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.