The BCBL was designed for fun and excitement. The owners are expected to be strongly involved in the development and success of the league and will be expected to act in the best interest of the league at all times. If this is accomplished we shall have the finest league on the net!

The BCBL uses version 6.51a of the OOTP software. Please go to OOTP Developments and upgrade, if needed.

The League shall consist of the following offices. The Commissioner, the League Presidents (AL and NL) and two other members. The five members together make up the Board of Governors. The roles of Simmer (handles the sims), League Promoter (Handles finding of new GMs), and News or Web Developer can fall on any of the five members.

It's always best when the load is shared. When someone gets burned out, it hurts the league as a whole. Be kind to your BOG members, they donate time and financially cover the cost to run the league. In turn, respect becomes mutual. The league runs best when all 30 GMs are having fun, competing and enjoying the spirit of baseball.

The Owners (Commonly referred as GM's or General Managers) are the backbone of the league. They are encouraged to participate in all aspects of the League. This includes the League Forum, votes, managing their team, trades and good-natured banter.

The League Forum is the voice of the BCBL. Managers are encouraged to participate in the Forum. Here is where all trading blocks can be posted, all completed trades are posted for process and were all waiver releases are also posted for process. Team write up’s posted and OFFICIAL League Announcements may also be posted here and only here. It is the responsibility of the Owner to monitor these boards at all times as they are held responsible for any missed information released here. Remember to Post early and often.

The AL is using the DH rule. The NL will not use the DH rule. During the regular season each team will have a 25 man max roster. In September the roster can expand to 40 players maximum. During the regular season each team must have a 4 or 5 man rotation. During the playoffs each team can have a 3, 4 or 5 man rotation. Teams must play players in position or a like position. Anybody can play 1st Base. Any OF position can play any other OF position. Just try to keep it real.

The BCBL will sim three times a week: Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons. The sims will alternate consist of roughly 10 days so that every three sims will cover 1 month for season game time. The exception to this is the first four weeks of the season, the last two weeks of the season and two weeks before the Trade Deadline. During these times the BCBL will run roughly 6-8 day sims.

All sims are run in the following order no matter which member of the BOG runs them:

1. Import from FTP
1. Process all contract extensions
2. Run Sim
3. Process all trades
4. Process all free agent claims
5. Process all 1,000,000 player claims
6. Process all waiver wire player releases

Please note that that if a player is waived then it will be 1 sim before anybody can claim him as a FA.

Spring Training will use the export feature to import the ST files for each team. Currently there is no limit on how points are spent.

All series in BCBL use a best of 7 format. The Divisional Series (Round 1), League Championship Series (Round 2), and World Series (Final Round) are simmed over 3 sections. The format will be games 1 and 2, then games 3, 4 and 5 and finally games 6 and 7 if necessary. The GM's will be allowed to submit new exports between sims and new files will be posted nightly. We try to have no member of the BOG who is in the playoffs ever run a playoff sim. Sometimes it is not possible. If at all possible an alternate simmer will be found AND when a BOG member loses they will assume control of the next round.

Every team GM will find that trading is an important part of OOTP/simulation baseball. Some trade a lot, some not so much, but rules for trading are important for transactions to go thru smoothly.

Trades in the BCBL can only be player(s) for player(s) or player(s) for player(s) & cash. Three team trades are allowed IF you find a way to make it work doing two teams at a time. ALSO, the OOTP 6.5 engine does not allow for more than a 5 for 1 deal. That means 10 for 2. If you plan on trading as many as ten players in a deal, make sure the other team has two. Swapping players multiple times and ghost players is no fun on the simmer, and can result in a corrupt file. If you want to "sell" a player, please include a one star, talentless, hole filler for the team trading the cash. The BCBL does NOT allow the trading of draft picks or first year players until after they have been in the league for 1 season. So any rookie drafted in the preseason cannot be traded until after the World Series of the year he was drafted. No trades are allowed with ownerless/BOG controlled teams.

If proper procedure is not followed, a trade may not go thru properly OR can result in a delay. Follow this outline:

NOTE: Attention to detail matters. Don't get lazy and put P. Martinez for the name. First name and last name are required. And for position, if the guy is a utility player and you plan on using him at 3B even though the file currently has him listed as a SS... then you list him as a shortstop. When the league presidents look at this trade to approve it or not, make it easy for them to find the player... and when the simmer enters the trade, if you have the right position, it is a quicker process when you list the position correctly. That may not seem like much to you, but when July rolls around, entering trades take 30-45 minutes if the simmer has to look over the deal as well. Don't be lazy.

Each team is allowed to name one of its previous seasons roster player who is in the free agent pool as their Franchise Player. If a Franchise Player is picked up by another team the original owning team is allowed to either make a counter offer at 125% of the winning offer (at the same amount of years) or is entitled to a compensation draft pick from the signing team. The compensating draft pick will be dependent upon the amount of the signed contract with the new team using the chart below. If you want to resign your Franchise Player at 125% of his new offer you must announce it on the BCBL Message board within 24 hours of his new signing being posted. Any team signing a franchise player (either a new team or pulled back by the previous team) will have have to honor the deal for 1 year minimum. That means no trading or cutting of the player for 1 season.

Teams are allowed to bid on up to 2 players in each category above. The first player signed in each category will forfeit a pick from the current seasons draft and the second signing will forfeit the same round pick from the NEXT season's draft. Signing of a 3rd player in the same category will result in loss of the player and a 500,000 fine to the team owner/GM. NOTE that if a team already has a lost ammy pick in the current season (due to a FA signing from the last season) then that team my only sign one more player at that category. Meaning, you can not extend lost picks out to beyond the next season. Any franchise player who is not claimed during free agency can be reclaimed by his original team for 3,000,000 for 1 season. This contract is for 1 year only and cannot be extended. To claim a player the owner must EMAIL the Commish with 48 hours of the 6th (Final Round) concluding.

Teams may offer players on their teams contract extensions up until the DAY the player reaches 32 years of age. This means you can offer a 24 year old player an 8 years extension, and a 31 year old players a one year extension. Extension offers must be within 80% of the player's asking price (ie if the player is asking for 5 million per season you can offer a low of 4) or meet the following minimums (see chat below), whichever is greater. Extensions greater than 8 years are treated as 8 years. The BCBL will run a "locked" season file, meaning owners will not be able to "negotiate" with players to see what offers they will accept without doing so through the Commissioner or the Simmer. Basically teams will never know the exact limits when dealing with a player and thus making the player's resigning more like a real team/agent environment. All extension offers MUST be posted on the League Forum in the "Player Contract Extension" section. You must list the player's first and last name and primary position in the subject line of the forum post. The amount of offer per year and number of years should be in the main body of the post. The Simmer will reply back with whatever the player replies. The thread will continue until the player signs. After that, the thread is locked. Offers will not be accepted in any other manner. Contract extension offers will be accepted from the day the season is turned over until the last sim of the World Series; although many players are "unwilling" to talk extensions until after the first and sometimes second month of the season.

The following is a chart of minimum contract extension amount for a given year. No contract may be extended past 8 years:

Any player may be released at any time. To release a player you must post a message on the board, under the Player Releases section of the forum. Any other form/attempt to release a player (email, AIM, phone call, etc.) WILL be ignored. It is done this way to allow other GMs the ability to know when a player is dropped and becoming available. AND to avoid the transaction happening two or three sims later because the wrong simmer was emailed. The player will then be dropped during the next sim. Note that a team will still have to pay any and all of the remaining contract.

The Cash Maximum will be set to 100 Million. Ticket prices are set by the Team Owner and can be adjusted at will. Teams may schedule promotional days as they see fit. The only limit to cash spent this way is available cash. NOTE: ANY team with a cash balance in the negative for the start of the FA Auction, can not sign free agents unless they make a trade that brings their cash into the positive.

The BCBL uses a Luxury Tax / Soft Salary Cap. The "soft cap" for 2006 is set at player expenses of $95 million MAXIMUM. Basically any team who has player expenses OVER $95 million after the last game of the WS will be taxed at a rate of 300% of the difference. For example, a team that ends the season with $98,473,924 in player expenses will be taxed $10,421,772 to there CASH on hand. Here is the formula for this example: (98,473,924 - 95,000,000) x 300%

Teams may, at one point or another during the season, have over $95 million payroll, yet still end the season UNDER $95 million in player expenses and incur NO tax penalty. All that matters for luxury tax calculations is player expenses for the entire season, from file flip to file flip.

Also note that the Luxury Tax limit in the future MAY be lowered. If the limit is ever lowered, an announcement will be made by July 1st to begin the following season. It will never be changed immediately during the season. It is only right to give all GMs enough time to plan ahead.

A Tax on teams player expenses below $40 million for a season will also be imposed. This works exactly like the luxury tax above. The reason for a minimum payroll is to keep teams honest. Although you CAN still tank and be over $40 million in payroll (by having a few or more over priced, over-the-hill, players)... the point of this rule is more to curve the ability for one to field a minor league team in an effort to boost cash quickly. When a team (or teams) in the league is dramatically of lower caliber, those all-stars have to go somewhere, meaning there is an over abundance of talent else where. In future versions of OOTP there may be no need for minimum and maximum payrolls, enforced by taxes... but until then, this rule works.

Last season was the first in a long time that the BCBL did not pay out Owner Rewards bonuses. We are going to bring back the attendance bonus. Each team will get a bonus (added to cash just before the file flip) based on export FTP attendance per the table below:

There is also various bonus money paid out depending on stadium features. Business Suites, Luxury Suites, In-Stadium Restaurants, and In-Stadium Hotels all pay some kind of bonus based on a percentage of ticket sales or merchandising revenue. Like the attendance bonus, they are paid at the file flip.

In general any Team GM who is caught cheating by any means will be removed from the league. That includes tanking to improve your draft position. Trading away talent as to improve another team while gutting the team you are running. Financial irresponsibility; destroying your teams finances. While all of these items are subjective they will be brought up before the Board of Governors for investigation and determination. Removing an owner should be the last resort. In 17 seasons the BCBL (CDBL) has removed a GM for violation of fair play once. Don't be the second one.

If a owner misses three sims in a row without notice the Commissioner will contact that owners League President to attempt communication. One attempt will be made and if no acceptable excuse is forth coming, the Commissioner has the right and free will to replace the owner. ALSO note that the first sim is just as important as any three consecutive sims during the year. A team that misses the first sim must have a valid excuse, since the first sim requires much more roster setup/management. Are you out of contention in July? Keeping exporting through the last sim, even if it means nothing but loading up the league file, going to the team setup screen, and pressing the "Export to FTP" button. By doing this, you are at least showing the rest of the league that you are still at the helm. And each export is worth at minimum an extra $100,000 in your team bank account (see "Bonus Money" section).

During the regular season (Opening day until the second to last sim of the regular season) if a player is in the minor leagues of a team and has a contract of over $1 million per season... he may be claimed by another team. To make a claim, a GM must email the simmer and co-simmer saying that they are making a "$1 million player claim" from a team. They must list the team and the player and position. IF more than one GM makes a claim on the same player, the GM with the lower W/L pct. will be given precedence. In cases of a tie, we go to lower team ERA for tiebreaker. If still tied then we use lower team batting average.

The simmer will handle the sim as normal and at the conclusion will then EMAIL the team GM with the player in question. The simmer will tell that GM that a claim was made on said player AND will tell him WHICH team has made the claim (if there were multiple teams, the simmer will only tell which team is awarded the claim). The GM with the player in question now has a few options. They can move the player up to the active roster for the next sim, and avoid losing the player. IF it is before the regular season trading deadline, the claiming team and the team with the player in question can work out a trade for the guy. OR the player can simply be left in the minors and at the end of the following sim, will be released (with financials turned off, so as not to incur further financial expense), and then signed as a free agent immediately by the claimer for the same contract as before.

The claimer MUST (before the next sim) move the player to the active roster. If not, they will incur a $300,000 fine (that will be given to the original player owner who lost the player due to the claim) for every sim the player is in the minors or on the DFA. Unless of course another team makes a claim on the player. Once five sims have past (and $1.5 million in cash has moved to the old team) the player is then shifted back to his original team before the claim. And the player can be put wherever they want, BUT can incur another claim per the standard rules.

There is an exception to the worst W/L record tiebreak... During the playoff races. From the September 1st sim until the second to last sim of the regular season, the tiebreak is as follows:

If a player qualifies for a $1 million claim and is NOT involved in a trade (even if there might be "trade talks" but nothing formal posted and confirmed by both parties on the forum)... IF a claim is made for that sim, it no longer matters if a deal is struck. The claiming team now has rights to that claim. If a deal is struck now, it can only be between the claimer and the claimee. No trade involving the claiming player can be struck with a third party during the "claim period."

This can work to a trader’s advantage however. If trade talks are stalling that involve a $1 million rule qualified player... the team trying to acquire that player CAN also put in a claim. If they are the awarded team (via the tie breaks) then they have in a way "forced the hand" of the team with the player in question. This could also upset that GM if other players were involved. It's all within the rules, but you take your chances of upsetting someone. ALSO note that if their are multiple claims and the team in trade talks does not win the tie breaks, they are now "locked out" of any trade talks involving the $1 million rule player until the claim has been resolved first.

Relocation will not be allowed until at least the 2008 season. The BOG will release rules for relocation sometime during the 2006 or 2007 season.

Stadium Mod rules will be introduced before the September roster expansion, during the 2006 season. New Stadium rules will be introduced before the start of the 2007 FA Auction.