Would this work???????????

[jmaness84]

Just recently in my 47 solo league I had just traded for Ted Williams. We'll he did not want to play for a losing team and I had gave up a lot to get him so I offered him 20 mil for 3 years and he signed. (He was worth it) After his 3 years were up and his ratings declined he still demanded 20 mil.

[Henry]

I've said it before and will say it again, positions should not be changed in online leagues - ever, and in any league I have or would run, ST is skipped. In a solo league, I guess it's not my call since your only cheating yourself and it doesn't effect anyone else.

Whether we call it cheating the AI or taking advantage of loopholes, it's still cheating - and any league should do what's necessary to close those loopholes - even if that means doing without a game option.

Henry

[jaxmagicman]

Originally posted by Henry
I've said it before and will say it again, positions should not be changed in online leagues - ever, and in any league I have or would run, ST is skipped. In a solo league, I guess it's not my call since your only cheating yourself and it doesn't effect anyone else.

Whether we call it cheating the AI or taking advantage of loopholes, it's still cheating - and any league should do what's necessary to close those loopholes - even if that means doing without a game option.

Henry

I will say that I change postions of players to get my Auto Depth Chart working right. I never change them to DH, however. DH is a position that allows for too much. If a person's primary postion is DH they ask for less money and yadayayda yada. But there is nothing wrong with taking a player that is rated at both SS and 2B and changing that person Primary Postion to the one you want him to play. If you want him to be your every day SS, then change his positon to SS if you want him to be your everyday 2B, then change his primary postion to 2B, that is why you are allowed to change the position. That is not taking advantage of anything.

[Henry]

First, remember I'm talking online leagues. "IF" a player has ratings for 2b and SS and all you are doing is changing the order (primary vs secondary) then I would agree. But I think what's at issue here is changing players to positions they have no rating at all for. In the case of this thread - changing someone to DH - or changing a player to a position that we "think" he could cover (ex: catcher to first base) when the rating is not there.

IN order for most of this problem to go away, the financial end of the game has to recognize that a choice of position change would likely put the player into a different perspective when contracts expire. The biggest isssue is that some consideration must be given to the player who could still play for his higher rated position elsewhere and make more money - rather than simply accepting a paycut because his current team needs him at a less payable position.

[jaxmagicman]

Originally posted by Henry
First, remember I'm talking online leagues. "IF" a player has ratings for 2b and SS and all you are doing is changing the order (primary vs secondary) then I would agree. But I think what's at issue here is changing players to positions they have no rating at all for. In the case of this thread - changing someone to DH - or changing a player to a position that we "think" he could cover (ex: catcher to first base) when the rating is not there.

IN order for most of this problem to go away, the financial end of the game has to recognize that a choice of position change would likely put the player into a different perspective when contracts expire. The biggest isssue is that some consideration must be given to the player who could still play for his higher rated position elsewhere and make more money - rather than simply accepting a paycut because his current team needs him at a less payable position.

Ok got it. I think everyone has a rating at DH. I just think there is no need for that to be a position. There should be a spot for primary position and then if you want him to be the every day DH, there should be a way to chose that.

[Old Man]

Is the DH really a position? Would be nice if OOTP never had a DH position listed (or MLB) and never had to worry about it. A hitter playing DH is just a displaced fielder anyway. Anyone in the game can play DH, so why have a position for it?

Let's be DH free.

[jaxmagicman]

Originally posted by Old Man
Is the DH really a position? Would be nice if OOTP never had a DH position listed (or MLB) and never had to worry about it. A hitter playing DH is just a displaced fielder anyway. Anyone in the game can play DH, so why have a position for it?

Let's be DH free.

I agree with this. Besides, we don't need DH's at all. Although I will say that I use DH a lot in the minors when I have some players taking playing time from other players and I just cannot get the AI to let the other player play.

[clarnzz]

The best way we have found around it without making things too complicated is that when a player comes up for extension he is negotiated with at his highest rated position by range. And then only allowing "ask coaches" or "default 5's" in spring training to remove that aspect. It has done a good job of keeping "player tag" issues from being a problem.

[Henry]

No DH - excellent idea Oh... that's not exactly what you meant

Oh well, I do agree that the game would be better off without DH as a position. Basically, you pay a player based on his primary position (even if it's an older firstbaseman) and simply put him in the lineup as a DH if you wish. That way, you use players how they are needed - but they get paid fairly. The whole idea of a DH getting less is kind of weird anyway.

If the only guy you had on the bench for DH was a 39 year old previous shortstop that hit .250 - he would be paid similar to a .250 hitting shortstop with bad fielding ratings. If he hit .330 he's paid similar to a .330 hitting shortstop with bad fielding ratings.

That would seem to work.

Henry

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Henry
No DH - excellent idea



Henry

I agree and quite old school. But that is for another thread. I really mean it, the game should just get rid of DH position. Now if we could just work on MLB now.

[jmaness84]

Originally posted by Old Man
I agree and quite old school. But that is for another thread. I really mean it, the game should just get rid of DH position. Now if we could just work on MLB now.

Markus would never do it. Too many leagues that use current rosters that emulate the Major Leagues. It will never happen.... Wait are you guys talking about not having a DH all together or just not having it where you can put a player position to a DH? Im having a hard time interpreting what you guys meant regarding the DH.

[Aussie Mark]

Keep posting Henry, with all those graphics in your sig this thread will be up to 10 pages in no time :-)

[Aussie Mark]

Originally posted by jmaness84
are you guys talking about not having a DH all together or just not having it where you can put a player position to a DH? Im having a hard time interpreting what you guys meant regarding the DH.

What they're saying is that in OOTP players should not have DH as a "position" in their ratings/attributes, since any player can be used as a DH.

[jmaness84]

ahh ok. Yea I like that idea.

[kq76]

Originally posted by Henry
If the only guy you had on the bench for DH was a 39 year old previous shortstop that hit .250 - he would be paid similar to a .250 hitting shortstop with bad fielding ratings. If he hit .330 he's paid similar to a .330 hitting shortstop with bad fielding ratings.

That would seem to work.

While I agree that getting rid of the DH as a primary position might be a good idea, I think you have to be careful with what you recommend. For instance, are there any bad fielding .250 hitting SSs? Not many, you can probably get a decent SS that hits .250. Players who play primarily DH most likely make less money than a similarly offensive player who fields poorly at whatever position they do play. Take Edgar Martinez for example. If he could field at all now, he'd probably make a bit more money. The closest thing you might be able to do if you absolutely had to relate a DH to another position would be one of the least difficult fielding positions like a poor fielding similarly offensive 1B. You're not likely to have a poor batting 1B or a poor batting DH so that might work. But even then you'd probably want to discount his salary a bit.

The big problem I see is you can't really relate his salary to his past #s, you can partially, but more importantly are his expected future #s. Say for example your DH hit very well last year, but he's pretty old or he had a fairly severe injury or whatever, he probably won't get as much money in the open market as he would if he did not have those cons against him. Or say you have a player who played in the field this year, but for whatever reason he most likely won't be good enough to play in the field next year. In that case he should not get as much money and he should only be offered and or request contracts that are more in line with a DH's salary. Note I did not say that his contract offer and requests should be in line with how much he is worth to his current team as he could very well be worth more to another team and if so, he should hold out.

IMO the best solution would be for Markus to not relate salaries and offers to primary position at all. Relate them to how much a player would most be worth to the team that he would add the most value to. Just look at what teams would take him, then relate his salary to what team he would be worth the most too. Far easier said than done, I'm sure. But Markus can do it.

[kq76]

Originally posted by jmaness84
If I am not wanted in the KBL, then i'll resign.

I just wanted to make sure that you cleared things up and imo you have. As you already admitted, you worded things awfully poorly, but we all do from time to time, including myself. Anyone remember the Bear thread?

Anyways, I agree with some here that there's a lot of grey area over cheating. What is cheating exactly. I'm sure it's fairly self-evident to most people, but if you had to make them explain it, without looking for help, then I think they would find the task fairly difficult. I asked myself this question and this is what I came up with:

It's cheating if you're doing something that:

-would not be possible if the game was perfect
-if everyone, or even if just a few did it, then the league would be less, probably much less, fun
-is not at all realistic, as in you cannot imagine this would occur in any universe

Other people can probably come up with others, but I thought these were good for a start. Only one need apply though.

Notice nowhere in there did I mention anything about rules. Let me explain. I've broken the rules, probably written and unwritten, in my past leagues a few times. For example, in the UBL I broke the offering a max # of years rule. Did I know the rule? No. Should I have known the rule? Yes. Did I read the rules? Yes, a few times actually. My only explanation is I simply didn't remember it. Do I think I "cheated"? Certainly not. Also in the UBL, we had a rule that you must have a player in both sides of a deal. Well, this past off-season I made a deal for only draft picks. Technically, I broke the rule. Again, I should have known it, but I didn't. Now this didn't seem a big deal to anyone apparently and the commish subsequently tweaked the rule. Again, did I cheat? I don't think so. Did I do something I should not have done? Yes. I've done similar in the CBL. Anyways, my point is, just because you break a rule does not necessarily mean you cheated. Perhaps the rule shouldn't have existed or maybe it just wasn't worded as it should have been.

On the other hand, also in the UBL we once had a member who kept his best player(s) in the minors so his big league team would suck and he could get a higher draft position. We didn't have any written rule against that in our league, but no one better argue that that wasn't an unwritten and understood rule. That's just wrong, plain and simple. Cooley asked us all what we thought and from I recall our answer was pretty unanimous, we did not want this type of activity to be a part of our league. I believe the guy then argued this, rather rudely from what I can remember, and he was asked to leave and he did (or maybe we threw him out, I forget). The point is, there was not a written rule against this, but it sure as hell was a rule.

For those who consider the written rules to be the only rules of the league, please, don't kid yourself, I'm sure you know better than that. Leagues rules are like societal rules, they don't need to be written and they're largely for society to work. For example, is there a law everywhere that says you cannot read another person's e-mail. Perhaps there is in some places, but I doubt there is everywhere. Does that mean that it is acceptable where there is no rule? Most likely not. It's understood. There'd most likely be a great deal of paranoia, a lot more than there already is, if everyone accepted that others read their private correspondence. Hell, I'm sure that a lot of correspondence would stop altogether. That would certainly hamper society. Same with league rules. If some leagues rules, written or unwritten, are not there, the league will be worse off. And for those who think that league rules should be able to cover everything, again, don't kid yourself. Unless you can foresee the future, I can't imagine that you can come up with rules that will cover all situations. Yes, do your best and cover as many situations as you can think of to avoid any questions, but don't drive yourself mad over it.

Going back to what I think is cheating:

It's cheating if you're doing something that:

-would not be possible if the game was perfect
-if everyone, or even if just a few did it, then the league would be less, perhaps much less, fun
-is not at all realistic, as in you cannot imagine this would occur in any universe

Now there's going to be disagreements over opinions on these, but I think that if you're not sure if there is a rule, written or unwritten, concerning this issue already and you personally think that one of these (maybe others?) applies, then you should probably ask your league what they think. If the answer is that it is not already understood, then the league can discuss the issue and come up with a decision on the issue. I forget about what exactly, but I once went through this in the CBL and it worked well.

As for disagreements on these, let me give you an example. Currently you can release a player with a huge contract and you eat all of that contract in the first year. Now to me, with my background, that is absolutely ridiculous. However, when the OOTP community discussed this, many people (at least most of those who participated in the discussion) disagreed with me. All I could do was just shrug my shoulders. I don't think this would happen if the game were perfect, I think the game is less fun with this, and I don't think it's even fathomable. This example, like the one that started this thread, happens to fit all three, but let me stress, it only need fit 1 for you to question the action. Still, people disagreed with me, saying that they like it this way and what not. Well alright. I suppose that if that were a league discussion and it had been put up to a vote that it would have been allowed in the league. I personally think it's cheating, but if it's explicitly allowed for in the rules, then fine, I guess I'll have to play by those rules and do it too. In this case, I myself would consider it cheating, but hey, if you want to be in the league then you either keep yourself on equal footing with those others abiding by the rules or you handicap yourself. It's your choice. The point is, imo at least, it's only unacceptable if the league determines that it is unacceptable. And if it hasn't been determined whether it is acceptable or not, then start a discussion on the topic and as a league come to a conclusion on it.

So, in summary (again, imo):

-follow the leagues' rules, written or unwritten
-if you're not sure whether there is a rule on the issue, then ask the league, and if there is no rule, then as a league, make a ruling whether there should be
-if you answer affirmatively to those "Is This Cheating" questions, then state your reasons and ask the league their opinions, and as a league, make a ruling
-and finally, if you disagree with an existing rule, then try to get it changed or removed

[clarnzz]

Great speach but I still think a league needs to try to define what is acceptable and what is not. Just noticing from many discussions on here people see a lot of things differantly. I think leaving issues up in the air and expecting people to do what you feel is "moral" isn't good especially considering the very broad brush your painting "cheating" with.


Edit:

Guess I should of read the summary rather than the paragraph. I agree with that completely, if you think something is a potential issue bring it up to the league rather than just doing it.

[bd3]

Great speach but I still think a league needs to try to define what is acceptable and what is not. Just noticing from many discussions on here people see a lot of things differantly. I think leaving issues up in the air and expecting people to do what you feel is "moral" isn't good especially considering the very broad brush your painting "cheating" with.

Hey commish we gotta put another rule in place.

Seriously, I agree but the hard part is how do you enforce rules that rely on the moral character of the individual??? There are known issues with the game that owners could exploit to gain an advantage. Clearly this is cheating IMO. But since you really have no way to enfore the rule then its up to the individual sitting in front of his computer. You have to rely on people to do what you think is "moral" and therefore cant have rules to take care of everything.

[clarnzz]

My point is really less that you have to trust people, because you have to grant everyone an amount of that. My point is just more there are alot of game issues people see differantly.

Some people might think playing a player at a position he isn't rated for is cheating. Some think this is perfectly acceptable. Some people think there is a huge advantage to be gained by switching someone to DH and scrapping their defense, while others think there is a huge advantage to be gained in spring training by beefing up your middle infielders range until they are all Ozzie Smith. Turning anyone who can pick up a glove into Ozzie Smith defensivly seems like taking advantage of game logic to me. Same with my point about free agent contracts, one person could think a big one year deal and then a lesser extension is perfectly acceptable, while someone else could see this as taking advantage of imperfect game logic.

That's why I think a league needs to have defined boundries to prevent differances in opinion from becoming advantages or disadvantages from one owner to the next.