Quote:
Originally Posted by hefalumps
- The only time a player is charged with an option year is between the first day of Spring Training and the end of the regular season. A player on the 40-man roster who spends one day in the minor leagues during that time period will use an option year. That option is good for the remainder of the regular season, allowing you to move them between majors and minors at will.
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So, as I suspected, OOTP does its accounting of when to charge an option differently from real life, but otherwise treats the option correctly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hefalumps
Both of these players will be able to be moved freely between the majors and the minors up until the first day of the 1973 preseason...
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That's not how it works in real life. Options stop working as of the end of the minor league season. Once into the post-season and off-season, assignments to the minors can ONLY be outright assignments. Players cannot be optioned again until the start of spring training.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hefalumps
As part of my observations, I noticed that secondary roster service time and ML roster service time only accrue during the regular season, each with a max of up to 172 days per year.
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OOTP keeps track of secondary roster time for the purposes of calculating minor league free agency, which OOTP calculates as professional service time minus secondary roster time; if the result is six or more years, the player is eligible for free agency.
That is NOT how minor league free agency works. In reality, it's calculated much more simply: when a player has completed seven years of minor league service with the club that originally signed him, he is eligible to become a free agent. A year of service is equal to 30 days or more on the active or disabled list of a minor league club. Note that ANY time spent in the minors counts towards free agency; that means time spent on option is included as minor league service time.
So OOTP really doesn't need to keep track of time spent on the secondary roster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hefalumps
However, if you demote any players with options between the end of the season and the free agency period, you can do it without burning an option on that player (yet), and you won't have to pay them a major league contract (yet) - they'll be assigned a minor league contract instead.
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The only kind of demotion that can happen during any part of the off-season is an outright assignment to the minors, which removes the player from the 40-man roster.
So, on the one hand, it's correct that no option is charged, since one wouldn't be in real life. But it's incorrect if OOTP allows the player to be optioned to the minors during the off-season.
In regards to the timing involved, it's interesting in that it sort of coincides with a real life limitation regarding the outrighting of 'draft-excluded' players. These are players who are added to the 40-man roster after August 15th and up to just before the Rule 5 draft. (The term 'draft-excluded' comes from the fact that adding a player to the 40-man roster excludes him from the Rule 5 draft). Draft-excluded players can only be outrighted back to the minors no later than the fifth day after the end of the World Series. If not outrighted by that date, then the player cannot be assigned to the minors and the major league club is obligated to take the player to spring training. The club can still release the player, however.
The intent of the rule is to prevent clubs from 'gaming' the Rule 5 system by adding a player to the 40-man roster to keep him out of the draft, then as soon as the draft is over outright him back to the minors.