Prepping for the start of Winter Acquisitions!

Winter Acquisitions will start at exactly 2pm Pacific time (5pm Eastern time) today. The Free Agent list will be posted at exactly that time on a new Free Agent page that will be listed on the left-hand side. On the page, there will be an image that shows the entire list of waived free agents and other eligible free agents whose O-Rank is 200 or better. By all means, you're welcome to nominate other players who are free agents, I just don't have them listed.

For final clarification, there are 2 possible ways to acquire waived free agents and 1 possible way to acquire other eligible free agents.

Waived Free Agents

1. Every waived free agent will include an "asking price". This is either his contract price from last year or his extended contract price, whichever is higher. If you are satisfied with this price, you will email me at iltat@yahoo.com immediately to claim that player for that amount. Think of this as the Buy It Now option from Ebay. If no one else tries to bid on that player, then you may have overpaid. However, this is the only way to guarantee you can get that player. These will be processed on a first come/first served basis after 2-12 hours (to ensure no one's email gets hung up and is slow arriving). You send me this email at 3am, expect the 12 hour end of the spectrum.
2. Every waived free agent can also be bid on like a regular auction format. If you think that Babe Ruth won't have his asking price of $92 met because he's quite dead, then feel free to bid $22 on him instead. The high auction price in any given 8 hour period will be shown on the free agent page as well, though the team that holds that bid will not be indicated. If there's a tie, the first bid for that amount received will be shown and the latecomers will be notified by email. This auction will end one of a couple ways. First, if anyone ever bids the asking price, the auction will immediately end and the other competitors will not have a chance to go higher. Again, this will work on a first come/first served basis, so if you think that's where the auction's headed and you really, really want the player, you'd probably rather be proactive than lose out. Secondly, after a period of 2 weeks real time, I will email all owners who had submitted a bid on that player to let them know what the current high bid is and let them know the auction will end in exactly 24 hours. All owners who receive that email will have the opportunity to submit one final bid and the player will be awarded on a first come/first served basis to the high bidder or on the basis that someone met the asking price. 

Other Eligible Free Agents

1. Every other eligible free agent must be bid on like a regular auction format. They have no asking price, so this will be a pure auction. The high auction price in any given 8 hour period will be shown on the free agent page as well, though the team that holds that bid will not be indicated. If there's a tie, the first bid for that amount received will be shown and the latecomers will be notified by email. After a period of 2 weeks real time, I will email all owners who had submitted a bid on that player to let them know what the current high bid is and let them know the auction will end in exactly 24 hours. All owners who receive that email will have the opportunity to submit one final bid and the player will be awarded on a first come/first served basis to the high bidder.

Note that if 2 weeks pass on any of these auctions and only one person has placed a bid, the player will be automatically awarded to that owner. Also, we will be having a cutoff date for auctions in late March. The date isn't set in stone, but that will end auctions at that point and I'll address it later on.

Also, at no time are you allowed to have more money out in bids than you have available. I don't care if you're just bumping up dead Babe's price a buck and know you won't get him, I will be tracking your amount and will not allow such a bid.

Everyone's lineup page will be updated with a lineup card that will initially contain all of your current kept roster, what positions each player qualifies at, what positions you're missing (note that if someone qualified at C/1B and you didn't have another C or 1B, I just put them in as a C...same goes for if they qualified at LF/RF, etc. If someone can move between positions, then feel free to move them.), their salaries and contracts, and your overall salary and available funds. As you acquire players, I will add them to your lineup card and update it (same 2-12 hour schedule as updating high bids).

Also, once the free agent list goes live, you can make trades. I know a few folks are itching to get some of those done, so knock yourself out then. Just have both owners email me the details of the trade, should you get one done. Note that you cannot actually trade auction funds (though if you trade someone who is $20 for someone who is $1, I will change your available funds to reflect that). Basically, you just can't trade Ruth at $97 plus $30 and a handjob for your dog for Gehrig at $1. Well, I guess there's no real way for me to regulate the canine sexual favors, but the money thing is out of bounds. Please minimize the bestiality.

Anyway, I think that covers just about everyone for now. Should you have any further questions, feel free to email me as I'll be around all day. Also, don't bother refreshing pages in hopes I let the free agent list slip early. I'm one dude with a blog website, not the Warren Commission and Congress.

The Beginning of the 2012 Season

Welcome to the new Animalia Champions League homepage. It may not be the greatest, but it should work nicely for our winter acquisitions. This is how it will work:

1) Your keeper and contract extension decisions are due by 12am PST on February 16th. Should you not submit them by then, all your players from last season will be kept without having any of their contracts extended. Should that put you over the salary cap of $260, I will extend contracts on your most expensive players whose contracts would decline until the salary cap is reached. If that doesn't get you there, then I will start dropping players until your salary is brought in line.

2) Once keeper decisions are submitted, I will update everyone's roster page and contract info and include a free agent page that will feature all those players that have been released outright and their contract asking price (what they were set to be paid for an extension or last year's salary, whichever is higher). As of that point, free agent acquisitions can be made. EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: All players who were not on a roster at the end of last season do not have an asking price and will only be able to be attained during Winter Acquisitions by way of an auction. These players will NOT be listed on the free agent page as there are thousands of such players. Instead, the only ones listed on the free agent page are those that have an asking price. However, should someone initiate bidding on a player who was not on a roster at the end of last season, the bidding will be reflected on the page of current free agents that are being bid upon.

3) Free agent acquisitions can be made one of two ways:

1. If a team meets a free agent's requested contract price, the player will sign with that team immediately (first come, first serve). 
2. If a team bids for a free agent at a value lower than the player's requested contract price, the offer will be publicly posted (but team name withheld). As of that point, a maximum 14-day timer begins. All other teams have 14 days to beat the offered price. At the end of the 14 days, each team that made an offer will be emailed the current bid and given a final 24-hour period to make their top bid. Top bid at the end of that 24-hour period gets the player. Again, if any of the bids meet the player's requested contract price, the bidding would immediately stop and the player would be awarded to whoever made the bid.

 If you have any questions, please let me know. Obviously, this is our first offseason doing this, so should any issues arise, we'll work them out.

EDIT: Note that all of our open teams have been claimed for this season. No additional managers are needed, please welcome the new owners of the Green Bears, Sloppy Sloths, Felix's Cats, and the yet-to-be-renamed Underlines!

Enjoy!