Quote: Originally Posted By cmthieme on 5/09/2010
I have a player who was out of options so I put him through waivers. He cleared. I then tried to demote him and get the following message:

"You are attempting to outright Malik Baines to the minor leagues. He has the choice of becoming a free agent instead of accepting the assignment. We asked the player what he would do and he responded that he would elect to become a free agent. You may either keep him on your roster or release him."

I know this was always stated as a possibility because this is how it works in real life, but I've never seen it before in this game. I'm pretty sure in real life when someone elects free agency, it means they nullify their contract. Is that how it works in HBD? If I release this guy, will the system know to take his contract off my books?

I've got a ticket in, but that likely won't get answered until tomorrow at the earliest. I'm just wondering if anyone else has seen this and what the results are after releasing the player. Thanks

Funny how you even quoted the statement that answers your own question. You may either keep him on your roster or RELEASE him. Nowhere does it say that he is opting out of or voiding his contract, he is just refusing the minor league assignment, as in MLB. The decision is on you. Either keep him and pay him or get rid of him and pay him.

Quote: Originally Posted By tecwrg on 5/11/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By cmthieme on 5/10/2010

To be clear, I never once expected to be able to dump his contract nor said teams can do that in real life. I'm not sure why that keeps getting brought up. (1)My understanding is that "electing to become a FA" is the equivalent of opting out of your contract in real life. The player can either keep his contract and accept assignment or opt-out and become FA. It's the player's choice. This may or may not be true in real life. I can't seem to find a definitive answer one way or the other and the languauge in the CBA is confusing.

FWIW, WIS said that in real life the player can refuse the assignment AND keep their contract. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I'm not interested enough anymore to worry about this any further, mainly because (2) there is a way around it in HBD anyway to get them in your minors.

1) There is the problem. Your understanding is incorrect.

2) And that is another problem. For the sake of realism in HBD , more veteran players should be refusing minor league assignments and forcing owners to release them, as they do in real-life. It would add a level of strategy to the game in that major league quality players who are released will end up on other major league rosters at minimum pay rather than rotting away in the minors.

tec I agree 100%. Would David Ortiz accept an assignment if the Red Sox tried to send him to the minors to 'find his swing'? I doubt it, so they would have to keep him on their roster or watch him go to say, the Yankees, and hit homers over that short porch they have in RF, and the Yankees would only have to pay him league minimum for his services. HBD veterans should be less willing to accept a minor league assignment.

So it sounds like its working as intended. At first I was hung up on the fact that the player's new team is only paying the minimum. But it makes perfect sense in that the new team would have no reason to sign him to more than a minimum contract since the old team pays the difference.

And I agree with tec--veterans refusing the deomtion should be the rule, not the exception.

Tell you what.

Go into work tomorrow. They will tell you that they are going to have you clean the bathrooms instead of being VP for the northwest region.

You say that you'd rather not, so they let you go. According to you, they owe you nothing.

According to who?

Fired without cause.

According to just about any labour law in any country where people vote in their leaders.

no, you said "according to you"....who did you mean by "you"? dmurphy?

Oh. The dude that started this thread. Him.

Basically, there's this "I committed this money to this player and now he wants his money. That's wrong!" theme, which I think we've all demonstrated is rather silly.

It doesnt seem like he's taking that attitude, really. He seems to be just looking for clarification about if it reflect real life and he's been pretty open about it.

On top of that, your analogy isn't that great. Playing minor league baseball and cleaning toilets are quite the same thing.

I think low A and rookie league, perfect analogy.

perfectly flawed

Well, rather than blindly assuming, I think you should start scrubbing and report back. Stat.

Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 5/11/2010
It doesnt seem like he's taking that attitude, really. He seems to be just looking for clarification about if it reflect real life & he's been pretty open about it.

On top of that, your analogy isn't that great. Playing minor league baseball and cleaning toilets are quite the same thing.

I think the problem was that he misunderstood how real-life worked. He thought that "refusing a demotion and electing free-agency" would void the player's contract. Within the context of that understanding, he was calling the HBD implementation as "stupid and unrealistic" which, if you didn't understand the context from which he was stating that, did come across as whining about having to pay the player.

Quote: mainly because there is a way around it in HBD anyway to get them in your minors.

If the player does refuse assignment then there is no way to get them into your minors, correct? I don't see how there is a way around it.

It does seem that more players should refuse assignment and force teams to release them. That is why players like Eric Byrnes get released in real life. The Diamondbacks don't want him taking up a 25-man roster spot, so the only way for them to free it is to release Byrnes, since he would refuse a minor league assignment.