Trading Open for Business

Can we get the verdict on rerates? One of the possible trades I made is leaning on that.

I agree with the Bruins GM. There shouldn't be any trades until the rules are posted.

That 80s League Rule Book

(As of April 14, 2013)

Be sure that you have read and fully understand the rules before applying for a position within the league. Rules will be enforced. The commissioner(s) may be contacted by email at ckubala@gmail.com or alternatively on the forums.

Please send lines to ckubala@gmail.com. Sims will be between 7pm and 9pm daily, so I expect lines by say...5pm. All times are EST.

Forum

Registration is mandatory; it is also required that GM’s visit and post in the forum on a reasonably frequent basis as reassurance of their commitment to the league -- all it takes is a few minutes of your time. Those who fail to do so risk removal from the league.

Roster

Professional rosters will consist of a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 25 players. All others may be placed on minor-league affiliates. It would be in a GM’s best interest to properly maintain their farm roster. The maximum is the same as it is with professional rosters, 25. Failure to maintain a reasonable farm roster will be cause for concern – if you can't account for injuries because you failed to plan ahead, I'll frown upon that.

When a player is placed on a minor league team, 10% of his salary will be paid to him.

Schedule

Each season will be a total of 80 games. There will be 16 teams in the playoffs, just as the NHL. After the offseason, there will be a short exhibition schedule before the beginning of the next season.

On sim days where there are fewer than five games, that day as well as the following day will be simmed. Example: If there are four games scheduled on Day 'Y', all of those games, as well as the games on Day 'Z' will be simmed together. This helps speed up the schedule just a little, and allows more GM's to have their team play on any given day.

Trades

Trading is self-explanatory. It goes without saying that negotiations should be kept private until a deal is finalized. All trades are submitted on the league forum for review by the league-appointed Trade Committee. All parties involved in the trade must confirm the deal and provide a brief explanation as to why they chose to perform the trade. Trades are processed in the sim the following day, after the Committee has voted. A two-to-one majority is required for approval. Trades will be processed after the day's games are simmed to avoid messing up lines, forcing the commissioner to use auto-lines.

Tradeable assets include: Players, Draft Picks, Prospects, team funds, and UFA rights (after the season concludes).

Once a trade has been posted on the league forum, it is considered final and is subject to review by the Trade Committee. All parties involved must agree in order to rescind a deal once it has been posted.

Once a player is traded, you may reacquire that player only once from the team you dealt him to during the same season and only within one week of the trade deadline. If he is traded to another team, you may negotiate his return at any time.

GM’s who do not make the playoffs are permitted to carry out trade negotiations, and post trades for review at their own risk, if they so wish. The Trade Committee may opt to delay reviews until after re-rates are applied -- GM’s who post trades are held accountable, regardless. Teams involved in the playoffs may also carry out trade negotiations, but may not post trades until all playoff rounds are decided, not just their own.

The Trade Deadline occurs after approximately 80% of the regular season has been played. The specific “date” is indicated on the league schedule.

Waivers

Players age 25 and older who are sent from the professional roster to the minor league roster will enter waivers. They will remain on waivers 48 hours, even in the event of a double sim. During that time they may be claimed by another team. If no claims are made, the player is said to have "cleared" waivers, and will be placed in the minor league. Claims are made via e-mail; simply submit the name of the player which you are claiming. Only one claim can be made a time.

At times, the league waivers page lists waiver priority in the incorrect order. Waiver priority will always be determined by the league standings. Similarly, any claims that are made will not be reflected on the waivers page. However, GM's who make claims will be notified that their claims have been received, and GM's whose players have been claimed will be notified before their player is moved to his new team. And so, the waivers page should only be referred to when determining whether players are on waivers, and nothing more.

Any player, once waived, cannot be traded for the remainder of that season. Once the playoffs conclude, the player will then again be eligible to be traded. Waivers, once they are sent to the commissioner, will be posted on the forums, so all teams interested in acquiring players that have been waived have an equal opportunity.

Free Agency

When contracts expire, a player becomes a Free Agent. Unrestricted Free Agents are those without a contract, aged 30 or older, to be signed during the offseason. Notice will be given to announce the official start of open free agency.

After the Trade Deadline passes, GM’s are allowed to begin negotiating with their pending Free Agents, both Restricted and Unrestricted. No more than 1 Unrestricted Free Agent may be re-signed in this way. All others will enter open free agency. Pending FA's, re-signed at age 29, will still be considered of restricted status. However, they may choose not to sign in order to enter open free agency.

In some cases, it will not be guaranteed that a pending UFA will re-sign with your club just because you want him to. There will be a chance that an older player wants to play for a possible contender, and in some circumstances rent-a-players may not re-sign with the team they were just traded to at the deadline, etc.

Open free agency will be carried out on the league forum. GM’s will place bids on players, and the player will sign with the highest bidder, typically. If no other GM has bid on a player, you will be expected to create the thread yourself. Bidding for each individual free agent ends after 24 hours without a bid.

Any players not signed as an RFA will automatically become a UFA.

OV Chart (Applies to RFA Re-signings Only)

Players that are RFAs will be signed to a set salary scale based on their OV rating. The official numbers for the chart will be revised and posted in the near future and will be completed well before free agency.

Proper bidding format:

Player Name
Your Team
Annual Salary/Total Years + Signing Bonus/Incentives (e.g. 500k for hitting 40 goals)
Role on Team

GM’s may have only two active offers (winning bids) at a time. Offers may not be made if they push the offering team over the salary cap (if/when a salary cap applies). When bids are made, total contract value will take precedence of annual salary.

GM’s may not offer players a No Trade Clause or No Movement Clause but players may request one as part of their contract.

Players signed in this way may be traded no sooner than a week (7 sim days) before trade deadline of the first season under the new contract. Players who have signed with a No Trade Clause or No Movement Clause may “waive” said clause in the final week (7 sim days) leading up to the trade deadline, provided it is their last year under contract, and they are traded to a playoff team.

No Trade Clauses will remain in effect for the duration of a contract, even if a player changes teams via Waivers. It can be said that the Clause applies to the contract, rather than the player's agreement with the team that offered the contract.


Additional incentives/bonuses may be tendered. For now, signing bonuses and incentives cannot be more than 100% of the player's potential salary (a player offered 3 million a season could be offered a 3mill signing bonus max.). No trade clauses/letters on a jersey could also influence a player's decision to sign. Incentives should only be offered to high-performance players. I'm not keeping track to pay Norm Schmidt $20,000 if he hits +10 at the end of the season or something ridiculous.


Minimum salary - $40,000/year
Maximum salary - $5,000,000/year

Releases

In order to release a player, GM’s notify the commissioner by e-mail. When releasing a player, 2/3 of his annual salary will be deducted from your team funds. Players that have been successfully released immediately become Unrestricted Free Agents and may be tendered offers by anyone in the Free Agency section of the league forum where other GM’s may also bid. The 24-hour rule applies. The GM who released the player may not immediately negotiate a new contract but must abide a 10 day waiting period.

Player Re-Ratings, Appeals

Player re-rates will occur during the off-season, prior to the start of open free agency. Each team will be given the option to appeal the re-rating of one of their players based on their sim performance. To do this, send an email to the commissioner detailing your complaint, and containing evidence to support your claim. Adjustments will be made at the commissioner’s discretion.

In addition, 2 NHL-based rerates will be allowed for each team each season. The players that are being rerated using the NHL-based system MUST be under the age of 25. In addition, players may only be re-rated ONCE...if you re-rate a guy and he has a better season before the cutoff age, you may not re-rate him again.

Prospects

Activating prospects may be done during the offseason. Ratings will be based on descriptions and information found at HockeyDB/Hockey Reference. To request a prospect be created, send an email to the commissioner. It is asked that you send all requests at once and not individually.

Prospects may not be created before they've played in the NHL since ratings are based on NHL performance. If you're hellbent on having a player created before he played in the NHL, he will suck.

Farm players will not be re-rated during the season. Since we know ahead of time which players are good, and which are useless, I might implement a way to reward highly successful farm players who did not necessarily have successful NHL careers, just to mix things up a bit. I'll need to think on this a bit more.

Players will be "Rookies" the season that they play their 25th NHL game. Players aged 27 or older do not qualify.

Position Changes

Players may have their positions changed so long as proof is provided that they play the desired position. TSN, HockeyDB, or Hockey Reference are ideal sources.

Retirement

Players age 36 and older are subject to potential retirement. Retirement occurs at random -- the older the player, the greater the odds they retire. I will also take the player's production into consideration.

Training Camps (To be implemented)

When implemented , training camps will allow small improvements to player ratings.. During the offseason, GM’s will have the opportunity to send 1 player to training camp for a fee. Any player, under the age of 30, so long as their OV rating is 74 or lower, may be sent to a training camp. These camps will promote certain player characteristics.

Farm Appeal

Any player that has played at least 60 games on the farm without going to camp will receive a +2 bonus on all stats.

Camp Appeal

This may be used once per season to roll back a player to his stats from the season before if the sim rerates knocked him back unfairly.

Team Captain

Team Captains will receive a +2 LD and +2 EX bonus for each season they are the captain of the franchise. Alternates will receive a +1 LD and +1 EX bonus for each season they wear an A on their sweater. Teams will select captains and alternates and send them to the league office.

Finances

Managing team finances is an important responsibility for all GM’s. Revenue is earned through ticket sales, which increases in proportion to the number of “superstars” a team possesses. A “superstar” is defined automatically by the sim as a player with an OV rating of 80 or higher. Ticket prices also affect sales, and may be adjusted at any time by sending an e-mail to the commissioner.

Just because there's no cap in this era doesn't entitle you to bleed money to win the Cup. You may (see: will) be punished for operating at a loss.



You are encouraged to bring up any omissions/questions as soon as possible so that the Rules can be amended.

Means after the trade deadline you can try to sign 2 UFA's. Then when off season starts you get to try for one more after you go the 2 locked up during the season. So the total is 3.

With the RFA thing, lol i am guessing that is for non qualified guys that hit the open market and will not require compensation. If they are qualified they can still be bid on and the other team would have to match or accept compensation.

I hope that helped.

1. I've edited the rules to reflect that teams can sign 1 of their pending UFAs before free agency starts.

2. The age limit for creating a prospect is 26. If the guy hasn't really broken out by then, well, there's not a whole lot we can do to help with that.

3. I'm fine with coming up with training camps and have asked for input about them from everyone yet at this time no one has offered any suggestions to take into consideration.

4. With the OV chart in place (the numbers for will be released in the next couple of weeks), there is no need for RFA compensation. Either you agree to the dollar figure specified by the chart or you renounce your rights to the player and he becomes a UFA.

Actually.... I beg to differ, no matter what salary always matters because your team can only make so much money.... if funding is set low as it should be, and you decide to stock your team up with multiple 1 or 2 million dollar contracts... welcome to negative income in which you should be fired as GM for being irresponsible with all aspects of a GM's "job"

How many games does a player have to play in order to avoid being placed on waivers when sent down? Also do we have a max OV or salary on players that can be sent down?