Not Your Standard Service Time Mystery Topic

We've got a situation in one of my leagues that has resulted in contradictory Major League service time accumulation, and I'm hoping people can lend some experience to maybe clarify or explain what is going. Please bear with the lengthy post, it is a perplexing issue!

In summary, myself and another owner treated two sets of player(s) almost entirely the same, but while his players seemed to accumulate EXTRA service days from their time in the Majors, mine did not.
 
In detail:

Two seasons ago, I had an opportunity, with a player injured in Spring Training, to call up the player from the minors for the final 10 days of the Major League season and subsequent playoffs. We were curious if in the next season, I would have to keep this player down 10 extra days in addition to the usual 20 minor league days to prevent him from ending the season with a year of Major League service time. (Turns out you do not, just FYI.)

The player in question, Rob Russell, started the next season with 10 days of service time. (This wasn't surprising, this was expected.) I kept him down 20ish minor league days (I think I missed the exact call-up day), and after our season concluded and the world rolled, he currently has 0 years and 162 days -- it would appear you DO NOT need to wait additional days before calling up to preserve a year of service time (obviously as long as he finished the season under 172 days).
 
However, while illuminating, this ended up being beside the point. This past season the other owner called up a group of players for Game 152 to make a playoff push. I don't recall exactly how many days remained in the season from Game 152 on, but I assume it cannot have been more than 15 days MAX. However, after the conclusion of the season, this group of players started the next season with 26 days of Major League service time.

I know this may not be a big deal, since the only result of this is a player gaining or losing 10-15 games in his career, but the fact that we both approached this similarly but had different results makes me want clarification. It makes no sense that his players should end with EXTRA Major League service time.
10/29/2013 6:05 PM
Link to the other guy's player(s)?
10/29/2013 7:00 PM
Regarding Russell's service time:

A major league season is around 176 days.  Minor league assignments of less than 20 days count as major league service time.

If he started the season with 10 days of service, and you then called him up after 22 minor league days (which would be around 24 ML days), then he would have accumulated 152 days of service that season (176 - 24).  Plus the 10 days he started with = 162 days of service.

10/29/2013 7:41 PM
Yup, so basically at issue here is that Russell was called up with 10 days left in S27, and started S28 with 10 days of Major League service time. On the other hand, Julio Uribe and Richard Hillenbrand (there may have been one more player as well, can't recall) were called up with approximately 10-12 days left in S28, and yet they start the following season with 26 days of Major League service time.

So what accounts for those extra days? It's not like they were called up 18 days into the minor league season, therefore having those extra days count toward their Major League service time. They had spent the entire season on the AAA roster. I'm leaning toward thinking it's a bug, but completely acknowledge I'm a relative newbie in this game, so I'm hoping someone with more knowledge and experience than I can give an explanation.
10/29/2013 11:48 PM

There's no way to tell from anything in their profiles, but 26 days of service sounds about right if they were called up right at roster expansion time, which happens at around ML game 138 or so.,

Seeing that I don't ever recall an instance of service days randomly accumulating without a valid explanation, I'm leaning towards that as the reason.

10/30/2013 6:01 AM
These are my guys.  The issue is that I added them to the 40 man roster right before roster expansion time (so prior to ML game 138ish) but I didn't call them up to the majors until game 152.  Now they have 26 days of service time.  It's not the biggest deal, but this is the second time something like this has happened to me.  Has anyone else ever seen something like this before?
10/30/2013 9:11 AM
The most likely explanation I can think of (which still seems bizarre and unlikely) is that upon adding his players to the 40 man roster, this counted as a "new minor league assignment." Therefore, when Zeustis called his players up something like 14 days AFTER adding them to the 40, that new minor league assignment was in fact less than 20 days, and added to the Major League service time.

Basically, I'm wondering if the game counted their season in the following chunks:

100+ days on a AAA assignment, no 40 man roster.
14 days on a AAA assignment, yes 40 man roster.
12 days on a Major League assignment, yes 40 man roster.

And therefore #2 was added to #3.

I don't know enough about the game or about real baseball to know if this makes sense or would be intended, but that's about the only thing I can think of.

And for what it's worth, Russell was on the 40 man roster, and THEN the 60-day DL in AAA. When he became healthy he was immediately activated from the 60-day DL and added to the Major League roster.
10/30/2013 10:56 AM
I just added Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Yorrick Bittle to the 40-man before roster expansion, and called him up when the AAA season ended.  He is only showing the 6 days he's been on the ML roster.
10/30/2013 11:36 AM
So just to be clear, you added him to the 40 man roster on the 10/22 PM2 cycle, then promoted him to the Major League roster on the 10/28 PM2 cycle. So his breakdown is:

100+ HBD days on a AAA assignment, no 40 man roster.
19 (?) HBD days on a AAA assignment, yes 40 man roster.
6 days on a Major League assignment, yes 40 man roster.

I got the 19 by calculating: 1 day (10/22 PM2) + 6 * 3 days (10/23 through 10/28) = 19.

So IF what I posited above is correct, Bittle would start next season with 15 days of Major League service time. But since he was added to the 40 man mid-cycle, it's possible he ended up spending 20 days on the 40 man, in which case that assignment would just count as minor league days.
10/30/2013 11:48 AM
Anyone at least have any ideas how to get some traction on investigating this issue through WiS Support? A ticket has been opened, but they responded that they only retain a certain amount of transaction data from previous seasons, so they can't tell much about this current issue after the fact.
10/31/2013 9:57 AM
Posted by pajammies on 10/31/2013 9:57:00 AM (view original):
Anyone at least have any ideas how to get some traction on investigating this issue through WiS Support? A ticket has been opened, but they responded that they only retain a certain amount of transaction data from previous seasons, so they can't tell much about this current issue after the fact.

If that level of detailed history is not retained, there's probably not much WIS can do to investigate.

The most likely explanation is that, despite zeustis's insistance of what he did and when he did it, he may not be remembering things correctly.  I've never seen ML service days be miscalculated.

I think the number 26 is a big clue.  I have a team that reached roster expansion this morning.  There are exactly 26 days left in the ML season.  I think the guys you are referring to had to have been promoted to the ML roster on expansion day.  That's the only explanation that aligns with the data at hand.

10/31/2013 10:25 AM
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I will.  Tec, I appreciate your response.  My reason for contacting customer support about this issue is because I was very careful last season and did not call them up until right before game 152.  I also was very careful to add them to the 40 man prior to roster expansion so they would be post-season eligible.  I don't think there's anything that can be done about this now because it doesn't record call up days from one season to the next.  Perhaps the solution would be to take a screen shot of the call up date in the future?  While I am resigned that there's nothing that can done about this now, I did request that they do some case studies on this issue since this is actually the second time it has happened to me. 
10/31/2013 10:54 AM
I haven't bothered to read all this as I think sweating service time is a **** poor strategy but is that post an alias confession?   I don't see where zeus says he sent a ticket.    Yet he references the one that, it appears, pajammies sent.
10/31/2013 12:37 PM
Pajammies hasn't sent anything in, I did.  I discussed the matter with him in our league and he asked if I cared if he posted on the boards about it because he was curious.  I told him to go for it if he wanted to.  I had shared the response I got from my ticket which is what he was referencing.  I can see why that would raise some eyebrows, but please don't go throwing around alias accusations so carelessly, especially when you haven't bothered to read the entire thread. 
10/31/2013 1:05 PM
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