2010 Economic Primer
The VFBL economic primer was written to give owners old and new a guide of reference as to how the VFBL salary system works. To be successful in this league, the understanding of our economic system is paramount. The primer was written by the founder of our economic system Tim Conklin and edited by Kevin Hitt.Off-season
At the end of the season, you still retain the rights to all of your players, who you've acquired previously through trade or auction purchase. All of these players are due a raise (if you keep them) for the coming season of 10% or $100k, whichever is greater. What's more, if a player is about to enter the 4th year of a contract (that is, if he was initially purchased at auction three years previously, and has not been released back into the free-agent pool since that time), his contract for the coming year can be no less than $1m. If a player is about to enter the 6th year of a contract, his contract for the coming year can be no less than $5m.
Of course, you're under no obligation to keep any of these players. During the off-season (which begins with the release of the first VFBL disk following the release of the new season disk from DMB), you can release or trade players at will. Players who are released go back into the free-agent pool. And the players you trade for can be turned right around and traded to yet another team during this time. No one is being paid anything yet. But any player you acquire and ultimately keep will be due a raise, just as spelled out above, come February 1.
January 31/February 1
January 31 is what is commonly referred to as the "freeze" day in the ISBL off-season, which is sort of a misnomer, but it is a very important date. It's the day by which you will have needed to turn in two lists comprised of those players whose rights you currently retain. One list is your "keeper" list - those players who you are willing to keep on your roster, with those players' salaries for the year being paid by your team IN FULL the following day. The other list is your "dump" list - those players (everyone not on the "keeper" list) who you're casting back into the free agent pool.
February 1 is the day you receive the money your team earned the previous season, which is added to any monies that you still have unspent from previous seasons. It's also the day that the players on your "keeper" list get paid their salaries for the coming season IN FULL.
So, for example, on 2/1/2005, your team is due to receive $50.0m for their 2008 performance. This will be added to any money left over from previous seasons. From that, you will pay the salaries of anyone on your "keeper" list. Another $1m is placed in a "lockbox" for 2009. Half of this "lockbox" money ($500k) will be released to you after the regular season starts in April, and you can do what you want with it. The other half is held until after the trade deadline - it's a safeguard for teams who may end up short on cash and player usage near the end of a season.
Pre-Auction
OK, so now you have the beginnings of a team for the coming season, and some cash to play with in the free-agent auction. But just because you've "frozen" players doesn't mean you're necessarily done dealing. It just means the rules are a little different now. Any player you trade now, you've already paid for his contract, so you want to make sure you get a fair return for him. And the same holds true for trades made from that point through the end of the season.
Here's a practical example to illustrate the difference. Let's say you owned Barry Bonds the previous season for $8m and I owned Jason Tyner for $200k. Come January 15th (this is before the "freeze" date), you've decided you want to scale back on player salaries, so you offer me Bonds for Tyner, straight up, and I accept. And when February 1 rolls around, I pay $8.8m (remember the 10% raise?) for Bonds and you pay $300k (also the 10% raise) for Tyner. In other words, we traded rights to sign players to contracts.
But now it's February 5th, and we're both having second thoughts. You offer to swap players back. Trouble is, I've already paid Bonds $8.8m, and if I trade him back to you for Tyner straight up, I'm gonna be out $8.5m. So in such a case, I would probably insist on you giving me a substantial amount of cash, or maybe additional players, or maybe a little of both, to make up the difference before I made that trade.
Of course, that's not to say that there aren't trades made later in the season that are lopsided on the money side of things. It's common to see rebuilding teams trade high-salaried stars even-up for low-salaries prospects as the trade deadline looms, with no additional compensation in the mix. In these instances, the rebuilding team is leveraging the star's marketability to try and get a head start on future seasons, while the other party is most likely leveraging their future in an effort to win now. But there's a limit to how much of this can be done, and we'll cover that in a second.
Auction
The VFBL Auction typically starts in mid-February. Each night, [a number of] randomly selected free agents are put up on an eBay-style auction board, and owners have 72 hours to place bids on those players' services. Bids are in increments of $100k. Like eBay, you can place a proxy bid on a player (that is, a maximum amount that you are willing to pay for the player, should another owner also end up bidding on him). You can bid on a player more than once. This goes on for several days until every free agent has been posted at least once.
By the end of the auction, you need to have at least 35 players (though no more than 40), with at least 18 batters and 14 pitchers. You'll also probably want to have a little cash left over in your coffers, the "lockbox" money notwithstanding.
Opening Day / Payroll "Cap"
On Opening Day, the total cost of your roster is noted for the purpose of establishing a "cap" on the amount of payroll you can have on your roster in a given year (40% above what you started with). On Opening Day 2008, your team's payroll totaled $65.3m. Between now and the end of the season, that payroll was allowed to increase by no more than 40%, to a total of $91.4m. Remember, when making trades, the player's salaries have already been paid, so the purpose of the "cap" is merely to keep in check rampant stockpiling/dumping during the course of a season.
Remember that you may also have extra cash left in your coffers after the auction (plus the $500k you'll get from the lockbox once season play starts) to play with in making deals.
In-Season Free Agents
In a typical ISBL season, there are usually about 10-20 position players and 50-60 pitchers who will be eligible for ISBL play, but will be unsigned. During the season, owners can request that these players be placed on the auction board, which is typically done on Thursdays for a 72-hour period. High bid takes the player (regardless of current league position), and you can pay for these players using money either from your lockbox or general funds.
Waiver Wire
A new addition was the creation of a waiver wire, which comes into play once the trade deadline has passed. This wire allows teams to make low-unlimited players (that is, those players who do not have limits on their usage due to poor real-life stats) available to other teams who may have usage problems at certain positions. The way this works, typically, is that an owner who is, say, perilously short on catcher starts will approach 3 or 4 teams and ask them if they'd be willing to put one of their low-unlimited catchers on the wire. If the team agrees, the player would go on the wire on Thursday, and would be available to be claimed by any team for 72 hours. At the end of the 72 hours, the worst team that claimed the player has first option to purchase that player from the offering team at that player's full salary price. If the option is passed on, the next team that claimed the player may purchase him. Again, you can use money from either your lockbox or general funds. Fines
From time to time, owners screw up. Often this is tied to a usage issue, or reactivating a disabled player too early, or making an illegal mid-week move, etc. When such things happen, the League Council will convene online and consider penalties. Once we've made a decision, we'll notify the offending party and tell them their punishment. The offending party can appeal the decision, providing any additional rationale why we should reconsider at that time. Fine money will usually be taken from general funds, but we may take it from a team's lockbox if their general funds are exhausted.
Rules to Remember to Avoid Fines
Usage Rules / Unlimited Players
Non-unlimited players are restricted to no more than 110% of their real-life usage. If a player exceeds 110% (as checked at the end of each week), he is mandatorily farmed for the rest of the season and postseason, and can not be traded (although the rights to that player are still retained by the team, provided they don't release him). If such a player is subsequently promoted, the offending owner faces a variety of penalties, including (but not limited to) loss of that player's rights, replay/forfeiture of games, fines, probation and/or expulsion.
Unlimited players are players who are not restricted by usage rules. These fall into two classes - "high" unlimiteds and "low" unlimiteds - and are denoted by special coding in their contract year (i.e. 9993, which would be a "high" unlimited player in contract year 3).
EXCEPTION: Players who are rated defensively to play catcher and are not rated at any other position are "low" unlimiteds if their OPS is .700 or less, no higher than .725 vs. either side.
Trade Deadlines
Any trades made in a given week must be completed by the deadline for turning in games. Both teams must send verification of the trade to admin@vfbl.org before that deadline. The trade then takes effect with the next disk.
The trade deadline is at the conclusion of Week 17.