All GMs are required to field competitive teams to the best of their abilities throughout the season. I understand the temptation for teams near the bottom of the standings to throw games in order to move up in the draft, but we must insist that you do not do this. Anybody believed to be making less than a genuine effort to win their match-ups may receive a penalty, such as being forced backward in the draft. We're not saying that everybody has to play for the present and sacrifice the future, but we expect you to do your best with what you have.
Because it's that time of year again, we just wanted to remind everyone that it is your responsibility to help maintain the competitive balance of the league by fielding the best team you can. As much as you might want to throw a match-up here or there in order to gain a better draft position for the following year, we must insist that you refrain from doing so, as such an action can have a detrimental and potentially unfair impact on the playoff races and standings. The penalty for first offenses of deliberately losing will be to have your draft position for the following year docked by more than enough to erase any potential gains you might have achieved, and then some.
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Aug 13, 2013 10:20:52 GMT -5
Just to reiterate, we're not trying to micromanage every aspect of your team. Just because I think a certain player on your bench is better than a player in your lineup doesn't mean we're going to impose penalties without hearing your side of the story first. You have every right to make the strategic decision to bench a player for a "lesser" player based on personal preference or a hunch if you think it'll help you win. What you do not have the right to do is make moves that obviously and objectively hurt your team's chances to win, bench productive and actice players for inactive or injured players, or fail to make moves that would appear obviously beneficial for your team.
Last Edit: Aug 13, 2013 10:29:02 GMT -5 by Ben (Rays GM)
Post by Chris (Former Cubs GM) on Aug 13, 2013 10:27:05 GMT -5
I'm assume the last 2 posts were for me. I'm not trying to get brewers in trouble or picks taken away but he has plenty of open spots for pitchers on his yahoo roster with Kendrick and happ on the bench. Happ threw 7ip/ 6k/ 1qs yesterday with another start coming on Saturday. NL central is pretty tight and woulda like to see him try and be competitive. Maybe he woulda lost with them I the lineup but giving Astros the W when myself and reds need Astros to lose is frustrating.
I'm assume the last 2 posts were for me. I'm not trying to get brewers in trouble or picks taken away but he has plenty of open spots for pitchers on his yahoo roster with Kendrick and happ on the bench. Happ threw 7ip/ 6k/ 1qs yesterday with another start coming on Saturday. NL central is pretty tight and woulda like to see him try and be competitive. Maybe he woulda lost with them I the lineup but giving Astros the W when myself and reds need Astros to lose is frustrating.
My post was directed at no one in particular, and I appreciate your concerns. I don't want to comment on specifics regarding how we are handling inividual incidents. What I will say is that we have given out one formal warning already this year (not to brewers) when a team made the deliberate move of players from the lineup to the bench, and we have contacted a number of other GMs who appeared to have left players on the bench as an oversight, such as cases where a player was recovering from injury or was never moved to the starting lineup after a trade (if you get one of these messages, not to worry - we're just checking in and sending a reminder. A formal warning will say "formal warning" in the subject line).
In the Brewers' case, Happ is being started in just 1% of leagues and has an ERA over 5, and is now listed as NA.
Post by Chris (Former Cubs GM) on Aug 13, 2013 10:57:37 GMT -5
Happ is listed as NA on the bereavement list ad is expected to make his next start. What's the point of making a "stay competitive" thread if you just make excuses for a team not starting players. He has 2 players on the bench that will get 3 starts this week. Aside from Happs era or Kendrick's numbers he could have competed in IP and Ks and now wont compete for either. Leaving them on the bench was clearly not strategical. It was either laziness or tanking. Not trying to accuse him of tanking. Now it appears that I'm coming off as an asshole but surprised to hear that because Happs Era is less than stellar it's ok to not fill a lineup.
Happ is listed as NA on the bereavement list ad is expected to make his next start. What's the point of making a "stay competitive" thread if you just make excuses for a team not starting players. He has 2 players on the bench that will get 3 starts this week. Aside from Happs era or Kendrick's numbers he could have competed in IP and Ks and now wont compete for either. Leaving them on the bench was clearly not strategical. It was either laziness or tanking. Not trying to accuse him of tanking. Now it appears that I'm coming off as an asshole but surprised to hear that because Happs Era is less than stellar it's ok to not fill a lineup.
The point of the thread is that there actually was a team (I won't say who or when this happened) that benched 4 very productive players (perhaps some of his best) for inactive ones for a week. It was noticed by the commissioners and a formal warning was issued. We felt that as the season is winding down and as we're noticing that some of the lineups post-trade deadline are less than full and could be filled by active players, it was a good time to send a reminder to the whole league and privately deal with the teams we felt weren't fielding full lineups.
As Ben said, the intention of this thread was not to comment on specifics regarding how we are handling individual incidents. We have contacted a number of GMs who appeared to have left players on the bench.
I understand your frustration Chris, and I want to re-assure you that we are taking this matter seriously and addressing it. We just prefer to deal with these things privately so as not to stir up any controversy within the league or tarnish the reputations of GMs who have been very good assets to the league but may have made a mistake or perhaps a strategic decision that we may not agree with.
Lastly, in response to your view that the lineup has to be full if possible, I'll offer the following example: if a team feels that a pitcher is likely to get crushed in his next start, we're not going to force that GM to sacrifice his rate stats in favor of possibly accumulating counting stats if he feels his best way to compete is in those rate stat categories. That's the GM's choice to make as long as he's able to provide reasonable justification for the move. The commissioners are not here to micromanage teams, just encourage fair play.
Post by Billy (Cardinals GM) on Aug 13, 2013 12:58:32 GMT -5
I understand that we need to have full lineups and try to stay competative. What makes this difficult though is when you make moves to do just that and those moves go unnoticed and ignored. About a week ago I promoted four players and those players have yet to be added to my team. About a week before that, I made the same post with the same results (I deleted the post after I made the new one on Aug. 3rd).
I know that the commissioners are doing their best and work hard at making this league great but if we are going to take this seriously we need to make sure everything is done right and quickly. I signed some of these players during the season to help me and now those deals seem pointless and feel like a waste.
If I made an error in my posts then that's my fault. But if its something like not activating a player before promoting them I believe the move should be made because the intentions were clear. I'm not sure if I'm the only person this has happened to but I just wanted it to be known.
I understand that we need to have full lineups and try to stay competative. What makes this difficult though is when you make moves to do just that and those moves go unnoticed and ignored. About a week ago I promoted four players and those players have yet to be added to my team. About a week before that, I made the same post with the same results (I deleted the post after I made the new one on Aug. 3rd).
I know that the commissioners are doing their best and work hard at making this league great but if we are going to take this seriously we need to make sure everything is done right and quickly. I signed some of these players during the season to help me and now those deals seem pointless and feel like a waste.
If I made an error in my posts then that's my fault. But if its something like not activating a player before promoting them I believe the move should be made because the intentions were clear. I'm not sure if I'm the only person this has happened to but I just wanted it to be known.
Did you post in the reserves thread to move them to your active roster? Promoting someone only moves them onto the reserves of your 40-man major league roster, you have to post in the reserves thread to activate them.
Note on reserves: Promotions, demotions, cuts, trades, free agent signings, waivers, etc are all moves that have an effect on your official roster. If you post in one of these sections, we know that we need to edit your official roster to reflect the change you posted (maybe not immediately, but we'll get to everything when we can). Reserves, on the other hand, is all about Yahoo. In addition to posting your moves in any of those other threads, make sure that if you want a move done on Yahoo, you post it in reserves as well - who you're deactivating and who you're activating. If you don't do this, we'll do our best to figure out what we think it is you want to have done, and if we can't we'll usually PM you, but you save us all a lot of time if you just remember that any time you need a player added to or removed from Yahoo, you should post it in reserves.
Happ is listed as NA on the bereavement list ad is expected to make his next start. What's the point of making a "stay competitive" thread if you just make excuses for a team not starting players. He has 2 players on the bench that will get 3 starts this week. Aside from Happs era or Kendrick's numbers he could have competed in IP and Ks and now wont compete for either. Leaving them on the bench was clearly not strategical. It was either laziness or tanking. Not trying to accuse him of tanking. Now it appears that I'm coming off as an asshole but surprised to hear that because Happs Era is less than stellar it's ok to not fill a lineup.
Not looking to make excuses, merely speaking on behalf of a GM who has been singled out and attempting to clarify any confusion over which transgressions might or might not merit a commissioner's intervention. You'll notice I did not say the same about Kendrick, who is started in 30% of yahoo leagues and would likely start on the vast majority of teams in this league (however, it appears that Kendrick has been on the bench since he was acquired from the Indians in June - likely an oversight, albeit a puzzling one). If you (or anyone else) discover a player on someone's bench that looks like he doesn't belong there, I encourage you to inform a commissioner by PM - however, for now, let me point out where I wrote "we have contacted a number of other GMs who appeared to have left players on the bench as an oversight, such as cases where a player was recovering from injury or was never moved to the starting lineup after a trade" and leave it at that (the most recent round of contact was made last night and GMs won't have had a chance to act on it yet - although both Kendrick and Happ do now appear to be in the Brewers' rotation for next week).
Last Edit: Aug 13, 2013 15:14:57 GMT -5 by Ben (Rays GM)
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Aug 13, 2013 15:07:16 GMT -5
Like Brian said, we fully understand your frustration and are taking the issue very seriously. We appreciate your diligence and assistance (in the form of private communication) in addressing any issues you discover.
All GMs are required to field competitive teams to the best of their abilities throughout the season. I understand the temptation for teams near the bottom of the standings to throw games in order to move up in the draft, but we must insist that you do not do this. Anybody believed to be making less than a genuine effort to win their match-ups may receive a penalty, such as being forced backward in the draft. We're not saying that everybody has to play for the present and sacrifice the future, but we expect you to do your best with what you have.
Because it's that time of year again, we just wanted to remind everyone that it is your responsibility to help maintain the competitive balance of the league by fielding the best team you can. As much as you might want to throw a match-up here or there in order to gain a better draft position for the following year, we must insist that you refrain from doing so, as such an action can have a detrimental and potentially unfair impact on the playoff races and standings. The penalty for first offenses of deliberately losing will be to have your draft position for the following year docked by more than enough to erase any potential gains you might have achieved, and then some.
Would a team with 0 SPs and 1RP who is on the DL not be deemed to be intentionally trying to lose?
Post by Jon (Astros GM) on Jun 2, 2014 10:55:32 GMT -5
I just saw that. That's fairly ridiculous. How does he not have anyone on his roster for those spots? How was he allowed to make all those trades and not replace anyone and field a team. That's trying to tank at it's finest.
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Jul 8, 2014 14:16:13 GMT -5
I just want to inform everyone that a team has been docked three picks in the draft order next year (meaning that if they were to have picked 5th, they'd now be picking 8th) for failing to comply with fielding a competitive team. That GM has been notified privately. This was a case of that GM having what would have been one of his best players sitting in reserves. It's really important that everyone stay on top of their roster. Not only is benching useful players unfair to the teams in contention for the same draft picks you are, but it's also not fair to the teams in playoff contention, especially since some teams play a given team twice and other teams only play that team once.
We know that not every team is going to be at the same level of competitiveness, and we understand this. But at the very least you need to do the best you can with what you have. We'd love to see teams do more than that and we wish there were a way to encourage that as well. If you have suggestions, feel free to message us. Similarly, if you have concerns about a specific team not living up to the expectation, please contact us privately.
Last Edit: Jul 8, 2014 14:17:44 GMT -5 by Ben (Rays GM)
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Jul 8, 2014 17:15:00 GMT -5
It was brought to my attention that it would be best for the league if I were to announce which team received the sanction. While I want to respect the team's privacy, I also want to prevent a situation where the value of the picks belonging to the team in question isn't clear - not that I think the GM in question would intentionally trade away his picks under false pretenses, but I think the best policy for this situation is to make sure everyone knows what the picks are worth and considers that value when trading for them. As far as I can tell, the team has yet to trade any picks for the 2015 draft (which is the draft for which the sanction will take place). Even if it had, the sanction would most likely still apply to the traded picks, unless the team had perhaps traded all or most of its early picks, in which case another punishment would have to be determined. As it is, I would like to be as transparent as possible: the team in question is the Oakland Athletics, and the player in question is J.D. Martinez, who has been in the team's reserves despite being easily the team's second best hitter. Please understand that this sanction is not just for this individual incident, but for an accumulation of similar incidents. If you choose to acquire any Athletics picks for the 2015 draft, be aware that those picks will be docked three places from where the A's would otherwise pick based on record.
Last Edit: Jul 8, 2014 18:13:33 GMT -5 by Ben (Rays GM)
