Below is a rundown on some key aspects of the rules for the coming season.

NL-ONLY
This is a single league, drawing only on real-life players who play in the National League. For those new to single leagues, one quirk of this is that whenever real-life players are traded out of the league, they are also eliminated from the fantasy teams they play for. So, if sometime during the course of the season one of your players is dealt to the American League, that player is lost. No compensation. The corollary of all this is that whenever a real-life player is dealt from the AL to the NL, they are placed on waivers in our fantasy league, available to all per our waiver/free agent rules.

KEEPER LEAGUE AND THE DRAFT
You can keep up to seven players from last year’s team. You need to select these keepers by the keeper lock date, March 14. Players coming over from the AL, are also in the draft pool.

However, for every player you keep, you lose a draft pick. So, if you choose to keep only one player, you forgo your first round pick and will start drafting in the second round. If you keep two players, you don’t start drafting until the third round. And so forth.

The draft order situation is complicated. For the first seven rounds, the draft goes in inverse order to how the team did last year. Then, beginning in the eighth round, draft order snakes. So, the number ten seed has the top pick in the first seven rounds, as well as the top pick in the eighth round. Then the #1 seed (the defending champion) picks last in the eighth round and immediately picks first in the ninth round. The draft order continues to snake for the rest of the draft. This is how the draft works in another keeper league I’m in, and it seems to work well for this kind of league even if it looks weird at first glance.

TRADE VETOES
Unlike most fantasy leagues, trades can only be vetoed by the commissioner, not a vote of the other owners. Our philosophy has always been that owners should be free to wheel and deal as they say fit, with vetoes only happening in rare circumstances. In all my time as a commissioner, I never once vetoed a trade. I hope to keep that streak going. So, I will issue vetoes in only two circumstances:

1) A trade is so ridiculously lopsided as to suggest the appearance of collusion.
2) A player in a trade is injured bad enough to require a DL stint during the time between when the trade offer is proposed and when it is accepted. Such trade will only be vetoed at the explicit request of the person receiving the injured player.

TRADING DRAFT PICKS
Please note that once the 2024 draft is over, you can include draft picks for the 2025 season in any trade offers.

NA PLAYER SLOTS
In addition to the three DL slots on each team, everyone also has one NA slot for “not available” players. Any player with a little red “NA” next to their name can be stashed in an NA spot, freeing up space on the 23-man regular roster. The NA designation applies to players who are (a) free agents, (b) playing in the minor leagues, (c) not available for short periods for other reasons, such as bereavement leave. However, suspended players do not count as NA. For the most part, your NA slot is a good place to stash a minor league prospect.

Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.