ISBL 1999: Constitution

The ISBL Constitution

I. About the ISBL
   A. The ISBL will consist of 24 teams in 2 Leagues. Each League will consist of 3 divisions with 4 teams in each.
    B. The ISBL Season consists of 162 games, played 6 games per week for 27 weeks.
        1. 1 6-game series for the first 22 weeks
        2. 2 3-game series for weeks 23-25
3. 3 2-game series for weeks 26 & 27
    C. The ISBL Post-Season consists of 3 rounds of single-elimination competition.
        1. 4 teams from each league make it into the playoffs. The best team in each division, and then one "Wild Card" team from each league.
        2. Teams are seeded based upon W/L Record during the regular season, with pairings determined accordingly. Home Field advantage goes to the team with the better W/L record - except for the World Series, which is hosted by the AL on Odd-Numbered Years and the NL on Even-Numbered Years.
        3. All Series are a Best-of-Seven.
    D. Rosters consist of at least 25 players, and no more than 35. No more than 25 players may be on the "active" roster at any given time until Week 19, at which time all players who have not violated usage rules are active.
    E. The ISBL is run using Diamond Mind Baseball (DMB)

II. DMB Setup
   A. The American League makes use of the Designated hitter, while the National
     League does not.
   B. In both leagues, Actual Injuries are enabled.
   C. In both leagues, the bullpen warmup rule is not used.
   D. In both leagues, weather effects are used.
   E. Ballparks are to be used by no more than one team.

III. League Operations
   A. Each owner is responsible for 2 major actions per week.
        1. Sending reports and export files to the Commissioner
        2. Sending a "Manager Profile" for the "away" games
    B. Each owner is responsible for their team at all times
        1. Informing league when they are unable to run games
        2. Voting on topics/issues that face the league
        3. Supplying an up-to-date Manager Profile to the commissioner to keep in a public-access location incase deadlines are missed.
        4. Meeting deadlines
        5. Honesty!
   C. Gameplay
        1. The week begins Tuesday morning when the Newsletter is E-Mailed
        2. You must send your EXPORTED Manager Profile to the owner that your team is "Visiting" that week NO LATER THAN 12:00 Noon EST Friday
        3. You must send all reports and stats back to the commissioner NO LATER THAN 12:00 Midnight Monday.
        4. The Statistics will be compiled and results tabulated tuesdays.
        5. Before running games, it is important to ZERO out all statistics.
        6. Import a manager profile for the visiting team
** You may arrange "Face to Face" games on IRC servers, or other services so that both managers can have direct impact on the games. It's wise to try and schedule FTF games a week or so in advance, so that games won't be "missed" because "There wasn't time"
        7. At the end of each game, print the boxscore, scoresheet and newspaper reports to files.
        8. After all three games have been played, create a .ZIP file (PKZip or WINZip) containing the 9 game report text files, exported stat files for the 2 teams involved in the games you played (TEAMx.EXP, STATSx.EXP and MPx.EXP), CSTATSxx.EXP and GSUMMx.EXP. This is the file that must be EMAILED to the commissioner before Midnight on Monday.
** The reason stats must be ZEROED out before you run the games is that the stats are ADDED to the league master database!
   D. Newsletters
        1. Newsletters are published on Tuesdays (unless something goes wrong).
        2. They show the latest Standings
        3. They show matchups for the current week
        4. They show the roster moves of the past week.
        5. They show the results of the past weeks' games
    E. Roster Moves
** No roster move is considered a 'done deal' until it appears in a weekly newsletter
        1. Moves available year round:
            a. Releasing a player from your roster to the free agent pool.
            b. Promoting/Farming Players between active/inactive rosters.
** We have implemented an "options" system where players who do not have any options cannot be farmed during the season without clearing waivers.    ROOKIES have 3 options, 2nd year players 2, 3rd year players 1 and 4th+ years Zero. "Years" are determined by MLB seasons with the ISBL minimum requirements having been met.
        2. Moves available between the end of the season, and prior to the 19th week.
            a. Trades - must be agreed upon by both managers, and they must both send E-Mail to the commissioner for the trade to be valid.
            b. Claims - free agents may be claimed at any point during the season, but are handled on a weekly basis. Ties are won by the team with the lower Winning %.
        3. DRAFTING PLAYERS
            Draft order # is assigned based on winning percentage in descending order. The worst 8 teams will enter a lottery to determine draft order.
    F. Player Eligibility and Player Carryover
        1. Any player listed in the current player disk is available to be on an active roster - provided he meets minimum AB/IP requirements.
          ** AB/IP Requirements for 1999 - 20IP, 30AB **
        2. Any MLB player NOT listed in the current player disk may be held if you had him on your roster the previos year as a 'NON-CARD' player, who may not be played, but does take up a roster slot.
        3. During the 1999 season, players are not to exceed 125% of their real life playing time. If a player does exceed 125%, he must be moved to the inactive roster for the remainder of the season, and will be waived.
        4. During the 1998 season, players who do not have at least 50 PA/BF vs either LH or RH opposition are not to exceed 200% of their real life playing time vs LH/RH. If a player does exceed 200%, he is unable to start or enter a game which would further increase his violation. At the end of the season, these players will be waived.
        5. At the end of the season, any players who have not played at least 50% of their real life playing time are ineligible for post-season.
        6. Batters may play any position in the field that they are allowed within the game. Playing in a position they don't normally play is only allowed when injuries leave a team with a position that cannot be filled legally.
        7. Any pitcher may make a relief appearance, only Starters can start.
        8. In order to play in Post-Season, a player must not have violated any eligibility rules.

IV. Miscellaneous
    A. Any Team without an owner will be a "Computer Controlled Team" until a new owner is found.
    B. Any Owner who misses a deadline suffers a penalty of +.001% per day. This penalty is applied to their Winning% for both drafting and claiming purposes.
    C. Issues that are voted on must be agreed upon by 2/3rds of the owners to win

IF I'M MISSING SOMETHING LET ME KNOW!