PCL Redux Glossary

The following is an alphabetical listing of terms used on this site which may have specific and/or unfamiliar definitions when applied to this league.

base ratings (or base settings)
Generally, the ratings, based on his career stats, that a player gets when he enters the league. They are the ratings which will be restored whenever the player is reset.

base settings
See base ratings.

Buddy
A Negro League player who is drafted along with a star Negro League player. The Buddy does not require a Star Player slot. Buddies usually range from slightly below-average to slightly above average. Sometimes an aging star will be eligible to be drafted as a Buddy.

compensation
The mandatory act of supplying a team with a replacement player whenever one team is preventing (via slotting) another team from having a player that was on that team in real life.

contract
The period for which a team has control over a player. Players in Flex slots get lifetime contracts.  For PCL players, the length of the contract is the period he stayed with one PCL team in real life. There are additional factors that affect contract length in this league.

crystal ball
A reference to the fact that a player’s real-life statistics and career are a matter of historical record, and can therefore sometimes be used as a somewhat reliable predictor of the player’s career in our league (“Player X should have a long and successful career, at least according the the crystal ball”).

Flex slot
A Star Player slot designed to give GMs maximum flexibility. A Flex slot may hold draft-eligible players from the Negro Leagues, the Major Leagues, or the Minor Leagues.

Freebie
A player who is eligible to be drafted and who does not require any type of Star Player slot. During the draft, Freebies are Unrestricted Type-D free agents. After the draft, they may be signed by any team. All players (except those who were occupying Star Player slots) become Freebies when they are released by a PCL team in this league.

Major League player (or Negro League player, or minor league player)
Whenever these terms are used on the rules pages or other informative pages on this site, they refer to where the player was playing in real life in a given year. Obviously, most players play in both the major leagues and the minor leagues at some point in their careers, so when the rules refer to a “major league player”, it means a player who was in the majors at the time the rule is being applied.

Also, in this league the PCL is considered a major league, but when applying rules to specific PCL players, they are considered “minor league players” during the years they were in the real-life (minor league) PCL.

matching rights
The ability of a team to slot a player that another team has attempted to slot, thus overriding that team’s claim on the player. For Type-A and Type-C free agents, the team that last had the player has matching rights. For Type-B free agents, the team the player was on that year in real life has matching rights.

minor league player
See Major League player.

Minor League Star slot
A Star Player slot specifically for players who were in either the PCL or another minor league in a given year (in real life).

Negro League player
See Major League player.

our league (or this league)
Generally refers to the PCL Redux simulation/game. “Our” or “this” league might refer not just to the PCL, but to the entire spectrum of PCL Redux leagues, which include our NL and AL simulation (although these terms might also sometimes refer to just the PCL).

overslotting
Placing a player in a Star Player slot that is more valuable than another slot for which he is eligible (Flex slots are considered more valuable than Minor League Star slots).

Parity Rule
A rule that temporarily removes one or two Star Player slots from a team after an extraordinarily good season, and which temporarily adds one or two Star Player slots to a team after an extraordinarily poor season.

reset
To restore a player’s ratings to their default settings.

slot (slotting, slotted, etc.)
A “slot” refers to a Star Player slot. “Slotting” a player means drafting him and assigning him to an available Star Player slot. A player who has been assigned a Star Player slot is considered “slotted”.

Star (capitalized)
When the rules refer to a “Star” or a “Star Player”, they refer specifically to a player who has been drafted and placed in a Star Player slot.

star (all lower case)
When the rules refer to a “star” or a “star player”, they just refer to a player who was a star in real life, and not necessarily one who has been slotted in our league.

Star Player slots
A means to limit the number of great players in the league at any one time so that the league doesn’t become too star-laden. Each team has six slots with which they may draft eligible star players; undrafted eligible star players do not enter the league. The different types of Star Player slots are Flex slots and Minor League Star slots.

Star Player Status Downgrade
An option to petition the league to have an aging player in a Star Player slot declared “no longer a star” and thus freeing up the slot. It is intended as a way to keep “fan favorites” on the team in their declining years.

Tenured player
A player who played at least 10 years in the Major Leagues, the minor leagues, or Negro League baseball (combined) and is not within three years of the end of his real-life career (these are the general requirements; other criteria are sometimes applied). “Resetting” a player refers to restoring his ratings to their base settings if OOTP’s player development has reduced them too severely.

this league
See our league.

Type-A free agent
A player who is eligible to be drafted who requires a Flex slot. Generally these are players who were stars in Negro League baseball or were players who went from the PCL to MLB (or were players from the Western U.S., who may or may not have played in the PCL).

Type-B free agent
A player who went from one PCL team to another in real life. By default he goes to the team he went to in real life, but the team he left in real life may retain him by placing him in a Star Player slot.

Type-C free agent
A player who is eligible to be drafted who was in the PCL and went to another minor league in real life. If drafted, he requires a Star Player slot; otherwise, he may default to his most recent PCL team.

Unrestricted Type-D free agent
See Freebie.