Anti-Tanking

[CSCommish]

It's become an issue in other leagues. How should we clamp down on it?

[soonerfantu]

I will have a lengthier post later, but I don't like rules like this very much. I just didn't want this to get closed down before I had a chance to respond.

[soonerfantu]

A couple of points that I think are important:

1. If you are going to penalize a team that is already terrible, by taking away or diminishing one of the few assets they have (good draft pick, cash, etc), all you are really doing is making a bad team worse. Tough to apply penalties the following year when any real chance they had at turning things around probably went down the drain with the penalty they were given.

2. Sometimes a good, solid rebuild requires what some folks might consider tanking. There is a fine line between tanking, and running your team with an eye moreso on the future than the present. Tanking is doing anything and everything in your power to obtain the worst possible record. I've seen very, VERY little of that in any league I've been in, and honestly, I may never have seen it at all. What I have seen, and what I did in one non-baseball sim league years ago, was attempt a slow, several season rebuild. I felt that was best for the team I had at that time.

If we are going to use GABL as an example, I don't think there is any tanking going on. The issue in that league, and what might be confused with tanking, is that there are just several bad owners in that league. Partly because they just don't "get it", and partly because they don't have even minimal time to spend on the league in a way that allows any kind of success. While I don't want any sim league I participate in to become so cut throat that we are simply running people off for not winning, if the people of this league don't want there to be teams like (and I hate doing this) the Mets or the Indians of the GABL, the Commish is simply going to have to make sure that teams are a) being ran by somebody that is around enough to make them competitive, and b)through discussions, make sure that team has a plan. If it's a 3-4 year plan, or whatever, that is fine, but if they can't tell you what they are trying to accomplish, in decent detail, then they aren't really putting forth a meaningful effort to win in the league.

In short, I'd rather not have anything formal here, and let the Commish address this as needed. There are going to be bad owners that made bad trades and lose a bunch of games season after season. There just is. If I were the Commish, I'd address this on a case by case basis, and make sure that owners are a) around enough, and b) have a plan. If so, there isn't much else you can do unless we're going to simply fire owners that are bad at OOTP5. I doubt anybody wants to do that.

[K.]

Jeremy pretty much summed up my ideas about this too. Which is why I voted for the least severe option, but IMO if someone is tanking the Commish should just step in and sort it out, if needed get rid of the owner, because rules as these don't actually combat tanking much, at times even make situations worse and do hit innocent teams too. I wrote extensively about this already in another league and can't be arsed to rehash all but:

- Being bad does not mean you are tanking. This basically punishes people for being bad, not tanking.

- Whether we like it or not, this also applies in real life btw, sometimes you do need to bottom out (which does not equal tanking) to rebuild. Being stuck in midtable limbo is the fastest way to irrelevance.

- You're punishing a team that is alerady bad and are in fact making things worse by creating more of such a crap team everyone seems to dislike. And my bet is that after a few seasons the owner runs away anyway and then it's too late to fix it.

And to finish with an example: I can easily see myself lose 100 games 3 times in 5 seasons without tanking a single time. After giving up everything to keep my window open, I just end up with a bare farm being very, very bad. So those big losses campaigns stem from my avid competing the seasons before, not tanking. And then I will get punished for trying my hardest during my window to win a title?

[K.]

Btw with regards to the other ongoing discussion: this sort of penalty also has a lot more chance to hit a small market team than a big market one.

[Matt]

Jul 24, 2013 13:40:39 GMT -5 soonerfantu said:

In short, I'd rather not have anything formal here, and let the Commish address this as needed. There are going to be bad owners that made bad trades and lose a bunch of games season after season. There just is. If I were the Commish, I'd address this on a case by case basis, and make sure that owners are a) around enough, and b) have a plan. If so, there isn't much else you can do unless we're going to simply fire owners that are bad at OOTP5. I doubt anybody wants to do that.

My opinion:  From what we've found in the GABL, we have to put some sort of rule out there, otherwise someone will come in and take full advantage of what we don't have on the rule book.  (the arbitration/extenions as an example)

And I also think there needs to be a time limit on how long they can lose...(4-5 years?), otherwise you have a team that hords minor league guys and kills them in the minors the way OOTP has been known to do.

[soonerfantu]

Jul 24, 2013 15:23:50 GMT -5 Matt said:

Jul 24, 2013 13:40:39 GMT -5 soonerfantu said:

In short, I'd rather not have anything formal here, and let the Commish address this as needed. There are going to be bad owners that made bad trades and lose a bunch of games season after season. There just is. If I were the Commish, I'd address this on a case by case basis, and make sure that owners are a) around enough, and b) have a plan. If so, there isn't much else you can do unless we're going to simply fire owners that are bad at OOTP5. I doubt anybody wants to do that.

My opinion:  From what we've found in the GABL, we have to put some sort of rule out there, otherwise someone will come in and take full advantage of what we don't have on the rule book.  (the arbitration/extenions as an example)

And I also think there needs to be a time limit on how long they can lose...(4-5 years?), otherwise you have a team that hords minor league guys and kills them in the minors the way OOTP has been known to do.

Okay, let's use GABL as an example.  The Mets have been bad for a long time.  They've lost 90+ games in 10 of the last 11 seasons.  They've lost 107 each of the last three seasons.  Do you think Jen is tanking?  Do you think taking away her very high draft pick, or punishing her financially will allow her in any way to quickly turn things around?  I think the answer is no to both of those.  So at that point, either you have to kick her out, or basically have no rule.  I don't see an in between that doesn't punish that franchise and make it even tougher for Jen to pull the Mets out of it.  And if she leaves, and those punishments are in place, it's tougher on the next guy.

While I'm certainly all for having rules in place that cover most everything, I think this is a grey enough area that simply letting the Commish handle things, possibly with help from the league (opinions, voting on stuff).

JMO.

[soonerfantu]

Jen's problem, as is the problem with about another 5 owners, is that they simply aren't around enough, and/or don't care enough about their teams, to keep them from being terrible. Every now and again they will show up and make a bunch of moves, but they go days if not weeks sometimes without logging in, or responding to messages. And while I haven't checked, I bet they don't export more than once every 2 weeks or so. Not judging, I know they have lives, but at some point the league either has to say okay we're going to allow owners like that, or we have to kick them out.

[Matt]

Jul 24, 2013 15:34:12 GMT -5 soonerfantu said:

Jul 24, 2013 15:23:50 GMT -5 Matt said:

My opinion:  From what we've found in the GABL, we have to put some sort of rule out there, otherwise someone will come in and take full advantage of what we don't have on the rule book.  (the arbitration/extenions as an example)

And I also think there needs to be a time limit on how long they can lose...(4-5 years?), otherwise you have a team that hords minor league guys and kills them in the minors the way OOTP has been known to do.

Okay, let's use GABL as an example.  The Mets have been bad for a long time.  They've lost 90+ games in 10 of the last 11 seasons.  They've lost 107 each of the last three seasons.  Do you think Jen is tanking?  Do you think taking away her very high draft pick, or punishing her financially will allow her in any way to quickly turn things around?  I think the answer is no to both of those.  So at that point, either you have to kick her out, or basically have no rule.  I don't see an in between that doesn't punish that franchise and make it even tougher for Jen to pull the Mets out of it.  And if she leaves, and those punishments are in place, it's tougher on the next guy.

While I'm certainly all for having rules in place that cover most everything, I think this is a grey enough area that simply letting the Commish handle things, possibly with help from the league (opinions, voting on stuff).

JMO.

I'm my phone so i can't see the choices of the poll, but does any of what she has done violate any of the options Chris put out there?

We have to have some sort of rule in place, otherwise how can we prevent it or punish anyone for doing it?

[soonerfantu]

She violates one of the three. I'm sure there are other examples. And you do make a point, maybe we make the offense so hard for anybody to get to, that it never becomes an issue. Has GABL ever had a 120 loss team? I'm not even sure the OOTP5 engine would allow it.

You ask how we can prevent or punish if there isn't a formal rule in place? The same way we did it (in theory) in GABL for the first 3/4 of that league's existence. The only rule on "participation" was a vague rule about the Commish keeping an eye on things. I think a few years back we added a slightly less vague rule (though I cannot find it) about exporting or posting once every so many weeks. Not sure that is being policed. But GABL also has a rule in the Constitution about every GM owning the game, and we know that isn't the case. I just don't think "tanking" can be defined. It's more of a know it when you see it type of deal. If Chris wants something in the Constitution, or this poll shows that the league does, so be it. I just think we're awful close on some of those to punishing bad rebuilding teams, and not tanking teams. And I also think the punishments are only going to hurt those teams.

Again, JMO.

[soonerfantu]

Baltimore in the GABL lost 132 games once, and met both other requirements above too. He'd have been booted, or punished, or whatever. But he is a perfect example of a guy that has been active, and taken the slow-build philosophy. His record has been on the way up for a few years, and now he has a really good team, though I don't know if it's sustainable. I would never have punished Baltimore, b/c I don't think he ever tanked.

Texas on the other hand, and I cannot see what his records have been like b/c his Financial History page is gone, but he is an example of somebody that may never have hit the criteria above, but I felt like for several years, was doing something wrong. If not tanking, but blatant abuse of not being around, and not maintaining his team. Letting very good MLB players retire from your AAA team without ever having played an inning in the Majors was a terrible things that we let him get away with.

[K.]

Have a rule saying the Commish has the discretionary power to handle tanking in the rules and you have a rule in place to handle any tanking (which isn't as prevalent as it is made out to be anyway).

Add some stuff if you want with some examples of tanking like: putting in bad lineups, letting money go to waste when there's decent enough free agents over what you choose to play, requiring a certain amount of positions to be represented on the roster, leavinh healed players on the injured list, letting good major leaguers rot in the minors while you trot out scrubs ... and you have a set rule in place to handle tanking if it is necessary. And for that matter if there was not a rule in place and the Commish acted against blatant tanking, I don't think anyone would mind.

Anyway, being bad does not equal tanking and this rule would punish any bad team, regardless whether it was tanking or not.

[Matt]

Bbsbl we just had a team lose over 120 games, so it is possible if you have a bad enough team. (dropped his first round pick 5 spots)

Cbl i took over a team that lost over 110-120 for 5 seasons in a row (which is why i got the team)

[The Vermont Bombers]

I can tell you that looking at the lineup of this Washington team that we're going to be terrible, which is at the very least historically accurate. Here are their seasons from 1953 to 1960:

1953: 76-76
1954: 66-88
1955: 53-101
1956: 59-95
1957: 55-99
1958: 61-93
1959: 63-91
1960: 73-81

Washington didn't have a winning season until 1962, their second season in Minnesota. According to the tanking rule I'd be on the hook for taking if the 1955 season goes as it does historically (hypothetically). If the team is any worse in the 1956 (+5 losses), 1957 (+1), 1958 (+7) and 1959 (+9) seasons I'd be looking at being accused of "tanking". Just because a team chronically sucks doesn't mean that the Owner is "tanking". There are a lot of factors that lead to consistently bad play. Amongst them are:

No money for Free Agents. Bad teams don't make money and some FA's won't sign with bad or mediocre teams.
No money for promotion dates to raise fan interest (this can be somewhat offset by cheap ticket prices).
Talent hits to prospects. Some get drafted looking like Willie Mays and end up becoming Steamboat Willy.
Crap market.

 The problem with coming up with a "no tanking" rule is that "tanking" is somewhat subjective. If you have a history of trading all of your good players away for crap players and crap prospects, that can legitimately be called tanking. If you trade them for good prospects who nose dive, that's crap luck and not something that an owner should be punished for. Also, saying that an owner isn't "on the board a lot" isn't a sign of tanking either. It's the sign of having a somewhat busy life. The same holds true for making personnel moves. Is there a minimum number of trades that one should do in a given season before they are to be considered to be "tanking" ? These "standards" for tanking are all entirely subjective.

[slflar]

Jul 24, 2013 16:13:02 GMT -5 soonerfantu said:

Baltimore in the GABL lost 132 games once, and met both other requirements above too. He'd have been booted, or punished, or whatever. But he is a perfect example of a guy that has been active, and taken the slow-build philosophy. His record has been on the way up for a few years, and now he has a really good team, though I don't know if it's sustainable. I would never have punished Baltimore, b/c I don't think he ever tanked.

Texas on the other hand, and I cannot see what his records have been like b/c his Financial History page is gone, but he is an example of somebody that may never have hit the criteria above, but I felt like for several years, was doing something wrong. If not tanking, but blatant abuse of not being around, and not maintaining his team. Letting very good MLB players retire from your AAA team without ever having played an inning in the Majors was a terrible things that we let him get away with.

Baltimore here....and I would like to add that most of my high 1st round draft picks haven't really contributed to my success....especially the last 8 drafts.    Seems that OOTP5 kinda punishes draft picks with more frequency and ferocity than other versions.   Anyway, my point is I don't think specific penalties are needed, but merely the Commish should reserve the right to kick a GM out if any reason he sees fit including tanking and collusion.  

[CSCommish]

Well, if it helps, we will have a point system where you could reversal PD hits. I like the system BBSBL has, but not as rigorous and involved. As long as teams submit lineups, it is easy to rack up points.

Finally, I think I will use my executive powers that be to monitor teams instead of having rules in place. Thoughts?

[K.]

I, for one, welcome our new executively monitoring overlord.

[slflar]

I am fine with the commish using executive powers to monitor teams instead of specific rules.

[CSCommish]

Okay sounds good. Locked.