MLB DW Dynasty League members,
I have started a new hidden section of the Substack so I can communicate stuff in this way, rather than spamming out ugly emails all the time.
Please subscribe to this section of MLB DW. I didn’t have anybody added to this feed automatically, because this only concerns the people in the league. So please subscribe to this section of the substack here:
This way, I can publish stuff out from this source and it will go right to your inbox or the Substack app. That’s way better than an ugly email chain, in my opinion. And you can all leave comments if you have questions or whatever.
It does not seem like all 30 of us are in the Discord group, so join that if you’re not. If you’re opposed to Discord, that’s fine too. This will be my main means of communication from here on.
Things are still coming together, and there are a lot of settings to be decided on and instituted. But I have the basics done, so I wanted to send that out now.
SALARY CAP INFORMATION
There will be a $200 yearly salary cap. Your team must begin each season under $200 (this was based on the MLB average payroll of around $200 million, so you can think of each $1 as one million).
Major League players count toward your cap, minor league players do not.
For this reason, we’ll have two drafts.
Auction draft for Major League players
Snake draft for minor league players
Any player who has played a single game in the Majors will be considered “Majors”, and any player yet to debut will be considered “minors”.
MLB DRAFT INFORMATION
We will run an AUCTION DRAFT on a website called COUCH MANAGERS. It’s old-looking, but I’ve been told it works well. This will only be for Major League players. Whatever you buy the player for during the auction will become their salary for 2026. That will count towards the cap. Salaries will then increase by $2 each year you keep them. There are no limits on keeping a player. You can have them as long as you want to pay them that salary.
So you’ll have to join this “Couch Managers” draft. That draft will begin on January 1st! There will be a bunch of players up for bidding at the same time so we can get it done in a timely manner. Each nominated player will be open for bidding for 12 hours, and the clock will stop between midnight eastern every day. Any time a new max bid is made and the clock is under two hours, the clock goes back up to two hours so people have the opportunity to bid again and beat the new bid. This makes it so you can’t just max bid at the last second and get the guy, it also makes it so this draft doesn’t completely dominate everybody’s lives for however long it goes on. You won’t have to be on your phone constantly for four weeks while this goes on.
We’ll also be doing a TEST DRAFT that will start Monday, November 24th. The links to both are below. We will begin the test draft Monday morning with however many people are in it. This won’t count, it will just be useful for us all getting familiar with the software and seeing what problems or questions we run into. I highly recommend everybody join that. Links:
The password for both is “mlbdw”. When you get there, click one of the available “Join” buttons. Please use the MLB team name I’ve assigned you on FanTrax, at least for the REAL DRAFT. That will make it a lot easier to put the teams into Fantrax when the draft completes.
If you have not been on the FanTrax league lately to see what team you’ve been assigned, you can see it here:
The MLB team name affiliation means nothing, and it does not have to stay that way once we get going. It’s just going to be way easier for me to do all of the roster setup and stuff if we have those team names.
PROSPECT DRAFT INFORMATION
This will run on FanTrax as a snake draft. The order will probably be randomly generated, but we also might come up with some way to even things out. More to come on that.
Again, this draft will be only players who have not yet debuted in the Majors.
ROSTER INFORMATION
Since we’re a 30-team league, I have more or less modeled the settings after MLB.
26 man MLB rosters
26 man MiLB rosters
The starting lineup will be:
C
1B
2B
3B
SS
OF
OF
OF
UT (x2)
SP (x5)
RP (x4)
P (x2)
That means we’re going to be starting every player who is starting in the Majors, it’s gonna be wild.
SCORING
It will be head-to-head categories, 6x6, with these categories:
OFFENSE: R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS
PITCHING: IP, SO, K%, SV+HLD, ERA, WHIP
The reason for the double counting of strikeouts is to balance out the impact of relievers and starters.
DIVISIONS
The league is modeled after MLB exactly. Six divisions.
PLAYOFFS
Not decided yet, but we’ll probably do eight playoff teams. The six division winners and then the two best non-division winning records.
PAYOUTS
Also not ironed out yet, but division winners will get paid a little bit, with at least half the money going to the league winner.
PAYMENTS
$103/year. $3 extra to cover the FanTrax fee for running a 30-team league. We will handle this via LeagueSafe. Payments will be due before January 1st. More to come on that.
PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH ME
I did not intend to be the commissioner of this, but that’s how it kinda worked out. John Allen is helping me, and I’m taking help and input from many others as well. But since it’s a huge, complicated league and I’ve never done this before, I can’t guarantee that a few things will go haywire in the first year or two. We will do our best to handle everything. I really appreciate your patience and grace.
PRIORITIES FOR NOW
There’s a ton more to decide and to say. I’ll let you know when the settings are finalized in FanTrax and you can go have a look there to answer all the questions.
For now, I just want to get this test auction going. So please sign up for that, make sure you can get a spot, and get familiar with that software so we can have a successful inauguration draft.
If anybody has FanTrax commish experience, please let me know, I’d love to have all the help I can get.
And thanks for playing, I think this has potential to be one of the best leagues out there.
Thanks for making this happen! I am excited and honored to be a part of this league. Also, thanks for this update - VERY HELPFUL - and for starting a private Discord channel.