Playoff roster management

[Corsairs]

Let me open up by posting how MLB handles playoff rosters:

For a player to be eligible for the postseason, Major League Baseball rules require him be on the team's active 25-man roster or on the disabled, bereavement, suspended or military lists before midnight on Aug. 31 of that season.

Teams have until a day before their first Division Series game to set their playoff rosters, and rosters can be changed for each of the best-of-seven League Championship Series and World Series.

The rules also say that if a player eligible for the postseason is hurt and can't play, the team can request permission from the commissioner's office to replace him with a player from the minor league system, with a few restrictions. The player must be on a minor league roster within the organization as of Aug. 31 and still with the organization at the end of the regular season. Also, an injured pitcher can only be replaced by another pitcher and a position player by another position player, although these positions don't have to match.

Teams can put players on the disabled list to give them more options for their postseason roster. The most famous example of a team taking advantage of this loophole was the 2002 Angels, who put fireballing right-hander Francisco Rodriguez on their postseason roster even though he didn't play for them until Sept. 15 of that year.

The Angels asked the commissioner's office to allow Rodriguez to replace Steve Green on their postseason roster. Green had pitched one big-league game in April of 2001 before a shoulder injury sidelined him throughout the 2002 season. "K-Rod," as he's now known around the major leagues, wound up winning five postseason games that season for the World Series champion Angels.

OOTP doesn't seem to model this system. From what I can tell the game will let you promote/demote players in the middle of a playoff series (regardless of whether they were on your roster before September or not). There's also no mechanism for petitioning the commissioner to replace injured players. I partially planned for this by letting my owners know ahead of time that only those players on their roster come Sept. 1 would be eligible for the playoffs (and I took screenshots of rosters to be sure I'd know who's eligible).

Now I'm running into an unexpected problem. One owner has a player who was injured during the last regular season sim. He'll be out for 6 days. That will cause to miss the first 4 games of a best-of-5 divisional series. If he puts him on the DL he'll be out for the LCS as well. If he carries him he's got dead weight on his roster for the next 6 days.

According to what I posted above, MLB teams would be able to petition the commissioner to have this player replaced with a minor leaguer within the organization for the divisional series only. I suppose I could replicate that by using the player editor to manually place the injured player in the minors and the replacement player on the active roster. Does anybody here do this at playoff time? Any other special custom playoff rules you'd like to share?

[Corsairs]

Note to self: Don't ask questions over Easter weekend!

In case anyone else ends up having a similar question, I'll post the system we settled on to handle substitution of injured players during the playoffs:

• You may petition the commissioner to replace a player suffering from a short-term injury on your playoff roster. Only players whose names appear in red or gold within OOTP qualify for potential replacement.
• You MUST contact the Commissioner in writing and receive confirmation prior to [your league's sim time] on the first sim night of a playoff series for this exchange to happen. The Commissioner reserves the right to deny a requested replacement.
• As part of your written request, please include where you would like the replacement player to be inserted into your lineup/rotation/depth chart.
• If your replacement request is granted, DO NOT make the change to your roster yourself! The Commissioner will do it for you.
• The replacement must take place before a series starts. No mid-series replacements will be allowed.
• The replacement player must be on your 40-man roster and have been in your organization on Sept. 1. He does not have to have been called up to the majors at any point in the season.
• The replacement player's position does not need to match the position of the replaced player. So a pitcher can sub for a hitter and vice versa.
• If you advance to the next round, you may choose to keep the replacement player on the roster or reactivate the replaced player. If you reactivate the replaced player you may not use the replacement player for the remainder of the playoffs (barring another injury).
• At the conclusion of your playoff runs (be it through victory or elimination), the replacement player will be removed from your active roster and the replaced player will be added back on. This will be done by the Commissioner; there will be no need for intervention on your part.

Also note that our league places restrictions on playoff rosters similar to MLB. Only players on the DL or the active roster at the time of September roster expansion are eligible for the post-season. This is something you have to police yourself; OOTP doesn't do it for you.