You're not going to cost yourself an additional 10 games out of a 20 game stretch by holding a player or two back - especially if said players are pitchers.

Obviously, I disagree.  It all depends on who you have playing in the other players' places.   Holding back studs to play the "salary control" game is stupid.   Have at it.  As I said, I'll take the wins if you want to give them to me.

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/19/2010 4:08:00 PM (view original):
Obviously, I disagree.  It all depends on who you have playing in the other players' places.   Holding back studs to play the "salary control" game is stupid.   Have at it.  As I said, I'll take the wins if you want to give them to me.

No, it really doesn't depend on much of anything.  10 games in 20 is a huge swing, and one that is highly unlikely to be brought about by a difference of a player or 2 on a 25 man roster, especially if the players are ones who would have only played in 4 or 5 games anyhow.

You'd absolutely be foolish to do this with a big chunk of your roster (and I've never done it all beyond the first year), but you're not really shooting yourself in the foot to do it to keep a key stud or two locked up cheaply.

And it's a silly thing to really even debate since there's a pretty easy fix out there in just tracking service time properly.

Later in the season can result in a demotion hit.  I believe the discussion has centered around holding players back for 20 games to start the season for three consecutive years.

This isn't MLB.   So MLB WAR numbers mean nothing.

I won't attempt to explain my thinking very throughly(because I really don't like the way people calculate games below/above .500) but a 10-10 becomes 15-5 with five additional wins in those 20 games and a 5-15 team with 5 additional losses in those 20 games.  It's a 10 game difference.    A couple of players in HBD can make that difference.  And, to be clear, 10 of those 20 are against divisional opponents.   As  I said, I hope my divisionmates do this every year.

All that said, it does seem like a simple fix that should be done.

Sounds like a glitch that should be fixed and/or banned by league commish's.  Seems like Schulyer knows what he is talking about with this and has crunched the numbers.  Seems pretty clear cut to me

Too much work for a commish.    A) Who determines which players are "studs" and subject to the rule?   B) 31 other teams to "manage" in order to make sure no one sneaks one thru.

The bigger issue is that the player will always (at least I think) sign a 5 year deal at 3rd year arb.  This gives you effective control over the player for 12 ML seasons., as I did with this guy.

http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=1499969