2024 Cyberzahm Roto Baseball Rules by The Designated Commissioner The 29th year of CyberZahm Rotobaseball starts in March! MLB regular season begins on March 28 and runs for 27 Periods. MLB trade deadline is Jul 30. Our trade deadline will Aug 19. There are a couple games in Japan the week before the regular season starts. Any player stats from those games will be handled however the CBS site incorporates them when the Scoring periods start. Entry fee is $110. A) Determining draft pool There are almost no restrictions on the draft. Draft anybody you want. CBS has supported playing Shohei Ohtani (or any other player) at either a pitcher or an offensive player, depending on where you place him. If they do so again, we can do the same but you must always maintain active roster balance. B) Determining draft positions For draft slot selection beginning March 1, the selection order is: 1-Ike 2-Al 3-Hans 4-Prep 5-Terry 6-Andy 7-Jackie 8-Fox 9-Sobo 10-Gabes 11-Mags 1. Draft positions: The 2024 Selection order was established based on the above and is: Ike - 1 Hans - 2 Prep - 3 Terry - 4 Fox - 5 Andy - 6 Sobo - 7 Gabes -8 Al – 9 Mags - 10 Jackie - 11 2. Remember that we will draft in the order 1 2 3 .. N-1 N N N-1 ... 3 2 1 1 2 3 ... If you draft in position 1 you'll get picks 1 2N 2N+1 etc. C) Player positions Offensive players are originally eligible at their "primary" position (CBS determines this) plus any position where they appeared in at least 10 games in the previous season in the majors. A player earns eligibility at a new position if they appear at that position in the majors "this year" for at least 10 games. CBS tracks this, so they are eligible wherever CBS says they are eligible. Players who are eligible for more than one offensive position can be "shifted around" so that roster balance is maintained at the beginning of the period in which a trade or IL/Replacement moves are effective. D) The Draft The draft begins on March 15 (the Ides of March). The draft will consist of 24 rounds. Each round each participant will claim one player. Each participant must end up with 15 batters (distributed as 6 outfielders, 1 1st basemen, 1 2nd basemen, 1 3rd basemen, 1 shortstop, 1 1st or 3rd baseman, 1 2nd or shortstop, 2 catchers, 1 utility offensive player (any position or DH)) and 9 pitchers. An owner's active roster must show this balance throughout the entire season. E) Calculating Standings 1. We will track these categories: Batting Average (team Hits/team ABs), Runs, HRs, RBIs, SBs, Wins, Saves, Strikeouts and team ERA. Pitcher's batting stats are not counted. Offensive player's pitching stats are not counted. Standard Roto point system will be used. F) Season For 2024 Opening Day is set at Thursday March 28, although two games were played in Korea two weeks earlier. Stats from those two games will be included in the Period 1 stats. There will be 27 Scoring periods, ending on October 1. G) Moves Moves can be made starting the first replacement period of the season (the first full scoring period after the start of the season). So for 2024, with a March 28 season start date, the first period moves will be due by Monday April 1, with replacement moves effective on Tuesday April 2. You can request replacements, and trades, to take effect during this first move period. Transaction periods will be week to week. Move periods will take effect on TUESDAYS, so weekly roster moves will be due on Monday night. Using the CBS tools, each owner manages his own team. Owners may enter roster changes any time during the week. They will take effect the following Tuesday. This includes trades. Trades should leave a roster balanced when they take effect. There is no restriction on the number of add/drops you make. Adds are made based on reversed order of standings (last place guy gets his first requested add/drop), then next to last place guy and so on till first place guy's request kicks in .. then back to last place guy again. You must maintain an active balanced roster of 24 players as described above. Players that are on the IL can be moved to inactive reserved status on your roster. When they return from the IL and become active, you will need to adjust your roster to maintain “balance”, either dropping the reactivated player or by returning the player to your active roster and dropping another player. Do this no later than 12:00noon on every Tuesday morning! Confirm on Tuesday morning that your roster is balanced with 24 active players with any required drops made and positional shifts adjusted to meet the roster requirement. Any reserved players that are active in MLB must be returned to active roster or dropped (CBS locks rosters before first game of the new scoring period). Any changes after that take effect the following week. I will verify/confirm rosters and changes on Tuesday morning. Dropped players are automatically placed on a "waiver list" for three days by CBS. When claiming a player to add to your waiver requests, pay attention to their waiver date, because players dropped less than 3 days before waivers run will not be eligible to add until the waiver period that includes that date. If two or more owners lay claim to a waived player during the waiver period, then whoever is further back in the standings will get him, i.e. whoever's turn it is for making picks (CBS does this automatically). H) Trades Trades can be made starting with, and effective for, the first replacement period of the season. This year, the CyberZahm trade deadline is Monday August 19; any trades submitted during the period ending August 19 will take effect Tuesday August 20. If you trade a player who is on the DL and get back a healthy player then you must drop a player before the traded players become part of your roster, essentially as part of the trade before the next period begins. I) Side Bets Category I: Overall finish. The Commissioner will collect and post these and fold the results into the final overall results. During the preseason betting period, please send 1 email to the league stating how high of a wager ($0 to $20) you are willing to make against all comers for overall finish. Category II: Per Category. Sobo will tally these and report the results to the Commissioner. During the preseason betting period, please send 1 email to the league stating how high of a wager ($0 to $10) you are willing to make against all comers per category. Sobo will provide a nicely formatted description of these bets for posting below, and at season's end he will provide a list of the total amount each owner won/lost, to be folded by the Commissioner into the final overall results. Category III: Anything else. You are on your own for any other bets. Make em, track em, pay em off -- on your own. If you want them to be posted below, send a short description to Fox along with a polite note asking him to post them on the CyberZahm website. 2024 Side bets are as follows (overall/category): $20/$10- Gabes, Sobo, Andy $20 overall- Mags $10/$5- Ikey, Fox $10 overall- Hans, Jack $5 overall- Prep J) Weekly Overall Finish Competition For each of the 27 Scoring Periods, the team with the most points for that week (this is tallied by the CBS site) will win that week's best score contest, which is a pool of $1 per team, per scoring period. This $1/team entry, or $27 total for the season, is debited from the $110 entry fee,  So the weekly winning amount will be total of $1/team which in 2024 will be $11. K) The Bottom Line 1.    1a) Entry cost is $110.         1b) There is a fee of $1 per player added, either as permanent replacement or injury.  No fee for dropping or reinstating an IL-reserved player, and no fees for dropping a player from rosters.       1c) Trades will have a fee of $1 per player per team. So, for example, a 4-player trade between teams A and B will cost owner A and owner B each $4. 2. The pot will consist of the entry fees and all of the Add/Trade fees.  Payoffs will be as follows: First, we deduct the cost of the stat service ($150). Second, we deduct 10% of the remaining pot to be donated to a charity that I select. Third, we deduct the payouts for the Best Weekly Scores. Fourth, the remaining money is divvied up as follows: 52% of remaining for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place finishers: First place:  30% Second place:  15% Third place:   7% The remaining 48% will be given out using the following scheme which essentially pro-rates payouts based on total points: Total points earned by the last place team are subtracted from everybody's total points, giving everyone an adjusted point value. (the adjusted pt value of the last place team would be zero). Each team would be paid from the remaining 48%, a share equivalent to their percentage of the total adjusted point values. Side bet results (for simple Overall and Category side bets) will be incorporated into the results for payoff purposes. All payoffs should be completed within two weeks of posting of the results. L) Rules Questions/clarifications I'm the profoundly respected commissioner (PRICC). When rulings/clarifications are needed, I’ll try to ask for opinions, but I've got the final say. Mags/Jimmy