Activate from DL?

[davolson]

I have a player who has been on the 60 day DL, and is now healed, and the 60 day period is over. I got an alert that he could be reactivated.

In the past, to do this what I've done is to select the player, and then under the Action tab at the bottom chosen Transaction, and then moved him to some team (either in the majors or a minor league team).

However, now when I try to do that, it gives me a message I don't think I've ever seen before: "This player is on the DL, please activate him first!"

I thought that the way to activate a player on the DL is to assign him to some team. No? I haven't found any other control to allow me to "activate" a player.

This player was on an expanded Active Roster during spring training when he got injured. I've now shrunk the Active Roster back to 25 guys. This player is on the 40 man squad, but I've only got 39 on there, including him, so that doesn't seem to explain it.

So what do I do? I might just DFA him, since he's not an important player or prospect, but was curious about this "please activate him first" message, thinking there's some command I don't know about pertaining to guys on the DL.

One more question: the injury frequency seems awfully high. Even with it set on "Below Average", the injuries pile up fast and furious playing a modern league. I've now turned it down to the lowest setting (Very Low, I think it's called), and it's too soon to see what effect that has, but it seemed there was little difference between Average and Below Average. I wondered what others think about this.

Dave

[Bluenoser]

You have to put him on your ML roster to activate him, then you can send him down.

[Jaxxvain]

Originally Posted by BruceM

You have to put him on your ML roster to activate him, then you can send him down.

Which should be classified as a bug should it not?

I am not sure if it is already noted as a bug, but it should be.

the player may need to be waived, or have rights to refuse the minors assignment, but there is no reason that I know of that he needs to bump one of your current 25 to be deactivated. I don't know the exact MLB rule, but I suspect he can be sent straight down to the minors, be it a rehab assignment or not.

[edm]

Originally Posted by davolson

One more question: the injury frequency seems awfully high. Even with it set on "Below Average", the injuries pile up fast and furious playing a modern league. I've now turned it down to the lowest setting (Very Low, I think it's called), and it's too soon to see what effect that has, but it seemed there was little difference between Average and Below Average. I wondered what others think about this.

Dave

I always use the lowest setting. otherwise my teams start to resemble a MASH unit.

and yea, needing to deactivate a mlb player to move a player from the dl to the minors is a pain. I sometimes end up just release them because it's easier

[phenom]

This thing really sucks with spring training injuries.

[Le Grande Orange]

In the real world, an MLB club can reinstate a player from the DL and option him to the minors as essentially a simultaneous transaction.

OOTP doesn't work this way, necessitating an active roster spot be cleared first, then the player optioned.

This has been pointed out to Markus. It will hopefully get addressed in OOTP 11.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by phenom

This thing really sucks with spring training injuries.

Amen to that. You do realize that you can dial injuries down or even off for Spring Training and reset them later, right?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by phenom

This thing really sucks with spring training injuries.

Bit of minutia in regards to the 15-day DL and spring training:

A player placed on the 15-day DL during spring training must spend at least six days of the regular season on the DL before he can be activated.

That means the 15-day DL doesn't start as a practical matter until nine days before the regular season starts. If you place the player on the 15-day DL earlier than nine days before the opening of the season, his minimum stay on the DL will be longer than 15 days.

[davolson]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Amen to that. You do realize that you can dial injuries down or even off for Spring Training and reset them later, right?

That's what I did, after this player, and two others, got injured during spring training. I expanded the rosters to around 60 initially, to allow a large squad, then trimmed it to 40, then 35 as training camp finished up. I was afraid to play any regulars without turning off injuries completely.

Dave

[Killing Time]

Turning off injuries for Spring Training! D'oh!

/facepalm

[BusterKing]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

Turning off injuries for Spring Training! D'oh!

/facepalm

Another bug that goes unfixed and we just move on to version 11 has if it never existed.

And I'm willing to bet that it will still be in the new version.

There's no reason why we should turn off injuries to bypass a bug. This glitch has been mentioned before and like many others just ignored.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

Another bug that goes unfixed and we just move on to version 11 has if it never existed.

The DL issue is not a bug in the proper sense. Rather, it is OOTP handling transaction rules differently from how they work in MLB. You can find several other examples where this happens as well. (E.g. players in OOTP spending even one day in the minors are charged with an option year; in the real world, a player has to spend 20 days or more in the minors to be charged an option.)

[jmknpk2]

One point that I have noticed with this issue. When I have a minor league player, most of the time it just asks me if I want to place him on the 15 day list. But sometimes (I think maybe AAA players who have used an option this year or are on 40-man) it asks me if I want to place on the 15 or 60 day list. I noticed that if I put him on the 60 day list, then I was required to activate him back to the majors after healed. On the other hand, if I placed him on the 15 day list, then he didn't need to be placed back on the major league team, I could move him straight to the minors. I guess this has something to do with the 60 day list taking him off the 40-man roster and then when he comes back, the game notices that he needs to go back on the 40-man or something along those lines.

Anyway, my lesson learned is: always place injured minor-leaguers on the 15-day disabled and never on the 60-day.

I don't think this workaround entirely solves the whole problem, but it helps me.

[BusterKing]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The DL issue is not a bug in the proper sense. Rather, it is OOTP handling transaction rules differently from how they work in MLB. You can find several other examples where this happens as well. (E.g. players in OOTP spending even one day in the minors are charged with an option year; in the real world, a player has to spend 20 days or more in the minors to be charged an option.)

My bad. I thought OOTP was an MLB simulation. So OOTP makes up any rules they want? So why bother having historical replays?

Think about it, does it make any sense?

For me if it isn't a la MLB rules then whats the point of playing this game. So they are in fact glitches/bugs. Simply referring them as just another way OOTP is handling the rules doesn't hold water.

[robc]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

My bad. I thought OOTP was an MLB simulation. So OOTP makes up any rules they want? So why bother having historical replays?

Think about it, does it make any sense?

For me if it isn't a la MLB rules then whats the point of playing this game. So they are in fact glitches/bugs. Simply referring them as just another way OOTP is handling the rules doesn't hold water.

While I would like OOTP to be as close to real MLB as possible, OOTP isn't a strict major league simulation. It is a game that lets you set up baseball worlds, one of them being an approximation of MLB. I do agree that it would be nice to follow MLB rules as close as possible.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

My bad. I thought OOTP was an MLB simulation.

It's a game. Which means reality will sometimes be sacrificed for gameplay or coding considerations.

OOTP doesn't recreate waiver periods either. It doesn't recreate the three years of Major League service limit for outrighted players. It does not recreate optional waivers. It doesn't recreate the fourth option year to which some players are entitled. It doesn't offer rehab assignments. I could go on, but that will suffice.

There are all manner of real-world rules and regulations it does not recreate. The question is how to draw the line between gameplay considerations and realism. There is no one opinion on that, and Markus, as the game's creator, gets the final decision based on his preferences. It is then up to us to try and change that decision, if we feel, and can demonstrate, that there is a better way.

There is also too the possibility of Markus simply having misunderstood a given transaction rule; these can get rather complicted, and are generally not publicly available.

In the case of optioning a player to the minors straight off the DL, it's been pointed out and Markus is aware of it. I'll be doing what I can to make sure it gets addressed for OOTP 11.


For the record: I favour incorporating as many of the real-world transaction rules as is reasonably possible. In fact, I go further: I'd like to see the option to recreate the transaction rules of years past. Most baseball fans have little idea just how much the transaction rules have changed over the years, and how those changes have affected how a GM goes about his job.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by jmknpk2

One point that I have noticed with this issue. When I have a minor league player, most of the time it just asks me if I want to place him on the 15 day list. But sometimes (I think maybe AAA players who have used an option this year or are on 40-man) it asks me if I want to place on the 15 or 60 day list. I noticed that if I put him on the 60 day list, then I was required to activate him back to the majors after healed. On the other hand, if I placed him on the 15 day list, then he didn't need to be placed back on the major league team, I could move him straight to the minors. I guess this has something to do with the 60 day list taking him off the 40-man roster and then when he comes back, the game notices that he needs to go back on the 40-man or something along those lines.

Anyway, my lesson learned is: always place injured minor-leaguers on the 15-day disabled and never on the 60-day.

OOTP does not have a 60-day minor league DL. So if you use the 60-day DL option, he's going onto the Major League 60-day DL. I can't recall why there is no minor league 60-day DL; it's either because it was difficult to code for some reason or it was judged as unnecessary when the minor league DL was added to the game.


For informational purposes:

In the minor leagues, there are two Disabled Lists: a 7-day short-term DL and a 60-day long-term DL. They both work just like their Major League counterparts. Any player who is in the minor leagues when injured, whether on option or outright, goes onto either the 7-day or 60-day minor league DL. The Major League DLs are only used for players on the 25-man Active roster when injured.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

OOTP does not have a 60-day minor league DL. So if you use the 60-day DL option, he's going onto the Major League 60-day DL. I can't recall why there is no minor league 60-day DL; it's either because it was difficult to code for some reason or it was judged as unnecessary when the minor league DL was added to the game.

A guess. Since only 15 minor league players can be on the 40 man roster there is little roster implication if a non-40 man minor league player is hit with a long term injury.

[Le Grande Orange]

At the Major League level, since most clubs are very often at their 40-man roster size maximum, freeing up space on the 40-man by placing a player on the 60-day DL is important.

In the minors, clubs are, from my understanding, nowhere near filling up their maximum roster size. In Class AAA, while the active roster is 24, clubs can have a total of 38 players under contract. But organizations keep ony enough players onhand to fill out the active roster, so as a practical matter needing to free up one of those 38 roster spots by using the 60-day DL is unnecessary.

[davolson]

Originally Posted by edm

I always use the lowest setting. otherwise my teams start to resemble a MASH unit.

That's been my impression too. However, at one point last year I tried to compare the injuries in the OOTP with real life, and was rather surprised to see as many guys on the DL in the real world as there were, so I began to wonder if it really was out of whack or not.

My impression is that too many injuries are of the long-term / DL variety and not enough are the "out 3 to 4 games" kind of minor nagging injuries that seem to hit a lot of teams. But I'd really like to know if the number of players on the DL is abnormally high in this game (with the injury frequency setting at "low", 1 step above the lowest setting).

So far I've had a couple of injuries, one minor and one of two weeks, at the lowest setting, in two weeks of games. So it's not like injuries stop completely at that lowest setting.

Dave