Demotion Penalty Risk Topic

taz21
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Quote: Originally Posted By kahrtmen on 6/01/2010IMO, the demotion penalty is one of the worst aspects of HBD. Teams can and do use AAA players to keep their ML teams fresh in real life. They will often call up a player for one game and then send him back down. The only restrictions on this in real life are the 10-day requirement and options.

The demotion penalties are not always just a few points:

Exhibit A

This guy lost 6 pts of glove, 4 in arm accuracy, 5 in vsl, 4 in vsr, 4 in eye, 5 in baserunning, 3 in power. Just a brutal penalty. To make matters worse, I demoted this guy before spring training started. I did it immediately following the rule 5 draft, but before the first ST game. Apparently, you need to demote them before the Rule 5 draft to avoid risk of a penalty.
I only really follow the Reds, but I assume they operate in a similar fashion to everyone else in the majors. I can't recall the Reds ever doing this, at least not in the last 10 seasons or so. Sure they might call up a reliever, as they did last week to replace an injuried starting pitcher, and then send him back down a few days later when they need to call a starting pitcher up from AAA to take the place of the original injuried starting pitcher, but I can't ever recall them regularly moving players back and forth b/w AAA and the major leagues other than due to performance issues or injury issues.

As has been pointed out, if your sent down to AAA you can't be recalled for 10 days unless there is an injury. do you really think there are major league teams that feel like they can do with out one of their regular 8 for 10 straight days when they're otherwise healthy? Same for a regular pitcher in relief or starter? So could they do it with a bench guy? Perhaps, they're not as important, but if they're a bench player they're not going to play as much, so its not like they need the rest.

I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen in real life very often. Other than the scenerio described above, or to help keep a pitching staff fresh for a double header, I doubt this happens at all.
6/1/2010 5:06 PM
MikeT23
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Quote: Originally Posted By tufft on 6/01/2010Does length of time in the ML impact the demotion penalty?

Kahrtmen's Exhibit A player was in the ML for 3 seasons and them demoted back to AAA. I'm not sure why, but I'm more OK with him having some sort of response to being demoted that I am to a career 25th man taking a ratings hit if he's promoted & demoted several times during the first season or two he's in the ML.

Having an extra good arm in AAA to bring up a few times to fill in during the season, or a solid vet utility player to bring up and down a few times to rest players (including players with 2-6 game injuries) seems like it would reward good owners, not penalize them.

Shouldn't building in some amount of depth be a good thing? The current demotion rules penalize a deep team vs. a team with a few superstars and no depth.

Having more ways to build a good team should be goal. A random demotion penalty takes away overall depth as a strategy.


Not to my knowledge.

Building depth doesn't mean a deep 40 man roster. Depth should be built on the 25 man roster. That's your BL team. When you have to dig into #26-30, you didn't build a deep team.

I usually have an arm or two in AAA that I'll bring up/send down as necessary. He's a borderline BL player and, if he takes a hit, it's not the end of the world. He's replaceable.

Think of Aaron Small. 10-0 for the Yanks in '05. Out of baseball after '06. He was bounced up and down in '05. Teams don't do that with "real" prospects. The Nats won't do it with Straussberg.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/smallaa01.shtml
6/1/2010 5:36 PM
tufft
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Quote: I only really follow the Reds, but I assume they operate in a similar fashion to everyone else in the majors.

I don't want this to turn into a personal argument, but the Reds and all real ML teams do bring up several players for a part of the season and then send them down. All the time. A few most every month.

2009 Reds - 46 players appeared in a game.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CIN/2009.shtml
(This doesn't count backup Cs and RPs being called up for a few days that never got into a game.)

2009 Yankees - 45
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/2009.shtml

Whether or not the players that shuffle back and forth between the ML and MinL are going to be superstars some day has nothing to do with anything. They don't get worse when they are sent back to AAA. 24th-25th men know where they stand in the team hierarchy. Everyday in the ML is a day with a bigger paycheck. Their batting eyes and throwing arms don't get worse on the flight back to AAA.
6/1/2010 8:11 PM
MikeT23
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And you can shuffle your players back and forth to your heart's content. Some will take a rating hit, some won't.

1/3 of the 2010:

32 Reds, 34 Yankees. I don't know about the Reds but the Yanks have been injury-plagued. They've had more in 50ish games than any HBD team will have all season.
6/1/2010 9:01 PM
kahrtmen
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The point is that if teams wanted to have a constant shuffle of players between AAA and ML in real life, they could do it, so why should there be a penalty for it in HBD? You already get penalized financially when a AAA guy makes the ML minimum for the whole year after being called up. I just don't see the point of demotion hits at all.
6/2/2010 12:20 PM
iain
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Travel... players getting mad for being jerked around... none of this happens in HBD, so they have to give you something to keep people from just sending the previous game's SP to the AAA inactive list after every game.
6/2/2010 12:39 PM
MikeT23
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Quote: Originally Posted By kahrtmen on 6/02/2010The point is that if teams wanted to have a constant shuffle of players between AAA and ML in real life, they could do it, so why should there be a penalty for it in HBD? You already get penalized financially when a AAA guy makes the ML minimum for the whole year after being called up. I just don't see the point of demotion hits at all


If you really want to say "real life", I'll be happy to play that game.

What concrete evidence do you have that proves "real life" players don't mind being shipped back and forth between AAA and the big leagues?

Once you admit that you have no evidence of that, I'll go back to HBD. You're given a 25 man roster. If you don't build enough depth using those 25 players(I usually have 2 that hardly see the field), you did something wrong. Do better.
6/2/2010 12:43 PM
MikeT23
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By the way, I'll use Oliver Perez as an example. He is absolutely refusing to go to AAA. It was rumored that the Yanks asked Jason Giambi to do it a few seasons back and he refused. Both of them would be making the same amount of money. Why did they refuse?
6/2/2010 12:45 PM
kahrtmen
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I never claimed that players categorically don't mind it. Sorry - I should be more specific with my thoughts. I can see why a guy who has been in the bigs for a while would be ****** about a demotion. However, I am pretty sure that a AAA lifer would rather shuttle back and forth between AAA and ML than stay in AAA and not get "jerked around." If a player doesn't have at least 1-2 years of ML service then I really doubt they will be ****** to be shuttled back and forth.

Granted, teams don't do it often, but there are definitely times when a ML team will bring up a AAA player to pitch in one game and then send him right back down.

My teams are usually deep enough that it's not a major issue. I just wish there was a little better logic around who gets a penalty and why. If I have a starter on the cusp of the bigs, I am going to keep him in AAA and get him PT rather than park him as a long reliever and limit his innings. If I bring him up for a cup of coffee and want to send him back down to keep getting him playing time, I really don't think I should have to fear a penalty. I have no evidence of course, but my guess is that the vast majority of players are not mad when they are sent back down to AAA for the first time.
6/2/2010 1:11 PM
MikeT23
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Not all players get them.

Teams don't bring up their future ace for a start. They bring up a career minor leaguer or a BL player who has bounced around. If you do that, and he loses a point or two, no big deal.

I think getting bounced around does have a negative affect. Players get bent out of shape for being benched, dropped in the line-up, sent to the DL, etc, etc. Being forced to re-locate has to be a bigger deal than that. Of course, if you ***** too long or too loud about it, you may never see the bigs again.
6/2/2010 1:22 PM
kahrtmen
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True, but in my experience anyone with mediocre to poor makeup or patience always receives a hit, sometimes a massive hit.

I would say that this change alone would be worth making:

A player should not risk demotion penalties at any time during the season when he makes his initial appearance in the big leagues.

I am not claiming that the penalty is a big deal. It is a minor part of the game, I suppose, but it just seems like something that could easily be improved.
6/2/2010 1:47 PM
MikeT23
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But that goes counter to real life.

How do you think Straussberg would handle a demotion if he gets bombed against Pitt on 6/8?

I may have to eat my words but there's no way the Nats send him down after a few starts regardless of the results. And I think, mentally, it would devastate SS if they did.
6/2/2010 2:50 PM
dedelman
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I think that it is safe to say that if you demoted a large number of major leaguers you would get a wide range of responses from players. In the real world, two things affect the demotion reaction; how you deliver the bad news, and characteristics of the demoted person.

We don't have the option of delivering bad news in a particular way in HBD; I mean, I guess you could have a "sensitivity training" budget which, for $1M, eliminated demotion penalties, but get real. So in order to get a wide array of ratings responses you have to key it on the player's "personality," and patience and makeup are the "personality" ratings.

I'm OK with the demotion penalty.
6/2/2010 5:57 PM
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