Brian Jones

The Official Constitution of the 

TunaCorn Fantasy Baseball League

Preamble

We, the People of The TunaCorn Fantasy Baseball League, (having stolen our name from a roadside sign in Iowa), in order to create the perfect Rotisserie Baseball League, promote camaraderie and good feelings between baseball fans in Twins country, The Dirty, and beyond, to drive home the spirit of fairness, kiss domestic Tranquility goodbye, and to secure the blessings of roto-bliss to ourselves and to those we’ve left on base, do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution of TunaCorn, so that in the future, if we have any questions about the rules, we can, in the words of Casey Stengel, just look it up, and finish this run-on sentence.

Article 1. Objective

To assemble a lineup of 19 National or American League baseball players whose statistics (specifically including any tie-breaking playoff games), compiled and measured by the methods described in these rules, exceed those of all other teams in the TunaCorn Fantasy Baseball League, which from this point forward will be written as TunaCorn.

Article 2. Teams

The TunaCorn shall be composed of 14 teams composed of National or American League baseball players.

Article 3. Roster

A team’s active roster consists of the following players: One right fielder, a center fielder, and a left fielder - because common sense will tell you that those are not the same thing - a first basemen, a second baseman, a third baseman, and a shortstop. Six pitchers are also required - one of which must be a starter and another that must be a reliever - plus a catcher to catch the ball. The one utility player can be a hitter from any field position or a DH and there are four bench spots that can be filled by hitters or pitchers, but not by a hitting pitcher because a pitcher’s hitting stats don’t count, nor will they ever. 

Article 4. The Auction Draft

A player auction shall be conducted at a time agreed upon by majority vote of the League’s teams, and will not occur to close to the beginning of the season - so as to give our impatience a cookie and not to clog our heads with too Baseball Tonight - and not early - because to have a rostered team and no real games to play just leads to impertinent trades and is simply cruel. 

Each team must acquire 19 players at a cost not to exceed 260 make believe dollars. The team that finished last in the previous season shall nominate the first player for acquisition; thereafter, players are nominated in reverse order of the previous season’s standings. The team bidding first opens with a minimum salary bid of $1 for any eligible player, and the bidding proceeds around the virtual draft room at minimum increments of $1 until only one bidder is left. That team acquires the player for that amount and the computer automatically places the player in the position the player will fill. The process is repeated, with successive team owners introducing players to be bid upon, until every team has a squad of 19 players by requisite position.

No team may make a bid for a player it cannot afford. For example, a team with $3 left and two openings on its roster is limited to a maximum bid of $2 for one player.

Players who are on a team’s disabled list are eligible to be drafted. If selected, they may be reserved and replaced upon completion of the Auction Draft.

The responsibility of planning and hosting the annual Auction Draft festivities shall fall squarely upon the shoulders of the league commissioner, yet he will never again buy everyone special cupcakes after Heltne stiffed him in the auction of 2010. 

The glories of the internet means that this process is completely automated via ESPN, meaning we are also at the mercy of ESPN, meaning the league commissioner is not your personal IT specialist. 

Article 5. Position Eligibility

1. A player may be assigned to any position at which he appeared in 10 or more games in the preceding season. If a player did not appear in 20 games at a single position, he may be drafted only at the position at which he appeared most frequently.  

2. The 20 games/most games measure is used to determine the position(s) at which a player may be placed during the Auction Draft. After Opening Day, a player becomes eligible for assignment to any position at which he has appeared at least 10 times. (However, a player eligible at a position based upon the 20 games/most games measure from the preceding season remains eligible at that position for the balance of the current season).

3. The Utility Player spot may be filled by any player who qualifies at any non-pitching position.

2008 Amendment: “The DH Fiasco” At the conclusion of the 2008 season the Utility spot was created. For our inaugural season the spot had been a DH position, available only to players who qualified specifically at DH.  It took roughly 4 minutes into the season for us to realize this was just plain bananas stupid and the Utility position was spawned at our soonest opportunity. 

Article 6. Player Salaries

The salary of a player is determined by the time and means of his acquisition, meaning either his salary is either deducted from an owner’s auction budget or in the case of a free agent pick-up or waiver claim the player “plays for free” for the remainder of that season.

Directly following Roster Freeze Day each kept player goes through an arbitration process, meaning that his salary is the standardized value listed in ESPN’s Draft Kit, and this arbitrated salary is deduced from a team’s auction budget going into the draft. In other words, if you want to keep a player form season to season his keeper value is the standardized ESPN value, regardless of what his previous year’s salary may have been. 

Article 7. Scoring and Standings

1. The following 14 criteria are used to determine team performance:

• Composite Batting Average
• Total Home Runs
• Total Runs Batted In
• Total Stolen Bases
• Total Walks
• Total Strikeouts (lower is better)
• Total Runs Scored

• Composite Earned Run Average
• Total Wins 
• Total Saves
• Total Holds
• Composite WHIP Ratio (H + BB)/IP
• Total Strikeouts
• Total Bases on Balls (lower is better)

1. Teams are ranked from first to last in each of the fourteen categories and given points for each place.  For example, in our 14-team league, the first-place team in a category receives 14 points, the second-place team receives 13 points, and so on down to 1 point for last place. 

2011 Amendment: “The Hunter Eye Roll” At every point in the season that Mark Hunter suggests yet again to convert our entire league scoring system, upending the entire fabric of our league, the suggestion is to be met with an eye roll and a facial posture of exasperation. 

3. Pitchers’ offensive stats are not counted. Likewise, the pitching stats of position players are not counted. To do so would be silly. And hard. Because where would you even find those statistics. 

4. In cases of ties in an individual category, the tied teams are assigned points by totaling points for the rankings at issue and dividing the total by the number of teams tied. 

1. The IP Cap: A team can pitch no more than 1250 total innings with any innings over not counting toward your stat totals. This is to prevent extreme “streaming” of pitchers in order to rack up counting numbers.

2010 Amendment: “The Heltne Discovery”  In 2010 Brett discovered that our league had always had a 1200 inning pitching cap. He asked for a raise in the limit and we said, “Eh.  Why not?” and raised it to 1250. 

Article 8: Trades 

1. From the completion of the Auction Draft until August 31st, TunaCorn teams are free to make trades. During the season trades may be made on a daily basis and will take effect at the moment the Yearly Triumvirate approves. No trades are permitted from September 1st through the end of the NL season. No trades are permitted between the date for submission of frozen rosters (keeper deadline) and the completion of the Auction Draft. 

2. The Yearly Triumvirate will be a rotating task force of the League Commissioner and two active team owners. The two active team owners will be chosen at random - Biblical style - by the casting of lots. In other words, two names will be drawn out of a hat.

The goal of the Yearly Triumvirate is to approve trades quickly, and reject them only if absolutely necessary. The Yearly triumvirate much reach consensus, meaning it can’t be a simply majority vote. 

The standing chair (Why would you stand if you have a chair?) on the Yearly Triumvirate provides consistency and the two rotating members gives each owner an opportunity to serve their league. It’s sort of like jury duty. 

3. Since we don’t want knife fights to break out among owners, all trades involving cash, players to be named later, side agreements or “future considerations” are expressly prohibited. Trust us.

1. Auction dollars may not be freely traded.

2010 Amendment: “What price a Panda?”  Just before the 2010  Auction we experimented with trading auction dollars.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a confusing disaster and to this day we may never really know the actual price of Pablo Sandoval.

5. We want owners to trade freely, often, and squeal like children in glee. With that in mind, we offer this “Trading Bill of Rights” to each and every owner.

Every team owner has the right to offer any trade, regardless of how absurd it seems.

Every team owner has the right to reject any offer, and in rejecting it they should expect to be free of aggressive tactics and forced coercion. In other words boys, NO means NO.

Every team owner has the right to receive a timely response to trade requests, meaning that as team owners we do the other owner a solid and give a quick reply, even if it’s a rejection. Often future trades are predicated on your response so don’t let it just lie there and expire.  

Every team owner has the right to receive and not just give value in a trade, meaning that each owner also has the responsibility to offer value if they are to receive value in a trade. In other words, we aren’t to try and rip others off and get something for nothing, because that’s just not how good people do things. 

Every team owner has the right to be represented fairly by the Yearly Triumvirate. 

Every team owner has the right to see all trades as they exist (ie - the league is free of trades involving cash, players to be named later, side agreements or “future considerations”, and all that silliness). What you see is what you get. 

Article 9: Rule Changes 

1. So that owners properly know what to expect and how to prepare it isn’t our practice to change rules during the course of a season, barring pigs beginning to fly. 

2. Once per year our “Constitutional Congress” will be in session. This will be a gathering - and by “gathering” we may mean chat room - where owners can bring forward there suggestions for rule changes to go into effect the following (again, not current) season. 

3. Our Constitutional Congress (herein known as the CC) will tentatively be scheduled over the All-Star break, but the scheduling and meeting details will be the responsibility on the league commissioner. 

4. Team owners have the right to draft a bill, which may become law at the CC, and upon becoming law it would create a change in one or more constitutional articles, which would bring the rule change to to following year. Or - and this is most likely - the bill will be shot down in a process much like our modern day filibuster.

5. The draft of the bill may be nothing more than scribbles on the back of a napkin, but for it to gain consideration at the CC it must be submitted to the league commissioner 22 1/2 hours before the beginning of the CC.

Article 10: Signing Free Agents 

1. Active Major League Players not on any TunaCorn team’s roster at the conclusion of the auction draft become free agents. During the course of the season, the pool of free agents may also include minor league players not on any TunaCorn team roster who are available by ESPN and waived players who are not claimed. Beginning with the first minute after the completion of the Auction Draft, and continuing through the season, such free agents may be signed, without limit, in the following manner: 

2. From waivers. A team’s waiver position is determined by the reserve order of the last turn they’ve had to make a waiver claim. Therefore, if your team had the last successful claim then you are bumped to the bottom of the ladder and the other teams move up one position. 

3. For each free agent that it signs, a team must at the same time waive or release a player from its active roster.  EXCEPTION:  If a team has an empty roster spot, it may sign a free agent without waiving or releasing a player.  

Article 11: Waivers

1. Players are placed on waivers when they cannot cannot be accommodated on a team’s active or reserve roster, because of space and/or positional limitations.

2. The waiver period commences on the day following the day a player is placed on waivers, and continues for three days. At the conclusion of those days, if the player is unclaimed, he goes into the free agent pool, and may be acquired by a team only as outlined somewhere else.

3. Waiver claims are honored according to the inverse order of the last time you placed a claim Seriously, jump up and article, you just read this stuff.

4. A team may reclaim a player it has waived only if all other teams in the League decline to claim him.

Article 12: Roster Protection and Arbitration

1. A team may retain, from one season to the next, no more than 5 players from its roster. All players not retained are considered free agents and are eligible for selection on the next Auction Draft Day.

Note: This rule is to prevent blue-chippers, low-priced rookies who blossom into superstars, and highly undervalued players from being tied up for the duration of their careers at an absurdly reduced salary by the teams who originally drafted them. It guarantees periodic transfusions of top-flight talent for Auction Day and provides rebuilding teams something to rebuild with. And it makes for some interesting decisions at roster-free time two years down the pike. 

2. The names of the players being retained must be submitted to the League Office on Roster Freeze Day, a day to be determined in the discretion of the League Office, but usually exactly one week prior to Auction Draft Day. 

3. The cumulative salaries of players protected on Roster Freeze Day are deducted from a team’s $260 expenditure limit, and the balance is available for acquisition of the remaining players needed to complete the team’s 19-man active roster.

4. The failure of an TunaCorn team to submit its Keeper List to the League Office by the deadline set by the League Office shall result in that team not being permitted to retain any frozen players for that season.

5. Players not kept are considered released during Roster Freeze Week and the players return to the free agent pool and become available at the Auction Draft.

6. The same player can be kept a total of three seasons, regardless of which or how many teams he has played for those three years. 

7. In determining a player’s status, “season” is understood to be a full season or any fraction thereof.

Article 22: Governance

TunaCorn shall be governed by a Committee of the Whole consisting of all team owners. The Committee of the Whole may designate as many League Officials as from time to time it deems appropriate, including but not limited to, a Permanent Interim Commissioner for Life (PICFL). 

But it shouldn’t rest squarely on the shoulders of the PICFL to resolve all disputes, instead the implicit command of the The Committee of the Whole is, at its discretion, to be grown-up responsible adults who treat one another in the spirit of fairness.

Article 23: Rejoicing!

To consecrate the bond of friendship that unites all TunaCorn owners in their pursuit of the pennant, to symbolize the eternal verities and values of the Greatest Game for Baseball Fans Since Baseball, and to soak up accolades before colleagues and friends duly assembled, the TunaCorn Trophy Ceremony is hereby ordained as the culminating event of the TunaCorn season. Each season, at the awards ceremony, the owner of the championship team shall be allowed to pry the championship trophy from the kung-fu grip of the preceding year’s champion. The TunaCorn Trophy Ceremony shall be performed with the dignity and solemnity appropriate to the occasion. The TunaCorn Champion shall be awarded and shall retain for one year the coveted Torii Hunter bobblehead, which is hot-glued to a can of tuna and a can of corn and has all past winners written on the bottom in sharpie, together with such other and further hardware, symbolic of victory, as the TunaCorn may choose to purchase and award from time to time.