The Meat Crew Fantasy Baseball League

Official Rules and Charter

2004 Season

 

Introduction – History and Philosophy

 

The Meat Crew Fantasy Baseball League (herein referred to as “The MCL” or simply, “MCL”) was born during the late winter/early spring of 1996. Erwin Tonogbanua, founding father, future Commissioner, and would-be self-proclaimed Tyrant and Dictator for Life, anticipating yet another miserable season from his beloved New York Mets, decided that he needed something to distract himself from another year of frustration. Having been part of a Fantasy Basketball league the year before, Erwin set out to establish a Fantasy Baseball league that would include several of his good friends. Pretty soon, Dennis Mercado, Danny “J” Tham, Brian Lynch and Frank Brunetti, agreed to join The MCL. With a bit of help from Fantasy Baseball magazine, Erwin drew up the rules and regulations for The MCL, and soon enough the league, as well as the 1996 baseball season, was underway. Frank ended up winning the 1996 season (as well as a 50% share of the pot, which reached $500 dollars), but due to personal reasons, decided not to return. Expansion came in the 1997 season, and Frank’s team was split between the two new members who were coming in: Jason Barone and Ray Asuncion. The pot was done away with as well, and a new weekly head-to-head format was introduced. With the onset of the 1998 baseball season, another expansion phase set in on The MCL. Charlie D'Onofrio and Dan Wilski joined the party, bringing the number of teams to 8.

 

The MCL was established with the intent to serve as an outlet for a bunch of good friends to enjoy the 8-month long baseball season more than they usually would. Celebrating over and agonizing with players whom they usually would not have a personal stake with allowed The MCL owners to be part of more than just their favorite team’s baseball season. It was, and still is, a pastime carried on for fun and healthy competition. It is not a haven for those who do not hold those values in high esteem. It is meant to foster camaraderie, not breed contempt. That will be The MCL’s mission statement, as long as it exists.

 

IMPLIED RATIFICATION

 

The members of the Meat Crew Fantasy Baseball League hereby acknowledge and ratify this charter and have evidenced their agreement to be governed by it and to be subject to the rules and provisions contained herein by accepting ownership of a franchise in The MCL.

 

 

The Rules of the MCL

 

1.             The Teams And Its Players

 

There will be eight teams in the league. Each team will consist of 30 players. Of these 30 players, there will be 15 position players, 10 pitchers and 5 inactive reserves. Inactive reserves can be comprised of position players and pitchers. Only the statistics (see Section 3) of the 15 position players and the 10 pitchers will be counted for the week. At the end of the season, every season, each team will protect twenty (20) players and expose the rest to the MCL draft, except for the 7th and 8th place teams who get to protect twenty one (21) players each.

 

From the 15 position players, a team must have one starter in First Base, Second Base, Shortstop, Third Base and Catcher, and 3 starters in the Outfield.

 

The 7 remaining position players can be of any position, except pitcher. Therefore, Designated Hitters can be classified under this category, called “Active Reserves”.

 

A player qualifies as a starter for a position if he: a) played at least 20 games in said position the previous Major League Baseball season, or if he b) has played at least 15 games in that position during the current Major League Baseball season at the start of a new week. If at any time during the season the player breaks the 20 games-played barrier, he automatically qualifies for that position the next season. The burden of proof in number of games played at a position rests with the MCL owner, not with the office of the Commissioner, although he is glad to be of assistance in such a case.

 

For example, if the Atlanta Braves decide to make B.J. Surhoff a catcher again, he will not qualify to start in that position in MCL until he has played at least 15 games as a catcher. If, at the beginning of the last week of the MCL season,  B.J. Surhoff has played 19 games as a catcher, he qualifies in that position for that last week of the season, even if it ends up that he does not play anymore games at catcher for the season. He, however, will not qualify as a catcher the next season. This seeming contradiction (why does he qualify for the current season and not next?) is to give the player the benefit of the doubt that he might end up playing the number of games required to qualify for the next season. This will be referred to as “HINDSIGHT IS 20/20” rule.

 

Of the team’s 10 active pitchers, at least 5 must be a starting pitcher, at least 3 must be a reliever, and the remaining two can either be a starter or a reliever, called "Wildcards". A pitcher qualifies as a starting pitcher if he started at least 4 games the previous season, or has started at least 3 games during the current season by the start of the new week. A pitcher, in order to qualify as a reliever, must have pitched at least 7 games out of the bullpen the previous year, or 6 the current year by the start of the new week. If a pitcher did not have IP's the previous year, he can be placed as a wildcard till he fulfills either of this requirements.

 

Teams will be stocked with players through the Annual MCL Regular Season Draft. There will be 12 rounds in the draft. Order of the draft will be the last place team last season will have the #1 overall pick, second worst #2, and so on. This is the basic order of the draft, not taking into account trades involving draft picks. The basic order will continue until Round #5 – starting that round, the team that had the last pick the previous round will have the first pick in the next round, etc.


 

2.             Qualified players

 

The following types of players are the only ones who are eligible to be drafted, signed as a free agent,  and to ever appear on the roster of an MCL franchise – whether it be among the 15 active position players, 10 active pitchers, and 5 inactive reserves – at any given time: Major League players (from both the National and American Leagues) who are either on a major League Roster or are Major League Free Agents, Minor League Players (all levels, including independents), Japanese Baseball players (both Central and Pacific Divisions), and any player under contract to a Major League Baseball organization.

 

3.                Statistics, Weekly Matchups, The Season and The Championship

 

The M.C.L. will keep track of 10 statistics: 5 offensive and 5 pitching. The 5 offensive statistics are: Team Average, Team Home Runs, Team RBIs, Team Steals and Team Runs Scored. The 5 pitching statistics are: Team Wins, Team E.R.A., Team Saves, Team WHIP (Walks plus Hits/IP) and Team K’s per 9 ratio.

 

The source of the official statistics will be Stats Inc.

 

A head-to-head format will be in effect. It works like this: a team will be matched up with another every week. Each of a team’s 10 stats will be matched with his opponent’s for that week. Therefore, within the head-to-head matchups, there will be 10 individual team statistical matchups. A win in a category will earn a team 2 points, a loss 0 points, and a tie 1 point.

 

In the event a team has a tie in a category that involves decimals (Average, WHIP, E.R.A. and K’s per 9), the decimals will be expanded to one more place from 2 decimal places (to a maximum of 3). If still tied, then it will be a tie.

 

Each team’s point total will then be added and compared to his opponent’s for that week. Winning a head-to-head matchup will get a team 3 points, losing 0 points and ties 1 point.

 

Furthermore, every week, the total points each team scores and the total points its     opponent scores against it will be added up. The difference between Points For and Points Against (The Point Differential) will be the first basis for tie-breaks. For example: Team A and Team B after 2 weeks are tied at 2-0. Team A played Team C in Week 1 and won 16-2, and played Team D in Week 2 and won 16-2. Team B on the other hand, played Team D in Week 1 and won 16-2, and played Team C in Week 2 and won 18-0. Team A would have 32 points-for total, and 4 points against for a differential of 28 points. Team B would have 34 points-for total and 2 points-against for a differential of 32 points. Team B would win the tie-break based on this.

                    

The season will last 25 weeks. If at the end of the 25th week, two teams are tied, the order of tie breakers are as follows: a) Point differential (points for - points against) b) If still tied after that, the winner is the team which scored the most points for c) If still tied, the head-to-head records between the tied teams will be added and the one with the most wins will be the winner d) If, God forbid, they are still tied, head-to-head points in the matchups between the tied teams will be added and whoever has the highest one wins.

 

4.                Transactions

 

A team will have an UNLIMITED number of transactions for the week. A transaction is defined as a free agent signing or a trade.  A signed or traded player’s statistics will only start to count for his new team on the first day of the new week after which he is traded or signed. Therefore, all roster changes in order to count for the new cycle must be done before the beginning of the new cycle. For example, Team A trades Chipper Jones to Team B on Thursday evening. From Thursday to Sunday, Chipper hits 5 Homeruns. Those homeruns still belong to Team A. Anything Chipper hits from that Monday on belongs to Team B.

 

Signing a player often means having to release another. A released player will go through the waiver wire, meaning anybody who wants to sign him can. The waiver wire at the beginning of the season will go in order of last place to first the previous season. This order will last till the end of the 2nd week of the season. After that, the order will be last place to first place after Week 2. However, anybody who claims a player off the waiver wire and receives that player will automatically move to the bottom of the waiver wire list, where he will remain until some other team claims a player, is awarded his rights and is moved to the bottom of the priority order. This will be known as “IF YOU WANT HIM BAD ENOUGH YOU’LL PAY FOR HIM” rule. A player will be on the waiver wire for 24 hours, and if he goes unclaimed, he will become a free agent, where anybody can sign him, regardless of position in the standings.

 

A player who is claimed off the waiver wire will remain there for the entire 24 hour claim period. At the end of that 24 hour claim period, the team with the highest waiver-wire order priority who claimed said player will be awarded his rights. Even if the team with the highest priority on the waiver wire claims a player off said waiver wire, he must still wait until the 24 hour claim period expires. This is to be fair to those who are lower on the waiver-wire order, who after claiming a player, often have to wait the entire 24 hours to see if anybody higher up in the priority list claims the same player. This will be known as “QUID PRO QUO, EVEN IF YOUR TEAM IS DOWN IN THE DUMPS” rule. Any claims on a player during the 24 hour claim period will be made public to the rest of the league.

 

A team who releases a player to the waiver wire will have that same 24 hour window to recall that player off the wire. This IS “THE RIGHT OF RECALL” rule. Once that 24 hour window expires, the owner loses said right.

 

In order to sign a player, or claim a player off waivers, an owner has to notify the commissioner and assistant commissioners (that would be myself,  Dennis Mercado and Daniel Wilski, respectively) and tell us who you’re dropping and who you’re picking up. Any claims without the name of the person to be released will not be processed.

 

Notifying the commissioner and assistant commissioner means e-mailing all three of us about the transaction. This is necessary to avoid confusion as to who claims or signs who. In the event of multiple claims the same day, the time stamp on the e-mail will be the judge of who gets priority. For those who do not have e-mail during the workday, weekends or at night, an acceptable alternative will be leaving The Commissioner a voice mail on his cell phone: 917-566-7124. IM’s, unfortunately, are not acceptable, as I have found the time stamps on those things are rather iffy. My computer’s clock has a habit of screwing up and being too slow and thus making the timestamp on the IM meaningless. Besides, if you have access to IM then you most probably have access to e-mail. If there is a claim on a player by voice mail and another one on e-mail, then the time stamp on each will be the judge of who gets priority.

 

Trades must be reported to the commissioner and assistant commissioners in a similar manner as well.

 

The trading deadline for the MCL will be September 2nd. After that date, all players involved in any trades must go through the waiver wire. If the players involve go through the waiver wire without a claim, then the trade goes through. If there is a claim, the owner of that player has a choice:  either exercise his Right of Recall, or choose not to exercise said right and allow the player’s rights to be transferred to the claimee. All trades involving “Player/s to be named later” and “future considerations” are not allowed unless the specifics of the “future considerations” and/or “Player/s to be named later”  are revealed a the time of the trade AND approved by the Commissioner. All trades involving “future considerations” and “Players to be named later” are not allowed after the September 2nd deadline, even if specifics are given.

 

 

The commissioner’s office will send an e-mail, or several e-mails, every day, of all transactions that have occurred, as well as any updates he finds interesting to share. This e-mail will also be the official start of the 24 hour claim period of whomever has been placed on the waiver wire. So, for example, Team A releases Player B at 12 noon, and sends proper correspondence to the Commissioner’s Office saying so. The Commissioner’s Office gets said e-mail,  and notifies rest of the league about the release at 5 P.M. The 24 hour claim period will begin at 5 P.M., not at 12 noon.

 

If a player gets injured and placed on the DL, he may be replaced by a free agent. Injured players will go to the Team Disabled List, protected from the rest of the league. However, once the player returns from the DL appropriate roster adjustments have to be made. Once an owner is informed by the Commissioner or Asst. Commissioner that a player is off the DL, that owner has 24 hours to make the required roster adjustment. If not, that newly activated player will be placed on waivers, with the owner having no right of recall. The commissioner’s office will be much stricter in enforcing this rule this year, so please be aware of that.

 

On September 1st of every year, the rosters of each MCL team will be expanded by 1 Inactive Reserve. After September 1st, no teams will be allowed to place players on the Disabled List, unless the Major League team they belong to does so likewise (which they are not wont to do, therefore the expansion). But if a player is said to be “Out for the Year”, the MCL will consider him placed on the Disabled List and the MCL owner is free to treat him as such. Teams, however, will be allowed to activate players off the disabled list. At least a few days before September 1st, a special 1 round draft will be held to fill this 1 additional roster spot, with the order going from worst place to first, based on the standings the week before September 1st.

 

If a player does not play the entire cycle due to injury, suspension, bad luck, because the manager hates him, or for whatever reason, another player automatically moves up to fill that position, provided of course he fulfills the requirement for that position. So, if you have Roberto Alomar, and he doesn’t play for that week, and you don’t have another second baseman on your roster, there’s nothing that can be done about it.

 

If a player does not play the entire cycle due to injury, suspension, etc., and all position requirements are filled, the Commissioner will automatically move up to the starting lineup a player in the inactive roster to take the deadbeat's place. In these situations, the  Commissioner will move players up in alphabetical order.

 

The deadline to provide the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner with starting lineups is the first pitch of the first game of the week.               

 

The Office of the Commissioner will send an e-mail by the weekend notifying everybody of what time the first game starts that following Monday. I would like to emphasize however that the transaction deadline does not mean a team is not encouraged to submit transactions well before it. Such requests made mere moments before the deadline in a non-emergency situation (i.e. waiting to hear if an injured player will be playing that week) can end up being very messy. If a team knows what moves they want to make beforehand, they are requested to not make the deadline a target to submit such moves. Whether the reason is indecisiveness, ignorance or whatever else, waiting till the very last second to request routine roster moves is not encouraged.

 

Any new pick ups who are on the starting lineups for that week cannot be released till after the last game of the week for his team. The commissioner will be very flexible with this rule, as he understands that sometimes certain moves are necessary. But if he perceives that an owner is manipulating his roster using the waiver wire and what not, he will enforce this rule.

 

5.             A Special Note on Minor Leaguers and College Players

 

As explained previously in Section 2, Minor Leaguers are eligible to be drafted. A player in the Minor Leagues will count against a team’s 30 man roster. All minor league players are also eligible for free agency signing at any time. The only limit to the number of minor leaguers one can draft or sign is the number of spots in Inactive Reserves an owner is willing to allocate, if any. The price, of course, of such a decision, is the loss of flexibility in a team. This will be known as “PHENOMS DON’T COME CHEAP” rule.

 

All players drafted in that year’s Major League Baseball entry draft have to wait until the next MCL draft to be eligible, unless they are signed by a Major League team AND is called up.

 

The official source of whether or not a player has been signed and/or been called up is ESPN.com’s transaction page. An MCL owner wishing to sign someone must save said page as an html and include it in the e-mail to the Commissioner. No other source will be accepted as proof.

 

 

 

6.             Injured Players and Protection

 

MCL teams with injured players by the time the choices relating to these players and the 20 man protected rosters are due can place said players on the Disabled List and not have this count against the 20 man roster. BUT, if these injured players are activated off the Disabled List by their Major League teams before the All-Star Break, they are not eligible to be activated off the MCL Disabled List by their MCL team. At this point, the MCL team can choose to put the player through waivers and if he clears, then he can be activated off the Disabled List. If the injured player is activated after the All-Star Break, then there are no penalties involved.

 

 

7.                    Transfer of Ownership

 

Any owner who wishes to dispose a franchise or who has been discharged must return their franchise back to the MCL. Any subsequent transfer of ownership must be approved by the Commissioner. A current franchise owner may not exchange their franchise for the vacant one as such a move would disrupt continuity. (As one of the strengths of any Fantasy Baseball league is the building of traditions, the more stable the league in terms of having franchises with uninterrupted ownership, the deeper the traditions will run.)

 

Once a franchise is without ownership, the Commissioner will form a search committee to select a new owner for the next season. For draft purposes, the new owner will be entitled to all privileges as if the franchise had actually never changed or lost ownership. Specifically, they will draft in the order based on where the franchise actually finished at year end and will inherit any draft pick liabilities or gains which were the result of trades made by the previous ownership before their withdrawal or expulsion. Potential owners will be judged on knowledge of baseball, enthusiasm, personality, cooperation, and (most importantly) an understanding of exactly what they are about to undertake.

 

In years when a newly admitted Owner inherits a previously existing franchise, the transfer of the roster from the previous Owner to the new incoming Owner will be subject to the term outlined below.

 

A. Newly admitted Owner(s) will be permitted to retain 20 players (no more, no less) from the MCL roster that they inherit. Players may be of any position. Depending on the situation, this number might be put up for a vote and be changed, all on a case by case basis.

 

B. Returning Owners will be permitted to retain their usual 20 players from their MCL roster (any positions).

 

C. All players not retained on any MCL roster after the implementation of these procedures will be returned to the Free Agent Pool.

 

D. The regular draft will be held. All teams, unless special circumstances were agreed upon beforehand,  will only draft till the 12th round.

 

 

 

8.             Duties and powers of The Commissioner

 

The Commissioner is  granted the power and discretion to make any and all decisions regarding the league, including but not limited to: conflict resolution, introduction of new rules during the season,  and interpretation of current rules. The Comissioner reserves the rights to introduce minor  rule changes or minor changes in process during the season without having to seek approval of the majority of the league, even though the Commissioner has always notified the rest of the league whenever this has happened. Rest assured, that if it is a major rule change, The Commissioner will bring this matter to a vote with the rest of the league for approval. Neither The Commissioner nor The Assistant Commissioners are empowered to enforce major rule changes during the season unless there has been a majority approval by all the other owners. The Commissioner and The Assistant Commissioners wholeheartedly feel that that is the least they owe their fellow owners. In the event that there is a potential conflict of interest, The Commissioner must absolve himself from decision making in the matter and allow the Assistant Commissioners to handle the issue. If the Assistant Commissioner faces a potential conflict of interest as well, then a vote will be brought to the rest of the league. The Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners pledge that they will be as objective, fair and honest as they have always been in regards to league matters. Should there be a tie in this vote process, then Independt Arbitrator Renan Asuncion, Jr. will be called in.

 

Just as importantly, the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner reserve the right to make changes to the schedule of games for the final week of the regular season. This right will be exercised when the outcome of these final games will help determine the final order of finish, or if the final order of finish is determined already , to settle rivalries.

 

9.             The Meat Crew League Championship Plaque

 

Beginning with the 1997 season, the team who wins the MCL will be awarded the MCL Championship Plaque, in honor of his achievement. The plaque will be transferred year to year from the former champion to the new champion during the MCL Draft. This plaque MUST be kept in pristine condition by the current holder. Damaging the plaque will result in these penalties:

 

·         The offending owner must pay for the repair or for the replacement of plaque. The offending owner must also pay for food at the next MCL gathering.

·         The offending team will be referred to in any and all league related matters as “The Man Who Likes Little Boys” for an entire season.