3 Teams Available in a Hardcore Dynasty League

If you are ready to take your fantasy baseball hobby to the highest level here is your chance. This will be your most time-consuming and most challenging league. This is the closest possible simulation to being a real General Manager.

This is not a league for the casual fantasy baseball player. This league requires daily attention, even in the offseason. There is always something going on here. Right now we are involved in pursuing free agent players, bidding on them and negotiating contracts. Trading is frequent all year round. With 24 teams it is much easier to make a trade. If you are not an active, enthusiastic owner this league is not for you.

The league has been established for several years. This will be my 2nd season (I made it to the World Series this year). We will be moving the scoring to Scoresheet this season after having been with Reality Fantasy Baseball up till now. Team rosters and lineup cards and all other relevant documents and records are kept in spreadsheets on Google Docs, so you will need to know how to use a spreadsheet such as Excel in order to play. There is no league website. This is not like your standard Yahoo, ESPN or CBS fantasy leagues. This is much more involved. Much more fun too.

Here is the relevant information about the league:

24 teams
85 players per team (25 man active roster, 40 man roster, AAA roster, AA roster, A Ball roster, DSL roster)
There is a $200 league fee each season, a good chunk of that pays for the league software and the rest goes into the prize pool.
$125 million salary cap (only your 40-man roster salaries count toward the cap).
Start one player at each defensive position (1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, C, DH) plus a 5-man rotation and 6 relievers.
Players' defensive skill is factored into the scoring.

The league is divided into an American League and National League with 3 divisions in each. The playoff format is the same as MLB (Division winners and wildcards make the playoffs).

Your team will play one game each day against another team. Scoring is based on the real stats your players put up in real MLB games that day. Your players' stats are used in a linear weights fashion to simulate a game and you will receive a box score with the results each day. You will play 162 games and potentially make the playoffs in October.

The league uses virtually all real MLB rules including salary arbitration, multi-year contracts negotiated with player agents, MLB player transaction rules (Designate For Assignment, Outright Waivers, Release Waivers, Waiver Claims, Restricted List etc), Rule 5 Draft, Super 2 arbitration, ML service time, option years, 15 Day Disabled List, 60 Day Disabled List, 7 Day Concussion DL, playoff eligibility rules, September callups and pretty much any real MLB rule you can think of.

Due to the amount of time needed to run a team effectively, some teams have more than one owner (a GM and one or more assistant GMs or scouting directors). So if you want to take on the challenge of running a team you have the option of finding a partner to work with you. I run my team by myself, but most teams have co-owners. When you take over a team there will be a learning curve that myself and others will guide you through.

Some of the team owners are writers for Baseball Prospectus or other baseball or fantasy baseball websites. Harry Pavlidis and Bret Sayre are probably the best known in the group.

Each offseason we have free agent bidding (currently in progress), an International Free Agent bidding process for Latin American youngsters and Cuban/Japanese/Korean imports (will occur later this Winter), and a First Year Player Draft (in March).

The available teams are currently being handled by an ambassador to make sure they do not get shut out of the free agent bidding and trading that is actively in progress. If you are granted a team you will immediately have things to do, you won't wait until this Spring to start making moves. This is a year-round league in terms of running your franchise, although the actual games mirror the real MLB schedule.

The available teams range from good to bad. Even if you get a bad team do not despair. It is possible to turn around a team fairly quickly in this format, especially if your team is not loaded down with expensive, long-term contracts for bad players. The money angle forces teams to constantly re-shuffle their rosters to stay under the salary cap. There are plenty of opportunities to make trades to free up money you can use to purchase good players.

There are over 2000 players rostered in this league. Every major leaguer has value and so do many hundreds of minor leaguers. A knowledge of prospects is desirable, but if you do not have that knowledge yet you can quickly learn it and I advise you to do so.

Contact me if you are interested in taking over a team. New owners will need to pay their $200 immediately. We are looking for owners who will be active and enthusiastic and commit for the long term. I imagine the openings will be filled pretty fast. Are you up for the challenge?!