Posted by MikeT23 on 6/21/2010 1:33:00 PM (view original):
To be fair, I'm assuming positive, neutral and negative results. 

Positive-Good players are called up and do their job.
Neutral-Those players don't exist.
Negative-The good players are replaced by inadequate players.

My reasoning is, if the replacements are quality BL-players, there is no reason to play salary-manipulation. 

wow, this keeps getting better!

why are we assuming 3 different results (situations)?

i thought the argument was hold down the star players, or don't.  That's 2 situations, not 3. that is definitely not "fair"

Ok your mythical team goes 10-10 (i say mythical because for some reason the players don't exist here!  so who is playing in their place, inadequate replacements?  wait why don't the players exist???!  let's just move on)

so they goto 15-5 by having the good players called up (because they exist now!) and do their job (let's suspend belief and say that a couple guys make 5 games difference here)

and in the third case is they drop to 5-15 by playing inadequate replacements in place of the ummm, inadequate replacements?

What??   yes that makes so much sense MikeT, your new math theory only gets better, you invoked the star player's ceasing to exist corollary, bravo!

Posted by tecwrg on 6/21/2010 1:51:00 PM (view original):
"I believe your record can have a 10 game difference by reversing the results of 5 games."

True, but only when compared to the team that you played those five games against.

Example: Yankees and Red Sox are tied at 20-20. They play a five game series in Boston. Yankees sweep, they are now 25-20 and Boston is 20-25. Yankees lead the Red Sox by 5 games.

If the Red Sox sweep, then they are 25-20 and the Yankees are 20-25. Yankees are now trailing the Red Sox by 5 games. So relative to these two teams, those 5 games resulted in a 10 game swing in the standings.

But relative to a third team, say Tampa Bay, then the Yankees performance in those five games only affected the Rays by 5 games, because there was no dependency between the outcome of the New York games and the Tampa Bay games.

It's a convoluted argument that needs to be understood in context.

Yes in a series with 2 teams playing each other losing 5 games you would have won otherwise will drop you 10 games in the standings to that team only, and 5 games to all other teams.

Miket has never said this, these are his first 2 statements on it in this thread...

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Ok in the first post he hints at the playing games against team's in your own division, maybe he is talking about a swing in the standings.

 Wait a second, in the second post he directly says a team can drop from 95 wins to 85 wins, or 120 wins to 110 wins, by holding back a few guys for 20 games.  He's pretty clearly talking about a 10 game swing in a team's record, not in the standings.

here is the next time he really addresses this question, and this is my favorite

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Quote post by MikeT23 on 6/21/2010 12:54:00 PM:I'm not sure I've said you can lose 10 games in the standings.    I believe your record can have a 10 game difference by reversing the results of 5 games. 

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There it is, he said it again, tec you are defending this absolutely insane logic with a take on it that in the prior post he is distancing himself from.

He "believes", maybe this is a faith thing and I just can't understand it, and you're not allowed to question it.

I challenge anyone to take any 20 game span by any team and create a 10 game difference in their record by reversing the results of 5 games (just 5, the same 5, and only 5).   Mike, please, just write it down and you'll see why it's soooooooooo stupid. 

Here I'll write just write it down for mike, my mythical team will be 15-5 (i'll put all the wins in a row to make it REAL easy)

Game 1 - Win
Game 2 - Win
Game 3 - Win
Game 4 - Win
Game 5 - Win
Game 6 - Win
Game 7 - Win
Game 8 - Win
Game 9 - Win
Game 10 - Win
Game 11 - Win
Game 12 - Win
Game 13 - Win
Game 14 - Win
Game 15 - Win
Game 16 - Loss
Game 17 - Loss
Game 18 - Loss
Game 19 - Loss
Game 20 - Loss

Ok mike!  I will give you a million dollars if you can make this team 5-15 by reversing the results of 5 games, which 5 do you want to switch?

You're on record as saying you can do this, it's go time!

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Quote post by MikeT23 on 6/19/2010 5:08:00 PM: Yeah, it really does.   The difference between 5-15 and 15-5 is five decisions.  If you don't think a couple of players can cost you 5 decisions, I don't know what game you're playing. 

Posted by schuyler101 on 6/21/2010 4:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/21/2010 1:33:00 PM (view original):
To be fair, I'm assuming positive, neutral and negative results. 

Positive-Good players are called up and do their job.
Neutral-Those players don't exist.
Negative-The good players are replaced by inadequate players.

My reasoning is, if the replacements are quality BL-players, there is no reason to play salary-manipulation. 

wow, this keeps getting better!

why are we assuming 3 different results (situations)?

i thought the argument was hold down the star players, or don't.  That's 2 situations, not 3. that is definitely not "fair"

Ok your mythical team goes 10-10 (i say mythical because for some reason the players don't exist here!  so who is playing in their place, inadequate replacements?  wait why don't the players exist???!  let's just move on)

so they goto 15-5 by having the good players called up (because they exist now!) and do their job (let's suspend belief and say that a couple guys make 5 games difference here)

and in the third case is they drop to 5-15 by playing inadequate replacements in place of the ummm, inadequate replacements?

What??   yes that makes so much sense MikeT, your new math theory only gets better, you invoked the star player's ceasing to exist corollary, bravo!

Which is where Mike's reasoning goes off course.  He's got 3 different set of players getting you to 3 different set of results (5-15, 10-10, 15-5) when in reality we're dealing w/ two sets of players.  The team on opening day, and the 5 players you're holding back in AAA for 20 games which is supposedly 5 games better over a 20 game set.  There can only be a difference of 5 games b/w the results of the 2 if you assume the 5 make a 5 game difference.  5-15 to 10-10 or 10-10 to 15-5.  I think I'll take the cost savings and even better the extra seasons of control over the player in exchange for those 5 games every 3 seasons.  If I'm good enough to win in the playoffs, then I should be good enough to get by those 20 games w/o a few key players.  If I'm just skating into the playoffs w/o them for 20 games, then I'm likely not good enough to do any damage w/o a series run of good luck.

edit: I think you proved it better w/ that 20 game layout. Thanks.

To get back to point, now that we've proven that this is possible, should WIS "fix" it, or should we just take advantage of whenever possible?  It goes beyond keeping stars, it also helps you keep solid bench players around for cheaper for a longer period of time.  A guy that you don't mind having around for the league minimum or even his 1st season arbitration demands, but once he starts demanding 5 mil in arbitration, he's no longer worth keeping on your bench.  You know, they right hander who can give you 150+ solid at bats vs lefties, but kind of sucks vs righties but is the perfect sub for your left handed batting 3b who would play ever day if it wasn't for his mid 70s durability.

I would love for WIS to change the code so we don't have to internally police it as we do in our league.  It is somewhat of a gentleman's agreement with good owners in the league so that helps.  The punishment is expulsion so no one has tested it to this point.  There is a waiver for the first season call-up to save one year of arb.  Outside of that its anti-competitive and bush league.  Those who intentionally manipulate are working the glitch.  Its pretty simple logic imo.

taz21, thanks for further clarification of our point...

Yes back to the point, I think WIS simply needs to get it to the way MLB does it, where the service days don't reset at the beginning of a year if they have rolled over 172 days in the prior year.

Example - a player with 1.252 (1 year and 252 days of service at the end of the year) starts the next season with 2.000 years of service.  In real life he would be at 2.080. 

And you are absolutely correct taz, it is an enormous payroll advantage.

Nams - the internal policing is necessary because of how much of an advantage it creates, I'm with you in hoping WIS can fix this.  I've already sent a ticket.   I encourage others to do the same.

Posted by schuyler101 on 6/21/2010 4:12:00 PM (view original):
Here I'll write just write it down for mike, my mythical team will be 15-5 (i'll put all the wins in a row to make it REAL easy)

Game 1 - Win
Game 2 - Win
Game 3 - Win
Game 4 - Win
Game 5 - Win
Game 6 - Win
Game 7 - Win
Game 8 - Win
Game 9 - Win
Game 10 - Win
Game 11 - Win
Game 12 - Win
Game 13 - Win
Game 14 - Win
Game 15 - Win
Game 16 - Loss
Game 17 - Loss
Game 18 - Loss
Game 19 - Loss
Game 20 - Loss

Ok mike!  I will give you a million dollars if you can make this team 5-15 by reversing the results of 5 games, which 5 do you want to switch?

You're on record as saying you can do this, it's go time!

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Quote post by MikeT23 on 6/19/2010 5:08:00 PM: Yeah, it really does.   The difference between 5-15 and 15-5 is five decisions.  If you don't think a couple of players can cost you 5 decisions, I don't know what game you're playing. 

Being a betting man I would lay 100-1 on that being done (its what we call a sucker bet)

They can fix this easily.

1) Automatic demotion penalties for any player who is above major league average for his position (using ratings or stats) at any time during the season after he has one full year of service time. No September demotion, no spring training demotions, etc. for these guys, without a penalty (and make the penalty severe). Again, only apply this to players who are ML league average or better. The player's ratings get restored once he moves to a new organization.

2) Any player regardless of ability that is ever demoted after he has one year of service time is unwilling to sign a long-term contract and walks the second he is eligible. He will never sign a long-term extension. You can pay market to resign him once he's free agent eligible. There are too many hometown discounts as it is, and this would help eliminate that. Really, every player should be willing to walk after year 5, or ask for a lot of money, like double what they currently ask for.

Normally I think demotion penalties are terrible and unrealistic. But in this one case they make a lot of sense.

They could relax the demotion penalties for the fringe major leaguers who would be happy just for the chance, for the AA guys that get called up to make an emergency start, etc. too while they are at it.

This is a major glitch, and really should be corrected. In real life the Mariners would never demote Felix Hernandez to save service time because the fans wouldn't stand for it, and Felix would freak out. But here it's easy to do in April or September in HBD.

I would also add that until the fix this, you are crazy not to take advantage of this. It isn't unethical, don't hate the player, hate the game.

If people don't exploit things like this, they have no incentive to fix it. I'm just annoyed that I didn't figure it out until last season.