National Fantasy Baseball Championship

Questions

Q: Can anyone compete in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship?
A: No. The principal participant must be 21 years of age and cannot reside in the five following states: Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana or Vermont.

Q: Can I still compete in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship if I reside in one of the five states listed as ineligible?
A: No. The laws in those five states are written in such a way that this contest could be considered as a form of gambling, even though skill far outweighs luck in a 26-week contest that includes thousands of games. Rather than fight the legal system in those states, we have chosen to void all members who provide addresses from those states. The co-manager, however, can reside in one of those five states.

Q: How will I be reassured that I am a participant in the NFBC?
A: Once you have signed up online or via phone, you will receive an e-mail confirmation from the Krause Publications staff and will receive constant updates on the event via e-mail. You will also receive a username and a password to manage your team on the game site.

Q: Can I pay for my entry fee with a credit card?
A: Absolutely. Just click on the Registration link, fill out the form and leave a credit card number if you'd like. We will not charge that credit card until Feb. 15, 2008 if you sign up early and secure a team, but will then run the credit card within a day of your signup after Feb. 15, 2008. However, we do not charge credit cards for any of the Auction Leagues, Ultimate Leagues or Satellite Leagues until they are filled.

Q: Is there an Events Fee to go along with my registration fee?
A: No, the entry fee is $1,300 and we are not requiring any additional fee to participate, other than $50 for a co-manager. We will provide juice and snacks before the draft in each of the host cities and if you want any additional food and drink that isn't already provided you can pay for it yourself. As for hotel rooms, we have recommended some hotels close to the draft headquarters in Las Vegas, New York, Orlando and Chicago and even have discount rates at some of them, but we aren't requiring anyone to stay at these hotels. The beauty of having regional drafts is you can sleep anywhere you want; just be to the draft on time.

Q: When will the draft start and what happens if I'm late?
A: All of the drafts will start simultaneously, so the New York and Orlando drafts will start at 1 p.m., the Chicago draft at noon and the Las Vegas draft at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 15. We will be in phone contact with the draft coordinators in each city to make sure all four cities start at the exact same time to avoid any advantages that could occur by starting at different times. If you are late for the draft, we will attempt to get a fill-in from someone in the room, but you have a chance of losing your team altogether if you are not at your spot by the start of the draft. We will not hold up drafts in four separate cities to wait for one single person who is late to the draft. You will lose your team with no refund.

Q: Can we bring laptops and/or cell phones to the draft?
A: Yes you can, although there will not be any electrical outlets available or Internet access. Bring strong batteries if you plan on using a laptop for your draft. As for cell phones, you can talk on the phone during your draft, but please be respectful of other owners at your table and do not cause such a disturbance that we have to ask you to stop using your cell phone. We do have the right to do that. Also, we request outbound calls not inbound calls where phones are ringing all over the draft room.

Q: Will there be food and/or drinks available at the draft?
A: Yes to both. We will have food for sale at a concession stand in each city and we will also have drinks available on a cash basis. We are allowing alcoholic beverages to be sold during the draft, but we ask everyone to drink responsibly and we have the right to cut off sales to any person if it's deemed necessary. Food and drink will be sold on a cash basis. There will be no smoking allowed, however, inside the draft room.

Q: Will there be breaks in between rounds?
A: Yes. We will have two 15-minute breaks during the draft, one after Round 10 and one after Round 20. We want to keep all of the drafts moving, while still allowing people to relax temporarily, get something to eat or drink and use the bathroom. But please be ready to draft again after 15 minutes. In the Auction Leagues, the auctioneer will determine when to take a break and do a money check as each auction plays out differently.

Q: How many players can we have on our roster and can we DL players?
A: The maximum roster limit at all times is 30, with 23 players always active. You are allowed to move reserve players into your starting lineup at will as long as your active roster is always legal according to the player eligibility rules. If one of your players land on the DL, you can place him on your reserve. But if you want to pick up another player off the free agent wire, you will have to cut one of your reserve players to remain at 30. No matter how many injuries your team suffers, you can never have more than 30 players and if you have more than seven players on the DL and need to pick up a free agent, you will unfortunately have to make the tough decision to cut one of your injured players. This will allow each league to have good free agents available at all times and prevent teams from "stashing" players on their DL.

Q: What is FAAB and how does that work?
A: FAAB stands for Free Agent Allocation Budget and each team has an imaginary $1,000 to acquire players during the regular season. If, for instance, Ian Stewart gets called up to the big leagues after spring training and he's still a free agent in your league, each league owner would have the chance to bid for his services. In a blind bidding process, Team A may bid $2 for him, Team B $30 and Team C $50. Each Sunday night, you will see which team acquired that player in the blind bidding and that player can then be added to that team's roster as long as an active or reserve player is cut. Teams will have to ration their $1,000 FAAB for the 26 weeks of the regular season.

Q: What is KDS Preferences and how does that work?
A: KDS Preferences stands for Kentucky Derby Style Preferences, which is a slotting system based on the horse race system. All draft orders for the main event, Satellite Leagues and Ultimate Leagues will be picked randomly, but owners can get moved to their preferred draft spots before Draft Day by filling out their KDS Preferences. Once owners have an NFBC team, they can go to MY SETTINGS (located far right) on their home page and then pull down to DRAFT PREFERENCES. There they can set their preferences in order. A setting like 3,2,1,6,7,8,15,14,13,4,5,9,10,11,12 is an example of KDS. In this scenario, if an owner was randomly picked first out of a hat, we would then slot him third in the draft order, since that was his first preference. If that owner had randomly been picked fourth out of the hat and the top three preferences were already taken, we would slot him sixth in the draft. We do this for every owner after the random selections are made and then announce the draft order for each league to all NFBC owners.

Q: How will the draft work?
A: All of the leagues will be positioned in the draft order, 1 through 15 with two spots available for each team (more space if you don't have a co-manager). The league draft will be shaped in a U with 90 degree corners and the draft board will be at the front. There will be one draft facilitator with a stop watch who will officially announce the picks and write them down on the official league scorecard. A second draft facilitator will handle the draft board, putting colored stickers under each team that has selected a player. The draft board will be big enough for all to see.

Q: How much time do we have to make a draft selection?
A: Each team will have one minute to make a pick in each round and the draft facilitator will give you a 15-second warning and then a countdown from five seconds to zero. If any team goes past its allotted time, the next team in the draft order would have a minute to make his/her selection and then the draft would go back to the previous owner, who would again have another full minute to make a selection. The one minute for the next selection will begin as soon as the sticker has been placed on the board for the previous pick and the draft facilitator announces the team name for the next selection.

Q: Do we have to fill out our 23 man active roster through the first 23 rounds of the draft or can we take someone like our second catcher with our 30th pick?
A: Good question. You do NOT have to fill out your 23 man full roster with your first 23 picks. However, at the end of your 30-man draft, you must have at least one player at each of the 23 required positions. We will upload your rosters shortly after the draft and you will have plenty of time to decide which players you want to start for Week 1 of the MLB season. All rosters for Week 1 must be in place by Sunday, March 30, 2008.

Q: How is position eligibility determined?
A: Any player who played at least 20 games at a position in 2007 will qualify at that position for the entire 2008 NFBC season. Once that player plays at least 10 games at a new position in 2008, he will also qualify at that position in the NFBC. If a player played at least 20 games in the majors last year and didn't play at least 20 games at any single position, he only qualifies at the utility position until he plays 10 games at a position in 2008 unless otherwise designated differently by the NFBC before Draft Day. When a minor-leaguer who has never played in the majors is promoted to the big leagues during the season, he will qualify at the position he played the most in the minors in 2007. Any player who had a September callup in 2007 and played less than 20 games, will qualify at the position that he played the most at in the big leagues in 2007. So if he played five games at second base, four at third and two at shortstop, he would qualify at second base in the NFBC to start the season.

Q: Do I have to draft all major league players or can I also draft minor league players?
A: For 2008, NFBC owners will be allowed to draft any MLB player, whether they are on a team's 40-man roster or not. Owners should also realize that any player selected on Draft Day in an NFBC league remains in that league's player pool the rest of the year. Our feeling is that if that player was good enough to be drafted on Draft Day, he's good enough to be in that league's free agent pool the rest of the year. Other owners in that league shouldn't be punished for one owner taking a chance on a top prospect and then keeping him away from other owners.

Q: Is there a minimum innings pitched limit for pitchers or a minimum number of at-bats total for offense?
A: In 2008, we have instituted a 700-inning minimum pitched limit for all NFBC leagues. However, there is not a minimum at-bats limit for your offensive players. If a team fails to reach 700 IP in any NFBC league, it will receive only 1 point in ERA and 1 point in WHIP at season's end. No other team will move in the standings as a result of this change, but the team in fault will have points deducted from its season total in ERA and WHIP as a result of failing to reach the IP minimum.

Q: What happens if we don't have e-mail or Internet access?
A: STATS LLC. will handle phone transactions throughout the season. You can make moves that way by calling their toll-free number at 1-888-450-2730.

Q: How can we prevent collusion in the NFBC?
A: For one thing, we are not allowing trades for that simple reason. Secondly, with the FAAB setup, it will be very hard for one team to get the best free agents in that league every single week. We will also randomly draw the name of participants for each league in each city, so there is no way that two "friends" can request to be in the same league. We realize that every league will have "dead teams" at some point in the season as the wear and tear of a long injury-riddled season wears down some owners and forces them to stop making moves. We ask all owners to stay active, but the NFBC will not force anyone to take injured players or inactive players out of their lineups. Each owner must manage his/her own team. In the end, the best teams in each league will win and the best team overall will win this marathon contest.

Q: If I win a league prize or a grand prize and I have a co-manager, who pays taxes on these winnings?
A: The principal participant will have any prize winning delivered to him/her. Any financial payout you may have with your co-manager is between the two of you. You might want to have a written agreement between co-managers to make any sharing of winnings a contractual agreement. But from our end in this scenario, the tax burden will be on the principal participant.