I've mined the forums for this specific question with no direct comment on the following situation. Is the lack of demotion penalty an absolute for roster expansion players? Or does that potentially depend on the number of development cycles a player has had? I understand from experience that roster expansion players will not get a demotion penalty if you put them back in aaa before the series ends, but from I can recall all the players I've done that with had originally had a "Promotion" on their player card from when they got called up to begin with. But now I have one player who did not get that "Promotion" on their card because they had 5 development cycles already in the season. So this makes me wonder if a demotion penalty is then possible for that player since more time has passed. Or is the lack of demotion penalty for a roster expansion player an absolute?

I just assumed the system only allows for penalties during the regular season so that any roster moves happening in ST or post season would not trigger a penalty, but I can't 100% guarantee that.

I know I have promoted and demoted a few players twice during post season without a penalty but that's just a few anecdotes so I wouldn't take it as gospel.

I tested this out today. It seems it is an absolute that there is no possible demotion penalty for a roster expansion player. The player has 59 patience, so not high, and he had five "regular season" bumps before the call up right at the end of the regular season. He did not get a promotion line on his card, and that's what had made me wonder. Could he get a demotion penalty? I waited until the world series was about to end and demoted him back to AAA. No line on his card. If I had waited until that point to promote him, he certainly would have had a promotion line on his card. Hence this is good evidence that in all cases. demotion penalties do not happen to roster expansion players.