These guys drive me crazy :) They remind me of the guys sitting on a 95 win team with a 75 mil payroll that trades their second and fourth best players because they are 31 despite the fact they are still under contract for multiple seasons. Great you got your already conservative payroll down and you'll maintain that top 3 farm system, but now you are 87 win team. You've gone from a 98% chance of making the playoffs to 50-50 (because not only are you worse, but you are less deep at the ML level and 1 key injury means you are an 84 win team). How about you win this season and worry about next season next season. I've won a WS in every world I play in and 3 times more often than I would by chance. It's not because I give 1 crap about what will happen 7 seasons from now. I'll grant you my "short-term thinking" hurts me sometimes. I have 0 chance of winning the WS in Hobbs, Fingers, Harold Reynolds, or Cobbfather this season. I'll be lucky to make the playoffs. But in those those 3 where I am a live threat you better believe that every move I make is about winning this WS, not the one three seasons from now. The point of the game is not to win 87 games and be the 10th best team in the playoffs every year, it's to win the damn WS.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/18/2016 2:21:00 PM (view original):
Here's the thing(and the reason this annoys me):

There are many reasons to hold a player back.
1. With or without him, you can't compete.
2. Low durability. He's not going to play 150 so rest him in AAA then call him up.
3. He's only slightly better than who he's replacing.
4. Your early schedule is full of bad teams.
5. Your future payroll is a mess.

There are more but I'm not sure you're taking any of the above into consideration. You read somewhere that you SHOULD hold players back 20 games so you do. That's fine. But the fact that you didn't know you could keep players for 11 BL seasons SHOULD have given you pause to reflect on why you're doing it. Your response was "agree to disagree".

We've had several sitemail exchanges about gameplay so I have some level of understanding of your understanding of the game. I think you're missing the point here.

Mike, I appreciate you answering my initial question and your overall help in general. I really do. But I feel like you questioning my understanding of the game is your way of trying to end and/or "win" the conversation. I don't need that. I was just looking for clarification. But if that's what makes you feel good, then fine. I stopped seeking your advice via sitemail about a year ago when your replies turned from helpful to snide. I can see we've reached that point here as well.

It's not as if I didn't know players could be re-signed long term. My point was that I can control their pre-arb and arb years for up to seven seasons. If I'm incorrect in my understanding of that, please correct me. But we shouldn't waste time debating our sides of that argument, because we're just going in circles at this point. I have my approach and you have yours.

My assumption is my replies became "snide" when you were no longer asking questions just seeking confirmation that you were right. Which is pretty much how this played out. I won't go back and look but you said "12? Where are you getting that?" or something to that effect. If you understood, you're not asking that question. Good luck with your teams.

Posted by NickKappel on 12/17/2016 6:10:00 PM (view original):
I'm only guaranteed control for seven years (six in your case). I'd obviously prefer to sign these guys long-term for seasons 8-12, but I can't control that if they're unwilling to re-sign/I can't afford to. Thus, the difference here is S7. I'd rather have them for a full season then than just ~22 games in their S1.

This.

"I'd obviously prefer to sign these guys long-term for seasons 8-12, but I can't control that if they're unwilling to re-sign"

I have no idea how that can mean anything other than how it reads.

Fair enough, Mike. You can long-term a guy after his ARB2 year, sure. If you wait until after ARB3, you may no longer have that option. That is where my head was there, but I obviously did a poor job of explaining my thoughts.

And to your other point, I was never seeking confirmation that my view here was right. I just wanted a rule clarified. You opened up this can of worms with the strategy debate.

You're not the only one who reads this thread. n00bs read the forums too and they don't need to think "Always hold players back 20 games in their first BL season" is the only way to play the game.

I agree. But they also don't need to think "Everything Mike says is right and his way is the only way." If I've learned anything on these forums over the last year, it's that there are many different ways to win.

If there's a post in this thread where I stated "Never hold players back" or "My way is the only way", please quote it. In fact, I've said, repeatedly, that you should probably ignore anyone who speaks in absolutes with regards to HBD. I can only think of one and I'd get the argument to not do it.

If you can't find those posts to quote, I'll consider this exchange over and wish you luck with your teams once again.

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/contract-details/service-time-super-two/

Regular season only

I'm going to resurrect this thread, not to be a dick but, because I think there's a learning moment at my expense. I didn't hold back a rookie but I used the injury recovery cycle to my advantage and I think it's going to cost me this season. I'm 5 back from the WC2 with 7 left and a 3 game series against the team I'm chasing. I think I'm gonna fall short. I had a 27 day injury to a pitcher signed to a big, long-term deal. I put him on the 60 day DL. I'm assuming I cost him 8-10 starts by not using the 15 day DL. I don't know if he'd have closed that gap but I do know he'd have done better than the pitchers who took those starts(by having to fill the SP5 instead of LRA). Nonetheless, I think I cost myself a post-season spot because I did what was "best for the future". Of course, I might not be fighting for a playoff spot in the next 4 seasons when I'll benefit. The pitcher and the stats of those who got the starts.

Player Profile: Paco Gonzales - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Miguel Tapies	36	21	0	0	3	7	2	2	115.0	99	51	48	12	58	84	.230	.331	.367	1.37	3.76
Orber Pujols	38	12	0	0	7	6	2	3	103.1	104	59	54	20	32	85	.256	.308	.462	1.32	4.70
Cy Tabaka	41	9	0	0	5	5	4	4	104.1	114	72	68	22	39	84	.274	.335	.474	1.47	5.87

Tapies, Pujols and Tabaka were slated for SP5/LRA. Tapies, with 21 starts, obviously took the job. Tabaka and Pujols were below league average all season. That's where Gonzales' starts went.

Sorry, there were 8 left. I'm now 4 back with 7 left, 3 against the team I'm chasing. I need a sweep and help. Just a 1-2 game difference would be HUGE right now and I'm positive Gonzalez would have made that difference.

The goal of delaying service time is not to save money on one top player, it's to save money on ALL players that you call up.

Let's use the Chicago Cubs for example, because Cubs management had a dustup with Boras about Kris Bryant. The short-sighted idea is not to simply save a few mil on Bryant in 5 years and keep him for 11 instead of 10. The broader idea is to delay the $20 mil on Bryant, it's to ALSO delay the $15 mil on Rizzo, and $10 mil on Baez, and $10 mil on Schwarber, and $10 mil on Russell, and $10 mil on Edwards, etc etc. Those savings add up tremendously over the long haul, that's how you can afford the luxury of the extra year on Lester or Davis or Lackey or Chapman. That's the purpose. You're paying Bryant's money to somebody else even though you're still getting Bryant's production for free basically

Obv HBD economics are on a smaller-scale than MLB economics, but because everybody is on a level playing field for budgets it's arguably more important to do this in HBD. You are simply losing too much long-term value. If you're losing a wild card because you held back a guy for 20 games at the beginning then your team was simply not good enough. Plug a guy in from Rule 5, make a trade, manage your rotation differently by shortening it to 4-man for the first 20 games. Do literally anything besides call your prospect up for game 1. All that means is that you've wasted 135 free games from the previous season, you should have called him up already

Also, there's a weird quirk about the service time thing in general...There are 162 games and something like 20-25 off-days, but players only accumulate 172 days of service time per season. The service time rules for arbitration are that a player gets to file for free agency after 6.000 years, so teams purposely calculate exactly when a player is going to reach 5.171. You could actually leave a guy in the minors for only 10 days at the beginning of three separate seasons (and you would have the option years available to do this), rather than leaving him in the minors for 30 days at the beginning of one season. But because theoretically he will be better in seasons 2 and 3, everyone rightfully chooses to lump the delay all together at the beginning of year 1 when he's younger and theoretically not as good yet

Let's not use the Cubs. RL and HBD don't always work the same. I stopped reading there because I assume the rest is rubbish.

Wanna talk HBD? Please do. Don't compare HBD and RL.

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/4/2017 6:01:00 PM (view original):
Let's not use the Cubs. RL and HBD don't always work the same. I stopped reading there because I assume the rest is rubbish.

Wanna talk HBD? Please do. Don't compare HBD and RL.

It's the exact same concept with different numbers. Literally the exact same concept. More important in HBD. It is objectively wrong to call up prospects for game 1 and you're easily worse off for doing it. I'm a man of the people, I want people (even you) to know the correct thing. You can be a know-it-all if you want