In 4040 Baseball owner reputation is affected by, and has an effect upon, a number of aspects of your team's success. Think of your owner reputation like a credit rating. None of the frowned-upon behavior listed below is illegal, but it is detrimental to the experience of the game.
A poor owner reputation will affect a team in the following ways:
- Will lose bids for free-agents to lower bids from teams with higher reputations.
- Some free agents simply won't sign with the team.
- Existing players will demand higher-priced, lengthier extensions to stay with the team.
- Some players simply won't stay with the team.
- Attendance and revenue will be lower than that of other teams with higher reputations but comparable win-loss records.
- Fewer SIM teams will be willing to trade with the team.
The following activities will negatively effect an owner's reputation:
- Tanking (or otherwise intentionally and signifcantly weakening your roster).
- Abandoning a team (leaving it with an incomplete roster, rotation, or lineup).
- Slow response to trade offers from other human owners (SIM-trade response time has no effect on Owner Reputation).
- Running a team into a prolonged and significant cash deficit.
- Selling off a team's best players for cash.
- Excessive free-agent contracts designed to prevent any other team from being able to acquire a player. Example: Offering $50M to a free-agent who is asking $10M.
- Stockpiled rosters which carry, but do not play, elite, or over-priced players.
- Failure to move players from the PENding roster to the MAJor or MINor roster, or via trade.
It's an imperfect art, but the goal here is to keep the game fun, owners rewarded for being engaged, giving everyone a fair chance, and keeping overly aggressive behavior in check.
Following are some scenarios that have occured in different seasons, and have had negative effects:
- An owner tanks to accumulate higher draft picks, while stockpiling cash, or intentionally weakens the roster to complete the season. We know from real life that tanking is a problem, and can have an outsized effect on late-season pennant races as teams in the hunt roll over teams that are tanking. The same is true in 4040 Baseball. The intent of this rule is to protect the integrity of the standings.
- An owner walks away from the team, failing to perform even basic maintenance on the roster, lineup or rotation. Much like tanking, this can have a serious impact on pennant races and wear down opponents with long, drawn out games.
- An owner uses a stockpile of cash for a no-holds barred free-agent spending spree, paying more for each of the best free-agents than anyone else could ever compete with. This lazy, buy-a-super-team approach might seem like a quick fix for the person doing it, but for the other owners in the league who have been developing their teams, it takes all the top free-agents off the market in an unrealistic fashion.
- Similar to the previous example, an owner embarks on a no-holds barred free-agent spending spree, blocking out all other suitors for the best free-agents, with no way to play all of them, and absolutely no way to pay for it, plunging the team into a half-a-billion dollar deficit that takes years to recover from. The ultimate in lazy, cynical team building, this approach would seem like a way to exchange a 3-4 year window of World Series appearances for a decade of financial rebuilding. But the effect on other teams is they are unrealistically blocked out of a free-agent class while they watch top players go to waste on another team.
- An owner acquires a group of players via free-agency or trade, and just leaves them on the pending roster indefinitely. This might seem like a savvy trick to hold onto the extra players without releasing anyone from the major and minor league rosters. But for other teams, it just means players are being artifically blocked from becoming free-agents.
- An owner never responds to any trade offers, or takes days to do so. Similar to general abandonment of a team. This places other owners in a position of uncertainty, and they may opt for a lesser trade with someone else because the better offer has been neglected. It's important to keep in mind that league time moves at 10x that of real time. Waiting three real days to respond to an offer equates to waiting 30 days in league time.
- An owner trades all the best players away for cash, essentially selling the core of the team. This might seem like a quick and appealing way to reboot a team's finances. For other owners it means a potential shift in the balance of talent around them, without the acquiring team parting with any prospects or players. This also means it isn't a legitimate rebuilding strategy for the selling team. It also eliminates teams without larger cash reserves from being considered as trade partners, even if they have a valuable crop of prospect and player talent to exchange.
This section explains some details of how owner reputation works for those who are interested.
For each game an owner's team is considered to be tanking the owner receives zero (0) reputation points, which will be averaged into the owner's other points. This includes intentionally and significantly weakening a team's roster once they have a large lead, and using inferior players to complete the season.
More about Tanking.
¶ Team Abandonment
For each game a team has an incomplete roster, rotation, or lineup (this includes injured players unable to play), the owner receives zero (0) reputation points, which will be averaged into the owner's other points.
An owner's response time to trade offers from other human owners will affect their owner reputation as follows:
| Response Time |
League Days Without Response |
Reputation Points |
| Within 1 hour |
0-5 |
10 |
| Within 2 hours |
0-5 |
9 |
| Within 3 hours |
0-5 |
8 |
| Within 6 hours |
0-5 |
7 |
| Within 10 hours |
0-5 |
6 |
| Within 12 hours |
5-10 |
5 |
| Within 18 hours |
10 |
4 |
| Within 24 hours |
10-15 |
3 |
| Within 36 hours |
10-15 |
2 |
| Within 48 hours |
15-20 |
1 |
| Beyond 48 hours |
20+ |
0 |
¶ Significant and/or Prolonged Deficit
It is possible your team may run a deficit from time to time. While this is allowed, it does bring limitations to your ability to extend or sign players.
However, if your team runs a deficit greater than $25M, or runs a deficit for longer than one consecutive season, your owner reputation will be negatively effected each league day according to the below schedule.
Because your reputation points are averaged together, earning low reputation points on a daily basis can quickly drag down your reputation.
| Deficit Amount / Time |
Reputation Points |
| -$25M or 2nd Year of Deficit |
3 |
| -$45M |
2 |
| -$55M |
1 |
| -$65M+ or 3rd+ Year of Deficit |
0 |
Selling off your best players for cash (fire sale) will incur a negative reputation adjustment in the amount of the cash earned, divided by $1M.
Example:
- You sell your elite LF for $25M. Your owner reputation will incur a -25 point adjustment, which will be averaged into your reputation.
Blocking other teams from acquiring good players by bidding an excessive amount will incur a negative reputation adjustment in the amount of the contract offered above the next highest offer.