"Refuse minors assignment" only works for human players

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by injury log

Some players do accept an optional assignment even with the right to refuse, probably because they think they still have a chance in the organization if they work out a few things in the minors.

Some players who are outrighted and have the right to refuse the assignment (either as a result of having 3+ years of major league service or having been outrighted once before) do indeed accept the outright. That's because they calculate the salary from their current major league contract is better than their prospective free agent salary at that time, or they hope to get back onto the 40-man roster later on with the same organization.

(I think it is at this point we really ought to have several years' worth of actual major league transactions to study so as to see what's actually gone on versus all of our limited, selected examples or suppositions.)

[Ron.]

Whether or not it ever happens in reality, it obviously happens way too often in OOTP. I just looked through my Hall of Fame--literally every single member who has retired during my sim spent at least half of their last contract year in the minors (not counting minor league contracts they often signed afterwards, which is a different issue). For many this was multiple years. Albert Pujols spent the last three years of his contract in AAA.

I'm sure you can go through your sims and look at just about any retired player and find that they were buried in the minors at the end of their career.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by atl_braves

Do you think the number of players who accept the assignment is anywhere close to those who don't, or are you just trying to be pedantic?

Do you know what a 'false dichotomy' is? What I've quoted is an illustration.

I haven't commented once about what proportion of players accept assignment. I only pointed out that some players do, contrary to what you had claimed. Now you're trying to call me 'pedantic' for introducing actual facts into the conversation. I don't have any interest in talking to people who carry on discussions this way.

[NCBeachBum]

Okay. so if someone has the time and inclination, wouldn't this simple test work?

Edit a team so that 24 of 25 major leaguers are basically Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson, and the other guy is a single-A scrub. Make sure the single-A scrub has ten years in the league, and a long large contract. Then turn a few AAA kids into Babe Ruths as well. Sim and see what happens to that expensive scrub.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by NCBeachBum

Make sure the single-A scrub has ten years in the league, and a long large contract.

Uh, the right to refuse any assignment to the minors (outright or optional) starts with five years of major league service, not ten.

[Hoiles]

Just tried it out with OOTP 17, when reducing DFA days from 10 to 3 the AI definitely releases veterans, presumably because they've refused the demotion. So there's your band-aid solution. I also like using 3 days for DFA because I tend to forget to demote my players after they cleared waivers and it's a nice way to get notified to do so.

[PSUColonel]

If the players are very high priced, teams' should be keeping them on the active roster to prevent paying out huge chunks of salary all at once.

[atl_braves]

Originally Posted by injury log

Do you know what a 'false dichotomy' is? What I've quoted is an illustration.

No, I never passed 10th grade English so I don't know what that is.

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Some players who are outrighted and have the right to refuse the assignment (either as a result of having 3+ years of major league service or having been outrighted once before) do indeed accept the outright. That's because they calculate the salary from their current major league contract is better than their prospective free agent salary at that time, or they hope to get back onto the 40-man roster later on with the same organization.

(I think it is at this point we really ought to have several years' worth of actual major league transactions to study so as to see what's actually gone on versus all of our limited, selected examples or suppositions.)

Among players with at least 5 years of MLB service, these ones accepted a minor league assignment in the past year:
Chris Capuano
Chris Capuano (x2)
Chris Capuano (x3)
Kevin Correia
Tom Gorzelanny
Chris Volstad
Dustin McGowan
Casey McGehee
Shawn Marcum
Scott Baker

Among players with at least 5 years of MLB service, these ones were released after refusing a minor league assignment in the past year:
Michael Bourn
James Loney
Emilio Bonifacio
Brendan Ryan
Chris Johnson
Jim Johnson
Rafael Soriano
Mat Latos
David Aardsma
Rafael Betancourt
Alberto Callaspo
Jason Frasor
Gerald Laird
Garrett Jones
Drew Stubbs
Justin Masterson
Emilio Bonifacio (x2)
Roberto Hernandez
Bud Norris
Chris Heisey
Clayton Richard
Josh Outman
Wandy Rodriguez
Jeff Baker
Ross Ohlendorf
John Mayberry, Jr.
Joe Thatcher
Edwin Jackson
Wesley Wright
Ross Detwiler
Jason Frasor (x2)
Joba Chamberlain
Brandon League
Delmon Young
Casey McGehee
Nick Masset
Willie Bloomquist
Scott Atchison
Rickie Weeks
Trevor Cahill
Jordan Schafer
Tim Stauffer
Jason Marquis
Grady Sizemore
Phil Coke
Kevin Gregg
Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Cody Ross
Grant Balfour

What I glean from this list: players accept the offers more often than I thought, especially if you happen to be Chris Capuano.

But there is still no reason for the AI to be demoting the types of players it currently does. Some of the other players in here can corroborate this experience. There is no reason for guys with multiple years (e.g. Ichiro, Curtis Granderson) and/or $10MM+ (Teixeira, Sabathia) left on their contracts to be accepting these demotions. All the players I have listed in parentheses - focus on the contracts, I know the game doesn't recognize names - have been outrighted to the minors at some point since I started monitoring this.

[atl_braves]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Not necessarily. If the player in question is out of options and has to be DFA'd, he lands on waivers and you can track him before he can refuse the demotion. If he has options remaining, which is a real possibility, he can refuse a demotion with no transaction trail (DFA, waivers).

So it may refute a 100% hypothesis, but if it's true that players with the right to refuse are clearing waivers and being sent down every time, there's still a problem.

RcW, endgame, Big Easy: I see what you guys are saying - if a player still has options remaining, his team can try to demote him without sending him through waivers first. In that case we wouldn't know if teams are carrying guys on their 25-man roster that they wanted to demote, but refused an assignment.

I didn't consider this, and I was incorrect to postulate that this feature works all the time for human players and none of the time for the CPU teams. I guess my argument has shifted to "this feature needs to be tightened up in general - it's not a human- or AI-specific thing."

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by atl_braves

RcW, endgame, Big Easy: I see what you guys are saying - if a player still has options remaining, his team can try to demote him without sending him through waivers first.

Well, in real life it can sometimes require (revocable) waivers even to option a player to the minor leagues. OOTP doesn't recreate this rule, however.

[atl_braves]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Well, in real life it can sometimes require (revocable) waivers even to option a player to the minor leagues. OOTP doesn't recreate this rule, however.

Yeah, the idea of players with 5+ years of MLB service time just being optioned without going on waivers never even crossed my mind. This is an unusual situation because very rarely these all true:
(a) a player has options remaining after 5+ years of MLB service
(b) the team still wants to keep such a player on the 40-man after demoting him
(c) the player signs off on the demotion

Come to think of it, I think that's what happened when Chris McGehee accepted his initial minor league assignment. It was reported as a DFA at first, but then people noticed he was still on the 40-man and wondered what was going on, finally realizing he just got optioned.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by atl_braves

Yeah, the idea of players with 5+ years of MLB service time just being optioned without going on waivers never even crossed my mind.

Having five years of major league service allows a player to refuse any assignment to the minor leagues, optional or outright. The club's only choices, if the player refuses, are to either keep the player active roster, release him, or try to trade him to another club.

Revocable waivers are required to option a player to the minor leagues if it has been three or more years since the player first appeared on the active roster, with that time limit reduced by one year for each option used up prior to appearing on the active roster for the first time. (OOTP doesn't recreate this real-life rule, however.)

[Painmantle]

if the team is being run by the AI how could you possibly know wether players are refusing minor league assignment or not? As was mentioned, just because a player has the right to refuse doesn't mean he will do so. This seems lke an unsolvable riddle if you ask me, the nature of the AI running a team means you are not privy to certain information, like wether or not a player is refusing minot league assignment.

[Matt Arnold]

The AI teams do pay attention to this. They try not to demote guys who would refuse an assignment, but if they do, they should get DFA/released as expected.

You can argue about which guys should refuse assignments or not, and I know we're not 100% accurate on the rules. But the AI does play by the same rules you do.

[atl_braves]

Painmantle, Matt, I mistakenly thought that the human and AI "played by different rules" on this, and I recognize I was wrong on that. However, the point that OOTP allows teams to demote guys they shouldn't be able to is still intact.

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

You can argue about which guys should refuse assignments or not, and I know we're not 100% accurate on the rules. But the AI does play by the same rules you do.

Here's what I'm thinking: wouldn't it be a lot closer to reality if OOTP just made it so players with the right to refuse universally rejected demotions? The worst case scenario here is a Chris Capuano gets released when he would have accepted an assignment.

When you add the variable of players sometimes accepting demotions when they have the right to refuse, the worst case scenario is a HoFer playing out the last 3 years and $45MM of his contract in AAA.

[Matt Arnold]

They should very rarely accept the demotion as it stands, but we can always tighten it up a bit more.

[NotMuchTime]

There are some position players that wouldn't even be asked to take a minor league assignment. It just wouldn't happen. They might not be extended, but that's different. They don't necessarily have to be potential HOF candidates either.

Dustin Pedroia and JJ Hardy come to mind, but there are several others. They may not be extended, but you can bet they'll most likely be starters (at least have a VERY long rope) until their contract has ended.

Young players and AAAA players compete for starting positions, not established veterans. OOTP throws these players away like bubble gum wrappers.

[atl_braves]

Originally Posted by NotMuchTime

There are some position players that wouldn't even be asked to take a minor league assignment. It just wouldn't happen. They might not be extended, but that's different. They don't necessarily have to be potential HOF candidates either.

Dustin Pedroia and JJ Hardy come to mind, but there are several others. They may not be extended, but you can bet they'll most likely be starters (at least have a VERY long rope) until their contract has ended.

I think the game should possibly force teams to keep some of these guys on the 25-man roster, but not out of some sense of respect for their past accomplishments (especially considering it doesn't recognize names). It would be because the player's team cannot find a trade partner, and the player will refuse a demotion.

Originally Posted by NotMuchTime

Young players and AAAA players compete for starting positions, not established veterans. OOTP throws these players away like bubble gum wrappers.

I would also have no problem with teams "throwing these players away" if they were actually forced to cut them loose rather than bury them in the minors.

[atl_braves]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

They should very rarely accept the demotion as it stands, but we can always tighten it up a bit more.

This is my main concern. The suggestion that the feature had disproportionate effects on human and CPU teams was a red herring, and I didn't mean to let that distract from my main concern.

I think it would be easy, and realistic, to make sure that players with the right to refuse with more than one year left on their contracts refuse every time. Would you agree? And you can allow for more nuance with players in the final/only year of their contracts (although it seems like it's much more likely for a guy on a one-year deal to accept a demotion than a guy in the last year of a multiyear deal).

[Doc_Brown]

Just tried to demote Ichiro to AAA and he's not having any of it. Which is fine if he was like that when the AI control Miami,but when it does Ichiro always ends up in AAA.