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Overview
You build a team by bidding on players through auction just like you would in classic fantasy or rotisserie baseball. You can sign those players to 1,2,3 or 4 year contracts depending on your league settings. In addition to hedging your bets on which players will perform the best this coming baseball season, you will be building a lineup, pitching rotation, bench and using baseball management strategies in head to head competition through our baseball simulator. Our simulator runs 6 nights a week (every night except Saturday) and actually plays the games. After the simulator runs your team will be credited with a win or loss and a complete box score/game recap will be available to look at.
 
You can sign players, release players and trade players just like you can in classic fantasy baseball. You can also manipulate lineups on a daily basis depending on pitching matchups and change managing strategies from game to game.
 
The simulator runs every night except Saturday and there are doubleheaders every Sunday starting after game 80. We can't give away everything about how the simulator works but it takes many factors into account. Lefty vs. Righty pitching/batting matchups, pitcher fatigue, speed, base running aggressiveness, ballpark factors, etc. We use over 50 different pitching and hitting statistics to determine the outcome of events.
 
YOU MUST LOGIN ONCE EVERY 21 DAYS. If you fail to login for 21 days 1 of 2 things could happen:
1) At the end of the auction UBGM will automatically remove any managers that have not logged in in the last 21 days. 2) During the season, the comissioner will have the option of removing any manager that has not logged in in the last 21 days. Your team can be taken over by any other manager not already in the league.
 
Registering
To register, go to the register link on the main UBGM homepage. It is free to register. You will choose a login and password and put a valid email address in for verification purposes.
 
After you click the "next" button, UBGM will email you a confirmation number to the email address you used in step 1. Put your login, password and the confirmation ID sent to you in the email in the appropriate boxes on step 2.
 
Click next and you are done.
 
You can join up to 5 different leagues however you may only have one team in each league.
 
Joining a League / Creating a League
You now have the option of joining a public league or creating your own private league.
 
Joining a League
Go to the join/create a league at the bottom right corner of the UBGM home page. **Note you must be logged in to see this link**
On the join league page choose the type of league you want to join. The general rules for all of the league types are the same. Read the descriptions of the league on the join league page to determine which league type you want to join. If you want to join a private league you must know the league ID and league password of the league. Click on the "find a league" link and you will see a list of available open leagues.
 
The next page shows you a list of all the open leagues and parameters for each league. Things like auction start date, maximum number of teams in the league, starting salary cap, player pool (AL, NL, MLB) can be different for each league. Choose the league that fits your taste and click "join".
 
On the "Build Your Team" page enter your team name and click the submit button.
Congratulations you now are UBGM team owner!!
 
Changing Your Team Name
 
To change your team name, click on either the league name or team name link in the bottom right corner of the screen. Next click on the maroon "Front Office" tab near the top of the screen. Next click on the silver "Edit Info" tab on the main toolbar. You can change your team name in the "Team Name" input box.
 
UBGM Money
****Very important If you do not read anything else read this****
The money you are given when you sign up for a team should be thought of as cash on hand and not a salary cap per se. Imagine an owner has hired you to be the GM of their team and has given $100M to spend. That's all you get. Once you run out you have to live with your team...

It's just like real life where you might sign a guy and then he performs terribly (or gets injured) so you really don't want him anymore. The salary is guaranteed even if you release a player.

Once you win a player at auction, he is added to your roster and you pay that player's entire yearly salary.
You cannot drop a player and recover their salary. For example if you have a player you signed for $5 million and you drop that player you WILL NOT get that money back if you pick up a cheaper player off the free agent list. You already paid the $5 million and will be charged $300,000 to pick up the free agent.

You will get an additional $3 million added to your account when the auction closes so you can pick up some free agents.

There is only one other way to get cash during the year. You can trade another manager for a player plus cash. For instance, you could trade once of your starters to a team for a bench player and a couple million in cash.
 
Auction Tab
Each manager is given cash based on the league settings. The standard amount is $100 million. You will need to fill an entire starting lineup, pitching rotation, bullpen and bench players with this money. In addition you will probably want to keep some money to sign free agents or to make trades during the year.
To get to the auction section, click on the maroon "Auction" tab at the top of the screen.
 
Nominating a Player
Any player who is a free agent in your league is eligible to be purchased in the auction. If it is your league's first year in the UBGM or you play in a single season league all players will be available.
 
After thousands of hours of pondering what to call our auction, we came up the ever so creative "eboy". If you have ever done any type of online auction you will probably be pretty familiar with this type of auction.
 
Here is how it works:
•   The overall auction starts and ends on the date specified by your league commissioner. You can check this in the "league settings" page o f the "league" section. An auction can be as long as a month or as short as 1 day.
•   Each manager can have as many "open nominations" as your league settings allow. This can be as low as 3 or as many as 25. You can check the "League Settings" page under the "League" section to find out how many this is.
•   A "nomination" simply means you are the first manager to bid on that particular player.
•   All players that are still actively being bid on are considered "open" and count to your maximum number of nominations. Any players where the bidding is closed are no longer counted to your maximum nominations.
•   Maximum Roster Size is 25.
•   When a player is nominated the system will determine closing date of that player. Players always close on Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday at 8pm PST and must be open for at least 2.5 days. The only other time bidding can end is at 8pm PST on the last day of your league's auction.
•   The auction auto processor runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday night (and the last night of your auction). If the bidding deadline has ended on any player in your league, the auction auto processor will add the player to the winning bidder's team. Funds will immediately be deducted from that team's account.
•   Each player can only be on one team in any given league.
•   You may bid on as many players as you wish as long as you can cover the cost of the bid and can still field a team of 25 players.
•   Just because your league has set the maximum nominations to 5 does not mean you can only bid on 5 players. You can only open the bidding on 5 players.
•   The minimum starting bid on a player is $300,000 or $.3 million
•   Minimum bid increments for bids under $10 million are 10% above the last bid. Minimum bid increments for bids $10 million or over are 1 million above the last bid.
•   All bids are written in millions. $500,000 is written as $.5 and $10 million is written as $10.
•   You can set a "maximum bid" on a player. For instance, you can start the bidding at $1 million for a player and set you maximum bid to $10 million. If someone else bids on the player, the auction manager compares the new bid with your original bid max. If your max bid is higher it will increase your bid to $100,000 more than the new bidders max bid. In this example if the new bid were $2 million, your bid would be increased to $2.1 million.
•   The auction manager will not allow the total of all your bids combined to go above the amount of money left in your account. This means that if you are bidding on enough players to zero out your account you will not be able to bid on any new players that come up for auction.
Auction Tips:
•   All leagues have a DH so you need 9 hitters to fill a lineup.
•   A player who pitches more innings, or has more at bats, than he has in real life will see degradation of performance. We refer to this as an "overuse penalty". The degree to which the performance is degraded has a direct correlation to the amount of innings, or at bats, that the inidivudal plays in over their actual amount.
•   The match up of the pitcher/batter lefty vs. righty, righty vs. righty, etc. has an outcome on each at bat.
•   We suggest drafting 1,500 innings and 5,600 at bats to cover a 162 game season.
 
Open Bids Page
The open bids screen shows you all bids that are currently open in your league. You can resort the bids by clicking on any of the column headers across the top. To bid on any of the players click on the "bid" link. You can edit your maximum bid by click on the "edit" link.
 
Closed Bids Page
This page shows all of the players who have already closed and have been added to their respective teams.
 
Assets Page
This page lets you see the money/roster status of all other teams in your league
Current Assets Page = the amount of money each team has left
$ Winning Bids = the monetary sum of all of the bids the team is currently winning.
Net Assets = Current Assets - $Winning Bids.
Rostered Players = The number of players currently on a team's roster.
# Winning Bids = A count of the number of players the team currently has winning bids on.
Total Players = Rostered Players + #Winning Bids.
 
Bid Sheet Page
This page is a handy way of looking at your team. It shows all of the players on your roster and all of the players you currently have winning bids on. The column on the far right shows the status of each player (rostered or bidding).
 
Conclusion of the Auction
At the conclusion of the auction, $3 million will be added to each team's account. This is enough money to make 10 free agent transactions during the year. If you have aution money left over the $3 million will be added to this amount.
 
At the conclusion of the auction the free agent waiver priority will be picked at random. Each team will be assigned a waiver prioirty number. This is the order in which waivers will be processed. (See more on this in the free agent section).
 
At the conclusion of the auction any team that has not logged in within the last 21 days will be automatically removed. Any players this team won at auction will be thrown back into the free agent pool for their final auction price.
 
Front Office Tab
 
Adding Players (Free Agents)
•   Any player not on a team at the end of the auction is considered a free agent. The only other way a player is added to the free agent list is if he is called up from the minors to the majors and was not previously on our list.
•   Free agents are only eligible for 1-year contracts. UBGM will not allow a free agent to be signed to a multi year contract.
•   If the player is a free agent because he was won at auction THIS YEAR and was subsequently dropped his buy price will be the price the original manager paid in the auction
•   All players that were not bought at auction are available for $300,000.
•   Adding a player will NOT automatically put him on your roster. When you add a player he will go into your add queue and the queue will be processed every Wednesday and Sunday night. This gives all managers a fair shot at picking up a plaer. You can put as many players as you want in your queue and you can rank the players in your queue. Here is an example:

Team 1 has waiver priority 1 and has David Ortiz and Albert Pujols in his queue. Team 2 has waiver priority 2 and also has David Ortiz and Albert Pujols in his queue. Since team 1 has a higher priority, he will get David Ortiz. Once the add is processed, Team 1 will be moved to last on the priority list. Team 2 now moves into the first priority spot and would get Albert Pujols.
•   Maximum roster size is 25 (excluding DL slots). Every time you add a player to your free agent queue, UBGM will ask you if you want to drop a player. You do not have to drop a player if your current active roster is less than 25 players. If you have more players in your queue than roster slots avaiable, UBGM will cancel the requests unless you have indicated a player to drop.
•   You cannot add players through free agency until the auction has ended.
•   Once the trade deadline has passed you will not be able to add free agents to your roster. This roster freeze on free agents is in effect until the auction concludes the following year.
Contracts Page
This page shows the contract length of every player on your roster. You will not see any players on this page until you have won them at auction. Players with one year left on their contract will become free agents at the end of the season.
** Once a player is on your roster you will be able to set the contract length for that player until the day of the first game.
** You can only change contract lengths for players won at auction this season. I.E. if you are in a carryover league you CANNOT change the contract length of players added to your team in previous years.
 
Buyouts Page
•   If you decide that you do not want a player anymore you can buyout their contract at anytime.
•   To buyout a contract go to the "Front Office" section and then go to the "buyout" page. The buyout cost is 50% of the remaining contract value. Lets suppose you sign a player for 4 years at $10 million. The first $10 million is deducted immediately after the winning bid so you would owe $30 million on the contract still. You would need to pay $15 million ($10mil x 3 years x 50%) to buyout the contract. If you are in a carryover league and it is the second year of the contract you would have to pay $10 million ($10mil x 2years x 50%).
•   The only way to get rid of a contract is to buy it out. If a player has a career ending injury, quits, retires, spends the rest of his life in AAA, etc. you are still responsible for the contract.
•   Players that will be free agents at the end of the year cost $.1 million to buyout.
•   Most buyouts will occur in the off-season. If you are in a single season league, all buyouts will cost $.1 million dollars.
 
Trades
•   You can make straight up 1 for 1 trades, 1 for many trades, or players plus cash for other players.
•   The commissioner can block a trade if he/she feels it is unfair.
•   You are not allowed to trade during the auction or between the trade deadline (as designated by your league) and the end of the season. You may trade during the year and the off-season.
•   You can propose a trade to any manager in your league. The opposing manager can accept or decline the trade proposal. Once you propose a trade the opposing manager will be emailed and the proposal will show as a link on the top of the lineups page for you and the opposing manager.
•   You can cancel your trade proposal at any time UNLESS it has already been accepted by the opposing manager.
•   If the opposing manager declines the proposal it dies.
•   If the opposing manager accepts the trade it goes to the commissioner for approval. It will also immediately show up on every other team's lineup page as an ACCEPTED trade.
•   The commissioner has 3 days to approve or block the trade. The commissioner can block the trade for any reason they feel necessary. If the commissioner APPROVES the trade or does not act on the ACCEPTED trade within 3 days…
•   Trades are executed at midnight on the day that the commissioner approves the trade or after the third day of an accepted trade that a commissioner has not acted on.
•   If you trade for a player you assume that players contract also. You cannot exceed the salary cap for your league and you cannot exceed the maximum roster size of 25 players
•   If you want to do a 2 for 1 trade that would put you over the 25 player max you will have the opportunity to drop a player as part of the trade.
 
Ineligible players
Any player that is sent to the minor leagues, is released, or is on the DL is ineligible to be put in a game. You may still carry these players on your roster if you wish.
 
Edit Info Page
From this page you can change your email address, password or team name.
You can also remove your team from the league using the "Kill This Team" link. This link is only available until the auction starts. By killing your team it will be completely removed from the league.
 
Team Tab
Lineups
The lineup page allows you to view your roster, team stats, and change your lineup.
 
The simulation engine requires that you have a valid lineup. If the lineup you submit for any given game is invalid the sim engine will "fix" your lineup for you. The sim engine is built to run the simulation and is not an all-star manager so you really should try to have a valid lineup.
 
You can set 2 different batting lineups - one to use right handed pitchers and one to use against left handed pitchers. If you need in depth help setting your lineup click on the "lineup help" link in the top right corner of the lineup page.
 
You can set your pitching rotation in the "Rotation - Pitchers" section of the page. For help and definitions of pitcher positions click on the "lineup help" link in the top right corner of the lineup page.
 
Disabled List
•   If a player is on the disabled list in real life he will be ineligible for the starting lineup. Each team has a disabled list and any player on the MLB 15 day DL or 60 day DL is eligible to be put on this list.
•   Players placed on the DL do not count toward the 25 player roster max.
•   Each team can have a max of 5 players on the DL.
•   To add a player to the DL click on the "dl" link next to the player's name.
•   The player will be added to the team disabled list and will appear below the active players list
•   To remove a player from the DL click on the "activate" link next to the players name.
 
Hitters - Starting lineup
•   If you have an invalid lineup the sim will replace the invalid player by finding the player on your bench will the highest OBP that qualifies at the position.
•   If you do not have another player that qualifies at the position the sim will add the free agent with the highest OBP that qualifies at the position.
•   If by adding a player from the free agent list your roster will exceed the 25 player limit, the sim will drop the batter on your roster with the lowest OBP.
•   If the sim has to add a player to your roster from the free agent pool you will be charged $100,000 for the transaction.
 
Pitchers - Rotation
•   If your rotation is invalid the sim will pick the pitcher on your roster will the lowest WHIP that averages over 3 IP per real life start. This keeps most relievers from being put in a starting role. If there is no player on your roster that qualifies the sim will pick the free agent will the lowest WHIP that averages over 5 IP per real life start.
•   If by adding a player from the free agent list your roster will exceed the 25 player limit, the sim will drop the pitcher on your roster with the highest WHIP.
•   If the sim has to add a player to your roster from the free agent pool you will be charged $100,000 for the transaction.
•   If your starter is valid but you do not have any valid relievers the sim will leave your starter in for the entire game.
•   You must have a 5 man rotation. If you try to start a pitcher without at least 4 games rest, the sim will replace the pitcher using the rules above.
 
Boxscore Page
This page displays a boxscore and detailed game recap for the last game played. To see games played on previous nights, change the game number in the drop down box to the right of the game summary scoreboard.
 
All Stats Page
This page displays all year to date real life player stats and UBGM fantasy stats for your roster. Real life stats are in black and UBGM fantasy stats are in red. UBGM fantasy stats are for comparison purposes only and are not used by the simulator. To view other teams, change the team name in the "Jump To" drop down box at the top right of the screen.
 
Preferences Page
• Philosophy   If you choose to wait for the long ball your stolen base attempts and bunt attempts will be lower than average. Speedy players with lots of stolen bases will have less stolen bases than their real life counterparts. The moderate, LaRussa philosophy will not add any modifiers to a players real life stats. Managers using the small ball philosophy will notice that their speedy players have more stolen bases than their real life counterparts. These players will also have a slightly lower stolen base efficiency percentage than their real life counterparts.
• Baserunning   This setting affects how likely a player is to take an extra base or try to score on a hit. The more aggressive the manager is the more likely the player will take a chance trying to score but their chance of getting thrown out also increases. With the station to station option only the speediest players will score from first base on a double or score from second on a single (assuming there are less than 2 outs).
• Pinch Hitters   This one is pretty self explanatory. You tell the sim when you want it to start trying to use pinch hitters. **Note - this only applies to players that have their pinch hit setting in the "Yes" position on the lineup screen.**
• Ballpark Effects   This can only be changed if your league has ballpark effects on AND until the day before the first game of the season. Once the season starts you will not be able to change your ballpark until the next year.
 
Shortlist Page
This screen allows you to watch a subset of players that you may want to bid on, add via free agency or trade for. You can add players to the shortlist via the "SL" link on either the auction nominate screen or the front office add players screen.
 
Schedule
This is your game by game season schedule.
 
League Tab
Standings Page
The standings page allows you to see the current standings of your league as well as the scoreboard of games from the previous day. You can click on any team name to view the boxscore/game recap for that game. To view the scoreboard for a previous day change the game number in the "Jump To" drop down box.
This screen also displays recent league messages and recent transactions including adds, drops and trades.
 
Email Page
You can use this screen to email any of the managers in your league.
 
League Leaders Page
This page shows the league leaders in your league. These numbers reflect UBGM fantasy stats NOT real life stats.
 
League Settings Page
This page shows you all of the settings for your league. Auction Start/End date, maximum teams per league, maximum nominations, starting salary caps and other info is available on this page.
 
Additional Settings for Commissioners
If you are the commissioner of your league you will be able to change any of the settings on the league settings page. You will also see the following links
• Add Commissioner   In UBGM you can have multiple commissioners in a league. This can be useful if you are going on vacation or just want to have multiple responsible people. You can add or remove a manager as a commissioner from this page.
• Remove Manager   This link will only be available for managers that have not logged in in the last 21 days. By removing a manager, you are just making the team avaiable for another manager to pick up. The team will still be in your league and will be managed by the system until another manager picks up the team.
• Manage Trades   You can approve or block a trade from this trade.
 
Considerations for Carryover Leagues
•   In a carryover league funds are added on February 1st. The amount of cash you receive is based on your league settings. Your cumulative contract value is deducted BEFORE you receive funds. For example, if your league is set to receive the standard $100 million and all of the contracts on your roster add up to $70 million you will receive a total of $30 million in your account.
•   Contract lengths will be reduced by 1 year on February 1st. Any players who had a 1-year contract will be released as free agents. Contract length reduction happens before assets are calculated for the upcoming year.
•   New teams receive cash when they are added to a league.
•   Managers that drop out of a carryover league can be replaced.