Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

We’re looking for players in this league so if you’re interested leave a comment. We hope to be starting in a few weeks.

Here is an update for the next season (1971) of our online draft league

How the league is to be played

We will be playing the 1971 season which is to be released by Dynasty in Feb or Mar of 2023. We will be playing under 1971 rules with one exception. There will be at least one interleague home and away series played to allow each player to play each other player at least once.

The schedule

As soon as I have the number of teams confirmed (We’re at 20 now) I will begin to work on the schedule. While I don’t have to deal with the logistics of hotels and airports it still is a complicated matter to make it and will take some time to enter into the system. Please be patient with me as I do so. My goal will be to have the schedule ready before the draft.

Number of games:

With a 20 team league the choices are to play 150 or 168 or 170 games I can’t do otherwise without giving some team an advantage. I thought about a shorter one but Dynasty is planning to release 1972 after 1971 so I want to give them the full time so we have a chance to keep playing continual seasons. As before I reserve the right to adjust that number up or down up to 10 games in order to make the schedule work.

The number of games vs each opponent will be determined by the final number of teams in the league for the 1971 season. I will schedule at least one interleague series. The plan is to again have an unbalanced schedule so you will have more games in league than out.

Frequency of games

There will be two scheduled series per week. If we have issues with the schedule or an unbalanced number of teams I may have to tweak this. Most series will be 3 games but we may have some 2 game series in there.

Number of teams

We currently have 20 confirmed teams. As soon as the reds were taken there was a deluge of people asking about playing to the point were even with Mike dropping out we got up to 20 teams..

Division setup:

With 20 teams we will have two five team divisions in each league. I’ll have to see if they offer wild card options when I advance the season.

Trades and waivers.

After the fifth series of the season teams may trade. Any player on the current roster may be traded along with any of the first seven draft picks for the next season (currently 1973 BUT 1972 if they get it released in time. If a trade is made that increases a roster beyond the 40 man limit a player must be released before the next series is played. Any trades agreed will not be executed until all the teams involved have the same amount of games played.

Waivers takes place after the sixth series. Teams make waivers picked based on their current record and are made from the undrafted players not on rosters.. If a pick brings a Roster over 40 a player must be released or an injured player not on the DL must be placed there to make room.

The DL:

In a change from previous seasons players on the DL WILL count toward your roster but to make up for it we will have a maximum 40 man roster. We will still only draft 35 but players may expand their rosters via trade and waivers.

Playing Games.

All games must be completed before the next scheduled series. the Dynasty system will take over and auto play any games that are not completed one hour before the next scheduled game (even if said unfinished game is in progress) Players are encouraged to use the chat room and the Dynasty message system to reschedule games if needed and are also encouraged to make a manager profile in case a game has to autoplay. Instructions on how to do that are here.

Be aware that if you have your team on AUTO and your opponent requests a rescheduled in the system Dynasty will automatically allow it so keep this in mind when or if you turn auto on. Also be aware if both team are on auto and you reschedule the game will be played automatically so make sure your team is not on auto before you do this.

Expansion and Expansion draft

Thanks to the sudden interest in the league we will be having an e\expansion draft.

Selecting a franchise:

New players who do not take an existing franchise will be allowed to select any of the currently open franchises for 1971 they are:

AL

• Minnesota Twins Lenn Davis: (Last years twins moved to KC+

NL

• Chicago Cubs Kirk M (shocked that it too this long for the cubs to be grabbed

They will automatically gain the rights to any rookies for the 1971 team of that franchise.

If we again have multiple expansion teams they will pick franchises in the order that they confirmed their intent to join the league (twins cubs).

If a current player expresses an intent to leave the league before the expansion draft the expansion players will in the order above be given the option of taking over that existing franchise including their roster and current draft picks (or lack thereof)

Expansion Draft:

If an expansion draft is announced each team will have two weeks to submit a list of protected players currently on their 40 man rosters. These players will not be eligible to be drafted in the expansion draft. There will be a maximum of 7 players on each teams protected list. it is recommended (but not required) to submit an additional twelve players to be protected once a player or two is drafted from their team.

Whenever a player is chosen off a team in the expansion draft said team will be able to immediately protect an additional five players. No team can lose more than three payers to the expansion draft. If a list is not submitted before the draft and not submitted at the time the first player is taken from the team then said team will not have additional players protected until such a list is provided. I will allow a reasonable amount of time in case the player is not in the chat room for me to try to contact said player before another player is takin from his team.

Expansion teams draft a minimum of four players and a maximum of 12 players to their rosters before the regular draft. The number of players picked in the expansion draft by an expansion team will determine where they will draft in the regular draft.

As soon as all expansion teams have completed their drafts two things happen

1. All teams must submit the list of players retained in the regular draft. The players drafted by the expansion teams are considered to be that list.
2. All Rookies become property of their franchises and count toward their current rosters. but NOT toward their number of protected players.

Franchise locations and parks

Every team is presumed to have the park their team played in during the season they entered the league.

Franchises whose teams move in real life are not required to relocate their teams. So the Seattle Pilots are not required to move to Milwaukee and the Washington Senators are not required to move to Texas but they retain the option to do so at any time.

Franchises are NOT required to build new stadiums and my continue to play in their old stadiums if they wish. So Cincy can stay in Crosley field and Pittsburgh can remain in Forbes Field if they wish but they retain the right to move into those new stadiums at any time so another team my NOT select that stadium. If a team chooses to move into their new park in the same city the old park is considered demolished and no other team may use it from that point on.

A team may NOT move into a park that in a different city because the Dynasty system bases the weather on the park used NOT the city that a team’s label claims it is in. Thus if the Seattle Pilots want to play in Country Stadium they MUST move to Milwaukee

A team may NOT move into a park in the same city that belongs to a future franchise. Example. If the Seattle Pilots choose to remain in Seattle rather than move to Milwaukee they may NOT move into the Kingdome because it is reserved for the Mariners franchise when it becomes available.

Old parks

A team MAY move into an old park from the same city under the following conditions:

1. The park was once the home park of the franchise OR
2. The franchise that once owned the park is now located in another city

Examples,

• the Seattle Pilots move to Milwaukee the Mariners if taken MAY move into Sick Stadium.
• The Cardinals may move into sportsmans park because it was once their old stadium.
• Both the Yankees and the Mets may move into the Polo Grounds because the park is in NY and both teams were once based there.

Rookies

A “Rookie” is define as any player who did not have a card for the previous season.

A rookie is considered to be part of the team listed on their card reguardless of who they actually played their first game for (Dynasty lists cards based on who a player finishes a season with thus any rookie that was traded by an MLB team in his first season will have their card listed for the team they were traded to NOT the team they played their first game with.

All teams retain rights to their rookies prior to the draft and rookies for a franchise are not eligible to be drafted in any expansion draft.

A Rookie becomes a part of a team after said team names their protected players for the draft. They count toward the 40 man roster

Any team that doesn’t want to retain a rookie may release them before the draft to open up a roster spot but once release all rights to said player are surrendered.

Players retained list

All teams may retain a number of players based on their finish in the 1970 season. The players retained list for 1971 has already been posted here: but I’ll repeat it below for convenience

• World series winner 4 players (Giants)
• World series runner up 5 players (Yankees)
• non-world series Division winners 6 players (Reds, Phillies, Redsox, Indians)
• Wild Card Teams Winners that don’t make the series 7 players (Pirates, Royals (twins))
• Wild Card game losers (A’s Braves)
• Non division winning teams with the 5th and 6th best records 9 players (Pilots, Mets)
• Non division winning teams with the 7th and 8th best record 10 players (Orioles, Angels)
• Teams with the 3rd and 4th worst records 11 players (Dodgers, Cardinals)
• Teams with the worst and 2nd worst record 12  players (Expos, Senators)

NOTE: If a player on your current Roster does not have a card for the next season due to injury, military service etc but WILL the following year a team may choose to retain the rights to said player but will have to spend a protected spot for it and will have to keep a space for him all season.

Example: Rico Carty was out for all of 1971 due to injury. Boston currently owns Carty. They can choose to hold his rights when his season ends. He will pay 1971 with 39 players and in 1972 will hold the rights to Carty. If at any time he chooses to release him Carty will be considered a rookie for Atlanta Rookie because

1. He had no card the previous year
2. No team held his rights
3. His 1972 card says “Atlanta”

In the example above if Carty is released and we don’t play the 1972 season Carty would be a rookie for the A’s because his 1973 dynasty card says Oakland

The draft order of teams has been posted here and will be repeated below taking into account the possibility of expansion teams. Any team that is not retained will of course not be drafting BUT If a team holds the draft pick of a team that is no longer in the league he will draft those picks as if that team was still in the league in the round that he holds them. Of course with expansion this doesn’t apply this season.

1. Worst team (12) Montreal Expos
2. 2nd worst team (12) Washington Seantors
3. Expansion Team(s) if any that drafts only 4 players in the expansion draft
4. 3rd wort team (11) LA Dodgers
5. 4th worst team (11) California Angels
6. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 5 players in the expansion draft
7. 5th worst team (10) St Louis Cardinals
8. 6th worst team (10) Baltimore Orioles
9. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 6 players in the expansion draft
10. 7th worst team (9) New York Mets (Daytraders)
11. 8th worst team (9) Seattle Pilots
12. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 7 players in the expansion draft
13. Wild Card team (8) Oakland A’s
14. Wild Card team (7) Kansas City (Formally Minnesota)
15. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 8 players in the expansion draft
16. Wild Card team (8) Atlanta Braves
17. Wild Card team ( 7) Pittsburg Pirates
18. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 9 players in the expansion draft
19. Division winning team with worst record (6) Cleveland Indians
20. Division winning team with next worst record (6) Boston Red Sox
21. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 10 players in the expansion draft
22. Division winner not in WS with next worst record (6) Philadelphia Phillies
23. Division winner not in WS with best record (6) Cincinnati Reds
24. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 11 players in the expansion draft
25. World series loser (5) New York Yankees
26. Word series winner (4) San Francisco Giants
27. Expansion Team(s) if any that draft 12 players in the expansion draft

NOTES:

1. Because Minnesota (now KC) defeated Oakland in the Wild Card game Oakland gets the draft advantage over them. Likewise because Atlanta lost to Pittsburgh they get the draft advantage over them even though they had the better record.

The first tiebreaker for non-playoff teams with identical records is head to head matchups which is why the Mets draft ahead of Seattle. The 2nd tiebreaker if teams had identical records AND split their season series is draft order for the previous season thus California drafts ahead of StL..

Examples: If Cincinnati traded the NYY their 3rd round draft pick last season but are not an active team this year then during round 3 the Yankees would get a pick in spot 23 as if Cincinnati was still an active team..

If two or more expansion teams draft the same number of players their draft position will be determined by a dice roll

When all teams have drafted that will be considered the end of a round and the next round will commence.

Teams will continue to draft in this order until:

• Their team reaches 35 men OR
• A team with 25 or more players on their roster voluntarily drops out

Once a team has dropped out of the draft they may not re-enter it and must increase their roster either through trades or waivers.

Draft on designated Draft day(s):

A date and time will be set for the initial rounds of the draft. It will almost certainly be a Saturday or Friday as those are the days I have off. All teams will be expected to be either:

1. Available in the slack chat room (preferred)
2. Available by phone
3. With me in my home at the time of the draft
4. Have a list of players to be drafted submitted

All currently players are presumed to have looked over the card(s) for 1971 online or at least looked up stats by draft day. All expansion teams are encouraged to start doing so at once.

1. There will be one designated draft day per week.
2. On a designated draft day a strict 5 minute limit will be allowed to make a pick.
3. If a team misses their pick will be moved to after the next player on the list who will be considered on the clock and allowed to pick. Example Seattle misses their pick and Montreal is next, Montreal is allowed to pick and Seattle picks after them
4. If a team who has been skipped has to be skipped twice their pick can be made any time before the end of the round. Example Washington is scheduled to pick 10th They miss their pick If they figure out who they want they can make a pick or submit a list any time before the end of the round and that pick will be valid.
5. If a team that has been skipped has not picked by the end of the round then a pick will be made for them by me. Said pick will be the player from your franchise who played the most games that season based on their card. Example: Boston does not pick or submit a list for round 5 I will look at the Roster for the actual 1970 red sox to see who is available. If Billy Conligiliaro has the most game played among unpicked players he will be Boston draft pick. If Boston already has 6 outfielders that will not matter Billy C becomes the pick.
6. The opening Scheduled draft days will go on for 100 picks. Other scheduled draft days will be 60 picks. Once the number of picks is reached the clock is turned off

BE AWARE THAT EVEN WITH A FIVE MINUTE LIMIT THAT CAN MEAN 100 MINUTES FOR 20 TEAMS TO PICK IN ONE ROUND. PLEASE DO YOUR BEST TO PREPARE FOR THE DRAFT TO CUT DOWN ON THE TIME REQUIRED. The more prepared everyone is the faster things will go.

Picks off the clock and on non-draft days

Once the clock is off a team has an unlimited time to make a pick. Picks can be submitted in the draft room or via the Dynasty message system or in person if the person picking is local or via the phone to me.

Once the pick is made and recorded on the draft sheet and the player moved to the roster I will announce the pick in the slack chat room and inform the person up, the person on deck and the person in the hole to be prepared to pick. Until you see that announcement the pick is not official.

The season will begin one week after the draft is complete.

Finally be aware that I have a big event coming up Easter week for my 35th anniversary and that the planning and execution of said event might take some of my time.

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If you have any questions not covered here please let me know.

UPDATE: Baltimore has confirmed now at 15 teams with only Oakland waiting to hear from.

UPDATE 2: Oakland is confirmed we’re at 16 teams

UPDATE 3: New player for Reds and philly might be able to play after all.

Update 4: Sudden Rush of players we are now at 20