Ever kick an owner out of a league for "unrealistic" trades?

[Go Tribe]

Just curious to see if this is something other leagues have seen or if this is an isolated thing.

http://www.hblbaseball.com/forum/sho...&threadid=2533

A few days ago, the commish of one of the more storied OOTP leagues, the HBL, announced that he was shutting down the league for good. It came as a shock to most of the owners because it was right in the middle of free agency with no warning. The HBL started about 4 years ago with the 2001 season and was now in 2013. What most owners didn't know was that one of the owners in the league (me) had made a trade (see link) with an interdivision rival to help close the only two holes in his team (RF and SS). Everyone that has looked at the trade said it was more than fair, in fact the commish told me that it wasn't about the fairness of the trade, it was about the "unrealism" of the trade. Apparently since real MLB teams don't trade good players within the division, HBL owners shouldn't either. In fact, the commish actually started a discussion about unrealistic trades after the 2012 trade deadline. The deadline featured a few seasoned ootp owners (including myself) making multiple deals to improve their team. I guess you should be happy that you have a good team already and not make more than one move to gear up for the playoffs.

Throughout the last few months, I've been "warned" many times about my will to win and making trades that , although more than fair, aren't realistic. The trade with the Cards pretty much broke the camel's back and forced the entire league to close (crazy huh). About 30 minutes after I posted in the first thread above that I would leave to keep the league, the league was magically back!

So I'm wondering, do other leagues require realism in their trading to the extent that they would kick out an owner that doesn't subscribe to that philosophy?

Note: to make sure all facts are known, I was an original member of the league that had a great deal of success from 2001-2008. I was co-commish, ran the league website, simmed, contributed mightily to the board with stories, comments, etc. I left after 2008 due to having a new baby. I came back in 2012 and took over a Reds team that was 69-93 in 2011 and I ended up winning 106 games and the World Series. I did it by emptying out the Red's minor league system and acquiring good but older ML talent (I just don't trust OOTP's player development system enough to go with prospects). And YES I'm bitter and YES this is a rant BUT I think it's a valid question.

[Cowboys3356]

This thread should be in the OOTP On-Line Leagues forums in order to get the most feedback.

And yes I have seen people kicked out of leagues for making "unrealistic" trades but the trade is usually just the excuse. If you get on the league commish's bad side for any reason then your days are usually numbered. Also if the league commish dislikes you and you win all the time then your days are usually even more numbered. It starts off by the commish giving some of your best players injuries and then eventually altering their ratings. If you still manage to continue winning then false claims about you will be started by the commish and then you will eventually be removed for some mindless reason. This may not be exactly what happened to you but this is what happened to me in the MLBr. I feel your pain brother!

[beorn]

I don't know you or your leagues, but I think a problem for every on-line league is to agree on what the membership is aiming for.

Some OOTP owners really want a game that feels as much like this year's Major League Baseball as possible. The hitting, the pitching, the on-field strategies, the front office strategies should be as real-to-life as possible.

Other owners want a game that feels as much like being a general manager as possible -- where someone in the league is trying out a new strategy, breaking away from the mold -- and it just might work. Your job as GM is to be ever on the alert for how best to react to change.

The first group is going to hate something new, whether it is trading within your division or batting the pitcher first or pulling starting pitchers after 30 pitches. They say that these kinds of things "abuse the game" because it wouldn't work out in real life, but the game engine just doesn't model why such things would fail. In a narrow sense they are right: the game engine was never intended to test the workability of these sorts of strategies. In a broader sense they are wrong, though, because real life opponents are going to try out new ideas, and you can't always count on the future being just like the past.

I guess either philosophy is a fine way to run a league, it's just that the two kinds of owners tend to come into conflict with each other. I subscribe more to your view of how to look at the game, but I also think you are beating your head against the wall with a commish who has aims opposite yours. Why not just join another league? It would probably lead to more baseball fun than this battle.

[beorn]

Originally Posted by Cowboys3356

This thread should be in the OOTP On-Line Leagues forums in order to get the most feedback.

And yes I have seen people kicked out of leagues for making "unrealistic" trades but the trade is usually just the excuse. If you get on the league commish's bad side for any reason then your days are usually numbered. Also if the league commish dislikes you and you win all the time then your days are usually even more numbered. It starts off by the commish giving some of your best players injuries and then eventually altering their ratings. If you still manage to continue winning then false claims about you will be started by the commish and then you will eventually be removed for some mindless reason. This may not be exactly what happened to you but this is what happened to me in the MLBr. I feel your pain brother!

Holy cow, if you are right, you have been picking the wrong leagues to play in.

I cannot imagine anything even remotely like this happening in any of my leagues -- not the two I commish, nor the other three I take part in.

[Go Tribe]

Originally Posted by beorn

I don't know you or your leagues, but I think a problem for every on-line league is to agree on what the membership is aiming for.

Some OOTP owners really want a game that feels as much like this year's Major League Baseball as possible. The hitting, the pitching, the on-field strategies, the front office strategies should be as real-to-life as possible.

Other owners want a game that feels as much like being a general manager as possible -- where someone in the league is trying out a new strategy, breaking away from the mold -- and it just might work. Your job as GM is to be ever on the alert for how best to react to change.

The first group is going to hate something new, whether it is trading within your division or batting the pitcher first or pulling starting pitchers after 30 pitches. They say that these kinds of things "abuse the game" because it wouldn't work out in real life, but the game engine just doesn't model why such things would fail. In a narrow sense they are right: the game engine was never intended to test the workability of these sorts of strategies. In a broader sense they are wrong, though, because real life opponents are going to try out new ideas, and you can't always count on the future being just like the past.

I guess either philosophy is a fine way to run a league, it's just that the two kinds of owners tend to come into conflict with each other. I subscribe more to your view of how to look at the game, but I also think you are beating your head against the wall with a commish who has aims opposite yours. Why not just join another league? It would probably lead to more baseball fun than this battle.

actually i did join another league yesterday and am looking forward to playing in it when it's full. The funny thing about the realism thing is that the HBL has a number of rules that are unrealistic so it's kinda hard to preach realism when the rules say contrary (24 teams in the league, restricted free agency - just like NFL, forced 5 man rotations until september, not allowed to negotiate during arbitration - have to take what ootp gives you, etc). I lost my starting RF thru restricted free agency and thus created the hole that I filled with the trade.

[Go Tribe]

Originally Posted by beorn

Holy cow, if you are right, you have been picking the wrong leagues to play in.

I cannot imagine anything even remotely like this happening in any of my leagues -- not the two I commish, nor the other two I take part in.

yeah, none of that stuff would ever ever happen in HBL so I don't want anyone to associate that stuff with the league.

[icvu42]

Originally Posted by Go Tribe

Apparently since real MLB teams don't trade good players within the division, HBL owners shouldn't either.

I have to disagree with this. In 1995, the Blue Jays traded David Cone to the Yankees for three minor leaguers who never accomplished anything. Cone helped the Yanks win the wildcard that year.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by Cowboys3356

...if the league commish dislikes you...your days are...numbered. It starts off by the commish giving some of your best players injuries and then eventually altering their ratings...

This would be a radical path for a commissioner. It seems easier to boot an owner than to sabotage his team.

[neohemp]

I had something SORT OF like this happen one time in an online league. Of course, sometimes my mouth can get the better of me and things don't always work out for me because of it, but I was unfairly removed from a league at one point. I just look at it like there are other leagues with superb commishes like the IBA and the ATH (especially the ATH - the commish and co commish are like gods when it comes to running their league.. crazy stuff) But for the most part I tend to see things like this happen when immature people run leagues (mostly 14 year olds with some kind of complex) however, I'm 23 and I won't run a league because I tend to act that way too, but some people just don't want to acknowledge it and they go off and make alot of people mad - consensus, before you join a league, get feedback from people in it. Alot of them will be honest if it's a crappy league/commish - because most just stand idly by.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by Go Tribe

since real MLB teams don't trade good players within the division

Nonsense.

Teams don't like to trade within their own division, but they have done so in the past and they will do so in the future.

[Go Tribe]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Nonsense.

Teams don't like to trade within their own division, but they have done so in the past and they will do so in the future.

agreed big time, was just trying to post their perspective on things

[phenom]

I'm curious... was this the same division (or league) the commissioner was in?

[Go Tribe]

Originally Posted by phenom

I'm curious... was this the same division (or league) the commissioner was in?

from what i've been told, the 4 main people (front office included) that had problems with the realism were all in the same league as me. one was a division owner that finally finished first after i left and then dropped back down to 3rd when i came back. the two teams i owned, cards and reds, were in the same division.

[rem]

Not for trades within the division but I did ask someone to leave once in large part because they made 13 fairly large trades in about one week real time.

[Dan Theman]

I currently run a league with ex-teammates and old friends running each team. As the commish, I've found that I've occassionally needed to veto a few trades that I felt were "uncompetitive" (i.e. - a more baseball-savvy owner was taking advantage of a neophyte), but if what you're saying is true (and I'll have to admut I didn't go to the links you listed out of laziness), then I'd have to agree with everyone else that you're in the wrong kind of league.

[atarizx3]

I've always felt that this is a GM-level issue. If a GM wants to make a legit trade, why not?

I personally try my hardest to keep my inter-division trades to a very minimum. They occasionally happen though.

[IatricSB]

Originally Posted by beorn

Holy cow, if you are right, you have been picking the wrong leagues to play in.

I cannot imagine anything even remotely like this happening in any of my leagues -- not the two I commish, nor the other three I take part in.

No, it's not even close to reality. But if it helps him feel better about himself, then I guess it helps.

[IatricSB]

Originally Posted by satchel

This would be a radical path for a commissioner. It seems easier to boot an owner than to sabotage his team.

Yes easier and much closer to the way things went down.

[StillFunkyB]

One thing to keep in mind is that there are two sides to every story.

[randomlefty10]

Read through some of the those forum threads, and I think you're in the right GT. You have a set of rules that are different from MLB and then cry foul because real life GMs wouldn't make some of those trades. Sounds like they're looking for 24 GMs that all think alike.