Constitution

Next Generation Baseball – Governing Constitution

Written 31 JUL 2012- JMS

Premise

Next Generation Baseball began play in August of 2012 with 2012 real life rosters in the MLB. The league’s goal was to become one of the premier communities in OOTP. Drawing inspiration from places like the long-running Global Unified Baseball Association, the Monty Brewster Baseball Association, the Federation of International Baseball, and the Global Baseball Consortium, NGB strives to build a place where team owners feel like spending time.

League Settings

How to Join

Check out our forums and take a look around! If you see a community that you would like to be part of, fill out an application in the New Applicants section of the forums!

Please give us the following information.

Name: First and Last for in-game set-up.

E-mail:

Date of Birth:

Occupation:

Location:

Other OOTP13 Leagues: (include links please)

Do you own OOTP13?

We have a Participation System that requires a small amount of writing. Are you cool with this?

Willing to troll these boards on a regular basis?

Have you read the NGB Constitution?

What other hobbies do you enjoy?

Filling out an application may not guarantee you an instant team. We hope that you will hang out if there are no available teams and join as what we call a “vulture”. Vultures sometimes take on AGM roles, but mostly they learn about the people in the league and the teams in the league.

Vultures may not receive teams in the order they signed up. The Governing Board reserves the right to award teams based on merit and activity, rather than on a first-come, first-served basis.

Governing Board

The NGB is Governed by a board of two owners. Here are their names and job duties.

A. Commish: Rem – The boss of the league. Handles most sims and keeps the league functioning.

B. Co-Commish: Zep – In charge of PPT counting, PPT spending, Constitutional Oversight and revisions.

Owners and Participation


NGB owners are expected to actively participate in the league. You will be relieved of your team if you stop exporting or cease participation in league activities.

You are required to respond to all trade inquiries and offers received from other owners. Ignoring a particular owner because you just don’t like them is not acceptable. Even if the response is ‘No Thanks’ or ‘Not Interested’, please take the time to respond to trade inquiries.

The NGB uses a Participation Point System (PPT for short) to track owner activity, contributions, and to provide rewards for owner involvement.

Expectations

The NGB is a “writing league”, meaning that we expect our owners to contribute to the league community by writing articles about your team or the league. The quality of your writing will not be judged, just participating and doing the writing is all we ask.

PPTs are awarded at the discretion of the GB, and are tallied twice per season. A mid-season PPT count will warn owners who are in jeopardy of not making their PPT minimum, and an end of season count will tabulate all PPTs for the year and help us name the “Contributor of the Year”.

Owners are expected to make exports for each sim. If you are unable to do this, please post in the Owner Away section of the forums. You are allowed to miss one export each season without posting in OA and not receive any penalties. Each missed sim after that will result in the loss of 1 PPT.

What constitutes a sufficient Team News report?

In order to qualify for PPTs your Team News must be original, owner-generated, content. You are not allowed to copy and paste OOTP team news into the forums for points.

A Team News should be at least two solid paragraphs, about 200 words. Please post your team news in your team news forum, and each team news should be a new thread in the forum. For the purposes of PPT counting, please number your TNs each season.

For Example – This might be a sample TN title for the Colorado Rockies

Rocky Mountain High – 2012:1 – Rox Sign FA Pitcher to Help Depleted Roster

The “Rocky Mountain High” in this case would be the permanent title of my TN, like a masthead on a newspaper. The “2012:1” tells the person tallying PPTs that this is the 2012 season, the first TN written. Finally, a secondary title serves as a headline, so people get an idea of what is being written about in the TN.

PPT Minimum

Every owner is required to obtain a minimum of 20 Participation Points during the course of each season. The PPT season for 2012, the inaugural year of the league, will run from the day the league forms to the conclusion of the World Series.

Subsequent years will be determined soon and added to the Consitution.

Sims

Sim schedule to be determined. Each sim will be 7 days, to better take advantage of the OOTP 7-day line-ups.

Waivers

Waivers are handled through the Waiver Wire system in OOTP. Please remember that players in the big leagues have the right to refuse demotion to the minors after they reach certain service times. Waiving a player will not force him to accept assignment.

Designated for Assignment

All player acquisitions will begin their career in your DFA area. Players you trade for, regardless of their contract status, will end up here. Once a player is on the DFA list, you will have to make a determination about what to do with that player through the use of OOTP.

If a player times out on your DFA, the simmer will take the following steps.

1.)  Attempt to place player on the active roster.

2.)  If no space on active roster, attempt to place player at AAA.

3.)  If the player refuses assignment, he will then be released.

DFA length is set to 50 days during the offseason (the maximum allowed by OOTP), and set to 15 days during the season. This 15 day setting allows you two entire sims to get the player off your DFA list.

Player Eligibility


Position Players:

Position players are allowed to play any position you’d like in OOTP, but OOTP13 does make use of the “Defensive Spectrum”, which assigns positions a varying degree of difficulty. The defensive spectrum looks like this.

P, C, SS, 2B, CF, 3B, RF, LF, 1B

The basic tenet of the Defensive Spectrum is that it is easier for a player to adapt to positions to the right of his on the spectrum, and more difficult to adapt to positions on the left. So, while you can play any position player anywhere you would like, remember that going from 1B to SS is pretty tough.

Pitchers:

Pitchers can be used in any role that you would like to use them in. With that said, please take into effect the basics of pitching in OOTP.

Endurance is used to measure approximately how many pitches a player may throw before becoming exhausted, where performance downgrades, and where injuries become more likely.

Also, OOTP13 takes into account how many different pitches a person throws to determine their effectiveness as a starter or reliever. While the decision is yours to make, starting a two pitch guy with low stamina could be a bad idea.

Amateur Draft


The World Series Champions will pick last, and the World Series losers will pick next to last. After that, playoff teams will be sorted by the round they exited the competition and then their won/loss record.

Finally, the teams that failed to make the playoffs will pick in the reverse order of their finish. This means that the team with the worst record will choose first, and the team with the best non-playoff record will choose 20^th, the last non-playoff spot in the draft.

Any draft tiebreakers will be broken in the following order.

Head to head record

Division record

Run Differential

Coin Flip

The amateur draft pool will be revealed in Mid-March during Spring Training, and drafting will begin immediately in the Getch Draft Utility. The draft will then be entered into the game on 1 JUN of each season from the draft utility.

The Getch Utility uses a clock method to keep the draft moving, and the GB will make a determination on the length of the draft clock moving forward. The first round clock will be longer than the second round clock, and so on through about seven rounds of Getch drafting.

Minor League Roster Management

Minor League Roster Limits are as Follows

AAA, AA, Single A, Short A – 30 Players Max

Rookie – 40 Players Max

OOTP does not enforce these limits, so they will be enforced with periodic checks by the Governing Board.

Minor League Age Limits

Players aged 26 or older are NOT allowed to play in Rookie, Short Season, or Single A baseball.

This is a simplified version of the real-life MLB rules. OOTP does not enforce this, it will be enforced with periodic checks of the Governing Board.

Players aged 26 or older found in the lowest three levels of the minors will be released.

Free Agent Draft Pick Compensation

The entire third round of each amateur draft after the 2012 draft will be replaced with compensatory picks for the loss of players in free agency.

The current MLB system does not work well over the long term, so we will instead be using a custom FA Compensation system. The current MLB system, coupled with the amount of cash generated in OOTP, leaves FA pools too frequently barren of legitimate talent. It also frequently results in players being traded for less than their actual value.

The custom FA Compensation system is as follows.

Using WAR, VORP, and Total Value of New Contract, each FA who signs a deal worth more than $1,000,000 (one million) will be eligible for draft pick compensation. Each eligible player MAY NOT earn compensation though, as there are only 30 compensation picks available.

The 30 compensation picks will be divided in the following matter.

First 5 Picks – 5 Type A Free Agents

Next 20 Picks – 20 Type B Free Agents

Last 5 Picks – 5 Type A Free Agents

Each of the five Type A Free Agents are worth two picks in the third round, while each of the 20 Type B Free Agents are each worth one pick.

Rule 5 Draft

The Rule 5 draft occurs each season of the real MLB, and will occur each season here as well. You must protect your players on the 40 man roster after they reach certain service times as a pro player, or you risk losing them in the Rule 5 draft. OOTP marks Rule 5 eligible players on your team transactions screen with a #, unless their name is too long and then it is not visible.

Anyone lost in the Rule 5 draft is lost, so please take the time to look at your rosters before this annual occurrence.

To draft players in the Rule 5 you must have open space on your 40 man roster. If your 40 man roster is full, you can not draft players. Once you draft a player he becomes yours, and you have two choices.

1.)  Keep the player on your 25 man roster the entire season.

2.)  Send the player back to his original organization.

If you attempt to circumvent these rules by sending a Rule 5 draft choice to the minors, you will be fine $2.0 million from current cash on hand.

Trades


All trades in the league will be posted in the Completed Trades section of the forums. For a trade to be valid it must be posted in the following format.

Team A Sends

SP Pitcher We Don’t Need (AAA)

3B Hitter We Don’t Need (AA)

SS Top Prospect (AA)

Team B Sends

CF Superstar To Help Us Win World Series (MLB)

The name of each player should be a link to their OOTP Profile. Through the course of writing TNs you should have learned how to link players. Notice each player also has their listed position and their current level within the organization. All of these things are needed to post a trade, and they are all needed in order for the simmer to quickly process the trade.

If Team A posted the above trade, the owner of Team B would have to only come and post “Confirm” or “Yup” or something to that effect. A trade is not final until the second team has posted some confirmation in the forum.

Finally, please refrain from posting comments in a trade completed thread until AFTER the trade has been confirmed by the second owner.

Lastly, please take the time to respond to all trade offers, even the absurd ones, in a courteous and timely manner.

Off Season Free Agency


Free Agent offers are made using FTP exports inside of OOTP. The offseason schedule will be posted in the Announcements board each year following the conclusion of the World Series.

Please remember that players signed during off-season free agency may not be traded until after June 1 of the upcoming season.

In Season Free Agency


The signing of free agents during the season is managed from in-game with your team exports.

Contract Rules

In an effort to prevent people from taking advantage of some faulty contract logic in OOTP, the NGB uses the following rule that pertains to players who are signing contracts beyond their Age 40 season.

1.)  No multi-year contracts can extend beyond a player’s age 42 season.

2.)  When signing multi-year deals, no years including and after a player’s age 40 season can be more than the highest yearly amount.

Penalty for Breaking These Rules:

Free Agent Signing

Player is released to free agency

Team is fined the monetary value of the highest valued season.

Extension Signing

Extension is rescinded and team must negotiate with player again.

Team is fined the monetary value of the highest valued season.

Contract Incentive and Bonus Rules

In some ways, OOTP is broken, and therefore we must have these rules. Contract extensions are handled within OOTP, but it is just a computer program, and therefore is fallible during these negotiations. For that reason, the following rules are in place for the NGB.

For all Players – The Dollar Amount offered for an incentive or bonus will be NO MORE than 50% of the highest valued non-option year, and will NOT exceed $2.5 million dollars.

For Hitters – The Plate Appearance incentive may not be set higher than 625 PAs.

For Pitchers – The Innings Pitched incentive may not be set higher than 215 IP.

For a pitcher to be offered the incentive they MUST have a stamina of 7 or higher. There are no incentives allowed for Relief Pitchers.

For mid-season signings, bonuses and contract incentives are not allowed.

Penalties for Violation

Free Agent Signing

Player Is released back into free agency.

Team loses the TOTAL MAXIMUM VALUE of the contract from their current cash on hand. This means base pay and ALL bonuses will be subtracted from your cash.

Extension Signings

Extension is rescinded and the team must begin negotiation again.

The team loses the MAXIMUM VALUE of the FIRST SEASON of the extension, including all incentives and bonuses.

Financial Rules

Ticket Prices

OOTP allows for a maximum ticket price of $120 and hard codes a minimum attendance to approximately 5,000 people per game. This means that the worst teams in the league could guarantee $50 million in revenue by gaming the system. The NGB finds this to be untenable and unrealistic, and therefore sets a maximum ticket price of $30 per ticket.

Teams found to be making excess revenue off overpriced tickets will have that revenue slashed from the budet.

All-Star Game

Voting for the All-Star game starters will be completed through the Getch Utility. This is a mandatory vote for each owner, and failure to participate will result in the deduction of 2 PPTs and 2 Fan Interest.

The GMs of the World Series teams the previous years will select the reserve players, following these guidelines.

Full roster size is 28 players.

Every team must be represented.

You MUST take the Top 3 vote-getters among relief pitchers.

You MUST take the Top 4 vote-getters among starting pitchers.

Voted in players who will be injured on the day of the game are allowe to be replaced.

Owner’s Choice Awards


The Owner’s Choice Awards are designed to celebrate excellence in the league. Each owner will use the Getch utility to vote for the top hitter, top starting pitcher, and top relief pitcher in each league, and will place one vote for the owner of the year. This is a mandatory vote that will be result in the loss of 2 PPTs and 2 Fan Interest if you do not make it.

Mandatory Voting

The NGB only works if all owners are participating. The following important league issues require a mandatory vote:

Voting for All-Stars

Voting on any Rule Changes (typically done on the forums)

Voting for the OCAs / OotY

Failure to take part in these votes will result in the loss of PPTs and Fan Interest.

Participation Points

How to Earn PPTs

– Relevant League Poll – 2 PPTs if more than 20 votes

– 0 missed exports in season – 2 PPTs

– Team News – 2 PPTs

– Player Spotlights – 3 PPTs

– League Features – 4 PPTs

– Team/Division/Playoff Previews – 6 PPTs

How to lose PPTs

– 2 or more missed exports in a year – -2 PPTs each.

– Missed mandatory vote without notification – -2 PPTs, -2 FI

Redeeming PPTs

Finally, we get to the things you can do with PPTs! These are big deals to a team. First, we’ll start with what you will NEVER do with PPTs. We will not ever allow the editing of a player’s actual or potential ratings.

Player Personality Ratings

– Increase a players Intelligence by 10 points on an in game 200 point scale, max 70 per season per player – 10 PPTs

– Increase a players Work Ethic by 10 points on an in game 200 point scale, max 70 points per season per player – 10 PPTs

– Increase a players Loyalty by 10 points on an in game 200 point scale, max 70 points per season per player – 10 PPTs

– Decrease a players Greed by 10 points on an in game 200 point scale, max 70 points per season per player – 10 PPTs

– Increase a players Leadership ability by 10 points on an in game 200 point scale, max 70 points per season per player – 10 PPTs

CASH

– Add $1,000,000 to cash (not to exceed cash max) – 20 PPTs

Can not buy more than $5,000,000 per offseason.

Fan Loyalty/Market Size

– Increase Fan Loyalty 1 value (Max: Average) – 30 PPTs

– Increase Market Size 1 value (Max: Average) – 30 PPTs

Each season the World Series participants may increase either Fan Loyalty or Market Size 1 value for 30 PPTs ignoring the Maximum value of Average.

Credits


This document could not exist without the hard work of people who ran several predecessor leagues. Thanks go out to the Governing Board of the Global Unified Baseball Association (www.theguba.net), the Monty Brewster Worldwide Baseball Association (http://baseballretrospective.com), the Federation of International Baseball, and the Global Baseball Consortium. Thanks go out to each of those leagues that helped provide a template, a section, or inspiration, for this document.