BARRY ZITO LEAGUE RULES and NEW OWNER ADVICE

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First of all, the basic Salary League Rules Wiki is here.

Please don't ask how Team Prestige works. No one knows. And believe me, we've tried to figure it out, get answers, asked both the Grand Poobah *and* the High Inquisitor, and gone on quests for the man behind the curtain in Oz. All we can tell you is that it's a rolling figure based on your last 3-5 year won-loss record, and it stays in flux even when you think it shouldn't. Sorry. Just suck it up and let the Prestige chips fall where they may.

BZL BASIC SCHEDULE (day-by-day breakdown):
End of Season Playoffs
World Series
OS, Amateur Draft, Free Agency Results Day 1
Free Agency Results Day 2
Free Agency Results Day 3
Free Agency Results Day 4
Waiver Wire Opens; Last Day of Pre-Season
New Season Begins

At the end of each season, the Commissioner will post the actual calendar dates for each of these items in a league-wide thread. This thread can then be used all season long as a repository for comments by any league owner.

FREE AGENCY BIDDING RULES:
The BZL uses a salary cap of $80 million dollars. There are penalties for exceeding this cap (see below). The league has a "gentleman's agreement" to abide by a HARD CAP of $85 million dollars so that the free agent market is not unduly disrupted by one team amassing an unfair amount of talent. Should a team exceed this hard cap at any time during the free agency period, that team will be shuffled to the #16 draft slot in the next season's amateur draft. It is the only penalty of any consequence we can employ.

Teams that are over $80 million but under $85 million team payroll: They will be notified by the League Commissioner via Private Message (and, most likely, by other owners via the League Forum). They will have five (5) real time days to get back under the cap (in case an owner is on vacation). Failure to do so will once again result in being dropped to the lowest slot available in next season's amateur draft.

ABE-IMPOSED PENALTIES: If the season begins - or at any time during the season - and your team payroll is higher than $80 million, ABE will automatically lower the grade attributes of every single player on your active roster by one-third (1/3). So, for example, if your SP is A-/B+, it will pitch like a B+/B pitcher.

Secondly, if you carry less than 40 players on your roster, ABE will impose a $0.05 financial penalty for every player you are under 40. This may not seem like much of a penalty but consider: your team payroll is at $79.87 and you are carrying 36 players. At the end of the first game which you are over, ABE will impose a $0.20 penalty (40-36=4; 4x$0.05=$0.20) and that will bump your team payroll to $80.07, putting you over the salary cap and incur a performance penalty from ABE for Game 2 and beyond until you get back to or below $80 million.

MISCELLANEOUS:
All contracts signed are considered to be guaranteed. There are only two ways to clear salary from your roster:
1) Make a trade with another team that has a lower overall payroll than yours.
2) Waive a player that does not yet have a MENTOR grade. These players have not yet qualified for free agency and thus do not have guaranteed contracts.

If you waive a player with a Mentor grade, and another team claims it WHILE it IS IN WAIVER STATUS, the new team becomes responsible for that salary, and it will clear from your team payroll. HOWEVER, if the player CLEARS WAIVERS, its salary drops to $0.50 for any other team to claim and you are STILL responsible to pay it the original contract you signed the player to; remember it's guaranteed! Odd, but True Dep't: if you then re-sign this same player back to your roster, you must pay the original contract PLUS another $0.50 waiver salary on top of that.

Disabled List players and players "designated for assignment" still count as being on your 40-man roster, as far as ABE is concerned (unless the DFA player is claimed away by another team).

MINOR LEAGUE SYSTEM and INJURIES: Both are what SimD calls "System 3." What does that mean?
Minors System 3 - This means that EVERY minor league player will receive a full boat of Improvement Chances throughout the season. They will be developed to the extent their conversions allow them to be. Read more about Minor League Systems here.
Injury System 3 - Pairing well with Minors System 3, this is the Injury System that affects both pitchers and hitters equally (but still far less than actual Major League Baseball incurs). So it's good that your farm team develops well, because in this league you need a deep bench to cover frequent injuries. Read more about Injury Systems in SimD here.

[timemry]

Allow me to add a testimonial of the powerful nature of the grades reduction that happens when you have a team that is over to 80M cap:
Back when I ran the Washington Insiders in my first stint, I had a great team and a great free agent signing period in 1994. Back then, I was far more willing to go over 80M during free agency (but still under the hard cap) because there was a lot of trading between free agancy days and felt confident I could easily unload who I needed to. This particular year, I bit off more than I could chew and nobody would trade with me that had cap room and I was too proud to pay someone to take on salary with future 1sts, so I decided to take the penalty and see what happened, the result was a near 100 loss season for what was likely the best roster in the league.
I'll never do that again.
Now, I never set my max bids above what I can make up by waiving middling prospects in the minors.

Tim

[chbutt]

I would rather have all bids decided the first day and then bid on the remaining players the second day. But I'm not in charge.

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Originally written and posted October 23.2014 by yours truly but still very much valid and edited/updated for current game. This is the "NEW OWNER ADVICE" section of this post's header.
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The Barry Zito League: A New Owner's Manual

In the BZL, the off-season runs for five days following the World Series. The morning after the World Series, the Off-Season and Retirements with Improves/Declines runs about 4:30 in the morning, followed some six hours later by the Amateur Draft. At approximately 9:33 a.m. EST all players entering free agency are placed by ABE into "rest" status on your roster. NOTE: You have all season long to bid on this first day of free agents. You can find them under the GM Menu. One caveat - if you bid before the season rolls over, you will have to guess at how the OS will impact their attributes.

NEXT: Understanding **Actual** Salary vs. **Effective** Salary. Due to the complications of the Signing Formula (see the Wiki link in the first post of this thread), what you bid for a player is NOT the value of your offer. The player's "agent" (ABE) takes into consideration not only how much money you are offering, but how many years on the contract of your offer, if your team has a winning environment/history, and if the player's clubhouse leadership presence plays a factor in his desire to return to your team (if the player was on your team the previous season). All of these factors add or subtract value to/from your bid to equal an "Effective Salary" that is what the player's agent (ABE) uses to determine which bid the player will accept. It is always the highest Effective Salary, even if it is not always the highest **Actual** bid, in terms of dollars offered. Crazy, right? We know!

RULE of THUMB ADVICE for NEW OWNERS: Until you feel confident you know what you are doing here, we highly recommend you stick to offering one-year contracts to all free agents. For two very good reasons:
1) A one-year contract gets a little "Effective Salary" bump and thus gets you a little more "bang for your buck" when you bid.
2) If you land a player who turns out to be a dud, you're not stuck with a long/bad contract and that player is easier to trade to other teams if they know they're not taking on a bad player for several more seasons. Can't find a trade partner? Well, the bum is gone at the end of the season, anyway. Just don't bid on him again. (Fool me once....)

DAY ONE of FREE AGENCY:
The first round of free agent bidding occurs. Your bids must be submitted (use the "Free Agents" link under the GM menu) by 8:00 p.m. EST. Today approximately 25% of the available free agents will sign.

There are generally two strategies employed today:
• Underbid. Way underbid. And do it for a lot of players. Statistically, only one out of every four bids will go through and if you get a guy, you'll have him for a bargain price. But many owners use today mostly just to see what the market is going to say about a player's value. Bid on *all* the players you like, and maybe bid a little more for the ones you really want. Especially the ones from your own team that you want to retain, because you get a little "home team" bonus bump in Effective Salary if their Leadership grade is higher than C+.

• Bid big. Only 25% of free agents are signing today, why not proactively target the ones you really want, make a fair-to-generous offer, and hope you're the top dog with the biggest bone. NOTE: With very rare exception, pitching costs WAY more than hitting.

DAY TWO of FREE AGENCY:
It's the second round of free agent bidding. 50% of the remaining free agents will sign today, and now you can see every other team's initial bid (use the "View Bids" link under the GM menu), and the market really begins to heat up. Again, your bid has to be offered by 8:00 p.m. EST. Results are posted almost immediately after.

This is the day you start seriously comparing market prices to your budget. What do you mean you don't have a budget? Listen, you need a game plan. In this league, pitching is outrageously expensive, but good to great hitters can be real value finds. Given that, one sample budget is:
$40-45 million for pitching ($30 mill SP, $10-$15 RP)
$25-32 million for hitting
$5-8 million for minor league players (provided you plan to carry a full load of 15 players; see bottom for an alternate strategy)

Bid extravagantly, but wisely. Many owners will bid on more players than they can roster or afford with the hope that some will not sign today, and some will be signed by other teams. It's like the airlines overbooking seats. They do it with the hope that something will come up and not everyone will be able to make the flight. Just make sure you save your highest bids for the player(s) you want most. And remember to use the "Max Bid" box at the bottom of each Free Agent page wisely! NEVER EXCEED THE HARD CAP of $85 million (see the rules post at top of page). And never put a number that's bigger than you can safely offload before the season begins.

What if I sign more players than I need, or can afford? Take a look at the other owners who have bid on that player and lost. Odds are good you will be able to find a trading partner for that player among them if you haven't grossly overpaid for him.

DAY THREE of FREE AGENCY:
With only a few exceptions, this is your last real chance to sign the higher quality free agents. 75% of the remaining free agents will sign today. 8:00 p.m. EST remains your deadline.

This is the day you really take a hard look at your offseason strategy and either a) rejoice, b) change it all, or c) tweak it. If you're still bidding for players, one thing you can do today is take a look at how your principal competition for that player has done so far. Do they still need that player (check their depth chart - are they likely to no longer be bidding on him)? Can they still afford the player at the salary they've bid previously (check Team Salaries under the GM menu)? Adjust your bids accordingly.

BONUS TIP: Many owners are still looking hard at the "juicy" free agents. Red letter guys in their first year of free agency or in their early 30s so they can get a few years out of them. Using the "All Players" view on the View Bids page in conjunction with the Free Agents page, you can often find players who are worth obtaining and they haven't even received a single offer yet! You know this because when you find one, you look at the "All Players" view and you won't find their name. If your free agency plans have so far not survived first or second contact with market realities, this is a good time to employ this tip. Many owners still won't be looking at these "second or third" tier of free agents yet, still hoping to land one of the few good ones left.

DAY FOUR of FREE AGENCY:
Bid deadline still 8:00 p.m. EST. Only a bare handful of the higher quality free agents are left, and generally there will be bidding wars for their services today among the teams who still have some salary cap room. Mostly what's left are the lesser quality B+ or B overall free agents, and many of those are well into their declines. Any remaining player who has declared for free agency and still receives a bid today will sign.

Unless the player is going to be a major star or a major part of your roster, DO NOT OVERBID today. You'll probably need to bid more than the minimum ($50,000 or a bid of .50 on the Free Agents screen), but you shouldn't have to bid much more than that, unless you see the player getting some love on the "View Bids" page.

Also, you can start trolling the other team salaries for any owner over the $80 mill cap and offer a deal to relieve their excess, if you can find a good fit. Or, if over the cap yourself, look for the teams who have either struck out on their free agency swings, or are purposely not bidding much because they're in the middle of a roster rebuild.

DAY FIVE or WAIVER WIRE DAY:
At 9:33 a.m. EST this morning, the Waiver Wire opens up for teams to make their signings and claims. You can often find quite valuable pieces for your roster here. Any player over OS28 can be signed for $50,000, but you'll have to eat that salary all year long, even if you release the player. Players under OS28 are signed for the value listed on their Player Card, are yours until they reach their OS28 year, and can be released at any point during the season (if still under OS28) and their salary will come immediately off your total.

Also today you set up your roster, and make any salary cap deals left to be made. Follow the message boards closely.

BONUS TIP: On the Free Agents page, there's a drop-down box to the right of the word "Team:" ... selecting "WW" reveals all the free agents who are bound for the Waiver Wire but available to be signed. Occasionally - seldom, really - you will find a player you can use for your minor leagues or major league bench. The benefit to using this page - as opposed to the regular Waiver Wire - is that you can offer these players multiyear contracts. Anyone OS28 and older signed from the regular Waiver Wire is gone at the end of the season. NEVER bid more than the minimum ($.50) for these players.

THE PROMISED MINOR LEAGUE STRATEGIES:
There are basically two strategies to the minor leagues (farm team) here in the Barry Zito League. One is to carry a full load of 15 (or a few more). What is the advantage to this?
• No salary cap penalty (see rules post)
• Major League Bench fodder for Injuries (see rules post)
• When your minor league rookies reach major league age, they are under your control until OS28 at a very low salary.
• They often make attractive trade chips

The second strategy is to only carry a few minor league prospects (the blue-chip ones) and instead spend those dollars on your major league active roster players. What is the advantage to this?
• You will, theoretically, have just that little bit extra to spend than some of your competitors (like, $5-8 mill).

But note these disadvantages:
• The salary cap penalty as described in the rules post.
• If you have an injury on your major league roster, you either make do with your bench players or sign a waiver wire player, if you can afford the salary as you will generally not have a farm team player available to call up.

Still, both strategies have been employed to some success here in the BZL. You choose the one you find most comfortable for you.

[gannable]

what are the cheapest salaries for minor league players? I'm going to be over the cap due the 40 man roster penalty by about .15.

can I just waive a more expensive minor leaguer and then pick up cheap minor league players?

i guess it might be easier to drop someone with .40 salary

any suggestions?


edit

i just dropped a guy with a .40 salary so im down to 79.43 with 34 players. So at 6 times .05 = .30

79.43 +.30 = 79.73..... so am i ok now...... Am i overlooking something ?

[Splinter]

you look good to go.

Whats the over/under on IP for Selph and Dehli this year?

[gannable]

im not sure why Selph got only 70 innings last year. I must not have been paying attention and didn't change my settings.

Both are the first options in every bullpen scenario. Both should get over 110 innings, if not then something is working correctly,