Do You Want To See A Tanking Guideline?

[mattynokes]

Democracy finally strikes FCM! Kind of...

I don't want to label it as a "rule", but Andy has softened up enough to allow me to post a poll on Tanking to see the league's support. While this is a poll, I am not making it an actual "Yes" or "No" poll. I want you guys to sound off with your thoughts and reasoning behind it. And no matter the support, there is no guarantee this will go into effect. It will merely be taken into consideration more heavily if there is support behind this.

The issue at hand: Should we punish teams for tanking?

As long as I'm here, there will NEVER be an absolute tanking rule like Outahere had. The strength of your division, league, schedule can highly influence the number of wins you have. The thought is if there's a team that's questionably tanking, it goes under discussion with the admins - possibly mods if extra opinions are desired. Then if the admins decide tanking has been done, the team is punished. Punishment could vary from team to team and will be handed out where ever the admins feel it'll hurt the most. The most likely scenario is a tanking team will lose draft picks and those picks will be auctioned off to the rest of the league where the cash simply disappears.

If you haven't listened to Podcast #4, I talked a great deal about my thoughts on tanking. Basically, tanking takes advantage of the game, rather than playing within the spirit of how it's intended to be played. I wish I would've said it on the podcast, but to me tanking is like steroids. Both work and both wouldn't be thought of as wrong if they didn't work to get you an unfair advantage.

My personal solution to tanking is going out in FA and attempting to sign some decent holdover players to $1M/2, $2M/3, or even $5M/3 contracts. First off, it gives you solid players to hold down the fort while your prospects develop. It also allows you the piece of mind of not having to scramble to sign enough players off-season after off-season while you rebuild.

As for the league, it does two HUGE things. Throwing out low to mid 70s that have no business being on a major league roster compromises the integrity of playoff races. Signing decent holdover players does the exact opposite, you could spoil a division rival's hopes in September. Secondly, bidding on FAs can, in good faith, drive up the prices for other teams or possibly mean a contender doesn't get a solid addition at all.

It's not like you need to spend much. $55M to $70M should suffice at turning in a 60 to 70 game winner. Look at NYY in 2040 and 2041. While care taking them, I signed a few decent players (mostly at just $1M/2) mainly because I didn't want to keep checking back on them each off-season. As it turned out, the Yankees turned in decent seasons while rebuilding and still got early picks.

Lastly, sure if you tank, you'd have a great chance at getting a top 3 pick. But how many top 3 picks have we some completely fail in this league? How many second half first rounders have we seen dominant?

[AndyP]

I've made my thoughts pretty well known on this - I like less rules, not more. And this subject is particularly subjective and sensitive. So, personally, I'd rather people play with more realism.

Hell, if you think tanking is the way to go, you're not paying attention to some of the successful teams around the league.

[JRWorcester]

I do like the idea of a tanking guideline. You can most of the time tell when a team is obviously tanking. There was one year where I signed what I could in another league and still lost 110 games because there were 3 teams who won 90+ games in my division. Was I trying to tank no. I just had bad luck having 3 of the best teams in the league in my division. So I think that the admins would be able to tell if a team is tanking. Draft picks are the most logical choice but also loss of money would also be an option I would think.

[Geaux Blue]

If you have 3 straight seasons of less than 50ish wins you're tanking and it's obvious. Taking away a mid round draft pick wouldn't be a bad idea I suppose.

[Peter]

If you have 3 straight seasons of less than 50ish wins you're tanking and it's obvious. Taking away a mid round draft pick wouldn't be a bad idea I suppose.

i dont think it should be a hard guideline nor do I think those punishments would nearly be enough of a deterrent to tanking. it'd have to be a 1st or a combo of 2nd and more to put the leagues foot down so to speak and have gms have some accountability to the fans, owners etc.. this isnt the nba

and to go off the nba thing, if people were accepting of this i'd be totally for a 1st round draft lottery of non playoff teams to determine the top of the draft order

[warpriest]

I would like to avoid any anti-tanking posture unless and until we see epidemic-levels of it. Andy is right, judging a situation as tanking is subjective. In my short time in this league, I have seen nothing which causes me alarm on this front. And if down the road we were to judge someone is tanking, I would be more in favor of a light legislative fix for it like a payroll minimum.

[mike]

I've kind of came full circle on the issue. In the early days of the league I really wanted a rule put in. Now though I think if you're tanking your doing it wrong here. There's way too many good drafters to make tanking worth while anymore. That on top of the stinginess or perhaps dare I say quite realistic in how much you can get in trades here, making it impossible to trade down and make it worth your while. The only real reason to tank would be to get cash which is a pretty poor reason. If people still want to tank though what I'd like to see is fan loyalty dropped. Fan Loyalty is something that is not taken seriously enough within the game and it's not something I think a GM would leave over. It's easy to say punish them by taking away cash and or picks but that's going to piss somsone off. I'd rather have a tanker who's active than an empty team.

[rockybull]

I don't care either way honestly. I guess only thing I want to mention is I don't think people should have to pay a certain amount for their team player payroll. I mean look at the Brewers, whoever was running them did a good job of signing solid cheap guys on 1 year contracts, and the team has less than a $25 million payroll and will have 70+ wins this year. Florida has twice the player payroll right now and has a lot less wins. Hell in my own division the Cubs have what 5 times the payroll as Brewers and have less wins. I'm not saying either team is tanking, just telling my point. My point is, if you guys ever do anything about tanking (which I don't care either way) then at least not make a rule that you have to have to spend a certain amount of money in the player payroll.

[Corey]

Seeing as how there won't be strict guidelines, I think adding a tank rule is pointless. Any obvious tanking falls under the Don't Be An Ass rule already IMO.

[AndyP]

Corey, rocky, and mike all hit great points. And we wouldn't need an extra rule, the problem comes in determining what makes tanking. And different people will think different things so we'll just make big stink out of nothing.

What I appeal to is those 3-4 questionable teams to change that method. Colorado, Arizona, STL, NYM, PHI, TOR, KCR, CHW, and HOU all didn't build by tanking. All you get is cash in tanking and cash is worthless here at huge quantities. Just play realistically so we don't have to make up rules.