[M's rule]

I went for an attention-getting title just to get some readership, and in the hope that someone who can provide some insight will check this out.

As the manager/GM of the Mariners, I played out the M’s first season (1977) in 6.01, then upgraded to 6.03 just before proceeding to next year. Started the FA signing process. First email during process comes from Seaver, who tells me my offer sucks. It’s dated 4/10/78.

NOTE: IRL, the 1978 schedule begins on 4/5. (This is true in my league as well, since I inputted the 1978 schedule manually.) I received dozens of other emails from players in the next few days, but it took me a while to notice that they were all being sent after the start of the regular season.

On 4/25 (according to emails), I finished my participation in FA signings when I landed the last player I was going for. This is Day 16 of the process (figures, since Day 1 was 4/10). I clicked on “Finish All Days” to get through free agency--which puts the end of the FA period at 5/9.

(Minor incidental problem) Then comes the Rule 5 draft---but I don’t know this right away, because the program next tells me that spring training is about to start. It’s only after I click to continue that I get directed to the Rule 5 draft. I go through that process (skipping my turn and drafting no one), and then I go to ST.

Before I got this far, I made some roster moves---bringing up many of the players I had acquired by FA signings, demoting others to AAA. (I didn’t know whether minor leaguers were included in ST, but in any event I wanted these new acquisitions to be on the ML roster at the start of the 1978 season, regardless of their ST performance.)

To accomplish this goal, I put a couple of ML players on irrevocable waivers. Ike Hampton was claimed on 4/28 by Baltimore, but Pepe Frias cleared waivers. When I found this out, I tried to move him from ML to AAA and was told he had to clear waivers (again?). So I hung him out on the waiver wire once more, and this time he got picked up. The date of this event was 5/12. Two weeks have passed since Frias previously cleared waivers, yet the waiver period is only 3 days.

I came to discover that a player doesn’t have to be on the ML roster to show up in the ST display. Earl Williams, a newly signed catcher in AAA who’s meant to replace Hampton, shows up after all on the display of players whose attributes can be affected during ST. So, I proceed, clicking the button that gets me through spring training.

Now it’s Opening Day, and I’m rarin’ to go. I bring up the schedule for the day and discover that the date is JUNE 9. All teams have records of 0-0. The first two months of the season have evaporated. They exist as games scheduled to be played, if I backtrack to any previous date on the league schedule display, but they can’t be played or simmed.

Knowing what I know now, I should have got a clue when Seaver rejected my contract offer 5 days after the season was scheduled to open.

I’ve tried to be as exhaustive as possible in this retelling. Can someone explain why the season schedule started five days before the FA signing period started?