Similar to the Rule 5 Draft in real life, but taking a much simpler form, the end-of-year draft allows teams to draft unprotected players from opposing rosters.
Players acquired in the end-of-year draft are not transferred to the new team until after the post-season has finished.
Each team may protect up to 35 players from being drafted away from their roster. This includes players on the MAJ, MIN, and IL/DL rosters.
Most teams will only have players on their MAJ and MIN rosters, which total 45 or 50 players of capacity. In that case, 10 players will be left unprotected, and available to be drafted away.
Players acquired through the October 10th International Draft are automatically protected from the EOY draft 8 days later.
A team can protect players from the Team Menu > General Manager > Roster page, but not more than 35.
There you will see checkboxes to toggle each player's protected status.
A team may choose to protect fewer than 35 players, but not more than 35.
Ineligible Players
Players in their final contract year can not be protected or drafted, because they will become free-agents after the season is over.
NOTE: By default, a team protects all 25 members of the MAJ roster, and the 10 least matured MIN players.
Beginning October 12th, teams can configure their draft plans from among the unprotected players.
The draft itself runs on October 18th.
To prepare for the draft a team must set their end-of-year draft plan.
More about the end-of-year draft plan.
The draft runs in the order defined at the beginning of the season.
Unlike the amateur draft, the end-of-year draft does not have a set number of rounds. It simply runs new rounds until every team's draft choices have been used up.
More about the draft order.
Each draftee costs $1,500,000 ($1.5M), payable by the drafting team to the team losing the player.
If a team has less than $1.5M in cash reserves it is unable to draft players.
The acquiring team is required to fullfill the remainder of the draftee's contract/extension just as with any other player.
Acquired players will be transferred to their new team after the post-season has completed. This means when the new season opens, you will find those players on your roster.
As with all newly acquired players they will apear on the pending roster.
More league dates.