AB and IP requirements - what should be the penalty?

[Sticky Spice]

I never thought it would be me...

Last year was my 20th year in fantasy baseball and I'd never experienced a team having an issue with meeting the AB or IP minimums. In my 10-team NL Only league I had to change strategies midway through the auction and went with the somewhat dangerous strategy of a handful of quality starters with mostly relievers. The risk, of course, is injury, and that's exactly what happened. Beachy and Jaime Garcia got hurt and I was down for the count.

I figured my only chance at money was to punt W and K. It worked okay, but not well enough. I finished one spot out of the money.

The problem is that with just one day left in the season someone brought it to my attention that I was going to miss the IP minimum, and I did. By 20 IP. I guess it sucked for me because I dropped in the standings and I lost the first pick in the reserve draft, but that's not the real issue.

Because I did not meet the IP requirement, my staff dropped to the bottom in ERA and WHIP when the stats updated the next morning (CBS). As you can imagine, it affected the overall categorical standings. We had a tie for 1st place, but because of my error, one guy dropped to 2nd (fortunately, the guy in 1st shared the winnings to bail me out). Just think if it had taken someone from all alone in first to second.

My point is that it was an unfair result, especially since it was not the fault of any of the parties it affected most. How could this be worked around in the future? Remove minimums, or is that too short-sighted?

This is also a cautionary tale because at least two other owners in my league (including the commish) said they noticed well beforehand, but assumed that I knew what I was doing (HA). While it's not anyone's job to be the AB/IP police, speak up if you see something. It could avert a terrible mistake.

[Arrowhead Nation]

Only feasible penalty is to bar you from winning any money. In our league, a 14-team keeper, we had a guy win K/BB ratio last season 3.25 to 3.24 over a guy. Both teams finished below 4th. This was the first season of our minimums rule, and the guy who won K/BB missed the minimum by 33 IP.

Part of it was my fault as commish, I was not used to playing big brother on everyone. I emailed the guy several times. This next part may not be an issue in your league, but in mine, several teams who knew they sucked have gone to hoarding prospects on their 25-man roster and just try to play out the season with a skeleton crew on active MLB guys. We have set penalties for what happens if you are in violation of the minimums. These actions include dropping big name prospects in lieu of picking players up to meet minimums. If a team is already out of it and the only consequence is forfeiture of winnings...pretty big chance that the penalty won't need to be enforced! The policy has to have teeth.

All that being said, the penalties for teams at the bottom should not affect the teams at the top. The solution is two-fold:
1. Everyone has to play big brother on each other
2. If it happens more than once, see about replacing owners. No reason someone should be owning a fantasy baseball team if they can't try.

[AHF]

Never had this issue (exceeding maximums is our repeat problem), but my thought is to bar the player from winning money and impose a draft penalty for the following season. A loss of $$, players or picks would stop people from gaming the system if they couldn't keep the minor league players. Having a warning system a month before season end to alert those at risk is probably a good idea for the Commish.

[Izenhart]

I think the only penalty is no winning money awarded. The stats should count and changing them on the last day can drastically alter the standings in ways that just aren't fair for whoever goes from 1st to 4th or from 7th to 3rd.

I think this way keeps everyone else in the league happy, especially that guy who finished out of the money without the rule.

In free leagues I guess you'd have to find another penalty, although I can't think of a fair one.

[TheRock]

I think you have to keep it as is.

So the problem was when you went to last in ERA and WHIP, the teams below you in one or both of those cats gained points but the teams who were already ahead of you did not, correct? Well, it kinda sucks for those teams who did not gain, but as is the teams who were below you were already being penalized. The reason you decided not to just pick up more starters was to try and maintain good ratios right? So if you had logged more innings presumably your ratios would have been higher. So the teams below you were cheated in effect out of a proper placement in those cats. So they should be rewarded when you fail to meet the minimum.

[byfrcp]

Totally agree with TheRock. The teams below you may have had to fill out their rosters with sub-par players to make the innings minimum, in affect hurting their standings in some categories. Points should only be awarded to teams that reach the minimum.

[hardyworld]

I think the default system makes the most sense for the reasons TheRock posted above. Minimums should NOT be set so high that they are difficult to achieve, but also should not be set so low that they aren't impactful. The rule of thumb I use is 25 IP per week or 800 IP per season. Anything considered 'close' to those numbers are reasonable minimum settings.

[Skin Blues]

A league I'm in uses 170 games started for pitchers. Commish doesn't want people loading up on RPs just to meet the minimum. I'd rather have the option of going RP-heavy, but I can see where he's coming from. We also have a dual 225 max GS/1800 max IP limit.

[Urban Cohorts]

I think you have to keep it as is.

So the problem was when you went to last in ERA and WHIP, the teams below you in one or both of those cats gained points but the teams who were already ahead of you did not, correct? Well, it kinda sucks for those teams who did not gain, but as is the teams who were below you were already being penalized. The reason you decided not to just pick up more starters was to try and maintain good ratios right? So if you had logged more innings presumably your ratios would have been higher. So the teams below you were cheated in effect out of a proper placement in those cats. So they should be rewarded when you fail to meet the minimum.

I agree with this in theory, but I think you also have to consider the actual statistics a bit more.

In this type of scenario, you could probably have added 3-4 random pitchers, gotten your 20 innings, and met the IP requirement. This probably would have hurt your ratios. That said, a team would be cheated out of points only if that team had a reasonable chance of overtaking your team in ERA/WHIP had you met the minimum. If ERA and WHIP were tight, then teams would have been cheated out of points as the Rock said.

However, I think the guy sitting in 9th place in ERA/WHIP will most likely unfairly benefit from you not meeting the IP. He would gain points due to lack of oversight from the commish and manager involved. The same would hold true if there was a large gap after your team in ERA/WHIP. You could have added a couple of scrub starts and most likely not have dropped all the way down in the standings. Though I would imagine it would be rare for a team to win the league while having an uncompetitive ERA/WHIP.

So it really comes down to the gap in the stats IMO.

I know you said you didn't realize you were going to miss the IP requirement, but I agree that you should be penalized and not win any money. Had you known what you were doing, you could have very well chosen which manager you wanted to win (by either missing the IP requirement, or adding guys to meet the IP). And I think that scenario is the bigger issue here.

[Arrowhead Nation]

Only problem is that when the penalty is just not winning any money, it usually means no penalty. Most teams who don't meet minimums are down in the standings and therefore not winning money anyway. I still think the only way to solve this and not affect everyone else in the league, is for a commish to basically be the jacka$$ and go big brother and take over the team -- temporarily. You get the team back in compliance...and give one warning. The next time, I would boot the owner.

In keeper/dynasty leagues, when it happens, it is usually on purpose.