CIBL CONSTITUTION
Requirements for Participation
· Diamond Mind Baseball current version with the latest
season disk.
· Internet connection and email capability.
· Ability to prepare lineups for 6 games by Thursday each
week, play 6 home games on average
every other week and e-mail the results to the commissioner no later
than midnight Pacific time
Monday.
· Estimated time requirement is no more than 2 hours per
week.
General
· There will be 24 teams divided into 2 leagues with 3
divisions of 4 teams each.
· The DH rule is in effect for all league play.
· Rosters will consist of a maximum of 40 men, no more than
26 of which can be active for a
particular series. Beginning with week 24, active roster maximum
size expands from 26 to 30.
(Amended 2019)
· Only players on the season disk will be allowed unless
protected from the prior season.
· Actual ballparks will be used, with a maximum of one team
per ballpark.
· Injury Rating will be used. All injuries will be cleared
each week.
· Bullpen warmup disabled.
· Weather effects enabled.
League Leadership
League leadership will consist of an elected Commissioner, an
elected First Commissioner and an
elected Second Commissioner, each serving a 3 year term.
Nominations will be made by the
membership. Election for each position will be by a majority vote
of all members casting votes. A quorum
of ¾ of the members is required.
Position Duties
The Commissioner will be responsible for all trade decisions and
levying of penalties as described in the
body of the Constitution below. The Commissioner will also be
responsible for moderating discussions of
league business as necessary, calling for votes on league business
and proposed rules changes and
administering those votes as described in the Constitution below.
The Commissioner will be responsible
for either preparing or managing the preparation of the league
schedule. Finally, the Commissioner will
be responsible for all other duties as described in the Constitution
below.
The First Assistant
Commissioner will be responsible for collecting weekly statistics
and distributing
results as described in the body of the Constitution below. The
First Assistant Commissioner will
substitute for the Commissioner as necessary and serve as an advisor
to the Commissioner on league
business.
The Second Assistant
Commissioner will serve as an advisor to the Commissioner and
substitute for the
First Assistant Commissioner and Commissioner as necessary.
Gameplay
Teams will play a 162 game schedule lasting 30 weeks.
Players are allowed to play out of position.
"Head to Head" Internet games are encouraged but not required.
Lineups and manager
profiles are due to the opposing home manager and to the Assistant
Commissioner
no later than Thursday, preferably sooner. Box scores and
statistics for the series are due to the
Assistant Commissioner no later than midnight Pacific time each
Monday. The Assistant Commissioner
will compile statistics and email each league owner a weekly
newsletter containing the league disk, player
transactions, and other news no later than Wednesday night.
Deadlines may be adjusted as needed to
accommodate special circumstances.
Each manager submitting
a Manager Profile for his series should specify players to be called
up in case
of injuries. If a player’s injury period is shorter than the
remaining length of the series then the player
called up as a replacement must be farmed again as soon as the
injury period expires.
The Commissioner will control all teams without an owner.
Playing Time
Limitations:
1) Batters are limited to 102.49% of actual total plate appearances
(Plate appearances are defined as
AB+BB+HBP+SF+SH).
2) Batters are limited to 125,49% of actual plate appearances vs. LHP (except as in #10 below).
3) Batters are limited to 125.49% of actual plate appearances vs. RHP (except as in #10 below).
4) Pitchers are limited
to actual innings pitched except starters who never appear in relief
in the CIBL (see
#6 below).
5) Pitchers with a starter durability rating are limited to actual games started. (See 13 below)
6) If the CM uses a
visiting team starting pitcher in an unintended relief role, the
owner may request an
exemption so that the pitcher’s usage can still be tracked by games
started. The request may be granted
at the Commissioner’s discretion. (Amended 2019)
7) Pitchers who never
appear in CIBL relief may exceed actual innings pitched if their
CIBL starts do not
exceed actual starts.
8) Any player not
obtaining 50% of plate appearances (batters) or 50% of innings
pitched (pitchers)
cannot be retained beyond the end of the current season except as in
#12 and #13 below.
9) Any batter who had
650 or more plate appearances in MLB for a particular season may
appear in the
CIBL without any limitations (revised in 2021 post-season).
10) If a batter has 100
or more MLB plate appearances vs. LHP, or 300 or more MLB plate
appearances
vs. RHP, he has no restriction against that handed pitcher.
11) If a batter has less
than 100 total actual plate appearances, the 50% minimum plate
appearance
requirement for player retention is waived.
12) If a pitcher has
less than 20 actual innings pitched, the 50% minimum innings pitched
requirement for
player retention is waived.
13) Pitchers with no
Starter durability rating cannot be used as a Starter regardless of
whether they
started games in the previous MLB season. Over-usage of starts would
be penalized as if the pitcher had
no starts in MLB play.
14) Players used as both
a pitcher and position player in MLB (e.g. Shohei Ohtani) are
subject to normal
usage limits for both roles but must meet the 50% retention
threshold in only one of the roles. (Amended
2019)
Players who have reached
their maximum usage in a particular week must be farmed before the
following
week's games. Failure to do this will result in additional penalties
and a warning will be issued. Failure of
an owner to heed this warning may result in expulsion from the CIBL
at the Commissioner's discretion.
Penalties
If an owner is unable to meet any deadline, the commissioner must be
notified in advance to avoid a
penalty. After 2 days late, the League commissioners may use any
information available to simulate the
games. More than 7 days late without notification will result in
expulsion from the league at the
Commissioner's discretion. Missing more than 3 deadlines in a season
is also justification for expulsion.
To expel an owner from the league, the Commissioner will email this
intention to all current owners. The
owner being expelled has one week to respond to all current CIBL
owners regarding his desire to
continue in the league. At this point a 2/3 majority vote is
required to keep the owner in the league.
A player exceeding his
allowed playing amount will cost his owner .001 in winning % for
every extra PA or
1/3 IP, and .01 will be subtracted for every extra Game Started for
pitchers. For batters who have more
than one PA violation (e.g. over 102.49% in total and over 125.49%
vs.LHP), only the maximum violation
for that player will be used in a penalty calculation. Winning
percentages adjusted by penalties affect both
standings and draft position--unadjusted percentages will be used
when determining free agent
acquisition position. Draft position penalties will be assessed as
follows for all draft rounds:
.001 - .020 points: no penalty
.021 - .100 points: loss of 1 draft position
.101 - .300 points: loss of 2 draft positions
.301 and higher: loss of 3 draft positions
If a team’s draft position is at or near the end of a round and
penalties push it beyond that round then
draft position will be pushed to the next round and teams in the
next round will move up in position.
(Amended 2019)
Trades and Free Agents
Trades will be allowed through the 20th week. The Commissioner must
be notified by BOTH parties via
email, and no trade is final until it is included in the weekly
newsletter.
The Commissioner may
reject any trade if, in his judgement, it is not in the best
interest of the League. If
the owners involved in a rejected trade still wish to pursue the
trade, the Commissioner will put the trade
up for league vote. A 2/3 majority approval vote is required.
All trades made by the
Commissioner must be approved by a 2/3 vote of the Commissioner’s
Trade
Review Board. The board shall be comprised of the First and Second
Assistant commissioners and an
owner nominated by the membership and elected by a plurality of the
voting members. A quorum of 2/3
of the membership is required.
All players included on
the original season disk but not on a CIBL team are considered free
agents.
Requests for these players must be received by the Commissioner
before midnight on Monday. If more
than one request is made for the same player the same week, the
requesting team with the lowest
winning percentage will receive the player. Tiebreakers for free
agent acquisition are (in order): Winning
%, How long since the last free agent acquisition, and the last
draft position (higher draft position will get
the player since this team will be the weaker one from the prior
year). Players acquired from free agency
during the season must be released to the free agent pool at the end
of the season. However, a player
may be taken from the free agent pool anytime between the end of the
draft and the start of the regular
season and be retained on the regular roster as if he had been
drafted. Free agents may not be selected
in the period between the end of the regular season and the
conclusion of the subsequent draft.
There is a 40 player maximum per team, so if a transaction puts you
over 40, you have to release players
until you get back down to 40.
Playoffs
For each league, all three division winners are joined by two
wild-card teams to form the post-season
field. The division winners are awarded the top three seeds based on
penalty-adjusted winning
percentage. The top two non-division winners are awarded wild card
berths on the same basis. The wild
card teams face each other in a best-of-3 series (1/1/1 for venue).
The winner of the wild card series
gains the #4 seed and faces the #1 seed in the division series. The
LDS & LCS are best-of-7 series
(2/3/2). All post-season games must be played head-to-head via
NetPlay unless both owners agree
otherwise.
Home field advantage in the wild card series goes to the higher
adjusted winning percentage. Home field
in the LDS or LCS goes to the higher seed. In the World Series
(2/3/2), the AL representative has home
field advantage in odd-numbered years, the NL representative in
even-numbered years.
A tie for a division
title, if either team also merits a wild card, is settled via
tiebreaker: penalty points, then
head-to-head regular season record, then intra-division record, then
intra-league record, then a coin flip.
The same tiebreakers, excepting intra-division record, apply when
determining home field for the wild
card series if both teams have identical adjusted winning
percentages.
If the team losing a
division title tiebreaker would be ejected from the playoff field, a
one-game playoff
shall decide the division (instead of a tiebreaker). A tie for the
second wild card berth is also resolved by
a one-game playoff. The one-game playoff is considered a regular
season game, but playing time limits
are waived.
Playoff games must be played head to head via NetPlay unless both owners agree not to.
Playoff Playing Time
Limitations
Pitchers:
· Games Started: >29 actual = 3 CIBL playoffs, 20-29
actual = 2 CIBL playoffs, 10-19 actual = 1
CIBL playoffs, <10 starts actual = unavailable in CIBL playoffs.
· Innings: >49.2 IP actual = unlimited CIBL playoffs,
20-49.2 IP actual = (actual IP/10) CIBL
playoffs, <20 IP actual = unavailable in CIBL playoffs
Hitters:
· > 499 plate appearances actual = unlimited CIBL playoffs
· 50-499 plate appearances actual = (actual PA/15) CIBL
playoffs
· < 50 plate appearances actual = unavailable in CIBL
playoffs
· Players who meet the regular season requirements noted in
(2) & (3) above may be used without
limit against that handed pitcher. For all others, LHB/RHB plate
appearances vs either handed
pitcher by a factor of 10 rounded down shall not exceed actual PA/10
(Amended 2022)
Amendment added
August 2014:
A pitcher must pitch at least 10 innings during the regular CIBL
season for the team that wants to use that
pitcher in the postseason. A batter must have at least 50 plate
appearances during the regular CIBL
season for the team that wants to use that batter in the postseason.
These minimums apply to the period
the player has spent on the team's roster since acquisition. Players
who are released or traded away and
then re-acquired must meet these minimums after their most recent
addition to the roster.
Injuries will be cleared between playoff rounds.
Maximum roster size is
26 to be specified at the start of each playoff series. Players may
be brought up in
case of injury, however.
After the Season
Each year, teams will be allowed to protect up to 25 players. All
players who did not get at least 50% of
their actual plate appearances or innings pitched will be waived
(except as in #11 and #12 above).
Trades are allowed freely after the World Series is over through the
20 th week of the following season.
After the new season disk is available, owners should start
preparing for the next draft that will be run
typically in mid-January each year. The exact date will be set by
the Commissioner at least a month in
advance.
The draft will be run by
the Commissioner or his designee. Draft position will be in reverse
order of
unadjusted final winning percentage. Ties will be broken by a
random selection method of the
Commissioner’s choice. The draft will consist of 15 rounds with a
supplemental round, if necessary, to
allow owners to complete a 40 player roster. Owners may make
selections until they have reached a 40
player limit. However, owners may drop players at any time to
remain below the limit in order to continue
to make selections.
Clarification on
handling roster limits during the draft: Picks can be made up until
that team’s roster
reaches the 40-player limit. Players may be released from the roster
PRIOR to the start of a round by
sending a league-wide email, with any released players going into
the draft pool starting with that round.
Once the round officially begins, the release of players does not go
into effect until the next round with the
team releasing the player(s) not eligible to pick in that round if
at their roster max. Draft picks can be
traded during a round to get back under the 40-player limit. (Added
2019)
After each season (and
perhaps during the season as well) there will most likely be issues
each owner
will be required to vote upon. Suggestions for items to be voted
upon may be submitted to the
Commissioner at any time. At the Commissioner's discretion, these
items may then be submitted for
vote. Passage requires a 2/3 majority of votes cast. Owners may
submit their abstinence when asked to
vote. Owners not responding may be subject to disciplinary action up
to and including dismissal.