[Muzamba]

RULES & OPTIONS (The RULES and OPTIONS screens would be combined. The new screen includes the newly-labeled sub-categories "Rosters", "Trades", "Amateur Draft", as well as the relocated "Player Options" "Historical Options", and "Tracked Stats Detail".)

Added:

• Disabled List 2 Length - This would allow a different length for the traditional 60-Day DL.
• Waiver Trading Deadline Date - This allows the option to change the trading deadline for players who have cleared waivers.
• Allow No-Trade Clauses - Although this has (thankfully, IMO) already been added to the game, I would imagine some might prefer the option of playing without it.
• Allow Players to Opt Out of NTC's - This would allow players with a NTC who become irreversibly unhappy with their team or who want to go from a losing team to a playoff contender to drop their NTC. They may also waive a full NTC in favor of a Partial or, eventually, even a Limited NTC. (However, players would usually ask for monetary compensation to drop their NTC when being traded to non-competitive teams.)
• Number of Teams Player May be Traded to with Partial NTC - This sets the number of teams a player can reject a trade to. This would typically be a rather small percentage of teams in the league. A player given a Partial NTC as part of his contract would, upon signing a contract, "choose" the teams he will accept a trade to. These teams would be determined by the same criteria he used to determine which team to sign with. In other words, if his top choice as a FA was to sign with Team A and his next five choices were Teams B, C, D, E, and F, he would probably list Teams B, C, D, E, and F as the teams he would accept a trade to.
• Number of Teams Player May be Traded to with Limited NTC - Same as above, except this would usually be a higher number. Since a Ltd. NTC would be of lesser value than a Prtl. NTC, he would only be able to list the teams he wouldn't agree to being traded to. These would normally be among the theoretical last teams he would want to sign with as a FA.
• "10/5 Rule" - This allows you to set the number of years a player must have been in the league and the number of years he has been with the same team in order for a NTC to kick in. On the Player's Profile page, a "countdown" could track the number of days until this milestone is reached, allowing a human GM to trade players just before they reach the deadline, if they so choose. (And since service days are already tracked, hopefully this can be too!)
• Cash Max. per Team - This would limit the amount of cash each team could include in a trade, thus keeping the wealthiest teams from simply throwing tens of millions of dollars at another team to try and obtain a prized player.
• Earliest Date to Trade FA Signed in Offseason - This option would prevent teams from signing a FA and trading him away in the first week of the season. (Incidentally, there could even be an NBA-style timeframe for players just aquired in trades, which would keep the AI from making those unrealistic trades that send one player to 5 different teams in the matter of a week. However, it would also prohibit 3-way trades. And since I don't yet see a better way of doing them, it's probably best to leave it out and hope the AI improves!)
• Draft Order - This gives you the option of having either the traditional "Worst-to-Best Record" order for each round, a "Serpentine" (1-2-3-3-2-1) order, or a totally "Random" order.
• Deadline to Sign Draft Picks - With the MLB moving up this deadline recently, it has become more of a factor IRL. Therefore, it should be in the game.
• Allow Signing Bonuses for Draft Picks - Again, this is a timely issue that should be addressed in OOTP.

Altered:

• Minor League Option Years - Currently, you only have the option whether or not to have option years. This gives you the opportunity to change the actual number of years. (Of course, it can still be disabled by setting the years to "0".)
• Disabled List (1) Length - Simply adds a "1" to distinguish it from the 60-Day option
• Non-Waiver Trading Deadline Date - Distinguishes the non-waiver deadline from the waiver deadline
• Earliest Date to Trade Newly-Drafted Players - This basically replaces the "Allow Trading of Recently Drafted Players" option with a specific date.
• Edit Nationality Percentages button (See detailed description for new screen below) - This replaces the Foreigner Percentage field, which is too general, IMO.

Repositioned on Screen:

• DH Rules - It seems unnecessary to have these under a separate heading than the rest of the roster rules.
• "Historical Rookies Options" section - It makes more sense, IMO, to keep these grouped with the other "Historical Options".

Moved TO This Screen:

• "Player Options" section (from the discontinued OPTIONS screen) - Combining the general rules and options onto one page seems to be a better use of space.
• "Historical (Progressing) Options" section (from the discontinued OPTIONS screen) - (see above)
• "Tracked Stats Detail" section from the discontinued OPTIONS screen) - (see above)

Moved FROM This Screen:

• "Financial Rules" section, including Average Attendance per Game - The Financial Rules should have their own screen, while I feel that the Avg. Attendance/Game value belongs on the STRUCTURE screen with the other basic league info.

Edit Nationality Percentages (via the RULES & OPTIONS screen)

This pop-up window would be accessed by the "Edit Nationality Percentages" button. It would contain all the nations in your nations.txt database. Next to each nation's name would be a slider that allows you to control the percentage of players created for your league that come from each nation. The slider function, like those used in other areas of the game (like the team scouting budget screens) would maintain 100% distribution. A key element to this function is that as long as there is at least 1% remaining, multiple nations may be set to "Less Than 1%". This final 1% would be divided between all nations with a "Less Than 1%" setting. Therefore, if you have only 2 at "LT1%", each would contribute .5% of players to your league. On the other hand, if there were 10 nations set to "LT1%", each would contribute only .1% of players. This allows you to have a miniscule number of players generated from nations with very little baseball tradition.