[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by DJessup

Yeah, pretty much. So you can imagine how baffling this problem is for Haubs and the others suffering through this problem. It's a lot different when it's people making the decisions than a computer algorythm, huh?

OOTP has had for many years a "sign and waive/release" problem that gets triggered by certain setting combinations.

I think what's happening here is a variation of that old problem.

The player gets signed. But the AI handling the active roster decides the player is not good enough to be on the active roster, so it sends the player to the minors. But with no option years left, the player must be sent outright to the minors which necessitates putting him on (irrevocable) waivers. That happens, and the player gets claimed. (And often the same thing happens with the new team: it wants to send the player to the minors, but this requires waivers, and the player gets claimed by yet another team. Rinse and repeat.)

If it's the off-season, then it's the 40-man roster rather than the active roster: the AI decides the player is not good enough to stay on the 40-man, but is too good to just release, so it tries to send him outright to the minors.

Originally Posted by DJessup

We can think "yeah it's real simple. It's "X" or "Y"." But it's not. I'm glad outrighting is not the only option. Baseball might be simpler, but just because "that's the way it is", doesn't always necessarily mean "that's the way it should be".

Here is what the OOTP online manual says about waivers:

When Must a Player Be Placed on Waivers?

In OOTP, a team must place a player on waivers in any of the following scenarios:

• The player is being removed from the secondary roster.
• The player is being demoted from a parent league team to an affiliated minor league team and is out of minor league option years.

Revocable and Irrevocable Waivers

In some cases, a team can withdraw a player from the waiver wire if another team claims him, thus keeping the player. These are called "revocable waivers." In other cases, the team cannot withdraw the player, and if claimed, the team will lose the player. These are called "irrevocable waivers."

In OOTP, waivers are irrevocable when you attempt to demote a player from the parent league team to an affiliated minor league, and he is out of minor league options. When placing a player on irrevocable waivers, you will be warned of that fact.

In all other cases, waivers are revocable in OOTP. If you waive a player in a situation that is revocable, you will be asked if you want to withdraw the player if he is claimed.

Removing a player from the secondary roster involves either: (1) releasing the player; (2) trading the player to another team; or (3) sending a player outright to the minors.

Unconditional release waivers (irrevocable) are a formality and no real-life team ever claims a player from them. Outright assignment waivers are always irrevocable. OOTP never recreated the revocable optional assignment waivers, so those don't apply. That leaves the only revocable waivers the game is recreating are trade assignment waivers, that is, those used in trading a player to another club after the trade deadline. MLB abolished those for 2019.

Originally Posted by DJessup

I went back the other night and looked at the rules changes when you mentioned them. I have kept up, but nothing I had came across in my casual keeping track IRL showed the extensive overhaul of the Waivers changes, and I appreciate the update.

Waiver changes and other rules changes don't tend to be documented well. To find them typically requires digging through the Major League Rules publications which are hard to find.

1986, for example, was a year that saw a lot of changes. The trade deadline was moved from June 15 to July 31, and the waiver restrictions against interleague trading were eliminated.

Originally Posted by DJessup

It just doesn't seem like that CBA was added to make them spend 5,000 man hours redesigning a completely new waiver algorythm. Thank God (and OOTP).

I don't think it's a waiver AI problem. It's a roster management AI problem. It doesn't understand that signing a player to a big contract means you want that player on the active and secondary rosters. It just assesses that player without that consideration, decides he isn't good enough to be on the roster, and then tries to send him outright to the minors which necessitates irrevocable waivers. It doesn't understand that outrighting a player comes with the risk of losing him, and is a transaction that should be done sparingly.