number of games played for batters, or 5x number of games started plus 2x number of games relieved in for pitchers.
2. Bullpen Warm-up Rule – YES. Reinstated in 2003 after a couple of years’ hiatus.
3. Regular season usage limitations – We use the “Activate playing time limits” feature. For batters the total plate appearances are set to 105% and the usage for splits against a particular hand are set to 135%.  For pitchers their batters faced are limiteds to 105%. Players can be used over these limits but the game will degrade their performance so that they are replacement level.
4. For the postseason we do not use the “Activate playing time limits” feature. Postseason usage limitations will be 8% for each series.There will be a separate limit of 12% for batters usage versus right-handed pitchers and a limit of 16% for batters usage versus left-handed pitchers . (In case there is a disproportionate number of left-handed starters, the 16% limit can be extended to 4% x the number of games started by left-handers in the series). For each 3 extra innings in any playoff series, 1% will be added to the 8% overall limit.
5. Ineligible players: Players with less than 20 PA or 50 BF will be ineligible to play, although they may be drafted.
6. Pitching Rotation – You can choose to go with a four or five man rotation as you see fit. Please note that the choice of Time as opposed to Strict or Skip may produce unintended consequences.
7. Designated Hitter – No.
8. Player Positional Usage – No non-pitcher may play as a pitcher; there are no pitching stats for these guys and therefore no usage limitations or “batters faced”. In the same vein, pitchers may not play the field. Before the beginning of the season, player ratings will be added to DHs without a position. They will be assigned a rating at the last position they had appeared in 50 games in one season, assuming this has happened within the last three years. Otherwise this is at the commissioner’s discretion. A range factor of Pr (Pr arm if applicable) and an error rate of 200% will be assigned. Non-pitchers may also be played out of position at the manager’s risk. In an effort to remain fair to the managers who want to have flexibility, yet also retain some credence despite the limitations of the computer program, the League decrees that all managers use good judgment here.
9. Weather – YES!
10. Automatic Rest Days / Limit Bench Play Time – NO. The MP files will override these choices, leaving them on will override the MP files.

10. Epilogue

As with any software program, there are ways to beat the system and manipulate the loopholes in the rules to take advantage. If this is your goal, please join another league in a faraway place. If we see loopholes, they will be closed immediately, retroactively.