[nyy26wc]

Originally Posted by injury log

I'm happy to have a reasonable discussion about this, but only if we can dispense with the ridiculous hyperbole. The game is hardly 'making a mockery of 40-man rosters'.

There are more than 200 spots on 40 man rosters throughout the majors that are unfilled by OOTP. That's a mockery, whether it's called that or not.

This, though, is exactly the problem with filling up 40-man rosters for no particular purpose. For one, if an AI team's 40-man is full, that prevents the AI from adding players, in, say, the Rule 5 draft. And if having a full 40-man makes AI teams more reluctant to put in waiver claims (since they can't just add players 'for free') that opens up a user exploit: you can waive anyone you want and not worry about losing the guy.

In past versions, I never saw teams not making Rule 5 draft choices because the game started off with real life 40 man rosters.

In terms of your last point here, every day, I note transactions reports in my daily around the majors baseball emails. After years of doing so, it's clear that most players who are dropped from the 40 man roster do end up staying with the team dropping him. Not all. But, a clear majority do.

So, having the odds in favor of retaining a waived player isn't an exploit. It's baseball being baseball.

And importantly, if you let the AI randomly fill up its 40-man, there will often be situations where the 'extra' players on an AI team's 40-man are a mix of useful insurance types, and prospects with good potential who aren't close to being ready. An AI team trying to win shouldn't be waiving its depth, but no AI team should ever be waiving good (or even half-good) prospects either. You may not be familiar with the history of this issue in OOTP, but when the AI just filled its 40-man for no reason, it often later waived moderately decent prospects if the AI was trying to 'win now'. That happened especially often with draft picks who had signed MLB contracts.

I am not suggesting that the 40 man rosters be randomly filled. I am saying that, if you purport to have accurate rosters, then that entails having the proper 40 man rosters. For example, there are 7 players who need to be added to the Yankees's 40 man roster, there are 13 who need to be added to the Angels, etc.

They don't needed to be added "without having a good reason for doing so." The fact that they are on the 40 man roster is in itself a good reason.

The whole point of me randomly putting players on the 40 man roster wasn't because I was saying that was what the AI should do. It was simply to test out the argument that bad things happen on the 1st day of the season when 40 man rosters are filled. I tried testing that hypothesis and, unless 1 player in the major leagues being placed on waivers in a day is a bad thing, the hypothesis failed.