Tanking

[mattynokes]

With the heated discussion from last night, let's try to lay out some logical and fair rules for tanking. This league preaches realism and frowns upon exploits of Mogul yet we've allowed teams to tank, build up a big money supply, and then hit the ground running. Realistically this won't happen. We don't have to answer to fans, media, owners, etc...

Now before we get into a possible rule discussion, there's no need for a pissing match of who did what in the past. There's no reason to point the finger at anyone. The purpose is to hold teams to be more accountable for playing within the spirit of the game.

I will NEVER support a cut and dry tanking win/loss policy. Factors like division strength, injuries, random drops, and under performances can hurt a team's chances. In addition to those factors I would also look at roster management and FA activity. Roster management would include both the major and minor leagues. A team having only one catcher on the MLB roster, playing crummy low 70s when much better options are readily available, or sitting on MLB ready prospects in the minors.

And yes I get some teams will want to hold off on calling up a prospect so that he has a chance at the ROY next season. Another reason I don't like a cut and dry policy is because once a team reaches the win limit, they can then start tanking and it doesn't really solve the problem.

What I propose, first is to have a review committee. This can be made up of admins, mods, or other veteran GMs. It was said yesterday that someone thought it should only be admins, but there also needs to be a checks and balances on the admins.

With the review committee no team would be automatically labeled as tanking. The win total would certainly be a factor, but as mentioned in the third paragraph it could be deemed that injuries, rating drops, poor play, etc... is the reason for your team falling under the tanking line and you might be off the hook.

With different strengths of divisions win totals can't be looked at as the same from team to team. If you're rebuilding in a division that has three 100 win teams then naturally your win total will be lower. But that same team should win more games if the rest of the division only has one team above 90 wins. Thus I think the following formula works well:

Your Wins - ( [81 - D] / t) = Real Wins

D = Average wins of remaining teams in division
t = Number of other teams in division

81 wins would make a .500 Win%, so this looks at your division strength. It looks at on average how many games are the other teams in the division above or under 81 wins. The end result is giving you your real wins after strength of division.

What is a good number for the tanking line? Personally I think 55 wins is good as it would require teams to basically win one-third of their games. 50 wins seems like it's too low and 60 wins seems too high. Since if there's gonna be 100 win teams there should naturally be some 100 loss teams as total MLB wins have to match total MLB losses.

Lastly I think penalties should be open-ended. A first time offender shouldn't be punished as much as a repeat offender and whatever sends the message to the individual GM would be best. For most it'll mean docking draft picks, but could mean docking WB spots, or cash fines as well.

[jhc54]

This won't work for a myriad of reasons. If it is seriously being considered I can list them.

[mattynokes]

This won't work for a myriad of reasons. If it is seriously being considered I can list them.

Sure, let's hear them. Wins are how playoff teams are measured, so if a team didn't win enough it's possible they tanked. The formula should remove teams that would be reviewed and determined their record is what it is because of their division. Take Tampa Bay and Oakland last season. Both won 56 games, but Tampa Bay was clearly in the tougher division.

[mike]

Love this idea. We need a deterent for what has become the best way to rebuild in this league. Enough o fthe unrealistic bullcrap.

[bh1225]

I proposed something similar to this, but without a formula. I say set a win limit (it can be somewhat high even)... all teams above that limit won't be reviewed what-so-ever, while the teams below it WILL. Now this is where division strength, injuries, drops, etc will be taken in account for. The "review board" will look into the team and if they even tried winning what-so-ever. Your concern was they would reach this limit, then tank. Well, that is why if the number is something like 60 or even 65 the team obviously couldn't just turn to all hell. Which is what we want to stop. This isn't to control ones team, but add more realism into "rebuilding".... or "tanking".

[AndyP]

We've only had two examples of this, otherwise people have been largely showing integrity. I think the best thing we can do is publicly pressure people who do this in XAT and push them away from the strategies we saw with CHW and TEX. (Even then, CHW wasn't that bad, Texas is what we should all be opposed to)

It hurts league integrity, but a system of rules isn't going to capture every instance of this problem. The conversation we had in XAT, heated or not, is probably the best deterrent. Let people know it's shady and potentially harmful to the league and call them out on it. If the GM cares about the league and has integrity then they'll hopefully listen. If they don't, it's an admin issue anyway.

[mike]

That would work andy but calling people out also alleinates people. I don't care if I do that but then that person gets all pissy and they can keep claiming until the cows come home that they are simply rebuilding. Giving a forumal or cut and dry method whichever the league wanted would take out the calling out factor. It would mean you do this and then this is the result, no heated discussions just plain and simple math would be at play.

[AndyP]

I don't care if you have a formula or the smiling endorsement of Christ and Buddha - you will alienate people if you wish to be confrontational about this. So I don't buy that copout.

[mattynokes]

I think we've definitely had more than two cases of tanking in the league, just not much commotion about it. Bringing it up in the chat definitely helps, but having a policy in place that could penalize teams will help deter it from even starting.

I don't even see teams being reviewed too often. Having something in place where teams could lose picks, cash, or other assets should discourage teams to tank.

[AndyP]

Creating a system for isolated issues just complicates a simple issue. If tanking is concerning to someone - they should call out the other GM or approach an admin about it. It's basically what's going to happen with this too - just without the big waste of time.