Quote:
Originally posted by Henry
IRL a number of things woud happen if the team's best players were benched or sent to the minors to gain a draft position...
1. Fans would go balistic
2. Fan interest would go down
3. That would affect income
4. That would create bad PR
5. The loyalty of the players involved would tank
6. If none of the above turned things around, the Commissioner would get involved.
Let the game decide what tanking is...
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This was posted in an older Tanking thread, i just brought it over because i think Henry hit on something.
1-2 happens in OOTP already and is reflected in fan interest going down. The problem is that the "fans" in OOTP are very forgiving and once you start winning again the fan interest goes up just as fast as it dropped. But this, to a certain extent, is realistic.
3 happens in OOTP already and is reflected in poor attendance and poor revenue. A tanker could drop his payroll low enough to avoid losing much money. Besides, there isn't much to spend money on in OOTP. So a GM isn't hurt by having negative virtual money making this no punishment for a tanker.
4-5 don't happen in OOTP right now. And this would be a great thing to add. Ideally, OOTP could have players look at the fan interest rating. And if it were too low, (perhaps instead of the play for a winner characteristic to could have a numeric value 0-100 like fan interest) a drafted player can say to a team, "Your team sucks i don't want to play for you. Trade me." Of course, similar to RL, if a drafted player is not signed by the end of the season, he becomes a free agent. i think IRL player goes back into the draft, that may be much harder to do. Free agents would also shun a team with a low FI, as would players on the offending team when contract extension time comes around.
As stated before, FI can go up fast once a losing team starts winning. So OOTP would have to slow down the rise in FI. But, i wouldn't want to punish teams that were legitimately bad (not tanking) by forcing the fan interest to remain too low. So my suggestion, piggy backing off Henry’s thoughts, is to create a PR rating. This PR rating would be used for the situations described above. It would be displayed on the Front Office screen like FI.
The PR rating would work like this: Every new team (before initial draft) has a PR rating of 80 (out of 100). i know FI starts at 65, but i would think a new team’s PR would be higher than the fan interest.
At the beginning of each month, the AI looks at each teams’ :
* starting rotation (if team uses less than 5 pitchers, the average of existing pitchers is used for empty slots)
* top two (3 for DH leagues) middle relievers (for this purpose setup men are considered middle relievers, this allows for some teams using one setup man and some using two)
* closer (if no closer, the average of top two middle relievers are used here, also)
* applicable starting lineups (depending on whether or not the league uses the DH)
That’s the 8 (or 9 for DH leagues) most significant pitchers and hitters being considered.
(AI would also have to take into consideration players on the DL. If a player on DL is higher rated than a player in lineup or rotation, the AI could assume that player would be playing. To do this DL would have to be restricted to major league players with a customizable level of injury.) The AI counts the stars for each player.
(If an injured player is left in a slot he counts as 0 stars.)
The total value would be the sum of the right and left handed lineups and two times the sum of the pitchers. This places equal weight on pitchers and hitters.
Gold stars and blue stars would have the same values. 5 Gold Stars = 5 Blue Stars. (This simulates the hype that a top prospect gets.)
Then it compares the each team’s value to the average value each team in the league has. Teams with an above average value would increase it’s PR, teams with below average value would suffer a drop in PR. i would suggest a 2 (or 3) to 1 ratio for the amount of decrease vs. increase. So if league average is 50 and Team A’s value is 51 and Team B’s value is 49, then Team A’s PR would go up 1 and Team B’s PR would go down 2 (or 3). This would mean it would take a tanker twice (or three) as long to rebuild a broken PR. The amount of increase and decrease in PR could be customizable.
In theory, this forces GMs to field a competitive team to avoid losing too much PR. And since it is checked throughout the season, there would be less extreme dumping at the trade deadline. With a low PR rating, a GM would have trouble signing rookies or free agents and resigning it’s own players. So even if it got high draft picks, the best rookies might not want to play for them. And even with a few top rookies, the GM would have a hard time getting top talent to come to the team. This becomes a slippery slope, because the longer they field sub par teams, the lower the PR goes, and the harder it becomes to sign players.
In an online league, if a team’s PR got too low, a GM could petition to the commish to reset his/her PR. At which point the commish could:
* raise the PR up, if he thought the GM (because of inexperience, maybe) just made some horrible decisions or had some incredibly bad luck.
* say, “You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out or give up the team.”
A league rule could even be set up that says once a team’s PR got below a certain level the owner was immediately dismissed. And with a new owner the PR could be reset to 80, to reflect giving the new ownership the benefit of the doubt.
NOTE: Actually, rookies could show the old winner characteristics.
"Doesn’t matter" would mean that his numerical value is between 0 and 39.
"Sometimes" would be between 40 and 79.
"And need a winner" would mean his numerical value is 80.
This would add some risk taking to the draft. If a team’s PR is 50 and the top rookie sometimes needs a winner. There is a good chance that he won’t accept any offer from you.
More players (especially top players) would need to be created with Sometimes and Need a Winner characteristics