• You may elect to start any combination of pitchers (SP or RP) on any given week but your team's pitching staff must accumulate at least 1000 innings pitched over the course of the season or it will be placed in last place in the team ERA and WHIP categories.
  
• Pitchers' hitting stats will not generate any hitting points, and batter's pitching stats will not generate pitching points.
• In the event that there are any regular season tie-breaker playoff games, the statistics accumulated in such games will NOT be counted towards your overall Rotisserie score.
• Utility (U) - any position except pitcher can be used
• Middle Infielder (MI) - 2B or SS can be used
• Corner Infielder (CI) - 1B or 3B can be used
• Weekly lineup submissions - once a player's team begins their 1st game of scheduled week, the player will be locked. 
  

Position Eligibility
During the season, all MLB position players will remain eligible at their initial (pre-season) designated primary position, and will also be eligible at any position at which they played at least 20 games in the previous season (2021) or at least 5 games in current season (2022). Also, be aware that a player's primary position may change at any time.

• Pitchers' hitting stats will not generate any hitting points, and batter's pitching stats will not generate pitching points.
• Elite FBL attempts to place correct designations for all players. Unfortunately, there may be an incorrect designation that won't be automatically corrected by our software, especially with SP and RP. Elite FBL reserves the right to change a player's designation AND to adjust a starting lineup accordingly when an owner chooses to start a player with an incorrect designation. ie. A SP as a RP
  
• In the event that there are any regular season tie-breaker playoff games, the statistics accumulated in such games will NOT be counted towards your Head-to-Head score.
• Utility (U) - any position except pitcher can be used
• Weekly lineup submissions - once a player's TEAM begins their 1st game of scheduled week, the player will be locked for the week. 
  
• Ohtani - there are two Ohtani's - one Ohtani is the Pitcher and can accumulate only pitcher stats and the other Ohtani is the DH and can only accumulate hitting stats.
  
• NEW for 2021 - Stolen Bases are now worth 2 points.
  

• 20 week regular season schedule will be used
• 12 teams, 2 divisions, 6 teams per division
  
• 6 teams make playoffs (2 division winners + 4 wildcard teams)
• Regular Season tiebreaker is total points
  
• 2 division winners receive a bye week 21, 4 wildcard teams play #3 vs. #6 seed, #4 vs. #5 seed
  
• Week 22 - Semi-finals (#1 seed vs. lowest remaining seed)
  
• Week 23 - Finals
  
• Playoff Tiebreaker - in the event of a tie during a head-to-head match-up in the playoffs, the higher seed wins the tiebreak
  

Elite FBL uses Blind Bidding - the fairest and most intriguing method in fantasy sports. All teams receive $1,000 for the year in Bidding Bucks (not real money). Blind Bidding starts during the 1st week of games are played and continues throughout the season including playoffs - so you should spend wisely.

Blind Bidding starts Wednesday. Blind Bidding ends when games are complete on Sunday and the week has been updated (about 30 minutes after the last Sunday game is over). Once the Blind Bidding is over you still may pick up a player in what becomes a 1st come, 1st serve process that stays in effect until the first game starts on Monday.

NOTE: Any dropped players in the preseason will not become available until the first regular season week of blind bidding.

How Blind Bidding works:
- The team that bids the highest for a player will get him. Since this is a blind bidding process, no one knows what the others are bidding.    
- Bid minimum is $1.   
- If you win the bid at $55, and the next highest bid was $18, you still pay $55 for your player. 
- If there is a tie bid, the player is awarded to the team with the worst record. 2nd tie-breaker is lowest rank, final tie-break is whoever entered the league 1st. 
- The software will guide you through the process of bidding on players.   
- You are allowed to bid on multiple players for different bidding buck values for each player you would like to drop.
- To bid on multiple players for each player dropped, you will rank your preference of which players you most would like on your roster. Your 1st preference will be considered first. If someone outbids you, your 2nd preference is then considered and so on...
- You must have enough bidding bucks to bid on players.
- You will not be allowed to bid more than you have. 
- When a player is cut by an owner, that player will not become available again until the next Blind Bidding process. This will alleviate any problems with someone purposely dropping a player for a buddy who amazingly picks the player up that was just cut 5 minutes ago.

IMPORTANT - It is the owner's responsibility to reset your starting lineup once you acquire your new player(s).

1st come, 1st serve:
You may pick up as many free agent players that you would like once the Blind Bidding process is over and before the free agent's game is played that week.   

The cost is $10 bidding bucks for any free agent not picked up during the Blind Bidding process.

Trades

Weekly trading deadline is Saturday 9PM EST.
Season trading deadline is Saturday 9PM EST, July 9, 2022
All trades have a minimum 24 hour approval process (see below). Trades will not be approved until Sunday night. It is the owner's responsibility to reset your starting lineup once a trade has been approved.

Trades that have not been accepted or rejected before the deadline will be deleted. This will alleviate any issues of owners receiving offers but not responding and waiting until the opportunity to jump on the trade once they see it benefits them due to a players injury status changing.

If you proposed a trade to someone and it gets deleted at deadline, you could propose the same trade again the following week.
A trade will not be approved if any players involved in the trade are injured, suspended or any other reason that may keep them out a significant amount of time after the trade was proposed.
All trades will be reviewed and must be approved. An e-mail will be sent to all members of the league when a trade has been accepted. Any member of a league may protest the trade during a 24 hour period. If there is no protest and Elite FBL believes the trade is fair, the trade is allowed.

If a trade is protested, the owner protesting the trade MUST GIVE A VALID REASON why they think the trade cannot help one of the teams or show signs of collusion for the veto to be considered. A valid veto is a veto explained in detail how a trade cannot benefit one of the trading teams.If FFF agrees or is able to see the side of the protester, Elite FBL will then ask either both owners or just the owner perceived to be getting the lesser end of the deal their reasoning for the trade. If Elite FBL is satisfied that the trade is fair, the trade will stand. If Elite FBL is not satisfied with the answers, Elite FBL can reject the trade and will ask the parties to try and work another deal that would be fair.

INVALID VETO EXPLANATIONS & VETO PROCESS:

- One or two words how a trade is dumb is NOT a valid explanation.

- The number of vetoes for a trade does not matter. There could be one veto or 5 vetoes and the trade may or may not be approved.

- One team is getting the better of the deal is NOT a valid explanation.The purpose of a trade is to make your team better. If a team has surplus at one position - kudos to them, they drafted well and now have excess to trade in one position to improve another. That is THE key aspect in trading. You don't condemn a trade because someone had a good draft.

REASONS A TRADE IS DECLINED:

1) Collusion - an obvious attempt between 2 owners that know each other to improve one team at the expense of the other team.

2) The trade cannot in any way be beneficial to one of the trading teams.

3) There is a valid veto and when the owner who is perceived to be getting the short end of deal is asked to explain why they believe the trade helps their team, the owner replies that it doesn't or has an invalid explanation.

4) Dumping of players from a non-contender to a contending team. This typically would happen near the trading deadline.

5) Trading partners - 2 teams attempt to trade to help each other cover bye weeks & short-term injuries.

6) The trade will not improve one team because they are trading away significantly more than they are receiving from the other owner.

7) The trade is significantly benefiting one team more than the other.

8) One of the teams has a poor record or ranking and is trading away similar or better players than they are receiving to a team with a better record or ranking.

9) There is more than one pending trade involving the same player and the original trade is quite "unequal". Another team comes in and offers a more balanced trade. All trades involving the same player will be thrown out.

10)  Draft room trades are not allowed

As you can see from the above rules, Elite FBL takes trading seriously. Our #1 priority is to prevent any collusion from occurring. Most trades are approved but some will not. Rejected trades are more likely to happen closer to the trade deadline as some owners are looking to take advantage of struggling teams.

Head-to-head  12 TEAM SCHEDULE (2 DIVISIONS)