C.R.A.B.S. Rule Book

C.R.A.B.S is a 20-team league comprised of players that have played or currently are playing with these 21 major league teams- Texas Rangers, Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Washington Nationals, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Colorado Rockies, Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays,
St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins. Players signed by, traded to or drafted by these teams become eligible to be drafted in the C.R.A.B.S. Free Agent Draft held each March. Beginning in the 2011 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays will be added to the core team roster.

C.R.A.B.S. is a continuous ownership league, even if a player is traded or released from one of the core Major League Teams.

At the conclusion of each season, every team must cut down to 20 active players (Players who spent the entire year on the team’s Taxi Squad are exempt from the cut down.). The Free Agent Draft fills out the teams rosters (26 active players and up to 3 on the "Taxi Squad", and 'X' amount of players on the disabled list). The only restriction on the 26-man active roster is that each team must carry at least 2 relief pitchers.

A C.R.A.B.S. season is played on a daily basis (Providing at least 18 of the core Major League teams are playing) with a schedule that matches each of the 20 teams up with an opponent for a three game series, 120 games in all. The four division winners earn playoff berths, along with two wild card teams from each league (The two top winning non-division winners). The top Wild Card teams will play the #2 seeds (The Division Winner with the worst regular season record) and the Wild Card with the worst record will pay the Division Winner with the League's best record in seven game Divisional Championship Series. The winners of each series will then square off in a seven game League Championship Series with the winner advancing to the World Series against the league champion from the other league.

At the beginning of the season, each team must list starters for each of the 9 positions including the designated hitter. Then each team must list their backups in order of preference at each position. Then each of the backups should be listed in order of preference as that team’s designated hitter. Each team must list their starting pitchers and their relief pitchers in order of preference. EXAMPLE: Sacramento has Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine pitching on the same day, if Martinez is listed first on the list, He gets the start over Glavine.

See scoring & lineup examples below:

¹- Homeruns are credited for a run scored, a basehit and 3 points for each RBI, so a solo homerun is worth 7 points, a 2-run homerun is 10, etc.
²- Relievers who win games will be credited with 5 points. They can only be credited with these points if their team had a starting pitcher that received no decision. If their team had no starting pitcher, no points are awarded for a relief win.
³- Points awarded only if pitcher does not surrender any runs. Once a run has been charged to a pitcher (Earned or not), he does not receive points for previous or subsequent scoreless innings
⁴- If a reliever gives up a run, he will not be credited with strikeouts over walks. (eg: Ricardo Rincon gives up a run *Shocker*, strikes out 3 and walks 1, he will lose 2 points for the run. He does not get credit for the 3 K's. If he threw a shutout inning under those circumstances, he would receive 1 point for the inning and 2 points for striking out two more than he walked, or 3 points. Of course, that never happened.
⁵- For starting pitchers only. Starters lose one point for each run given up after the fourth earned run. (eg: 7 earned runs given up will lose 3 points)
⁶- These points are not cumulative. If Jimmy Haynes pitches 8 innings, he only receives the 4 points for such a rare occurence.

A relief pitcher that pitches 3+ innings, will only lose points for runs surrendered after the second earned run. So, if Rollie Fingers pitched 4 innings and gave up 3 earned runs, he will only lose 2 points for the last earned run. Any reliever pitching less than 3 innings will lose 2 points for every earned run yielded.

No starting pitcher= -5 points (with 5 active SP, -10 with less than 5 active SP) minimum less than opposing team's game pitching total. Example: Oakland's pitchers earn 14 points, if Scottsdale has no pitcher, they lose 5 points (Or 10 if they do not have 5 or more active starting pitchers). If Oakland's pitching staff loses 6 points combined, then Scottsdale will lose 11 points (Or 16 for having less than 5 starters), while still having their relievers available to score.

The points are tallied for the 9 players on each team as well as the starting pitchers and relievers. The team with the most points wins the game. In case of a tie, the team with the player receiving the most points in the game wins.

Trades may be made any time until the end of the season. The only restriction on trades is that draft picks may only be traded one year ahead of the upcoming draft. For example, if the 1929 Draft is upcoming you may only deal picks from '29 and '30. Immediately following the '29 Draft, picks from the 1931 draft may be traded, and so on and so forth. Each trade may be reviewed and rescinded by C.R.A.B.S. in order to protect the integrity of the league.

POSITIONAL ELIGIBILITY

BASIC ELIGIBILITY-

Players are eligible to start for their C.R.A.B.S. team at the position that they played the most in the previous MLB season.

Players are eligible to backup any position that they played a minimum of 5 games at during the previous MLB season.

Any player who played at least 40% of his games at a second position during the previous MLB season will be eligible to start at either his primary or secondary position for his C.R.A.B.S. team.

Once a player surpasses the 5-game threshold at a new position during the CURRENT MLB season, he will be eligible to backup the position for his C.R.A.B.S. team.

If a player is named the starter at a new position for his MLB team to start the current season, he will also be eligible to start at the new position OR his old position for his C.R.A.B.S. team. (Players named as starters only are eligible under this rule, players filling in for a specified period of time for an injured teammate do not qualify).

Any player that plays the majority of his games at DH, will be eligible to start at 1B in C.R.A.B.S., with secondary positions being subject to the above rules.

EXAMPLE: If Izzy Molina played 110 games last season at these positions:
55- 2B, 45- 3B, 6- C, 4- OF
Molina would be eligible to start at 2B OR 3B and backup at C. He would not be eligible to play in the OF (At least until he played 5 games in the OF during the current MLB season)

MINIMUM ELIGIBILITY-

Players must play in at least 20 games in the previous MLB season to be eligible to start at multiple positions. If they do not play at least 20 games, they will only be eligible to start at their primary position from the previous season. The exception would be if they were named the starter at a different position for their MLB team during the current season.

PENALTIES FOR NOT HAVING POSITIONAL COVERAGE-

If a team does not have a player that is eligible to start to cover a certain position, and no player is eligible to backup the position, they will not receive any points for said position and will basically be playing with 8 hitters.

If a team does not have a starter at a position (for an extended period of time), but does have a player or players that qualify to backup that position, the backups will be limited to 3 starts per week. So, if Jason Giambi and David Ortiz are the only eligible shortstops (!) on a team, but are only eligible to backup, then they will each play only 3 games per week at short (Whomever is listed higher on the depth chart will get the first three starts- assuming he plays those three games- and the second player will play the next three. There will be no points for the final game of the week from that position).

To obtain scores, We begin with each starter. If Javier Lopez did not start for the Braves, or if they were off, we then go to Michael Barrett. Normally, a player must start for their Major League team to start in C.R.A.B.S., but since Barrett is the last player this team could have play catcher, even if he only pinch hits, those stats will count. So basically, we run down the list starter through reserves, until we can determine a starter, failing that, we run back through the list, and the first player that played in the Majors will be the "starter" for the C.R.A.B.S. team.

Starting pitchers are handled much the same way. If Javier Vazquez and Jimmy Haynes pitched on the same day, Vazquez would get the start since he is listed higher. Haynes stats would not count.

Up to four relievers may pitch in a game for C.R.A.B.S. The relievers listed first would be considered the teams' closer (For statistical purposes only- if Rollie Fingers is your #1 reliever and Bruce Sutter your #3, you do get Sutter's save points if Fingers or #2 do not register a save).

Only one win, loss, or save is counted per team, and it all begins with the starting pitcher. If Vazquez won his game, his team would receive 10 points for the win, even if Jeff Shaw lost his game. As well as the opposite, if Vazquez loses, his team will lose 10 points, even if Shaw wins. And, if the starter loses, there will be no save points awarded if a reliever were to save a game.

That's pretty much it. Any questions? We'll be happy to answer.

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