At the end of the first season and every season after, each team will be allowed to keep 20 of the 30 players under its name (25 MLB Roster Spots and 5 Triple A spots equal the total of 30). That means that you must chose between prospects, bench players, and starters to keep. The idea however is that a team will opt to keep it's 20 starters. The other 10 players are the 5 bench players and the 5 Triple A players.
A draft date will be set, and the draft will be either Live or via AIM again (posting draft choices only as a last resort). Two weeks before the draft date everyone must have in the list of players they are dropping from their team. One week before the draft I will send out an email with attachments of the List of Available players prices and a reminder of the draft order (note: the regular season draft will not be snaked).
From that point forward, the draft will be the same process as either the Live draft or AIM draft discussed above. This draft will only go 10 rounds.
A manager does have the option of keeping less than the 20 players, but you will not be given free draft choices after the 10th round, you will have to fill your roster through free agency at which time others can also do so. This is because the process is confusing enough, manually driven, and prone to error and confusion. The simplest answer in this case is well enough.
All Drafts Must be finished before any baseball is actually played, whether that be spring training or the World Baseball Classic. The reason for this is that there can�t be time during the draft to adjust to injuries or poor performance that other managers may not have.
Once the deadline is reached where managers must drop the 10 players from there last years team, any teams that have not given a list will automatically have their 10 cheapest players dropped from their team. This is important to note because that team may lose prized prospects.
APPENDIX (added 05.15.2007): YEARLY FACE OF FRANCHISE AUCTION
After each season, in addition to the snake draft, there will also be an Auction for Face of Franchise players that are thrown back into the pool of available players. The Auction will be as follows:
~The manager of the player that is being Auctioned begins the biding at any price above the player's true price (as calculated by the Pricing Program).
~The Auction will only be one round, and therefore each manager will only get one bid at the player. The order of the bidders will be based on the standings last year, where the team that finished best at the end of the regular season follows the original owner.
~The biding moves down from best standing to worst until each manager has had a chance to bid or pass. Whichever manager bids the highest gets the player.
~Bids following the initial bid can be no lower than the standing bid plus 1/10th of the players Face of Franchise salary. (For example: If Pujols originally cost $9, and the previous manager opened the biding at $5, the next bid can be no lower than $5.90).
~Whichever manager wins the Auctioned Face of Franchise player uses this player as their highest pick in the snake draft.
~IF no manager bids on a player put up for auction then this player will be thrown into the regular draft pool which will cause that player to lose his Face of Franchise status.
~The order of players auctioned will be based on the players "Natural" Price (as computed through the Trading Tool). Highest Priced player goes first.
~The "initial bid" on each player is always the player's "Natural" price and then the first manager (i.e. the original team who dropped that player) can either "pass" or bid at a minimum of 10% of the players original auctioned price.
APPENDIX (added 05.15.2007): DROPPING THE 10 PLAYERS BEFORE THE DRAFT
As stated above, every team may only keep a maximum of 20 players after the previous season ends. After each team has emailed the list of players to be dropped, this list will be made public to all teams. Following this, EACH TEAM WILL BE ALLOWED TO DROP ONE MORE PLAYER FROM THEIR ROSTER BUT NO MORE. This allows for managers to possibly clear some additional cap space if there are certain players that have been entered into the draft which that manager desires. However, this will not allow for an extra round of drafting. The draft will still only be 10 rounds, and any additional roster spots that need filling can only be done through the free agent pool after the draft has been completed and teams have been set.