2020 Rule Changes

December 02, 2019, 02:50:04 PM

We have modified the promotion requirements for minor league players. Batters will still require 130 Abs to be promoted and any pitcher who has started a game in his first 25 IP will still require 50 IP before promotion, but if a pitcher ends the season with more than 25 IP, but has not started a game, he will need to be promoted during that off-season. This rule change would only have an impact on minor league relief pitchers.
We clarified the language of the home team discount (“HTD”) to confirm that the HTD applies to both rookies and free agents who spent all of their current contract with one team. In addition, we clarified that the HTD can be awarded to players who previously held a 3 year contract and who are then signed to both a 1 or 2 year contract. This is purely a clarification and does not change anything in how the league has operated.
We clarified the language of the home team discount (“HTD”) to confirm that the HTD applies to both rookies and free agents who spent all of their current contract with one team. In addition, we clarified that the HTD can be awarded to players who previously held a 3 year contract and who are then signed to both a 1 or 2 year contract. This is purely a clarification and does not change anything in how the league has operated.
We clarified the language of arbitration to confirm that players on ARB 1 or ARB 2 contracts must be extended before free agency or be lost to free agency and that players on Rookie contracts can be extended anytime up until the first day of the season. This is purely a clarification and does not change anything in how the league has operated.
We’ve removed all express reference to penalties in the rulebook and instead stated that the CO will employ penalties on a case-by-case basis. Penalties have been very rare in MSB history and we felt that such a long section on penalties in the rulebook was unnecessary. Basically teams and owners have been willing to resolve any rules violations immediately.
We clarified the language on the minor league draft as follows:
- We are lifting the transaction freeze and now will implement transactions once per week.
- In a nod to the many owners on the east coast, we are changing the draft timer from 11 am – 9 pm PST to 8 am – 8 pm PST.
- We are modifying the amount of time an owner has to make a pick. Round 1 will remain untimed, rounds 2 through 4 will be 2 hours per team and rounds 5 onward are 1 hour.
We clarified the language of the PTL to make it clear that when a batter hits his platoon split PTL, his batting performance will be adjusted to that of a replacement level batter for that platoon split only. This is purely a clarification in our rules and does not have any practical impact within DMB.

Additionally, both Kyle and Rod will be proposing 3 additional rules changes that we wanted to discuss with the league. These will include:

Implementing in-season free agency to allow owners to supplement their teams and help address any PTL issues.
Increasing the HTD to 15%.
Splitting the minor league draft into two drafts targeting first year draft and international draft players into one and everyone else into another.