Fantasy Baseball Big Game & Independent League Rules

Fantasy Baseball Big Game leagues will consist of leagues of 25 teams.  Independent leagues will also have 25 teams in them; however, independent leagues may elect to play with less than 25 teams if an independent league does not fill up.  Each owner will be allowed to decide if they would like to participate.  League prizes will be prorated accordingly, to correspond with the percentage of the league entries,  in the event of an unfilled independent league.

Rosters - Each team will have 25 players on its roster.  Rosters will consist of the following:
21 Active Players
C – 1
1B – 1
2B – 1
SS – 1
3B – 1
MI – 1
CI – 1
OF – 4
UTIL – 1
P – 9
4 Reserves (Any position)

Position Qualification – To qualify for a position, a player must have appeared at that position 20 times last year.  Players will qualify for a new position during a season once they appear at the new position 10 times.  Once this happens, a player’s eligibility is updated for the upcoming week.  Players coming up from the minor leagues will only qualify at the position they appeared in the most during the previous season.  Players with less than 20 games of major league experience will be eligible at the position they appeared in most.  Example: A September call up who plays 9 games at 1B and 6 in the OF will be eligible at 1B only.  (Pinch hitting and pinch running do not count as positions.) 

Player Selection – The order of selection will be determined randomly by www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com

The draft will consist of 25 rounds.  Each owner will have 60 seconds to make a selection.  Once the time is up, the owner is subject to have his or her selection determined for them.  The online draft company's software may elect a player for any owner who does not make their own selection within the allotted time frame.  www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com  reserves the right to decide if the assigned player will remain on the assigned owner's roster.  In rare cases, www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com  may allow an owner to make another selection, if the situation calls for it.  Owners are responsible for their own computer equipment and internet connectivity.  Owners with weak connections or connectivity problems are subject to have players assigned to them when their draft turn arrives if they are not available to make a selection in their allotted time.  Owners will be given the opportunity to test the draft service at least 24 hours prior to their draft.  Owners who elect not to test the software will not be allowed to hold up the draft.  All owners are asked to enter the draft room 15-20 minutes prior to the draft start time.  The draft will not be delayed for owners who arrive late.  Owners who do not show up will not receive a refund.

The draft will be done in a serpentine order.  After the first round has been completed, the last team to select in round 1 will select first in round 2.  This will alternate each round, so that the team selecting first overall, will select first in the odd rounds and last in the even rounds.

Any player may be drafted, regardless of whether the player has made his major league debut or not; however, once the draft is over, owners must abide by the free agent rules.  If a player who has not yet made his major league debut is drafted, he will qualify at the position he appeared in most during last season in minor league.

Free Agents – All teams will be given $1,000 Free Agent dollars to bid on free agent players throughout the season.  Each week, teams will be able to place bids on players they would like to acquire.  For each player acquired, a player must be dropped from the winning bidder’s roster.  The highest bid wins.  Owners may place conditional bids, in the event they lose out on their first selection.  Owners will not be given any additional free agent money throughout the season.  Free agent money can only be used to bid on free agent players.  Free Agent dollars have no other value and may not be redeemed for anything else.  In the event of a tie, the player in the lower standing will be awarded the player.  Owners will have the option of using any remaining free agents dollars each week to obtain free agents.  All Free Agent bids will close at 6 PM EST on Sundays.  Winners will be announced shortly after, along with their winning bid. The runner up bid total will also be revealed.  The owner with the runner up bid will NOT be revealed. 

A player must have made their major league debut in order to be an eligible free agent.  The only exception to this rule is a player who was drafted in the same league.  This player will enter the free agent pool for bidding if he is dropped from the drafting team.  The debut does NOT have to be the current year; however, players who have not made their major league debut and were not drafted are not eligible to be bid on.  Once a player makes his debut, he will remain eligible based on majority of minor league appearances.  Players will gain additional eligibility once he appears at least 10 times at a position, if it is different than the position they have appeared in most in the minor leagues. 

Trading - In order to prevent any questionable team to team collusion, there will be no trading in any Big Game Leagues.

Playing week – Each week begins with Monday’s games and ends with Sunday’s games.  All player changes for the week must be made 5 minutes prior to the start of the first game Monday.  All changes will be effective for the entire week.  Injured and/or demoted players will remain in your line up until the following week when an owner has the option of switching the player out with a reserve player or by utilizing the FAAB.  There will be NO in week substitutions allowed.  Any transactions  placed after 5 minutes prior to the first game on Monday will not take affect until the following Monday.

Scoring – All teams will be scored in 10 categories (5 hitting and 5 pitching.) 

The hitting categories are:
Batting Average
Runs Scored
Home Runs
Runs Batted In
Stolen Bases  

The pitching categories* are:
Wins
Saves
Earned Run Average
Strikeouts
Whip (Walk+Hits/Innings Pitched)

*Each team’s pitching staff must complete a minimum of 750 innings pitched.  If a team does not reach the minimum requirement of 750 IP, that team will receive the lowest point total in the non-cumulative pitching stat categories.  To be specific, the team will receive 1 points for ERA and 1 points for WHIP.  All other teams will keep their point totals for these categories.  Example – If the team with the lowest ERA has 1000 IP, they will receive 25 points.  If the team with the next lowest ERA has 749 2/3 IP, they will receive 1 ERA point for the season.  The remaining teams will receive their point totals for ERA, provided they meet the IP minimum of 750 IP.   If the team with the third best ERA meets the minimum requirement, they will receive 24 points, as they have become the team with the second best team ERA that meets the minimum IP requirements.

Standard rotisserie scoring will be used.  Teams will be ranked from best to worst in each category.  For example, in a 25 team league, the team with the most stolen bases will receive 25 points.  The team with the least stolen bases will receive 1 point.  In the case of a tie, the teams will split the points earned.  For example, if two teams lead the league in WHIP, they will each receive 24.5 points (which is a split of the first and second place points.)   

Points will be added for every team in every category.  The standings will be determined by adding the point totals in each category to determine a cumulative point total.  The team with the highest cumulative point total will be the winner.  The team with the second highest point total will be the second place finisher, and so on.

All categories are cumulative.  The highest total will receive the most points in each category, with the exception of ERA and WHIP where the lowest total will receive the most points.  The team with the most cumulative points will be the league winner. 

Pitcher's hitting statistics will not be used in owners hitting totals.  Hitters pitching statistics will not be used in pitching totals.  Only regular season stats count.  One game playoffs to determine playoff eligibility count toward a team’s total statistics; however playoff games and World Series games do not

***All stats will be tracked by a third party.  www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com will not be responsible for systems issues, such as computer outages, internet connectivity problems or any other issue which may result in an owner not being able to select during their draft when their draft slot comes up.  Teams stats will be updated in real time.  League standings will be updated daily.  For the Big Game contest, overall standings will be provided every Sunday.  In addition, www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com will not supply equipment for owners to perform their drafts.  All owners are responsible for ensuring they have their own equipment, which can interact with the draft supplier's software.  Owners who are disconnected from the draft room will be assigned a player by the draft supplier's software.  THIS MEANS ALL OWNERS SHOULD ENSURE THEY HAVE A STRONG, RELIABLE  INTERNET CONNECTION.  Owners should not use dial up internet connections when drafting their teams.  In the event of a system outage or server crash or any other unexpected event that causes the stat service to lose stats, Fantasy Baseball Big Game will not be responsible.  If the stats provider's system is down and you are unable to make your weekly transactions, it is your responsibility to email your changes to info@fantasybaseballbiggame.com at least 5 minutes prior to the start of the first game on Monday.  If the server is not down, each owner is responsible for making their own weekly roster updates.  Emails sent to info@fantasybaseballbiggame.com for transactions moves will not be processed without confirmation from the stats provider service that there server was down.

Prize Money (Ties) - In the event of a tie for prize money, the teams tying will each receive an equal half of the combined money for the two spots occupied.  For example, if there is a tie for 1^st place, these two teams will each receive an equal half of the total prize money for the first and second place prizes for that league.  The same process would occur if the second and third place teams were tied for second place.  The teams would each receive an equal share of the second and third place prize money.  In the event of a tie for third place, the teams tied for third would each receive an equal share of the third place prize money. 

Big Game Prorated Amounts - In the event there are not 200 Big Game entrants (8 leagues), leagues prizes will remain the same  and the prorated overall payouts will be as follows:

• 1 League (25 Teams) will default to $250 Independent league prize structure below.  
  2 Leagues (50 Teams) 1st - $5,000; 2nd - $500; 3rd - $250; 4th - $125 5th - $60
  3 Leagues (75 Teams) 1st - $7,500; 2nd - $750; 3rd - $375; 4th - $185 5th - $95
  4 Leagues (100 Teams) 1st - $10,000; 2nd - $1,000; 3rd - $500; 4th - $250 5th - $125
  5 Leagues (125 Teams) 1st - $12,500; 2nd - $1,250; 3rd - $625; 4th - $315 5th - $155
  6 Leagues (150 Teams) 1st - $15,000; 2nd - $1,500; 3rd - $750; 4th - $375 5th - $185
  7 Leagues (175 Teams) 1st - $17,500; 2nd - $1,750; 3rd - $850; 4th - $450 5th - $220
  8 Leagues (200 Teams) 1st - $20,000; 2nd - $2,000; 3rd - $1,000; 4th - $500 5th - $250
   

Refund Policy - All sales are final with the following exceptions.
1. In the event that an independent league does not fill up, owners will be given the option of receiving a refund or participating in a prorated league with prorated prize money, based on the number of owners in the league. 
2. For the big game contest, each 25 team league must be filled in order to be part of the big game contest.  The grand prize of $20,000 becomes guaranteed with 250 entries.  Refunds will not be provided once the Grand prize is guaranteed.  In the event, there are less than 250 entries owners will be offered the choice of a full refund or if they can elect to remain in a full 25 team league and compete for the prorated Grand Prize.  Prorating is based on 250 entries.  For example, if there are 125 entries (50% of the 250 needed to guarantee the overall prizes, the overall prizes, including the grand prize, will be paid out in that same  percentage.  In this example, the Grand Prize would be $10,000). 

Some examples of reasons refunds will NOT be granted. 
1. The team owner does not show up for the live online draft.  (If this happens, the owner will be assigned draft picks as noted above and will manage the team drafted.) 
2. Team owner is not happy with team drafted. 
3. Team owner decides they would no longer like to participate, after payment is collected for a full league.  (The only exception will be if the big game contest grand prize is not guaranteed.)
4. Owner experiences draft problems and is assigned picks.  (Owners are responsible for their internet connectivity being reliable.  In the event the third party draft software experiences technical problems, and the draft cannot continue, it will be rescheduled.  This ONLY applies if all owners are not able to draft and third party vendor acknowledges system problem.)
*This is not an all-inclusive list, but is intended to provide examples.

Taxes - All winners of $600 or more are responsible for filing all applicable IRS documents.  Winner’s checks will be mailed after the conclusion of the regular season.  The overall Fantasy Baseball Big Game prizes are based on a minimum of 250 team entries.  In the event that the Fantasy Baseball Big Game contest receives less than 250 entries, www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com reserves the right to prorate the overall prizes based on the total percentage of entries received.  Owners may have more than one entry in the Fantasy Baseball Big Game contest; however, owners may only have one team per league.

Unforeseen Events/Uncovered Rules - The rules are meant to cover all possible likely scenarios.  In the event something occurs that is not covered in the rules, www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com has the right to make the decision it feels is best for the overall integrity of the game.

www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com reserves the right to refuse any entries it feels may compromise the integrity of the game and service for the other players.  The Big Game is not open to the immediate family and friends of www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com employees.  All owners must be 18 years of age or older.  Owners are responsible for meeting any IRS guidelines in regards to reporting winnings.  www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com will issue 1099 forms for anyone winning $600 or more.  Prize money will be mailed to winners once the 1099 form is signed and returned to www.fantasybaseballbiggame.com

If you have any questions concerning the rules or anything in general, please email info@fantasybaseballbiggame.com