Ballpark Draft

The first order of business is the ballpark draft. The ballpark draft will take place between shortly after New Year's Day and will be done over the course of about two weeks. Each team must select a ballpark with which to play in. Parks are selected from a group of parks located at LOB Ballparks. Parks which are available consist of current and historical parks and are based on 10 continuous years of that park's effects. All teams are placed in a ballpark draft pool where they are then randomly selected. Once everyone's ballpark draft position is known, all teams then participate in an online ballpark draft. Teams may submit a list to the commissioner instead of drafting online. A team that drafts 19th would need to submit 19 parks in their list. The ballpark draft order is not done by the commissioner, but by selected owners in the league.

The same ballpark may not be chosen twice. A team may trade their ballpark draft position but not their ballpark. Once a team selects a park, that team cannot change it's ballpark during the season. Any owner not able to participate online may submit his ballpark draft list to the commissioner at taustin660@comcast.net. 

LOB 2023 Ballpark Draft Order

1) Lakeview Zeros
2) Pearl Lake Bombers
3) Melville Otters
4) Borischtown Brawlers
5) Stoughton Storm
6) Kansas Submariners
7) Kansas Spiders
8) Spanish Harlem Pinata Beaters
9) Southside's Finest Hitmen
10) Memphis Redbirds
11) Massachusetts Pioneers
12) St. Louis Longshots
13) Weld County Wolves
14) Truckee Tornados
15) Corona Quarks
16) Manzanita Tsunami
17) Oregon Orgone
18) Clover Bottom Barnstormers
19) Lowell Weavers
20) St. Louis Stars
21) Claremont Swamp Foxes
22) Ringtown Cyclones
23) Lawrence Millionaires
24) Cambria Cro Magnons

League and Division Setup

Legends of Baseball is separated into the Cartwright and Doubleday leagues. Each league has two divisions with an even number of teams in each division. The Cartwright League for 2011 is a DH league while the Doubleday is not. The league revolves around a 162-game schedule including inter-league play with games being played one day at a time. Each team plays their division opponent 18 times, their other intra-league opponents six times and their inter-league opponents three times each. The two division winners advance to the playoffs in each league as well as the two wild card winners in each league. The Wild Card winners are automatically seeded third and fourth even if their record is better than that of the two division winners. All playoff rounds are seven game series.

The league begins play around April 1st of each year and runs through October with the season progressing one day at a time. Owners are allowed to make weekly changes to their lineups and can also make immediate changes if injuries or trades occur. Lineups should be sent to taustin660@comcast.net and are due by 7 p.m. CST each Saturday. Lineups sent in after 7 p.m. CST are considered late and while they may eventually be entered they may not take effect for at least 24 hours. Any changes sent, be it injury, trade or regular submissions, may sometimes be delayed in being inputted due to the commissioner's schedule. Be aware of this and please be patient.

Player Draft

The player draft is conducted entirely online using the Legends of Sports Yahoo Groups email list. This league address has been created for all league correspondence and all player picks should be sent to the following email address: legendsofsports@yahoogroups.com. Each team drafts 40 players. The player draft takes 40 days with one round being conducted each day. Picks are sent to legendsofsports@yahoogroups.com in this way:

To: legendsofsports@yahoogroups.com 
CC: next owner in line and taustin660@comcast.net 
Subject: The Shoeless Ghosts First Round Pick (#18 Overall)

Body: The Shoeless Ghosts select Center Fielder Jim Landis 1961 with their first round pick.

Owners are also asked to recap previous picks in their email in the following way:

17-Ghosts Sandy Koufax 1965
16-Elysians Nap Lajoie 1901
15-Konetchys Jimmie Foxx 1932

The Big Eds are up with the Konetchys on deck.

LOB 2024 Player Draft Order

1) St. Louis Longshots-8 a.m., 9:30 p.m.
2) Clover Bottom Barnstormers -8:30 a.m., 7 p.m.
3) Lowell Weavers -9 a.m., 6:30 p.m.
4) Melville Otters-9:30 a.m., 6 p.m.
5) Spanish Harlem Pinata Beaters -10 a.m., 5:30 p.m.
6) Ringtown Cyclones-10:30 a.m., 5 p.m.
7) Manzanita Tsunami-11 a.m., 4:30 p.m.
8) Massachusetts Pioneers-11:30 a.m., 4 p.m.
9) Memphis Redbirds -Noon., 3:30 p.m.
10)Stoughton Storm-12:30 p.m., 3 p.m.
11)Kansas Submariners-1 p.m., 2:30 p.m.
12)Lawrence Millionaires-1:30 p.m., 2 p.m.
13)Claremont Swamp Foxes-2 p.m., 1:30 p.m.
14)Truckee Tornados-2:30 p.m., 1 p.m.
15)Pearl Lake Bombers-3 p.m., 12:30 p.m.
16)Lakeview Zeros-3:30 p.m., 12 p.m.
17)Las Vegas Rooster Goats-4 p.m., 11:30 a.m.
18)Southside's Finest Hitmen-4:30 p.m., 11 a.m.
19)Weld County Wolves-5 p.m., 10:30 a.m.
20)Corona Quarks-5:30 p.m., 10 a.m.
21)Kansas Spiders- 6 pm, 9:30 am
22)Borischtown Brawlers- 6: 30 pm, 9 am
23)Cambria Cro Magnons- 7 pm, 8:30 am
24)LSt. Louis Stars- 7:30 pm, 8 am

There are no free agent market or waiver pickups during the season. All players in the league are set once they are drafted. No additional players are allowed and years for players cannot be changed once the draft is over. On or about September 1 of each season all players are called up to the active roster. However, owners can restrict players called up by informing the commissioner.

Player Eligibility

All players from 1871-present are eligible to be drafted including several selected Negro Leaguers who were created by an expert panel from the Society of American Baseball Research. Players from the National Association, American Association, Union Association, Players League, National League, American League and the Federal League are eligible to be drafted. Once a player has been drafted and his year selected he cannot be drafted again. So, when Ty Cobb 1911 gets drafted by one team another team may not draft him. A player's year cannot be changed once he is selected and placed on the team's roster. The year chosen also cannot be changed if that player is traded during the season. There are no franchise players in Legends of Baseball so all players from 1871-present are eligible to be drafted each year. Players are limited in how much they can play each season according to the rules below.

-100% player usage for everybody at the beginning of the year.
Players are allowed 100% plate appearances/batters faced in Legends of Baseball.
For example, a player with 200 plate appearances in his historical season would be allowed 200 plate appearances in the Legends season. Plate appearances include abs, walks and hbp. If a pitcher faced 400 batters in his historical season he would be able to face 400 batters in the Legends of Baseball league. No player will be allowed to start a new week in LOB if he has 100% or more plate appearances or batters faced from the year in which he was selected. Since players are not farmed during the week some players may have more than 100%. The commissioner has plate appearances and batters faced for every season so you can check with him for questions or concerns.

Pitchers must have a reliever rating to be placed in any reliever role. A pitcher without a reliever rating may not be placed in a mop-up or long relief role as in years past.

Any player at 98% or above at the beginning of a week cannot be a starter in a lineup. For example a position player at 98% may pinch hit or be a platoon replacement or defensive replacement but cannot be in the starting lineup. A pitcher at 98% may not be placed as a starter for the week and may only relieve.

-There are no season restrictions on drafting players as in past LOB seasons. Any player's season may be chosen providing he played in one of the leagues mentioned above. However, remember if he only had 20 plate appearances in the season chosen, that is all he would receive in the LOB season as well. Same goes for pitchers and their batters faced. A note to all owners that a roster full of "short-season" players could lead to an extremely short bench come September.

Dual position players meaning players who can both pitch or play the field will be farmed once they are at 100% of either their plate appearances or batters faced. So, for example if a player gets 100% of his plate appearances and he is only at 23% of his batters faced he is still farmed out and cannot pitch any further unless that team advances to the playoffs. All usage limits are rest for the playoffs. .

-20% across the board for the playoffs
Like the 100% limit above on players during the regular season, players are limited to 20% usage in the post-season. This means a player with 200 plate appearances in the historical season chosen would have up to 40 plate appearances in the post season.

There are also about sixty selected Negro Leaguers which have been created by an expert panel from SABR and their stats are located at negro_leaguers.htm. These Negro Leaguers are extremely comparable to fellow Major Leaguers and should be reviewed thoroughly prior to drafting.

Rosters

Each team drafts 40 players for their roster. Any combination of pitchers and batters may be drafted but each team must have a minimum of 12 pitchers and or 18 position players at the end of the draft. Teams must also ensure they have at least one backup for every position in the field after the draft. Legends of Baseball encourages owners to draft players who can play multiple positions and especially catchers who are oft-injured in this league. Teams must also adhere to the above rules after trades have been made. The trade deadline is always on or about July 31 and all trades must be reported by midnight on this date for them to be effective. Rosters do expand to 40 players each season on or around September 1. Teams may own more or less than 40 players during the season provided they can field a proper roster with backups.

There are no restrictions on trading as in past seasons of LOB. Trades should be fair and no team should dump players to friends or other owners for whatever reason. Any trade not deemed "above board" may be vetoed by the commissioner, but the league encourages trading and polite banter among owners.

Injuries

Injuries are a part of baseball and thus a part of LOB. Injuries are based on the players injury rating. Players are given an injury rated of either iron, normal or prone. These ratings are based on the number of games played in the season chosen. Injuries can be just for a game or as long as two months or more. Any player injured for 15 days or more automatically goes on the DL and a new player must be called up. Players with injuries under 15 days can remain on the active roster, but are injured and count against the 25 man active roster. You cannot send down an injured player to the farm unless you DL him and if you DL him he is out automatically 15 days even if the injury was only for 4 days. So be careful when DLing a player. If an owner fails to DL a player who is injured for 15 or more days the commissioner may do so at his discretion to ensure the team can field a proper team.

Player Positions and Secondary Positions

Once a team has selected the year for a player the player is assigned a "primary" position. The primary position is the one the player played the most during the season chosen (unless the season chosen has a primary position that the player did not play 125 games in his career at). If the player played two positions the same amount of games the player will be rated at both positions. A pitcher can also play in the field for the 2006 season if he qualifies at a secondary position. To qualify at a primary and secondary position a player must have played at least 125 games there in his career. A pitcher can also be a pinch-hitter.

Only pitchers with relief ratings will be allowed to pitch in relief  excluding mop-up. Pitchers without relief ratings (possibly) cannot be placed in the relief roles (with the exception of mopup) although if the game uses them in relief because of an injury or a long game, that will be allowed.

Dual players meaning players who both pitch and play the field will be allowed 100% of batters faced or plate appearance rules. If a player reaches 100% in either field they are automatically farmed.

Players are rated at "secondary" positions based on the number of games they played at a  secondary position during their career. For example, let's say you drafted Pete Rose in 1969. He played 156 in the OF and 2 games at 2B. His primary position would be the OF but Rose played 939 games at 1B in his career, 628 at 2B and 634 at 3B. He would therefore receive a "secondary" rating at all of these positions.

Secondary Ratings are created using the following formula:

1000- Players' fielding average/1000- league fielding average at that
position X 100.

Ex-player is 990, league is 995- e=10/5 X 100 e= 200
     player is 995, league is 990- e=5/10 X100 e=50

Range-

Ex- 1.075 and higher x league average at position
VG-1.074-1.03 X league average at position
AV- 0.985-1.02 X "                 "
FR- 0.984-0.940 X "              "
PR- <0.939 X "    "

There are judgment calls involved with this of course and as always you can contact the commissioner for questions or concerns.

Again, players must have 125 games played at a position in their career to qualify for a rating at a primary and secondary position.

Trades

Trades are permissible in Legends of Baseball with a trade deadline of July 31. The commissioner has the final say in all trades in Legends of Baseball. Suspicious trades will not be permitted and the commissioner has complete authority in vetoing any trade he deems suspect. Trades can be for as many players as an owner deems necessary. Teams making trades only need to ensure they can field a team at every position with at least 1 backup for those positions as well. All owners should remember injuries can affect a roster.

Ejected Owners/Abandoned Teams

1. Teams that are vacated by their owners, either quitting during the season or being kicked out, will be put on autopilot with the computer controlling all aspects of the team for the rest of the season. The commissioner can step in during the draft if a team fails to make more than two successive picks and make picks for that team to ensure the team can field and eligible team. No prizes will be awarded to that team and the team will be frozen regarding trades and roster moves. The commissioner has the right to adjust the team roster in the case of injury disabling an injured player and promoting a healthy one in his place. He will not adjust the lineup in any way-only ensure that the auto piloted team can field a qualified team. 
2. Owners who either quit during the season or are kicked out due to rules violations (i.e. allegations of cheating, conduct detrimental to the league) CANNOT have an ownership stake in a team for a minimum of THREE (3) years following. An owner who fails to meet the expectations of being an owner is unreliable and should be punished.
3. Should the unfortunate event of the league being wiped off the computer due to a virus or other act of man or nature, a replay from the date of the last league backup will be used. However, records will remain intact if at all possible and league stats will be recreated as best possible. The league is backed up on a daily basis usually.
4.The league office will no longer make draft picks for absentee owners. Owners who send an unsuitable list or miss more than two picks will be considered absentee and other owners will be instructed to pass them without regard during the draft. Only a note from the commissioner will reinstate the absentee owner to the draft. They will not be able to just start back up whenever they please.

League Message Boards

Legends of Baseball uses a Yahoo groups message system allowing all owners to converse daily on a variety of sports subjects. Owners should obey the following rules when posting to the league message board:

1. No foul language or disparaging comments about race, creed, etc.

2. No political messages-Legends of Baseball is not a political pulpit.

3. The message board can be used to discuss league and baseball topics as well as other sports topics or topics of interest to the owners. The commissioner has the right to stop any discussions which he deems detrimental to the league. Owners who do not like a particular subject or discussion should email the commissioner and he will do his best to make everything kosher.

4. No soliciting without consent of the commissioner.

5. No diving, spitting, running or jumping in the pool.

Failure to adhere to these rules could result in ejection from the league.