Service Time Question

[kbensel]

Hi. Sorry for the re-post, but I realized that this is where my question should have gone originally. My mistake.

Here is a brief summary:

We just finished the 15th season of an online league and our first using OOTP 2007. I noticed that my rookies who have been up all season (Gobble, Harvey, and Ruiz) all currently show for Major League Service Time the following: "1 Year(s), 12 Days." This is definitely incorrect, since they never were in the majors before this season. The league settings require (I think) 172 days of service time to constitute a year, and the season is 184 days long. So if a player spends 12 days or less in the minors in a season, they accumulate 1 year of experience. But you aren't supposed to be able to accumulate more than 1 year of experience in a single season, obviously. And I know this has worked properly in past versions of OOTP in this league.

Has anyone else seen this error? I searched the boards and didn't find any other instances of this (other than my original thread in the wrong location... oops!), so I'm wondering if this issue is isolated to our league (which originally was in High Heat and after 6 seasons converted to OOTP 5 via a modified Lahman Database, then to OOTP 6, 6.5, 2006, and now 2007), or if maybe this bug was introduced in version 2.0.2.53. Please note that I can't upgrade to the newest version (2.0.3, I think). because our league is sticking with the current version until the offseason (at least).

I was hoping that the game would subtract the "extra" days once we reached the end of the regular season, but that didn't occur (we're just about to start the playoffs). My biggest concern is Lou Tully, who was scheduled to finish the season with 3 days short of 6 years of experience, and therefore go to arbitration. But he currently shows 6 years and 9 days of of experience, which means I either need to extend him or lose him.

But the problem goes far beyond my rookies and Tully. It appears to affect all the teams in the league (random Yankee rookie with the same problem), and there are players who started the season with just under 2 years of Major League Service Time and therefore should have finished the season with just under 3 years of Service Time and next season had league minimum contracts, but now have a little over 3 years of experience and will therefore go to arbitration (see Roy Oswalt). These players are going to have contracts that are significantly screwed up.

My team's Salary Report shows that I have multiple players (Lyons, Orvella, and Oswalt) who are only going to have 2 seasons of arbitration after their minimum contracts expire. That is clearly wrong.

Help!

[Nutlaw]

I haven't seen this problem using either patch 2 or patch 3, but I can't absolutely promise that I didn't miss something or that some combination of settings couldn't cause it.

Don't worry too much about the salary report itself. It doesn't count days of service and rounds up to the nearest full year of service.

Clearly, your league has a problem, however. Do you have any non-standard settings employed that you think might somehow affect service time? If you have the time, could you create a new test league and sim forward a season to see if you can re-create the issue?

[Nutlaw]

As this thread has gone two weeks without a reply, it will be closed for housekeeping purposes. If you need any additional assistance with it, please post a link to this thread in Tech Support and we can continue to troubleshoot it. Thanks.

[Nutlaw]

Someone in one of the on-line leagues I play in reported this error, so after one heck of a lot of testing I found the following, now logged as BZ 319:

I have no earthly idea why, but after a full season of play with a Short Season A minor league, its corresponding major league will see the Major League Service Time This Year counter reset after 17 days of major league play. If no Short Season A minor league exists, a Rookie League will cause the exact same behavior, except after 18 days of major league play. This issue goes away once the offending leagues are deleted.

This is a big problem in that it causes players to accumulate far too many days of service each year (when service is normally capped at 172 days per year of play). Players reach arbitration and free agency sooner than expected as a result.

Test 1 in a league starting with no minor leagues:

First year: No issue.
Off-season: Added Rookie League (1/1).
Second year: No issue. Rookie league starts play (6/24).
Third year: After 18 days of major league play, major league service this year is reset back to 1 day of service. (4/24)
Fourth year: Issue. Sim to 18 days of major league service. Sim one more day and it gets set back to 1.

Test 2 in a league starting with full minor leagues:

First year: No issue. Short Season starts first year of play. Rookie League later starts first year of play.
Second year: Major League Service This Year reset after 17 service days. (4/24)
Third year: Major League Service This Year reset after 17 service days. (4/23)
Off-season: Deleted Rookie League.
Fourth year: Major League Service This Year reset after 17 service days. (4/22)
Fifth year: Major League Service This Year reset after 17 service days.
Off-season: Deleted Short Season League.
Sixth year: No issue.
Seventh year: No issue.
Off-season: Created Rookie League. (1/1)
Eighth year: No issue. Rookie League starts play.
Ninth year: Major League Service This Year reset after 18 service days.
Tenth year: Major League Service This Year reset after 18 service days.
Off-season: Deleted Rookie League.
Eleventh year: No issue.
Off-season: Created Short Season League. (1/1)
Twelfth year: No issue. Short Season begins play.
Thirteenth year: Major League Service This Year reset after 17 service days.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by kbensel

...all currently show for Major League Service Time the following: "1 Year(s), 12 Days." This is definitely incorrect, since they never were in the majors before this season. The league settings require (I think) 172 days of service time to constitute a year, and the season is 184 days long. So if a player spends 12 days or less in the minors in a season, they accumulate 1 year of experience. But you aren't supposed to be able to accumulate more than 1 year of experience in a single season, obviously. And I know this has worked properly in past versions of OOTP in this league.

Has anyone else seen this error?

I'm pretty sure the game is intended to work this way, and has for as long as I've checked. The real life rule:

a) even though a season is (approx) 182 days long, 172 days counts as one service year.
b) if you spend more than 172 days on the roster during a season, any extra days above 172 don't count towards your service time.

So OOTP has it half-right: a player should get a full service year after 172 days, but no more than a full year if they exceed 172 days. There is an option, in Game Setup, whereby you can set the number of days required for a service year. I find the game works best if this number is set to 182-184 days- whatever the length of one full season- instead of 172.

[kbensel]

Originally Posted by injury log

I'm pretty sure the game is intended to work this way, and has for as long as I've checked. The real life rule:

a) even though a season is (approx) 182 days long, 172 days counts as one service year.
b) if you spend more than 172 days on the roster during a season, any extra days above 172 don't count towards your service time.

So OOTP has it half-right: a player should get a full service year after 172 days, but no more than a full year if they exceed 172 days. There is an option, in Game Setup, whereby you can set the number of days required for a service year. I find the game works best if this number is set to 182-184 days- whatever the length of one full season- instead of 172.

Yes, OOTP is working half-correctly. Which means that it's working half-incorrectly. Bumping up the # of days to 182 or 184 would work, it appears. But it should also work properly as-is, with the # of days required for a "season" at 172 (or 10-12 fewer days than in our actual season). And we've been using OOTP for about 8 seasons now and have never run into this problem before (I keep a close eye on such things), so something has changed.

[Nutlaw]

From Kaitiaki: "I have identified the specific trigger for the first part of the problem, at least. It's not simply "17 days of service" that causes the problem. Less randomly, "Major League Service Days this Year" resets to zero on the day our S-A league begins its Preseason (and thus the origin of this bug becomes clear, once you realize that the start of the Preseason is when all leagues normally reset that counter)."

[kbensel]

Very interesting...

Forgive me if I'm being obtuse, but do we know what causes the "other" part of the issue, whereby a player can get more than 1 year of experience in a single season? To me, that's where the problem reared its head, at least in our league.

Thanks to all for the help with this!

[Nutlaw]

Yeah, the resetting Major League Service Days this Year is what causes a player to get more than one year's worth of service in a single season. It's the counter that caps how much service time a player can accrue. Once it is reset, a player can then gain another 172 days of service time.