"House rules" for online leagues

[ricko]

Originally Posted by Ktulu

If the league is good enough people will participate, incentives just give those who have more time an advantage over those who do not.

I'm with you. I don't like the idea of rewarding people who have more free time than others. As long as you are keeping up your commitments, you shouldn't be (indirectly) penalized for not giving more of your time.

I'm in only one online league (the WBH; it rocks). My time for it runs hot and cold. I enjoy it more when I'm participating, and I'm sure I would be more competitive if I had more time. That's enough of an advantage, in my eyes. Just my $0.02.

We do, however, penalize teams for disrupting the flow. Missing an export, causing extra work for the Commish by not managing your roster properly, stuff like that. The rewards we do have are mostly cosmetic. For example, if you go through a whole season without being penalized, you get to give one of your players a nickname.

[Raidergoo]

Instead of a participation point scheme, eMLB awards cash to teams for writing news articles, preparing awards ballots, and the like. The cash is added to the organization's cash, so that they can spend it on player salaries.

There are a couple things that you can spend cash on during the off-season, like boosting fan interest upwards 1-5 points, increasing market size, or adding seats to your stadium, or bidding for Japanese players from an AI run NPB.

[DWK]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

Alright, specific question for online players: What kind of a schedule do you set during the playoffs? I know a lot of leagues sim 7 days at a time. Do you keep that pace during the playoffs or slow things down to allow for more fine-tuning of lineups/rotations? We're about to hit our first post-season and I'd be curious to learn how other leagues handle things.

The BTL sims 2 games per day for the playoffs so you can fine tune more. This way managers can tweak something if need be.

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by DWK

The BTL sims 2 games per day for the playoffs so you can fine tune more. This way managers can tweak something if need be.

We've settled on a similar pace for our first playoffs. The first round (best-of-5) is played with one sim of 2 games and another of 3 games. Round 2 (best-of-7) has three sims: 2 games / 3 games / 2 games. For the championship round we'll be simming just one game each time to allow for very fine tuning. All championship games are broadcast live.

[mikev]

So, one house rule that I've just implemented is due to a strange glitch in the game.

If a player's option year is declined, he is apparently released into the FA pool immediately instead of whenever FAs are supposed to declare. In some cases, there are several sims after the end of the world series and before FAs file.

To keep an even playing field, I restricted all FA offers with the exception of Scout Finds from the time the Championship ends to the time Free Agents file.

[Corsairs]

Thanks for that tip mikev!

You just mentioned scout finds, and that's something I wanted to ask about. There's been discussion on these forums in the past about how "hidden talents" can unbalance a league over time if left unchecked because of how good they tend to be. I would like for hidden talents to be impactful to an extent, but ultimately I want the draft to be the primary source of talent acquisition for the league.

Do any of you place limitations on hidden talents? I was considering placing a limit on the number of these that can be signed per year. The idea floating around in my head is a limit of 2 talents signed to major league contracts per team, with no limit on the number of talents signed to minor league contracts.

[mikev]

We don't place any limit on scout finds. Most of them seem to be 20/20 scrubs, with the occasional gem thrown in the mix. It's been fairly rare to have a scout find go straight to the bigs.

[Bristolduke]

A house rule used in one of leagues I'm in (ootp5 version) is that the owner is not allowed to change the position of a player (they can play any position they are rated). The reason has to do with the salary demands of a player. If you have a player whose position is MR vice SP he will ask for less money (I'm not sure if this is true for position players as well). You can of course still start him if he is listed as MR.

In OOTP7/8, with the morale system, is there an impact on morale if you set position? I know the money is still impacted.

Does anyone else use this house rule? (you can't prevent it but it could be an agreed upon rule.)

[CaptainObvious]

ricko mentioned the WBH.

The WBH has a promotion/relegation system, where the champions of lower league levels replace the last place teams of higher league levels.
(Scouting and personnel are turned off.)

Other non-standard rules in the league:
Teams are fined if they miss more than 3 exports in a row (exports are M-W-F), double for 4 misses in a row, fired and replaced on 5 in a row.
Players left in special roster areas (DL, DFA) for too long lead to a fine.
Teams over budget for too long are fined
-minimize AI roster-handling, incentive to stay active, follow the rules

Minor bonus for no fines in a season
Previous examples: Nickname for 1st-round pick. +1 to int, ethic for one player. +1 to leadership, loyalty for one player.
-incentive to stay active, follow the rules


Overall star ratings removed.
-Due to small league sizes (8 teams per league), ratings were skewed. Also, due to teams changing leagues, overall ratings did not function correctly.

Minimum 4-man rotations during regular season.
-minimize pitcher abuse

Limits on number of no-trade clauses.
Can only offer bonuses, options if the player asks for them.
Salary must be even across entire contract.
Maximum 5 year contract, unless the player asks for longer.
-Simplified contract rules for fairness

Players signed/claimed in offseason can't be traded until just before the deadline. Players signed/claimed in-season can't be traded until after the season.
-No signing a guy you don't plan on keeping, kind of like in the original post.

No trades that put your team over budget.
-Balance

Maximum 100 minor league players across AAA, AA, A.
-minimizes player hoarding, eliminates some bad prospects faster

Offseason free agency and manual first-year player draft held concurrently. Drafting done through a web app, all draft picks processed on the last day of free agency.
-Speeds up offseason, yet allows for a full 10-round manual draft.

Top 20 free agents (as selected by committee) bid on in offseason, sort of like an auction. (Note that there were 56 teams when this began, so it would scale to top 10 for a standard MLB size league.) Other free agents handled in-game.
-Fairness in obtaining top players

Trades, waiver claims done through forums.
-more commissioner control

Custom financial system.
Merchandise revenue calculated outside game using a formula based on market size, fan loyalty, and fan interest.
Equal media revenue for all teams.
-Attempt to balance finances to maintain competition


Hierarchy Awards
Custom voting done through a web app, owners pick the top team, most improved team, top hitter, top pitcher, and top rookie of the year, across all leagues (currently 11 leagues of 8 teams).
-Keeps owners interested during offseason, builds league awareness.

[Solonor]

Originally Posted by Bristolduke

A house rule used in one of leagues I'm in (ootp5 version) is that the owner is not allowed to change the position of a player (they can play any position they are rated). The reason has to do with the salary demands of a player. If you have a player whose position is MR vice SP he will ask for less money (I'm not sure if this is true for position players as well). You can of course still start him if he is listed as MR.

In OOTP7/8, with the morale system, is there an impact on morale if you set position? I know the money is still impacted.

Does anyone else use this house rule? (you can't prevent it but it could be an agreed upon rule.)

FYI, this has been fixed in OOTP9. The position no longer dictates the salary. No more changing a SP to a LF to get him to ask for less!

[Solonor]

Here are the house rules we employ at the SGCBL:

Player-to-be-named-later trades are allowed and handled outside the game (obviously). Both teams must agree on a specific player before the end of the last game of the regular season and submit the name to the Commish. If they do not, the Commissioner will arbitrate the deal and will select the player or players required to complete the trade.

Rule 5 drafted players cannot be traded prior to the All-Star Break. Per the game, Rule 5 players must remain on the team's Active Roster all season, but the loophole is (or was) that if you traded him to another team, they could drop him to the minors. I think that loophole may have been closed, but we still have this rule.

Stadium renovations and building new parks has a whole, complicated set of rules involving prices for the changes and how much the taxpayers will pick up based on how the team has performed in the past 3 seasons.

We have a "Create-A-Player" rule where each team can create one player for themselves using a set number of points. The team can only have one CAP at a time, and they must wait a minimum of 5 seasons between creating each one. So, even if you create one in 2008 and you kill him off in 2010, you have to wait until 2013 to make a new one. (If a new owner takes over a team, he has the option to immediately kill the prior owner's CAP and create a new one.)

Each team gets Seasonal Bonus Points to modify the ratings of one player in their organization. This used to be allowed for multiple players, but we felt that it was unbalancing things too much.

Teams can reduce injury time for injuries longer than 6 months by spending money. Also, any "career-ending" injuries can be made into ultra long-term injuries (ULTI) of 5-years which then fall under the same rules for buying down injury time.

If a team wants to un-retire a player, they can do so by offering a salary equal to their last major league contract plus a cash bonus double that amount. If their last contract was minor league, their last major league contract is used. No guarantees of performance or alteration to the players ratings occur. You pays yer money; you takes yer chances.

We vote on the Hall of Fame (a pretty standard house rule, I'm sure).

I think that covers it.

We used to use "participation points" as described in earlier posts, but it really didn't foster any extra participation. Those who will participate will do so, and those who won't, won't. Plus, if the participation is geared toward things like writing news stories and such, then our guys who just want to quietly play the game, but who do so faithfully, get left out. So, we canned that.

[Stu]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I'm always looking for ways to improve the BLB. We use a lot of what was mentioned here. The one big house rule we have that I haven't seen elsewhere is the World Baseball Classic. Here are the rules we use:

Teams
Group A
USA
Mexico
Canada
Japan

Group B
Dominican Republic
Cuba
Puerto Rico
South America

How it Will Work
- In the group stages each team will play the other teams in their group twice (home and away).
- The top 2 teams from each group will face each other in a semi-final game.
- The winners of the semi-final games will face off in a 3 game WBC Championship series.

Scheduling
- The WBC will take place in even numbered years, starting the 2nd week of December.
- All competitions will happen along side our normal off-season sim schedule. It will not interrupt or slow us down in any way.
- Sim #1 - first 3 games of group stage.
- Sim #2 - next 3 games of group stage.
- Sim #3 - Semi-Finals
- Sim #4 - WBC Championship series

Rules
- 22 man initial rosters. No roster changes allowed.
- Lineup changes can be made in between each sim.
- Injuries are off.
- No DH.
- No limits on pitcher usage or pitch counts.

Management
- Each WBC team will have 2-3 BLB managers who will work together to select the rosters and lineups.