Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I was putting the final touches on my new $80 mil smallball team in Forbes '57 just before the game deadline on Monday night, when I noticed that I didn't have enough cap space on the roster for some player combinations that usually fit.

Here's the team:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1121603

So I pulled out the calculator and added up what I squeezed under the cap and it came out to $77.23 mil, just like it says on my team page. The problem is that the cap is $80 mil. So my team went to battle on opening day $2.77 mil short!

Has being shorted on cap space ever happened to anyone before?

Any suggestions on how to avoid this problem in the future? Of course I'll notify the Strato powers that be on Tuesday.

I'll keep everyone posted on how this is resolved. - Bernie

Perhaps you tried to switch out your SPs for tonight's series and got hit with waiver fees?

nevdully's wrote:Perhaps you tried to switch out your SPs for tonight's series and got hit with waiver fees?

Nev is probably right

Nope, all of my changes were made before the deadline for the start of games, as I had 3 new teams starting on Monday night and I was trying to get the changes done in time for the games. But even if I had made changes after the deadline for the start of games, there would have been no waiver penalty, as opening night changes can be made without penalty as long as such are made before scores are returned.

BDWard wrote:Nope, all of my changes were made before the deadline for the start of games, as I had 3 new teams starting on Monday night and I was trying to get the changes done in time for the games. But even if I had made changes after the deadline for the start of games, there would have been no waiver penalty, as opening night changes can be made without penalty as long as such are made before scores are returned.

I don't think that's correct. After 10PM the preseason is technically over even though the games may not have been run yet, therefore any moves made after that would be hit with the penalty. By your own admission you were scrambling late and likely didn't make your moves in time.....its the only thing that makes sense.

What BDWard says is how it used to be...I thought that was changed about a year ago but I'm really not sure about it.

Corky wrote:
I don't think that's correct. After 10PM the preseason is technically over even though the games may not have been run yet, therefore any moves made after that would be hit with the penalty. By your own admission you were scrambling late and likely didn't make your moves in time.....its the only thing that makes sense.

Corky, thanks for your input. I understand the logic behind your argument, but in practice, there is no penalty for dropping players prior to the return of game results on opening night, which is unchanged from when TSN ran the site. As noted earlier, rest assured that I'm well aware of the deadlines and of what is allowed by the site and made all my moves for this team before the 10 PM deadline, as I wanted all the players on the roster to be available for the games that night. For some reason the cap shrunk and wouldn't let me go to $80 mil BEFORE the 10 PM game deadline. To be penalized $2.77 mil (in a 5/10/20 waiver league) would have required me to make $55.4 mil in drops (in an $80 mil league) after the drop deadline, but if such occurred, the players dropped would have shown up in the stats on my team page. You can check my team page at the link in my earlier post and see that there are no dropped players shown, as there were no drops after the deadline.

Obviously, I want to get to the bottom of this, otherwise I wouldn't have posted. In searching for an explanation, the first thing to do is to get the facts straight. To misrepresent the facts would only serve to deny a proper explanation.

The most logical explanation is that there was a rare technical glitch along the way, due to daylong site problems, also noted by others in the following threads:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=634801

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=634800

I'll keep everyone posted on the official explanation from Strato for the problem.

There was a similar problem in a recently drafted 2xxx league, and a few teams had cap space but could not add players. SOM had to intervene and reset those players finances. It might be worth sending an email to SOM. Maybe a free credit if game error!

Here's Strato's reply to my email:

Hi Bernie,

We apologize for this error. Due to our main website transitioning to a new server, some problems did occur with the Online Game site. Your cap space has been corrected and the $2.77 mil has been added back to your available cash.

Sincerely,
Strat-O-Matic Baseball Online

Before responding to the reply, I read the comments from other league members, who I had alerted to the problem via league mail. A couple are below:

(from emart) There's some kind of problem. At first glance I see that Bob Buhl started two of last nights games for me. There's probably more.

(from boyer14) I was hanging out watching the late transactions and the Gazelles definitely got theirs in before the 10 PM cutoff. In fact the New Orleans Yankees made transactions after Bernie's team and they were not docked for their transactions. Something definitely wrong here - not a Bernie issue, it's a Strat issue.

(more from emart) Just got a reply from SOM after I let them know there were problems. They did not offer to re-run last night's games or do anything else. Here is what they said:

"Thank you for writing in about this. Unfortunately our main website had completed transferring to a new server and in the process caused problems to some leagues on the Online Game website. Those problems have since been corrected and should no longer occur. We sincerely apologize for the error and are making sure something like this does not happen again in the future.

Sincerely,
Strat-O-Matic Baseball Online"



After reading SOM's reply and the messages of league members, I responded as follows:

Thank you for your reply and thank you for restoring the cash back to my team. However, your remedy has not made me whole for the error, which was not of my making.

First, I have to pay a waiver penalty for any players dropped to replace with more expensive players that would have timely been added (without penalty) to my team prior to the start of the season but for the error. I don't think that I should have to pay a waiver penalty for an error that was not of my making.

Secondly, my team had to play games with less expensive players and thus was at a disadvantage and lost two of three, at home no less. As you know, every game counts, as many playoff races are decided by just a game or two or tiebreakers. I think my games should be replayed after I make the penalty free changes to my roster

Thirdly, my team was not the only team in the league adversely affected by the problems with the online game site. For example, Bob Buhl started 2 games for this team:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1122000

Who knows what other errors were made that haven't yet been detected. I think that the whole league schedule from Monday night should be rerun.

Please let me know how you will resolve this. I would like to get it resolved today, so that my team and all games going forward will not be affected by this error. Thanks for your help. - Bernie

I'll keep everyone posted on this matter. - Bernie

I stand corrected BD. Thanks for keeping us informed, I'm curious how SOM handles this matter for your league going forward. Thanks for sharing.