Trades

[Ace]

Between the Line's trade deadline will be August 2nd in 2024 and trading will re-open the following offseason in mid January. Cash exchanges are allowed to be made within deals so long as they don't exceed a player's annual salary in any given year of the contract. These payments then follow that player in any future trades (denoted on the spreadsheet as '$ Paid', scroll down to cap adjustments for full details). Prospect signing bonuses stay on the books of the franchise that signed the player.

MLB free agents signed to a contract averaging $1m or more and prospects given a bonus of $1m or more may not be traded for 60 days. All other free agents cannot be traded for 30 days (the signing dates can be seen on the spreadsheet). Players extended after the first day of Spring Training games (Feb 22nd in 2024) can't be traded for 60 days.

In addition, all players with contracts extended or who were signed via free agency in the offseason cannot be traded with cash paid before June 1st in the same year.

Teams must also be fairly compensated for taking on undesirable contracts in a trade, with the amount of dead money deemed to be the required cost of a buyout.

These are the expected level of return:

$5m in dead money = Top 300 prospect/Late 2nd round pick
$10m = Top 150 prospect/Late 1st round pick
$20m = Top 75 prospect/Top 10 pick
$50m = Top 30 prospect/Top 3 pick

Trading process, beginning opening day 2024

1 - Team A posts the terms of the trade on the forum, including contract details and their brief motivation behind the trade.
2 - Team B posts agreement to the trade, and from that point either team can propose the trade to the other in Fantrax for acceptance.
3 – Trades are still to be voted on by other GMs - this keeps members active in the league/on the forum, and keeps the onus on everyone for ensuring fairness and transparency in trade dealings and to flag up any issues. You can set up trade notifications through Fantrax to let you know when a new trade will require voting. Trades still require at least 4 approvals, and a ratio of at least 3 approvals to every veto vote.
4 - Once agreed to in Fantrax, trades have a 48+ hour window before being processed - eg: a trade accepted on Fantrax on Tuesday lunchtime would take effect from Friday's lineup period.
5 - If there are sufficient veto votes, insufficient voting, a rule has been broken (eg: immediately trading a new free agent signing) or the commissioners otherwise feel the need to step in, then it will be postponed in Fantrax pending a clarification/rebalancing of the trade. Any reworked trade may set the process back to step one, and the 48+ hour clock would begin again.

Additional notes

The forum post element of the process is very much a requirement, as some trades that may look unbalanced on Fantrax as straight player-for-player swaps can only be adequately explained when salary and/or contract concerns are taken into consideration. GM votes on trades are very much part of that process.

Any trade found to have been accepted on Fantrax before both GMs have posted on the forum will automatically be deleted from Fantrax - this may result in delays to trades being processed, as GMs will then have to resubmit them.

It is up to each GM concerned to ensure they have a valid roster upon processing of the trade, and to highlight to the commissioners any drops/roster moves that are necessary to ensure compliance

In exceptional situations the commissioner may void a trade under the following circumstances:

• New league member who hasn't had a trade block up for at least 48 hours
  
• First year GM not aware of a league rule
  
• Incorrect contract details posted/existing cash payment on a player not listed in trade post
  
• GM unaware of a player injury, or cases of mistaken identity
  
• A player with an undetermined or non-typical injury/medical condition or who faces a possible suspension
  
• Suspected collusion or circumvention of league rules