I think trying to evaluate when someone is tanking ventures into very tricky waters. It might very well be someone tanking, but it could also be a newbie who doesn't know better or a veteran intentionally trying an unorthodox strategy. Trying to determine someone's intent is difficult and prone to bringing up arguments.

I much prefer results-oriented disincentives to combat tanking, such as win floors. It give people the benefit of the doubt on how they're using their players. Sure, people could still tank some games to compete for the wins floor, but they're playing with fire in case their team loses too many and they incur a penalty.

If someone is using position players like 30 or
40 games and having like 100- 200 PB and at least 2 - 3 steals each game with 90 % success
and you say that is tricky
then I would love to sell you a rickety bridge because - and I hate to say this - you have no common sense or reality.

This is not academia.
You gotta be real.

Anyone can respond any way they wish but this isn’t about win floors.
It is about using other player at catcher in order to lose enough games to get into the lottery.

I’ve used position players at Catcher many times, never to tank intentionally.

idk the team/owner/situation you’re referring to, but this is why I don’t like win floor/lottery’s for drafts as you’ll always have owners “play to lose” versus playing to win (my favorite progressives have formulas that promote winning for the 1st round).

if you’re gonna make a rule about playing out of position players at C, then you have to make a number of other rules like no players can play out of position, limit the salary of players sent down to AAA, limit the number of PA/IP a team can trade away, and probably many others.

I definitely feel your frustration. Had another owner in a league with a win floor for a lottery put all his best players in AAA, put all his pitchers as mop ups so they throw 200 pitches a game, but to Matt’s point, it’s really hard to “prove” intent and tanking.

Position players at catcher is unique unto itself. I can certainly accept someone playing a position player a few times because the catchers are gassed.

Why does there have to be a rule if someone is cheating. That philosophy is bizarre to me.
Playing a player at catcher to catch up fatigue
I think is absolutely fine as a strategy to win.

But when it is close to one fourth of the season then no. And he was using lousy hitters to boot.

If playing to lose is the standard for cheating and it is indisputable - beyond a reasonable doubt you must penalize.

In real baseball if someone on one of the teams points a light at the other teams hitters that would be cheating. Is there a rule for that.
In fact in real baseball there is no rule against using a position player at catcher out of necessity.
But if a team used a player like that who was giving up 3 stolen bases a game and multiple passed balls and errors and could not call a game and was poorly positioned causing bad pitching.and was in there for losing to get a high draft choice the league would step in.
If a team brought up the absolute worst players in their minor league system and played a lot of them all season and had very good players on the bench the league would step in - no specific rule in that creative way to cheat.

if owners are incentivized to lose by the rules of the league, owners will lose on purpose. if you are really bothered by this, then the only solution is to play progressive leagues that don't reward losing.

Posted by 06gsp on 9/12/2022 6:19:00 AM (view original):
if owners are incentivized to lose by the rules of the league, owners will lose on purpose. if you are really bothered by this, then the only solution is to play progressive leagues that don't reward losing.

You are saying that when somebody cheats you should accept it - there was no rule saying cheating is part of the scheme of the league.

BTW - the league that is involved does have a floor. He wins enough to be above the floor and cheats enough to be in the lottery.

I don't speak for 06gsp, but that's not how I interpreted his comment.

I took a look at the league in question, and yes, I think it's a particularly egregious example of tanking. If I were the commissioner, and there wasn't an EXTREMELY good extenuating circumstance (first-time prog owner, guy who took over right before the season started and didn't have the ability to add a catcher, owner who has been sick or otherwise unable to attend to WIS for weeks, etc.) I would kick him out. But that's just me, I have no patience with this stuff. I have certainly added the owner to a list that I keep of "guys who are never allowed in any progressive I run."

However, my belief (and this is what I think 06gsp might have been getting at) is that we shouldn't kid ourselves. In any league that uses a reverse-order-of-finish draft process, you are going to see tanking of one form or another. And no, wins floors and weighted lotteries of the bottom X teams do NOT solve the problem at all. You will still see some owners doing things to lose enough games to they are just above the wins floor or just make it into the lottery. These things can be a lot subtler than what this owner is doing, but it's very easy to do and most of these tactics are either impossible to catch or impossible to prove:
-- Increasing your pull setting and autorest settings for your good pitchers, while doing the reverse for your bad ones
-- Decreasing you pitch counts for your good pitchers, while doing the reverse for your bad ones.
-- Changing the roles of your pitching staff...your better Long A pitchers become Long B, or vice versa.
-- Changing the innings available for your staff so better relievers will be used early, leaving nothing but cannon fodder for the late innings
-- Unchecking the Def Rep box for your poor fielders so they never get replaced
-- Using a weaker hitter as part of a platoon
-- Putting your worst players first in your rest hierarchy or def rep hierarchy
-- Unchecking the PH and PR boxes for your worst players
-- Taking two multiposition players and swapping them so each is at a weaker (but still rated) position
-- Increasing baserunner aggressiveness for a slow team
-- Reducing SB settings for your good stealers, increasing them for your poor ones
-- Increasing the bunt settings for your good hitters, reducing them for your poor ones
-- Etc, etc, etc.

The only way to avoid this stuff is to completely eliminate reverse-order-of-finish drafting. Which is why all of my progs have done that in one form or another, and why I only play other progs that have done so. There are three basic ways to do this, that I know of:
-- Complete random order, where all teams have an equal chance. I never understood why an owner who wins the WS in 1914 should have no chance to draft Ruth. Or why an owner who wins in 1985 should have no chance to draft Maddux or Bonds. Advantage to tanking: NONE.
-- Draft formulas that are set up so that winning improves your position, and losing weakens it. There are multiple examples of this (gonoles uses one in his leagues, just4me has published his formula many times and there are multiple leagues that use it.) Such formulas take into account team salary AND team wins, so every team has an incentive to try to win every game. Advantage to tanking: NONE.
-- Drafting schemes that automatically assign players to certain teams (such as franchise-based leagues that assign rookies to the first team they played for, etc.) Advantage to tanking: NONE.

Posted by contrarian23 on 9/12/2022 9:40:00 AM (view original):
I don't speak for 06gsp, but that's not how I interpreted his comment.

I took a look at the league in question, and yes, I think it's a particularly egregious example of tanking. If I were the commissioner, and there wasn't an EXTREMELY good extenuating circumstance (first-time prog owner, guy who took over right before the season started and didn't have the ability to add a catcher, owner who has been sick or otherwise unable to attend to WIS for weeks, etc.) I would kick him out. But that's just me, I have no patience with this stuff. I have certainly added the owner to a list that I keep of "guys who are never allowed in any progressive I run."

However, my belief (and this is what I think 06gsp might have been getting at) is that we shouldn't kid ourselves. In any league that uses a reverse-order-of-finish draft process, you are going to see tanking of one form or another. And no, wins floors and weighted lotteries of the bottom X teams do NOT solve the problem at all. You will still see some owners doing things to lose enough games to they are just above the wins floor or just make it into the lottery. These things can be a lot subtler than what this owner is doing, but it's very easy to do and most of these tactics are either impossible to catch or impossible to prove:
-- Increasing your pull setting and autorest settings for your good pitchers, while doing the reverse for your bad ones
-- Decreasing you pitch counts for your good pitchers, while doing the reverse for your bad ones.
-- Changing the roles of your pitching staff...your better Long A pitchers become Long B, or vice versa.
-- Changing the innings available for your staff so better relievers will be used early, leaving nothing but cannon fodder for the late innings
-- Unchecking the Def Rep box for your poor fielders so they never get replaced
-- Using a weaker hitter as part of a platoon
-- Putting your worst players first in your rest hierarchy or def rep hierarchy
-- Unchecking the PH and PR boxes for your worst players
-- Taking two multiposition players and swapping them so each is at a weaker (but still rated) position
-- Increasing baserunner aggressiveness for a slow team
-- Reducing SB settings for your good stealers, increasing them for your poor ones
-- Increasing the bunt settings for your good hitters, reducing them for your poor ones
-- Etc, etc, etc.

The only way to avoid this stuff is to completely eliminate reverse-order-of-finish drafting. Which is why all of my progs have done that in one form or another, and why I only play other progs that have done so. There are three basic ways to do this, that I know of:
-- Complete random order, where all teams have an equal chance. I never understood why an owner who wins the WS in 1914 should have no chance to draft Ruth. Or why an owner who wins in 1985 should have no chance to draft Maddux or Bonds. Advantage to tanking: NONE.
-- Draft formulas that are set up so that winning improves your position, and losing weakens it. There are multiple examples of this (gonoles uses one in his leagues, just4me has published his formula many times and there are multiple leagues that use it.) Such formulas take into account team salary AND team wins, so every team has an incentive to try to win every game. Advantage to tanking: NONE.
-- Drafting schemes that automatically assign players to certain teams (such as franchise-based leagues that assign rookies to the first team they played for, etc.) Advantage to tanking: NONE.

I have always liked the random draft for the first round.
And I totally agree that there are a dozen ways to cheat that there will never be a rule for.

Isnt it enough to say Cheating is not allowed and if someone does it in a clearly observable way and gets caught then he is either evicted or he takes a serious punishment.

Why should there be the mental gymnastics intended to demote the ethical way of looking at it.

As I said...if I were the commissioner, the owner in question would be kicked out...but I am not going to tell other commissioners how to run their leagues.

I did not start this thread to tell any Commissioner
what they should do either beyond that
I don’t like cheating and this is about not needing a specific rule to address every way to cheat.

I am giving my opinion and stating my case.

And to be perfectly honest , do we want to be imbeciles and allow a major type of cheating because there wasn’t a warning not to cheat that way?

Oh and this does not matter but I say it anyway. The guy who did it is himself a commisioner of at least one league.

To be clear, I am agreeing with you in principle. I believe the commissioner has the authority to address untoward behavior, and the obligation to do so.

I don't try to codify tanking in my leagues (and the draft rules pretty much make it a non-issue), but Section 1 of our league constitution includes the following sentence:
In addition, owners are expected to adhere to all league rules and league deadlines, take full responsibility for accuracy in their keeper lists and draft picks, and act with integrity at all times.

That integrity clause gives me the ability to deal with extreme issues. I certainly am not a despot and do not abuse the rule (in all my years as commissioner, I have only kicked one owner out of a progressive).

Your constitution is great!
But even leaving out the statement about integrity does not negate the requirement.
But it is better to have it in because of
the imbroglio created out of this plain to see situation.

I really appreciate your comments because I think you are a Mount Rushmore guy in Sim baseball and your remarks really matter.