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2024-01)
[effective immediately]

Modify section 4.3 (Free Agent Signings) to allow teams to request a 
special exemption that will preserve their free agent priority.

from:
In the case of a conflict between teams attempting to sign the same free 
agent, the player will be assigned to teams by the following priority:

    1) Teams not on probation who have reported their home results from 
the most recent week of play and have no other outstanding results or box 
scores, in reverse order of winning percentage.

    2) Teams not on probation but with outstanding results or boxscores 
(even if an extension has been granted), in reverse order of winning 
percentage.

    3) Teams on probation, in reverse order of winning percentage.

to:
In the case of a conflict between teams attempting to sign the same free 
agent, the player will be assigned to teams by the following priority:

    1) Teams not on probation who have reported their home results from
the most recent week of play (or have been approved for a special exemption)
and have no other outstanding results or box scores, in reverse order of
winning percentage.  An exemption must be requested at least 24 hours
before the Monday results deadline, and can only be requested if extraordinary
factors prevent the games from being played on time.  Approval is at the
Commissioner's discretion.

    2) Teams not on probation but with outstanding results or boxscores 
(even if an extension has been granted), in reverse order of winning 
percentage.

    3) Teams on probation, in reverse order of winning percentage.


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2024-02)
[effective for 2025 season]

Add a new paragraph/section under 2.1.7 (Injuries and Suspensions):

During the regular season, when rolling a player injury, if a player's 
card has DL days above 0 and he has already served as many or more than 
his DL days, modify his durability rating by adding 4, with a maximum 
adjusted value of 7.

[rationale]
Many owners have expressed frustration at injury prone players having to 
serve multiple long injuries, missing far more days than they did in MLB.
This change will still allow the possibility of additional injuries, even
another long injury, but make them less likely and usually less severe.


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2024-03)
[effective for 2025 season]

Add a new section (3.7 is Pitcher Fatigue and Rest):

3.7.XX Fatigue Limit

A pitcher may face a maximum of 9 batters while fatigued and then must 
be removed, unless no other pitchers are available.

[reasoning]
This will still allow owners the flexibility to get a pitcher extra usage, 
or eat a couple innings to save the bullpen, but prevent some of the more
ridiculous situations like a bad pitcher being left in to get destroyed 
for the whole game.  This would never be allowed to occur in a real game, 
it is an exploit of our usage requirements, and it results in ugly blowouts.


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2024-04)
[effective for 2025 season]

Change the maximum usage of a player eligible to be kept from 133% to 125%.

Changes 4.4 (Player Releases)

from:
Owners may release from their roster any player who has not exceeded his
133% usage from opening day until the Newsletter following the trade deadline.

to:
Owners may release from their roster any player who has not exceeded his
125% usage from opening day until the Newsletter following the trade deadline.

Changes 4.5.2 (Usage Requirements)

from:
Every player must accrue IBL usage of at least 75% (3/4) but no more
than 133% (4/3) of their usage in the previous MLB season.

to:
Every player must accrue IBL usage of at least 75% (3/4) but no more
than 125% (5/4) of their usage in the previous MLB season.

Changes 4.5.4 (Usage Caps)

from: 
Players may continue to participate during the regular season despite
exceeding their 133% usage limitation, but a player may not exceed 150%.
Failure to comply with this rule shall result in forfeiture of any games
in which a player participated while exceeding 150% usage.

to:
Players may continue to participate during the regular season despite
exceeding their 125% usage limitation, but a player may not exceed 150%.
Failure to comply with this rule shall result in forfeiture of any games
in which a player participated while exceeding 150% usage.


[rationale]
It makes more sense for the required usage range to be plus or minus 25%
rather than having different limits above and below.  In the case of
starting pitchers, allowing them to go 33% above MLB usage is excessive, as
a pitcher who went 210 innings in real life can now go 280 innnings in the
IBL, which is an enormous and unrealistic workload which is much different
than 210 innings.  This would mitigate that a little and reduce the abuse 
of other good pitcher cards as well, possibly helping offense a little in
our current historically low offense environment.


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2024-05)
[effective for 2025 season]

Change Rule 3.5 (Extra Starts)

from:
Any player entering the game prior to the sixth inning, unless replacing
a player who has been injured or ejected, or relieving a fatigued
pitcher, or relieving a pitcher when the opposing team has not scored
five runs shall be considered as using one of the player's starts at the
position which he enters.  If a position player enters to replace a
player who has been injured or ejected enters at a different position
and necessitates other players to shift positions, none of the players
shall be charged with the extra start.

to:
Any position player entering the field prior to the sixth inning, unless
replacing a player who has been injured or ejected, shall be considered
as using one of the player's starts at the position which he enters.
If a position player enters to replace a player who has been injured or
ejected enters at a different position and necessitates other players to
shift positions, none of the players shall be charged with the extra start. 

Any pitcher entering the game during the first 18 batters shall be
considered as using one of the pitcher's starts, with the following
exceptions:
*   relieving a pitcher who is fatigued
*   relieving after the opposing team has scored five runs
*   relieving in a game where the starting pitcher was forced to be
    removed due to injury or ejection


[rationale]  This rule reflects changes in the modern game where it is no
longer unusual to see a manager remove the SP before they have completed five
innings.  The cutoff of 18 is reciprocal with the BF required to qualify
as a "start" for limits.

This also addresses an issue with the current rules where if you lose the SP
early and bring in a true RP you can be forced to pitch him past his 0-day
rest cutoff (if RP BF is greater).  With this rule change if you lose the SP
early due to injury/ejection you can use your bullpen however you want.

Note: this purposefully does not modify the post-season rules governing the
use of SP. (see 3.3.5)


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2024-06)
[effective for 2025 season]

Change wording in Rule 3.2.3
(Game Appearance and Starting Position Limitations)

from:
A pitcher may not start more than twice the number of games started in
the previous major league season.  Relief appearances of 18 batters or
more will be considered a start when calculating the limitation.

to:
All pitchers will be allowed to start one game per season.  The maximum
number of IBL starts will be twice the number of games the pitcher started
in the previous MLB season.  Relief appearances of 18 batters or more will
be considered a start when calculating the limitation.


Change wording in Rule 3.7.1 (Starting Pitchers)

from:
A pitcher must have a BF SP fatigue rating in order to start a regular
season game.  Pitchers without this rating may only start in the event
that weather (or other circumstances) caused postponements resulting in
no other rested pitcher with a BF SP fatigue rating being available.  In
this case, the pitcher must start the game using his fatigue (italicized)
numbers.  If the pitcher remains in the game after exceeding his BF RP
fatigue limit he must use the Emergency Pitcher card.

to:
Any pitcher may start a game as long as they have starts remaining.  A
starting pitcher who does not have a SP fatigue rating shall use his
RP fatigue rating when starting.


[rationale]  Again this reflects changes in the modern game.  At this
point we frequently have RP starting MLB games and there's nothing special
about the guys who do it.  If you have the need for a "bullpen game" you should
be able to start whoever you want, rather than only RP who did it in MLB.

This also has the side benefit of making it more difficult to run into
an illegal roster problem due to lack of SP. It also fixes a current issue
where the Constitution assumes that a pitcher who has no SP fatigue rating has
no legal IBL starts.  This is no longer the case as we consider MLB relief
appearances of 18+ BF to be MLB starts.  At this point forcing a RP-only pitcher
to use fatigue numbers is obsolete.


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2024-07)
[effective for 2025 season]

Change wording in Rule 3.2.3
(Game Appearance and Starting Position Limitations)

after:
A player may start at any position at which he played during the previous 
major league season. Players with fewer than 24 games played at a position 
may not start more than twice the number of games played at that position. 
Players with 24 or more games played at that position may start the 
greater of the total number of games played or twice the number of games 
played at that position.

add:
For the purposes of tracking IBL starts the corner outfield positions of 
left field (LF) and right field (RF) will be considered the same.  Players
will receive the same number of starts at both positions (LF/RF).  Each game
started at LF or RF will expend a start at both positions (max 1 per game).

Corner outfielders with at least 24 games played at one position (LF/RF)
will be allowed to start the greater of the total number of games played
or twice the number of games at the most frequently played corner position
plus the number of games at the opposite position.  Otherwise, corner outfield
starts are limited to twice the number of games at the most frequently played
corner position.


[rationale]  MLB teams generally use corner outfielders interchangably,
IBL teams should have the same flexibility.  Corner outfield would 
become be a single position for the purposes of starts.  A player
will still need 24+ games at a corner OF position in order to be
playoff eligible.

examples:
player A - 110 games, 100 games in LF, 1 in RF
old rule: 200 LF starts, 2 RF starts
new rule: 201 corner starts

player B - 100 games, 60 in LF, 25 in RF
old rule: 120 LF starts, 100 RF starts
new rule: 145 corner starts (2x60 + 25)


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2024-08)
[effective for 2025 season]

Add new Rule:

3.2.7	Concurrent Injuries

Players who have overlapping injuries during the regular season serve
those injury days concurrently.  Only a single day of injury credit is 
accrued on overlapping injury days.


[rationale]  There's actually nothing in the Constitution about how to 
handle this, but a decision was made a long time ago when everything was
tracked manually that injuries had to be served sequentially because 
injury days were being aggregated.  Everything is automated now, so it
is possible to modify the code to have injury days served concurrently
and correctly calculate injury credit.


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2024-09)
[effective for 2025 season]

Change wording in Rule 4.6.1 (Draft Order)

from:
By November 30, the Commissioner will send the draft order for the free
agent draft to all league members. The order of the IBL Draft shall be
determined by playoff appearances in the prior three seasons. Within
each of the four tiers (0 appearances, 1 appearance, 2 appearances, 3
appearances), the initial order will be randomly determined. Drafting
order in additional rounds will be in the inverse order from the round
before it.

to:
By November 30, the Commissioner will send the draft order for the free
agent draft to all league members. The order of the IBL Draft shall be
determined by appearances in the Division Series of the playoffs.
Within each of the four tiers (0 appearances, 1 appearance, 2 appearances,
3 appearances), the initial order will be randomly determined. Drafting
order in additional rounds will be in the inverse order from the round
before it.


[rationale]  The wild card teams are at a significant disadvantage to 
the division winners (by design).  This change means that only the winner
of the wild card series is considered a "playoff team" for purposes of
draft tiers.  This seems more fair as only the wild card winner was really
on equal footing with the three division winners.

Note: This is written to be effective in 2025 because some teams might have
made different roster decisions for 2024 had this rule been in effect
at the start of the season.


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2024-10)
[effective for 2025 season]

Change wording in Rule 3.2.2 (Inactive Roster)

from:
Each team may carry an inactive roster. The active and inactive rosters
are not to total more than 36 players.

to:
Each team may carry an inactive roster. The active and inactive rosters
are not to total more than 36 players.  Players on Injured Reserve do not 
count against this roster limit.

Add new Rule 3.2.3 (and renumber subsequent 3.2.x rules)

3.2.3	Injured Reserve

An injured player may be placed on Injured Reserve (IR) if:
*   they had at least 150 MLB plate appearances (PA) as a batter OR
    at least 150 MLB batters faced (BF) as a pitcher
*   the length of their injury could cause them to miss games in at least
    five IBL weeks subsequent to placement on IR

Players on Injured Reserve (IR) are ineligible to be placed on the active
or post-season roster, and are subject to the following restrictions:
*   they must remain on IR until the subsequent off-season
*   they may not be traded until the subsequent off-season
*   they may not be released until week 8 of the following IBL season
*   players placed on IR the previous season are subject to the same
    rules as players who were uncarded the previous season (see 3.1.2)


[rationale]  This would help teams that suffer long-term injuries deal with 
a potential roster crunch, so they do not have to release players in order to
maintain a legal roster and/or absorb usage.  The playing time and injury 
length requirements are there to ensure it is a significant injury to a player
who is consequential for usage. The restrictions exist in order to have
trade-offs for gaining the benefit of an additional roster spot, so that IR
isn't reflexively used to speculatively stash free agents.


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