Mock Offseason Rules/Announcements

[VRP723]

Alright well here's the deal for those of you that haven't participated in one of these before. It's basically PSD's version of the MLB offseason. Every team has a GM or two, they are allowed to make trades, sign free agents, etc. Each team will have a cap number, but they will also have the ability to get more cap space as time goes on through articles, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. When the time comes, the participants will vote on the playoff teams, to which we will then move the voting to the MLB forum for the playoffs. Last year we had an 8 team playoffs, this year we're going with a preliminary number of 6, but that's not set in stone. Along with the playoffs, there will also be a voting for best future and best GM, due to the fact that some teams will obviously have different goals than others.

We'll start off with check-in, team options, and the creation of clubhouses and trade blocks. After that I'll do arbitration and allow a few days for teams to negotiate contracts exclusively with their own free agents. After that, we'll open up free agency. It's going to be my job to sign the free agents to the teams, and I will try to factor in everything that the actual free agents will be thinking. If you're mad that you didn't get a free agent that you thought you should, I'm sorry but I don't care. If you complain excessively, you will be fined payroll.

A few side notes

If you notice mistakes with your team, such as a player that should be making the minimum that I have in arbitration, let me know, I would bet that I have made a few mistakes, so it wouldn't surprise me.

All free agents and team salaries were taken from Cot's Baseball Contracts. You can find a full list of the Free Agents there.

I posted this in the Trades/Free Agent Signings thread as well, but when you send in a trade, make sure you include BOTH TEAMS PAYROLLS before and after the deal. Here's an example of what the trades should look like when sent to me.

Team 1 Gets

Player Name, Amount of money he's making in 2011

Old Team Salary
New Team Salary

Team 2 Gets

Player Name, Amount of money he's making in 2011

Old Team Salary
New Team Salary

If the trades aren't submitted in this format, they will not be submitted, I will message you telling you to resubmit them in the correct format.

In some circumstances (Mike Stanton for Brandon Inge as an example) I will veto trades. If you complain about your trade being vetoed, you will be fined payroll.

[VRP723]

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[VRP723]

A couple of things I wanna add after talking with some experienced Mock Offseason guys.

We're going to put a limit on the contracts you can give free agents in the form of 10% more than the maximum contract a position's ever been given. For example, Sabathia's contract was 7 years, 161 million, so the maximum contract you can give a free agent starting pitcher is going to be 110% of that.

Also, in terms of signing free agents, there's going to be a limit on the number of offers a team can make each day. 5 offers the first day, and 3 for each day after that. We're also using the same 3 offer per free agent limit as last year.

[VRP723]

Just thought I'd add that if I forgot a thread for a player or team option for your team feel free to create one, but don't create threads for other teams, that'll get confusing.

[VRP723]

Alright, the team payrolls are giving me a bit of a hard time. I've gone to two different sites that have completely different payrolls for some teams, and I glanced over a 3rd that has different ones as well. What I want to do is have each team figure out their own payroll in their clubhouses, and ill compare those to the ones I found online and use whichever one seems most accurate. If you choose not to count your teams payroll, you'll have to go with the one I found, and I'm not going to change it in a week when you realize that you could have had a couple more million if you counted earlier. If you could have that done by Monday evening that'd be great, then we'll start arbitration.

[VRP723]

Just got a question about no-trade clauses. I'm going to be realistic. If you want to trade an aging veteran to a contender ill probably pass it. If you want to trade Jorge Posada to the Pirates to clear cap, not gonna happen.

[VRP723]

Alright, I'm really nervous about doing this, but I'll open up trading now. Remember that 10 teams haven't even checked in, so don't rush into anything, and I want to mention that I'm in a hotel right now and my internet is really crappy, so if I go off for some reasons I don't want to here ZOMG Y HASNT MY TRADE BEEN POSTED.

I'll do what I can, and Monday night when I get home I'll do the rest.

[VRP723]

Moved all the team options that have been decided on to reference and added the non-tendered players to free agency. If you really wanna be a nice guy you can create threads in FA for the players you non-tender, but if not no worries, it's just time consuming.

The next two days we'll wait for more people to check in, decide on options, arbitration and trades, then Tuesday we'll open free agency.

REMEMBER FOR WHEN YOU SEND IN TRADES TO INCLUDE YOUR OLD AND NEW SALARY INFORMATION OR I WON'T PROCESS IT, I'M NOT GOING TO GO SEARCHING FOR YOUR PLAYERS SALARIES.

[VRP723]

It seems like people are saying it's easier to send in trades with the amount of payroll left as opposed to the amount used. That's fine.

As for the payroll thread, I'm only going to update that nightly, doing it after every trade makes no sense, so just keep your payroll information in check and we'll be fine.

[VRP723]

Alright guys, I'm going to open the threads of the Free Agents and you'll be able to offer contracts to your own free agents. You'll probably get 24-36 hours to offer contracts, so be quick.

Remember that you can't offer more than 110% of the maximum contract ever handed out to that player's position.

Also, you can't make offers until you've made your arbitration decisions, so make sure you're all caught up.

[VRP723]

Well here it goes...

Free Agency is going to begin tonight at 11 EST. Here are the rules.


Rule 1, you are only going to be allowed to offer contracts to 5 Free Agents on the first day, and 3 every day after that. If you offer more than that your offers won't count.

Rule 2, three offers per free agent, seems pretty simple. The only exception to this will be if you're talking to a player at the Winter Meetings, where I might ask for 1 last "Final Offer"

Rule 3, in order to stop the prices of free agents being shot up, the free agents will narrow their bidders down after receiving a few bids. For example, Carl Crawford will say "I've narrowed my choices down to Teams A, B and C"

If you're not one of those teams, don't even bother. Your offers won't be looked at.

For the first few days I'll take offers, then I'll respond to some. There will be a Winter Meetings like last year, where some of the bigger free agents will sign. I'm thinking this weekend will probably be the best time for those.

If I left anything out, feel free to ask in the Questions thread.

[VRP723]

Alright, Winter Meetings starting tonight, big names are gonna start signing.

[VRP723]

The Diamondbacks GM has been removed and all his offers are void. It was clearly hurting the mock, and honestly, this is already hard enough to run.

[VRP723]

The A's GM has to step down. Sad, because he's done a great job. MDfootball36 will be taking over for him.

[VRP723]

Just letting you guys know, the selling prospects thing ends now, it's beyond stupid to trade Top 10 prospects for a couple of million dollars to sign a middle reliever, I passed that last one because I never said anything before, but that's enough of it.