Starting the Season

[Ben (Rays GM)]

The Major League Baseball season opens March 28 with the Mariners-Athletics series in Japan. In order to include this series in the scoring for Week 1 on Yahoo, we will be opening the Yahoo league no later than Tuesday, March 27.

However, we will be keeping primary free agency open until the following Sunday, April 1. Sunday, April 1, will be the official end of the offseason. At that time, any players that you have in the minors, regardless of service time, will be given minor league contracts. If you managed to pass a major leaguer through waivers into the minors without them being claimed, and that player is still in the minors on that date, the player will be given a minor league contract. If you send a major leaguer down to the minors after this date, he will keep his major league salary.

Secondary free agency will be opened once Primary free agency is closed. See free agency rules for information about the differences between Primary and Secondary free agency.

Please continue to visit this site regularly during the season, as all transactions will still be made here. I will not make transactions that are requested on the Yahoo league message board, so don't do that - post all transactions here if you want them made.

Like last season, transactions will be made on a weekly basis. The transaction must be completed no later than Friday in order to be entered over the weekend, in time for the following week's rosters. Lineup changes are weekly in this league.

[Smitty (Mets GM)]

Mar 22, 2012 12:03:04 GMT -5 Ben (Rays GM) said:

The transaction must be completed no later than Friday in order to be entered over the weekend, in time for the following week's rosters. Lineup changes are weekly in this league.

Where will we post these requests? Can this first weeks' deadline be extended since Week 1 starts on a Wednesday?

[Ben (Rays GM)]

Trades and transactions should be posted the same way as you would during the offseason, using the threads on this board. Then I'll process them on Yahoo.

Unfortunately I can't extend the deadline for this week because I won't have good internet access starting tomorrow through Wednesday, which is why I'm working to get everything done today.

[Ben (Rays GM)]

For anyone who receives a PM saying that a player on their active roster wasn't available on Yahoo:

Please keep an eye on the available players on Yahoo to see if your player is added to the database. At the very latest, these players should be added by Yahoo once they've made an appearance this season. Once the player is available on Yahoo, post in the "reserves" thread under baseball operations if you want me to activate him.

[Ben (Rays GM)]

The minimum IPs for week one will be changed to 10 innings. After week one the minimum will once again be 25 innings.

[Kevin (Guardians GM)]

I agree that it should be lowered but perhaps no min for week one. Thoughts? Teams may have a full roster but if have mostly number four or five guys for there sps they may not get starts because only three games. Should they be penilized? Obviously a concern for me that's why I bring it up as I have five starters none may go this shortened week. I'm sure I'm not the only team like this and it may be hard to reach with only rps. Obviously I'm not winning qs already but to have no stasis count hurts especially since I have a full team.

Would like to hear others opinions.

[Ben (Rays GM)]

IP minimum for week one lowered to 5 IP. No innings seems too lenient but you're right that having it at 10 or higher is just too harsh on the teams with lots of back-end starters.

Which got me thinking - 25 might be a little bit too high, simply because not making it to the minimum in the one-win format pretty much guarantees that you can't win the week (since you lose all pitching categories). I still think it's important to have a high minimum, but I wonder if we should do 20 instead of 25. Other thoughts?

[yellomellojello]

I think 25 is an appropriate number. There are 5 slots for SPs, if each only starts once and they average just 5 IPs, you've already hit the minimum. If someone gets hurt or has a particularly bad start, it only takes 1 IP for the week for each of your relievers to hit the minimum. If a team is unable to get 25 IP for a week, they probably shouldn't be winning, in the same way that a real team that gets all of its pitchers hit hard and pulled early would never win.