League Rules

KEEPER CONTRACT CHART
• You have three options when signing players: 1, 2 and 3-year deals. You must keep at least 1 pitcher and at least 1 hitter as part of your three main keeper contracts.  
• If you want to cut or re-sign a player after X number of years, this is the guide as to what will happen as far as being penalized via the draft.
• The draft pick you will lose is your pick after the three keepers are selected in the draft (so the number in parenthesis is the true round number when we are drafting on Yahoo)

	cut after year 1	cut after year 2
3-YEAR CONTRACT	1st pick (4th rd.)	3rd pick (6th rd.)
	cut after year 1	re-sign for final year
2-YEAR CONTRACT	3rd pick (6th rd.)	5th pick (8th rd.)
	re-sign to 1 year	re-sign to 2 years
1-YEAR CONTRACT	3rd pick (6th rd.)	4th pick (7th rd.)
	cut after year 1
re-signed after 1 year for 2 years	3rd pick (6th rd.)
	re-sign for final year
re-signed after year 1 for 1 year	3rd pick (6th rd.)

WILDCARD KEEPER RULES:
• It is optional.
• It can be a pitcher or hitter
• If you choose to add a wildcard keeper, you lose the draft pick in the round you drafted that keeper for as many years as you keep him (max 3). So if you drafted Cole Hamels in the 4th round, and you designate him as your wildcard keeper for two years, you lose your 4th round pick for two years.
• If you keep an undrafted player who you picked up off the waiver wire, you lose your 23rd round draft pick in Year 1, 16th round pick in Year 2, 9th round pick in Year 3, depending on how many years you keep him.
• If you keep someone who was drafted by another team but then cut and picked up by yourself, it goes by the round the player was drafted in.
• Once you designate someone as your wildcard keeper, he is locked into that spot. For example, he can’t be swapped with a different keeper on your team the following offseason.
• Trading and transaction rules apply to wildcard keepers the same as regular keepers. You can only trade a wildcard for a wildcard, and all re-signing/cutting rules apply as they do to regular keepers.
• It goes into effect beginning in the 2015 offseason, so the 2014 draft matters for this.

RULES ON TRADING KEEPERS:
• If you trade a keeper in-season, you: lose your 8th (11th round) draft pick. 
• If you trade a keeper off-season, you lose your 15th (18th round) draft pick. You can not "dump" an expiring keeper via an off-season trade. Draft picks are allowed in off-season keeper trades, which can take place any time before the draft begins.

CUTTING INJURED KEEPERS IN-SEASON
Keepers can not be cut during the season unless they die or retire. Period. Keepers are special players in this league and should be treated as such. You get to benefit from having and building your team around the same star power from year to year, and you have to take the lumps if that star power gets hurt. So that's the new rule. No in-season injury exemptions on keepers. Go join a non-keeper league if you don't like it. 

UPDATE 6/30/17: If you cut a keeper who hasn't died or retired in season, you lose an 11th round draft pick and the commissioner will manually add him back onto your team.

CUTTING INJURED KEEPERS OFF-SEASON
Keepers with 1 or 2 years remaining on their contracts who are known to be out until at least July of the following season (the halfway point) due to an injury can be cut on an injury scale. 1 year remaining = 7th (10th round) draft pick; 2 years remaining = 5th (8th round) draft pick. The "offseason" for this rule is defined as up until the very end of our keeper declaration period (usually the first week in February). Therefore, if your keeper gets hurt in spring training, you're stuck with him. Period.


 
****

ORIGINAL RULES, 2007-2012
-A keeper cannot be cut in-season unless there is a mitigating circumstance (see below) where you will appeal to the league for a "circumstance cut."

-Keepers do not lose their contracts if they are traded.

-You must always have three keepers on your roster at once (mitigating circumstances, withstanding).

-Players have a maximum three-year cycle of not being in the draft pool, so if you keep a player for two years and trade him at the trade deadline of his second year on your roster, the receiving manager may only keep him for ONE more year if he chooses to do so.

-Every year you will declare new keepers, as long as you have open contracts

-If you cut/re-sign two or more players with the same contract length, you will lose a consecutive draft pick(s) after the stated one.

Mitigating circumstances:
-The ONLY mitigating circumstances include:
-If a player decides to leave mid-season OR end of the season and play elsewhere (e.g. Japan).
-If a player retires during mid-season play (you are NOT PROTECTED if a player decides to retire at the end of the season).
-If a player is arrested and must incur jail time mid-season OR end of the season.
-If a player sustains an injury that requires him to miss AT LEAST 7 months of a calendar year for surgery and rehabilitation.

NOTE: To determine the extent of a player's injury, the league will ONLY use ESPN as its source, being as ESPN and its affiliated networks provide the most comprehensive and unbiased judgment. However, if in the odd circumstance that ESPN reports an injury to be for a certain period of time, and within two weeks alters the injury's extent and therefore the timetable for return, an owner may re-appeal to the league in which time the league will enter a two-week discovery period in order to allow rumors and other conflicting stories to surface and be settled. At the end of the two-week discovery period, the league will determine whether the owner has a case or not. An owner may appeal on a player's behalf only once per injury per year. Therefore, if a player undergoes a similar or different injury in future years, the owner may then again appeal on the player's behalf.