Waivers & DFA Question

[KLT8898]

Hi all,

I've been playing OOTP for years now, but I have a question about Waivers & DFA which has been bugging me for awhile.

Does this function as intended? I can never place a player JUST on DFA, they always have to be waived. From what I can gather from google, this isn't how it works in real life. In real life, you should be able to DFA and then decide what you want to do from there?

Also - a lot of my players who still have options left are ONLY given the irrevocable waivers option. I thought you should be able to be given the revocable option if they still had options left?

Am I missing something in this? Or maybe misunderstanding? Guidance would be appreciated.

[Qeltar]

I don't 100% understand this myself, and it caused me some initial confusion. From what I've researched and experienced, it is usually related to the secondary (40 man) roster and/or having an MLB contract.

What is the status of the player?

[KLT8898]

I'll post screenshots as a for example...it's July, Xander Bogaerts still has options left, 3 even, and if I hit "waive players" JUST IN CASE I need space for 40-man roster (this is just an example)...it STILL says the waivers are irrevocable (see screenshots) and even if I hit DFA it'll tell me to please waive beforehand (also included attachment of that).

This happens with any player, but I chose him since he has 3 option years left.

[Qeltar]

He has a major league contract. I'm pretty sure you can't demote a player with a major league contract without clearing waivers, even if he has options left.

[KLT8898]

Ah, well that explains that issue. Any insight on the DFA? I thought you should be able to DFA a player from your roster, even with a major league contract, if you're undecided what to do with them?

[Qeltar]

As I understand it (someone more knowledgable can correct me if I'm wrong) DFA just basically means "put this guy in limbo to free up a spot until I figure out what to do with him." So you can waive and DFA. The DFA gets him off the 40-man roster, but he still has to clear waivers to be demoted.

And why are you demoting Bogaerts anyway, trade him to me.

[KLT8898]

Oh trust me, I'm not. Drury sucked and had to dump him as Andujar isn't performing like real life either. Thanks for clarifying on the process though! Makes it easier.

[Qeltar]

Funny, I also traded for Andujar and he also didn't do as I expected. Then he lost half a year plus to a stupid knee injury, he gets off the DL right as ST ends in a few weeks.

Looking at the RL Andujar's MiLB record, he's either overachieving right now or he's breaking out a la Judge last year. The OOTP model for him definitely doesn't have him hitting like he has been the last month.

[Critical Mass]

Essentially to put it simply, he's on your 40-man roster. You can only demote him three times (once per year). After that, he's stuck on your Active Roster.

The only way you can demote him is to put him on DFA and "Waivers". He is removed from your 40-man, but this means every other team has a right to claim him. If they take him, they have to take his contract as well, so whether is a young guy making the league minimum, or a 37 year old making $20M per year. Basically, you have to risk giving him away for free.

If any other team wants him, he's gone. If more than one team wants him, he goes to the team with the worst record. If nobody wants him, you can keep him and demote him, but you risk the same problem again if you bring him back.

If you chose to just "Waive Player" but NOT DFA, he's still on your 40-man, but you are "testing the waters" to see if anybody is interested in him. If someone expresses interest, you have to trade or release him.

The same basic rules apply if you trade someone after the Trading Deadline.

[Qeltar]

Originally Posted by Critical Mass

The same basic rules apply if you trade someone after the Trading Deadline.

Well, there's an important difference -- those are revocable waivers. If another team claims the player, the trade is annulled and you keep the player (as implemented in OOTP, not quite the same IRL).

[Matt Arnold]

We don't follow the exact rules, mostly to simplify things. You are correct in the above that there should be more options, but that could lead to more confusion or abuse, so it was simpler to restrict what can happen.

In real life, yes, you can place a player on revocable waivers, and if they clear, then you can potentially do things with them "quicker" than you would otherwise. But other than trading (and especially August trades), this rarely comes up in real life.

And yes, you can DFA a player in real life without waiving them first, I think, although there's really no reason to do that. IRL, if you DFA a player, when their DFA period is over, you need to either trade them, release them, or demote them. We (wrongly) allow them back on your pro roster. The only case where you may not want to waive them is if you can trade them, but if you can trade them for anything of value, then you wouldn't DFA them in the first place. In reality, when a player is traded after being DFAed, they're never traded for more than "cash considerations", usually, so you may as well just have them on waivers and if someone claims them, then you let them go. Worrying about the 20k or so that a team might send back is not really worth worrying about.

tl;dr: we don't do things exactly like in real life, but there aren't a lot of cases that we don't permit that really would matter in the grand scheme of things, so we simplify things so that every user doesn't have to worry about the exact waivers/options/DFA rules

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

IRL, if you DFA a player, when their DFA period is over, you need to either trade them, release them, or demote them.

The bolded, to use the proper terminology, means outrighting the player. That is, he is removed from the 40-man roster and assigned to a minor league club.

Although it should be noted that IRL it is technically possible to option a player to satisfy the DFA requirement. However, this is very rare, as it would require not filling the 40-man roster spot while that player is on DFA, and thus the club can put him back on the 40-man and then option him.

(I think it important to be precise in the terms. Doing otherwise may well lead to confusion as to what transaction is actually taking place.)

[Qeltar]

Matt, just to be clear, I wasn't trying to say I thought there was anything wrong with how you guys decided to design revocable waivers. In the one season I played so far, I don't think a single trade happened after the deadline, but I'm not sure how much trading occurs after July IRL.

One thing I would like to see is minor league salaries. With no cost at all you are free to churn through minor leaguers with relative impunity. I am having to force myself to stop doing this voluntarily. Would this be difficult to implement? Doesn't seem so, but maybe there's another reason you don't do it.

[mitchkenn]

i get trades for minor leaguers, without a major league contract, all the time after the "deadline". at least 2 or 3 each year... the deadline is really a deadline for players with major league contracts.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

With no cost at all you are free to churn through minor leaguers with relative impunity.

And how do you know for certain that isn't largely the case in real life? Remember, only about 10% of players who were drafted by MLB ever made it to the majors (and of those who do, most don't last very long).

During the 2014 International League regular season, 80 players were released. That's an average of 5.7 players per team. It ranged from just 1 released by Indianapolis to 13 released by Louisville. (Another 18 players were released before or after the regular season during 2014.)


ETA: Just for an idea of the frequency of transactions, here is summary data for the 2014 International League season, as compiled from the league's transaction records available at MILB.com. The first figure is the total number of that transaction type during the 2014 calendar year; the number in parentheses is the number of that transaction type which occurred during the 2014 regular season. The transaction types are as listed in the records.

Assigned (to or from lower minor leagues, or on rehab assignments): 1274 (864)
Claimed Off Waivers: 11 (0)
Declared Free Agency: 63 (3)
Loaned: 3 (3)
Optioned (from the ML parent to the INT team): 513 (365)
Outrighted (from the ML parent to the INT team): 141 (73)
Recalled (from the INT team to the ML parent): 449 (329)
Released: 98 (80)
Retired: 2 (1)
Selected (contract purchased by ML club and put on 40-man roster): 158 (104)
Status Change (player moved to or from the Disabled, Restricted, or Temporarily Inactive Lists): 625 (546)
Traded: 11 (11)

[Qeltar]

"And how do you know for certain that isn't largely the case in real life?"

Because I have been watching baseball on and off for 40 years and I've never seen a team do what I can do (and have done)? Pretty simple really.

I signed dozens of minor leaguers in one season last year. Couldn't even count them all. I needed to restock my farm system, the occasional one could turn out to be a gem or trade material, and why not? They're free. I'm a new player and I assumed they were in fact costing me something, but I needed the players. Then I found out they are free.

Is there any valid reason to have minor leaguers earn no pay in a baseball simulator? If so, I'd be curious what it is. I don't see any programming complexity.

Are RL minor league contracts not guaranteed? If so, that could be it, there's no need to bother in that case, as you can already restrict yourself via roster limits. If they are guaranteed, I think they should cost money.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

Because I have been watching baseball on and off for 40 years and I've never seen a team do what I can do (and have done)? Pretty simple really.

Anecdotal. Have you examined every single transaction that a minor league club made over the course of one season? Examined all the transactions for a given league? All leagues for a given season? A given calendar year?

If you haven't, then you are, in fact, speculating. See the additional specific data I added to my prior post, which starts putting hard numbers to what goes on in the minor leagues. There is much more data that needs to be parsed, data that will start to paint a true picture of just what goes on in terms of transactions in the minor leagues.

Originally Posted by Qeltar

I signed dozens of minor leaguers in one season last year. Couldn't even count them all. I needed to restock my farm system, the occasional one could turn out to be a gem or trade material, and why not? They're free. I'm a new player and I assumed they were in fact costing me something, but I needed the players. Then I found out they are free.

They are effectively free in real life. Salaries in the minors are generally low. Signing bonuses after being drafted are the main money most minor league players will ever see.

In 2008, the Texas Rangers spent a total of $3.5 million on minor league player salaries (which includes Triple-A down to its DSL affiliates). Other direct operating costs of its minor league affiliates added another $5.0 million. Add a further $4 million in indirect costs (e.g. minor league spring training, roving instructors, administration, etc.).

Thus, out of grand total of $12.5 million spent in relation to its minor league system, only $3.5 million was player salaries (and a good portion of that salary total is attributable to one major league player outrighted to its Triple-A affiliate).

Originally Posted by Qeltar

Are RL minor league contracts not guaranteed?

They are not. The player can be released at any time and the club owes the player no further payment. In exchange, the player immediately becomes a free agent, able to sign with any other club without restriction. (The main benefit of this is that the player is no longer bound by the initial minor league contract, which grants the major league club the right to six unilateral renewals of the player's contract, thus giving the ML club seven years' control over the player. Once released, any subsequent contract signed lasts only as long as negotiated; these are usually one-year deals.)

[Qeltar]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

They are not.

Then as I said, the rest of the debate is moot, at least about financial costs.

The only issue is that for sheer practical reasons, no real team would be likely to sign and release dozens of minor league free agents. This is a game, so there are no real world effects, and the player just has to exercise self-control if the goal is realistic play.

And for the record, it's not necessary to examine every piece of data in a data set to analyze it. You already quoted a number of players released for an entire league in one year that's comparable to the number I released as one team. There are effectively no limits on the number of MiLB free agents you can sign, trade and release in OOTP, even in a single day. You could do 100, 200 or more. I don't need to pore through lists of transactions to know that this doesn't happen in the real world.

I don't do it in OOTP either, because I don't want to abuse weaknesses in the system either, but that's why I brought up the idea of there being some sort of a cost.

ETA: I found a page on MiLB.com showing 327 minor league free agent signings, total, in 2016. That's an average of 11 per club. I can do that in a week.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

The only issue is that for sheer practical reasons, no real team would be likely to sign and release dozens of minor league free agents.

80 players were released during the 2014 International League season. Clearly, real-life organizations are quite willing to trim players. (Independent leagues appear even more willing.)

Originally Posted by Qeltar

And for the record, it's not necessary to examine every piece of data in a data set to analyze it.

You do need it if one wants the AI to properly recreate the way real-life ML clubs operate their minor league systems. Not just in terms of releases and signings, but the degree to which minor league clubs play short-handed due to injuries, the frequency with which players are shuttled up or down in the system, etc.

I suspect when the real-life data is fully examined a lot of unexpected and interesting things will be revealed.

(I'm still gathering the transaction data. I'm also now saving minor league box scores, with the goal of eventually using that data for player usage analysis. I suspect player, especially pitcher, usage, differs to some extent between the majors and minors, as well as between minor league levels.)

Originally Posted by Qeltar

You already quoted a number of players released for an entire league in one year that's comparable to the number I released as one team. There are effectively no limits on the number of MiLB free agents you can sign, trade and release in OOTP, even in a single day

Seems like a time-waster to me, since I can't imagine you're getting a much better quality of player for all that effort. Not to mention neglecting your major league roster.

[Qeltar]

If the goal is realistic simulation, then constraints are necessary on pretty much everything in order to properly model how real life works. In real life nearly everything has a cost: time, money, effort, resources, PR, goodwill, reputation. These combine to impose de facto limits on things like signing and releasing players.

Right now, those limits don't exist in OOTP (the closest they come is the roster limits, which seem to be off by default). I wouldn't say this is a problem per se -- as I mentioned, a player can simply use self-restraint -- it's just a bit of a weakness in this particular area of the sim, because "rules as written" you can go absolutely nuts signing free agents and there is no cost whatsoever.

"Seems like a time-waster to me, since I can't imagine you're getting a much better quality of player for all that effort."

Ever play as the 2018 Marlins? Hoo boy. The entire farm system needed "renovation."