2025 Cyberzahm Roto Baseball Rules
by The Designated Commissioner 

The 30th year of CyberZahm Rotobaseball starts in March!

MLB regular season begins on March 27 and runs for 27 Periods.  MLB trade deadline is Jul 31.  Our trade deadline is Monday Aug 18.

There are a couple games in Japan the week before the regular season starts.  Any player stats from those games will be handled however the CBS site incorporates them when the Scoring periods start.

Entry fee is $110.


A) Determining draft pool

There are almost no restrictions on the draft.  
Draft anybody you want.

Note: Shohei Ohtani is eligible as two different "players" in the player pool, a pitcher(P) and a batter(B).  Either can be drafted by a team and will be rostered as such, collecting stats as either a P or B while active.  A team could have both Ohtani(P) and Ohtani(B) on their roster and would collect the respective stats for each.

B) Determining draft positions
For draft slot selection beginning March 1, the selection order is:

Prep
Jack
Ike
Mags
Sobo
Andy
Fox
Hans
Terry
Gabes
Al


1. Draft positions: The 2025 Selection order established the following draft position:

Prep -1
Jack -2
Ike  -3
Andy  -4
Sobo  -5
Mags  -6
Fox  -7
Hans -8
Gabes -9
Terry -10
Al -11


2.  Remember that we will draft in the order 1 2 3 .. N-1 N N N-1 ... 3 2 1 1 2 3 ...
If you draft in position 1 you'll get picks 1 2N 2N+1 etc.


C)  Player positions

Offensive players are originally eligible at their "primary" position (CBS determines this) plus any position where they appeared in at least 10 games in the previous or current season in the majors.

A player earns eligibility at a new position if they appear at that position in the majors "this year" for at least 10 games. CBS tracks this, so they are eligible wherever CBS says they are eligible.

Players who are eligible for more than one offensive position can be "shifted around" so that roster balance is maintained at the beginning of the period in which trade or IL/Replacement moves are effective. 


D)  The Draft

The draft begins on March 15 (the Ides of March).  

The draft will consist of 24 rounds.  Each round each participant will claim one player.  Each participant must end up with 15 batters (6 outfielders, 1 1st basemen, 1 2nd basemen, 1 3rd basemen, 1 shortstop, 1 1B/3B, 1 2B/SS, 2 catchers, 1 utility offensive player (any position or DH)) and 9 pitchers.  An owner's active roster must show this balance throughout the entire season.


E) Calculating Standings

1. We will track these categories: Batting Average (team Hits/team ABs), Runs, HRs, RBIs, SBs, Wins, Saves, Strikeouts and team ERA.

Pitcher's batting stats are not counted. Offensive player's pitching stats are not counted. Note that Ohtani will be eligible as both a P and a B, as described in section A above. 


F) Season

For 2025 Opening Day is set at Thursday March 27, although two games will be played in Japan two weeks earlier.  Stats from those two games will be included in the Period 1 stats. 

There will be 27 Scoring periods, ending on or about Sunday, Sept 28.


G) Moves 

Moves can be made starting the first replacement period of the regular season. For 2025, with a March 27 season start date, the first period moves will be due by Monday March 31, with replacement moves effective on Tuesday April 1 (no fooling).

Transaction periods will be week to week. Move periods will take effect on TUESDAYS, so weekly roster moves will be due on Monday night.

Using the CBS tools, each owner manages his own team. Owners may enter roster changes any time during the week. They will take effect the following Tuesday. This includes trades. Trades should leave a roster balanced when they take effect.

There is no restriction on the number of Add/Drops you make. Adds are made based on the CBS-determined waiver replacement order established by CBS for that scoring period.  "Add" requests must include from your current roster a player to drop or move to IL.   In order to reserve a player to the Injured/IL Reserve category, the player must have an "IL" designation next to his name on your roster. 

NOTE that Adding without Dropping an active player will remove the conditional request and over-roster your team while illegally adding players and interfering with other team's Add/Drop requests. So always DROP or IL (if eligible) a player when requesting an ADD.

You must maintain an active balanced roster of 24 players as described above. Players that are on the IL can be moved to injured reserved status (IL) on your roster. When they return from the IL and become active, you will need to adjust your roster to maintain "balance", either dropping the reactivated player or by returning the player to your active roster and dropping another player. Do this no later than 12:00noon on every Tuesday morning! 

Confirm on Tuesday morning that your roster is balanced with 24 active players with any required drops made and positional shifts adjusted to meet the roster requirement.  Any reserved players that are active in MLB must be returned to active roster or dropped (CBS locks rosters before first game of the new scoring period).  Any changes after that take effect the following week. I will verify/confirm rosters and changes on Tuesday morning.

Dropped players are automatically placed on a "waiver list" for three days by CBS. When claiming a player to add to your waiver requests, pay attention to their waiver date, because players dropped less than 3 days before waivers run will not be eligible to add until the waiver period that includes that date. If two or more owners lay claim to a waived player during the waiver period, then the weekly waiver replacement order determines the pick order (CBS does this automatically).


H) Trades

Trades can be made starting with the first replacement period of the season.  This year, the CyberZahm trade deadline is Monday August 18; any trades submitted during the period ending August 18 will take effect for the scoring period beginning Tuesday August 19.  

If you trade a player who is on the DL and get back a healthy player then you must drop a player before the traded players become active on your roster, essentially as part of the trade before the next period begins.  


I) Side Bets

During the preseason betting period, please send 1 email to the league stating how high of a wager ($0 to $20) you are willing to make against all comers for overall and per-category finish. Sobo will tally side-bets (Overall $/Category $). Sobo will provide a summary of these bets for posting (below), and at season's end he will provide a list of the total amount each owner won/lost, to be folded by the Commissioner into the final overall results.

Any other type sidebet: You are on your own for any other bets. Make em, track em, pay em off -- on your own. If you want them to be posted below, send a short description along with a polite note to post them on the CyberZahm website.

2025 Side bets are as follows (overall/category):

$20/$10- Sobo, Gabes, Jack, Andy
$10/$5- Al, Fox, Mags, Hans, Ikey,
$5 overall- Prep

Wine/overall -Mags vs Ikey

J) Weekly Overall Finish Competition

For each of the 27 Scoring Periods, the team with the most points for that week (this is tallied by the CBS site) will win that week's best score contest, which is a pool of $1 per team, per scoring period. This $1/team entry, or $27 total for the season, is debited from the $110 entry fee, - So the weekly winning amount will be total of $1/team which in 2025 will be $11.


K) The Bottom Line

1.
1a) Entry cost is $110.  
 
1b) There is a fee of $1 per player added, either as permanent replacement or injury. No fee for dropping or reinstating an IL-reserved player, and no fees for dropping a player from rosters.

1c) Trades will have a fee of $1 per player per team. So, for example, a 4-player trade between teams A and B will cost owner A and owner B each $4.


2. The pot will consist of the entry fees and all of the Add/Trade fees. Â Payoffs will be as follows:

First, we deduct the cost of the stat service ($150).

Second, we deduct 10% of the remaining pot to be donated to a charity that I select.

Third, we deduct the payouts for the Best Weekly Scores.

Fourth, the remaining money is divvied up as follows: 52% of remaining for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place finishers:

First place:  30%
Second place:  15%
Third place:  7%

The remaining 48% will be given out using the following scheme which essentially pro-rates payouts based on total points:

Total points earned by the last place team are subtracted from everybody's total points, giving everyone an adjusted point value. (the adjusted pt value of the last place team would be zero). Each team would be paid from the remaining 48%, a share equivalent to their percentage of the total adjusted point values.

Side bet results (for simple Overall and Category side bets) will be incorporated into the results for payoff purposes.  All payoffs should be completed within two weeks of posting of the results.


L) Rules Questions/clarifications

I'm the profoundly respected commissioner (PRICC).  When rulings/clarifications are needed, I may ask for opinions, but I've got the final say. So there you have it.

Mags/Jimmy