Unrestricted Free Agency Guidelines

[Toronto Blue Jays GM (Ashley)]

Unrestricted Free Agency starts Monday January 20th and will conclude the week of August 24th, 2020.

NOTE: Teams will be restricted to TWO players only to be posted for bids in weeks one and two. After that, no restrictions apply on players submitted for bids. With 30 teams, that is sixty players that could be posted each week to start UFA. lol.

Rules for UFA:

Unrestricted Free Agency
-Unrestricted Free Agency begins immediately after the Restricted Free Agency period and last throughout the rest of the off-season and the entire regular season up until the Trade Deadline.

-Unrestricted Free Agents must have their name posted as up-for-bid in the Free Agent section of the Proboards site before you may bid on them. After the player is posted as up-for-bid, all 30 teams have the right to bid on the player with nobody having the option to match the winning bid. Unrestricted Free Agents always go to the highest legal bid.

-Unrestricted Free Agency always runs from Monday through Sunday, with teams allowed to announce players as up-for-bid Monday thru Wednesday, and bidding remaining open to all 30 teams thru Friday. Results of the bidding will be announced over the weekend.

-In Unresticted Free Agency, you must follow these guidelines when bidding:

-$0.4M Average Annual Salary-Contract can be no more than two years in length
-$0.5-$0.7 Average Annual Salary-Contract can be no more than three years in length
$0.8+-Contract can be anywhere from one to six years in length

Note:Minors or players with PP years remaining can have a .4PP bid submitted. The .4 bid must be bid as ".4PP" in order to be valid.

Blind Bidding
-All free agency in Gopher Ball Dynasty League is done by blind bidding. When a team wants to bid on a player, they send a Private Message to the MLBPA account of the Proboards site. All bids remain sealed (unopened) until after the period has closed.

-When submitting a bid, the following information should always be included in order for the bid to be legal:

-Your team name and the player's name you are bidding on
-Number of years of the contract's and total money offered
-Average Annual Salary ("AAS")
-Submit bid to the tenths (bids not submitted to the tenths are invalid)

-Use of priority lists are recommended to prevent going over the salary cap by winning more bids than expected. If by accident a team wins bids totaling more than their salary cap within reason (within $5.0M of their cap), they will have 72 hours to get under the cap or will forfeit winning bids until they fall under the cap. If team grossly exceeds their cap by winning bids (exceeding greater than $5.0M their cap), they immediately forfeit winning bids until they fall under the cap.

Example:Red Sox offer Player A:
5 year contract worth $48.5M
AAS: $9.7M

-The year-by-year breakdown of the contract will be announced by the winning GM after the winning bids are announced.

-The winning bid is determined by highest Average Annual Salary offered. If there is a tie in AAS, the team which offered the highest AAS and the most years wins the player. If there is still a tie after that, the team that offered the contract first wins the player.

Gopherball UFA Contracts
-The following restrictions apply to both Restricted and Unrestricted free agency contracts:

- Year one of the contract must be at least AAS or higher
- The highest single year salary of a contract may not exceed AAS times 2.
- The lowest single year salary of a contract may not be less than 40% of AAS. (Exception to 40% floor is if in rounding down it drops below 40%, i.e. a 1.1 AAS bid has 40% floor of .44, and you are allowed to round down to .4)

[Minnesota Twins GM (Aaron)]

Need a accurate list of avail UFAs, Sheets and Trax are not. thanks

[Washington Nationals GM (Cam)]

Jan 18, 2020 15:56:14 GMT -5 Toronto Blue Jays GM (Ashley) said:

Unrestricted Free Agency starts Monday January 20th and will conclude the week of August 24th, 2020.

NOTE: Teams will be restricted to TWO players only to be posted for bids in weeks one and two. After that, no restrictions apply on players submitted for bids. With 30 teams, that is sixty players that could be posted each week to start UFA. lol.

Rules for UFA:

Unrestricted Free Agency
-Unrestricted Free Agency begins immediately after the Restricted Free Agency period and last throughout the rest of the off-season and the entire regular season up until the Trade Deadline.

-Unrestricted Free Agents must have their name posted as up-for-bid in the Free Agent section of the Proboards site before you may bid on them. After the player is posted as up-for-bid, all 30 teams have the right to bid on the player with nobody having the option to match the winning bid. Unrestricted Free Agents always go to the highest legal bid.

-Unrestricted Free Agency always runs from Monday through Sunday, with teams allowed to announce players as up-for-bid Monday thru Wednesday, and bidding remaining open to all 30 teams thru Friday. Results of the bidding will be announced over the weekend.

-In Unresticted Free Agency, you must follow these guidelines when bidding:

-$0.4M Average Annual Salary-Contract can be no more than two years in length
-$0.5-$0.7 Average Annual Salary-Contract can be no more than three years in length
$0.8+-Contract can be anywhere from one to six years in length

Note:Minors or players with PP years remaining can have a .4PP bid submitted. The .4 bid must be bid as ".4PP" in order to be valid.

Blind Bidding
-All free agency in Gopher Ball Dynasty League is done by blind bidding. When a team wants to bid on a player, they send a Private Message to the MLBPA account of the Proboards site. All bids remain sealed (unopened) until after the period has closed.

-When submitting a bid, the following information should always be included in order for the bid to be legal:

-Your team name and the player's name you are bidding on
-Number of years of the contract's and total money offered
-Average Annual Salary ("AAS")
-Submit bid to the tenths (bids not submitted to the tenths are invalid)

-Use of priority lists are recommended to prevent going over the salary cap by winning more bids than expected. If by accident a team wins bids totaling more than their salary cap within reason (within $5.0M of their cap), they will have 72 hours to get under the cap or will forfeit winning bids until they fall under the cap. If team grossly exceeds their cap by winning bids (exceeding greater than $5.0M their cap), they immediately forfeit winning bids until they fall under the cap.

Example:Red Sox offer Player A:
5 year contract worth $48.5M
AAS: $9.7M

-The year-by-year breakdown of the contract will be announced by the winning GM after the winning bids are announced.

-The winning bid is determined by highest Average Annual Salary offered. If there is a tie in AAS, the team which offered the highest AAS and the most years wins the player. If there is still a tie after that, the team that offered the contract first wins the player.

Gopherball UFA Contracts
-The following restrictions apply to both Restricted and Unrestricted free agency contracts:

- Year one of the contract must be at least AAS or higher
- The highest single year salary of a contract may not exceed AAS times 2.
- The lowest single year salary of a contract may not be less than 40% of AAS. (Exception to 40% floor is if in rounding down it drops below 40%, i.e. a 1.1 AAS bid has 40% floor of .44, and you are allowed to round down to .4)

Noticed the shoutbox messages. I'm not Aaron, but bids are restricted here, where I have this "guideline" in bold. Somehow the other owners that posted players to bid where able to stay within the guidelines. 

[Toronto Blue Jays GM (Ashley)]

That guideline is an addition or request on my part, not part of the rules, which I posted as Rules for UFA beneath it in bold letters. I can see how it could be misinterpreted and perhaps it should have been posted in its own thread as a request, not mandatory.

[Minnesota Twins GM (Aaron)]

I guess make it a rule, or not, I know in other years it was 3 max as a rule. Not grey things, we have tons of NEW GMs so this confuses them, just my opinion. Washington is not the only one confused....So is 3 the MAX or 2?

thanks Ash for your reply and hard work!