The fantasy game, like real-life MLB, has evolved over the years and, for the most part, that evolution has made the game better for the masses. Unhappy with rotisserie scoring? You can now play in head-to-head leagues. NL-only got you down? How about a mixed league? Don’t like batting average or wins as categories? Many leagues now use on-base percentage and quality starts. Don’t like categories? You can now use a points-based scoring format. Whatever your desire, changes to your league can be made to keep everyone happy. However, one thing you absolutely cannot do is change the rules of the game after the season has begun.

The first article that publishes in every Fantasy Alarm Draft Guide is “Know Your League Rules.” In order to draft properly, you need to know everything from scoring format to roster size to position eligibility. To succeed in-season, you need to know everything from waiver procedures to playoff structure. These are all outlined in the rules when the league is set up and not knowing the rules means you should just take your entrance fee and throw it away. You’re a donator, not a competitor.

If these rules change during the course of the season, then your draft plan and in-season strategy might as well be thrown away too. If you’re drafting with the belief that a player requires 20 games-played before becoming eligible at a particular position, then changing that eligibility to 10 games after the season begins changes the dynamics of your league tremendously. Suddenly, a player you weren’t targeting warrants more attention in an attempt to increase roster flexibility. That means your draft targets may have been different and now, your in-season waiver plan probably needs to change.

Plain and simple, that’s garbage. Rules cannot be changed once the fantasy season begins and that season starts on Draft Day. If you are in a keeper league, your season begins the day you declare your keepers. No commissioner should be changing the rules and no member of the league should be asking him/her to do so. If that happens, you need a new commissioner and possibly, a new league.

You would like to think members of the fantasy industry would understand such a concept, but you would be surprised as to how loose with the rules some of them are. In fact, the standards by which some fantasy baseball players and commissioners play the game is downright mindboggling. One industry dynasty league in which I play is dealing with this right now.

According to the rules of the league, which haven’t changed since its inception five years ago, our rosters must be pared down to 40 players before we begin a six-round rookie/free agent draft. That all took place inside the first week of March. Last week, our first FAAB period took place. Bid money was spent, players were rostered and others were cut. The league is in full-swing and we’ll have another round of FAAB process before Opening Day.

Suddenly, one owner chimes in to our commissioner that no eligibility changes were made from 2020; that it is still a 20-game minimum from last year and 20 game in-season for this year. Yeah? And…? So what? That’s what the rules state and we all knew these were the rules heading into this season. There was no discussion about changing them, therefore, we all headed into 2021 the exact same way.

Not this owner. This owner took advantage of his standing with the commissioner and pushed for a league “discussion” which most of us know isn’t really a discussion, but an announcement that the rules of the league were suddenly changing. A change under the guise that this was best for everyone.

Mind you – this isn’t a rules change born out of concern for the betterment of the league. This was a self-serving move. Someone wanted to put a player at a different position, saw they weren’t able to and brought it to the commissioner, hoping to get it changed. Rather than take a firm stance that rules shouldn’t be changed after the season had officially commenced, the commissioner afforded that owner with an opportunity to push his own agenda across, allowing him to lobby for his position and “suggest” a league vote.

Rules are not meant to be broken. Anyone who says they are is clearly incapable of being successful under the established guidelines. Are there loopholes? Sure. And if you choose to find and exploit the loopholes, so be it. So long as you aren’t breaking any of the rules, you can do what you want. But to change rules after the season has officially begun is wrong.

Clearly, this isn’t just a problem in industry leagues. Emails and tweets reporting behavior like this come in all the time and it’s time for it to stop. So heads-up all you commissioners out there, and all of you who don’t bother to read the rules until it’s too late -- you want to change the rules, you do it in the offseason. The moment a new season begins, those rules are etched in stone.