*Service Time Primer*
 

Here's the quick and dirty on service. I'll try to provide more detail as I do more testing. If you notice any errors, either email or PM me and I'll do some testing and update this as needed.

There are two types of service in the game:

MLB Service: This is the amount of time that a player has spent on the active, major-league roster. It is tracked in days from the 1st day of the season (regardless of whether there are games that day or not) until the last day of the regular season. Any day that the player spends on the active roster or the 15-day DL accumulates towards this. Once a player has accumulated a certain number of days in a season (default is 172 but his varies based on league setup) he will earn a year of service.

Pro Service: Pro service is the number of full years the player has spent on any team's roster, regardless of whether that time was spent on the active roster or on a minor league roster. This is tracked in years. A player drafted in 2000, for example, will have 1 year of Pro Service at the start of the 2001 season. Only if a player spends an entire year in the Free Agent pool will he not accumulate a Year of Pro Service.

Here's how they are important:

MLB Service will affect player contract status. If a player has less than 3 years of MLB service at the end of the season, he will have his contract automatically renewed at the league minimum level. If the player has more than 3 years but less than 6, he will be awarded arbitration during the off-season and will be awarded a salary based on his ability/ratings. If the player has more than 6 years of MLB service at the end of the year, he will become a free agent if his contract is up.

Pro Service only affects a player's Rule 5 status and minor league free agency. A player with more than 3 years but less than 6 of Pro Service will be eligible for the Rule 5 draft if they aren't protected on the 40-man roster. A player will become a minor league free agent after his 6th year of Pro Service. To me, this means that this will happen at the end of the season in which a player shows 5 Years of Pro Service since he won't earn his full 6th year until the very end of the season. I'll have to test this to be sure this is correct.

Please keep in mind that converted leagues will have inaccurate information for these two items. Currently, Pro Service can be edited with Pierre's Career Editor. MLB Service cannot be effectively edited since the game recalculates the years based on days of service.

Just one little addition, MLB Service Days are also counted when a player is on the DL.

Thanks for the reminder, I've done an edit to correct that above.

Excellent work, again, Shane.

Nice work.

sporr,

Just a note... thanks for your work on these issues. I'm sure it's greatly appreciated by all :)

sporr excellent ....printing that up for reference...


but the Player Salary Report in Front Office is still giving incorrect infomation for minor league players for free agent...or the minor league free agent not working in patch 6.03

i did a test. i sim a whole season and before i proceed to next season, i went to player salary report in the teams front office.. what i did was look at some players on each team and see what minor league players shows as minor league free agent for next season on the salary report..

i wrote it down and proceed to next season...those players i wrote down did not become minor league free agents as the player salary report shows...the player were still on there teams...

i again check player salary report in team front office for new season and those players that showed minor league free agent last season was again listed as minor league free agent for next season on the salary report

so something is not right either the salary report is giving false info or minor league free agent not working..

sporr do a test and you will see..
thanks

Finally got around to reading this. Thanks sporr! Some questions..

kq:

I take it you mean the regardless for days inbetween opening day and the last day. Otherwise, what is the first day of the season if not the first day a game is played? I read something somewhere that made it sound like service days might be counted at a certain date (e.g. April 1st) that is before your opening day (e.g. April 7th). Is this true, or will it always start the day of your first game?

If your schedule is set up with a 4/1 start date (in the Edit Schedule screen), but you don't have any games scheduled until 4/3 for whatever reason, players will still accrue playing time on 4/1 and 4/2.

So say we're able to edit MLB service once with the mod PLG can hopefully make, will it be fine for future years if he's able to use the formula I gave him or maybe a modified one? http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boa...7583#post767583

As long as Pierre is able to create a utility to change the days of service, then the game should calculate this fine in the future.

If I understand you correctly. After a player has six seasons in the minors, they will become a minor league free agent if you do not place them on the big league roster? I have a decent 28 Y/O minor leaguer with 8 years of minor league service time. If I want to keep him, I have to promote him before the end of the season? We just switched over to version 6 at the beggining of this season.

You should be able to just put him on the 40 man roster to prevent him from becoming a minor league FA.

One note of interest -

Last night while I was looking over the league I'm commish for, I noticed various owners have minor leaguers on the DL. If I pull up their html report, it shows ML service time being accumulated this season, but the total ML service time isn't being touched.

I haven't run a test legue to try this out, but when I get home from work I'm going to maim a couple of A-ballers, put one on the 15-day DL for an entire season and the other on the 60-day DL (without being on the 40-man), progress to the next season and see what result I get. I'll let you guys know what I get, if you'd like.

- Dan

What I've noticed is that time on the 60-day DL does not count towards service time, but 15-day DL time does.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure. My understanding is that a player only becomes a minors FA at the end of that 6th year, but not at the end of every year thereafter. I will probably test this out when I get some spare time here soon because I'm also curious to find out if you can "cheat" by calling someone up and sending them back down after the 6th year deadline has passed.

Follow-up On The Dl
 

Well, I used Pierre's roster editor to move some non-40-man-roster players to the DL (15-day only, as Pierre's utility isn't able to differentiate), ran a season and hit "continue to next season." The results:

Zero days of major league experience. Phew!

Mind you, these are players who were off of the 40-man roster. They did gain pro experience. My main concern was that some of my owners would have wound up causing harm to their franchises by having placed minor leaguers on the DL before 6.03 was implemented, and thankfully they won't.

Sporr's assessment is correct for those who were already on the ML roster.

**IMPORTANT NOTE**

There, was that highlighted enough?

IF you placed minor leaguers on the DL and then upgraded to 6.03 midseason, you can only return those players to the active (and 40-man)roster while within OOTP6. Even if it's some 18 year old A-ball player, the game will force you to promote him to the majors and only then would you be able to "demote" him back to A-ball.

WORKAROUND:use Pierre's roster editor, and this will let you sidestep the problem. Go ahead and use it immediately and move the minor leaguers even while they're still injured so you won't have to keep checking back whenever they become eligible to be removed (it's not cheating if they never belonged there in the first place!).

Thanks a lot, sporr :) Great job on the two primers!

hmm...yeah, shouldn't players with more than 6 years of pro service and not being on the 40 man roster become free agents?

i signed a MR before last season to a major league contract but never put him on the 40 man......yet the season ended and when the next year began he was still on my AAA team....I don't think that's right.

that because either the salary report in front office and roster salary info is giving false info, or minor league free agent is not working...something strange is happening there..

Does anyone know where current MLB service time can be found?