[Questdog]

Originally Posted by UWHabs

1. Cheap bullpen. Probably should sit around 10-12M total on it as a maximum if you're challenging in the post-season. Otherwise it should be barely over the minimum.

2. Take advantage of signing guys to a long term deal. I've signed a guy like Bundy, right before his first arbitration award, for something like a 5 year deal at 5-6m per year. Yes, I might be overpaying in year 1 compared to his arbitration estimate, but odds are he will be much more expensive later. Find 2-3 top quality starters and do that, and I've had the best starting rotation in the league signed for under 20M total.

The other thing with this is to scan your most important players for extensions a few times a year. Starting even in the year before their contract is up, then again in the offseason before their last year, then every month or 2. You will occasionally find that sweet spot time when they will accept a deal for under market value. Don't always wait until the end of the season - sometimes it works out, but especially if they're having a big season, it can cost you 5M more to sign them in October than if you gave them a deal in May.

3. Play the rule 5/waiver wire/after start of season signings game. You can often find a quality reliever, or a good backup outfielder, in rule 5 or waiver wire. Grab a few guys from there, and they'll often give you good value. Same thing with signing guys after the season starts. I've found a solid #4 starter asking for a 1 year deal at 1.5M or so. Give him 2 years, and you now have a cheap asset. Play him out the first year, and then either deal him in the off-season, or keep him as a cheap vet the next year. It works wonders!

4. As said above, don't get too attached to players. It sucks to let your vet who's been on the team walk away, but if he wants 25M per year and you have a prospect who can bring the same value, let him walk. That being said, watch him closely - I've seen a guy ask for 25M in November, but he signs day 2 of the season for 5M. At that price, it can be worth bringing him back. Heck, or even letting someone else sign him, and then deal for him straightaway.

5. Deal off bad contracts for less bad contracts. I've had guys get hurt and lose nearly all their value. 3 years and 15M left per year on the deal, and they're a borderline AAA player? Trade them for someone else's head case who has 1 year and 18M left on their deal. Maybe you lose a few mill in year one, but that savings can go a long way down the road.


Between that, it's usually not hard to play and compete and stay within your budget. Every now and then you get that crunch, where you hate to let a player go but he doesn't fit in your budget. And at that point, you just have to deal with it. I find I trade and dump players more for fit on the team (L/R balance, for example) than for money following the above moves.

Most of this would not fly in real baseball, because the people you are dealing with/against have the same knowledge......if you want to play against the AI and make it a reasonably accurate simulation of building a real MLB team, you HAVE to set yourself some house rules.....and turning off the waiver wire is one of the first things that you need to do....the AI lets WAY too many good players fall into the waivers abyss.....this is not realistic, this is just a stupid computer AI doing stupid things...

of course, if you WANT to game the system and spend your effort in maximizing your results via exploitations of the computers shortcomings rather than just enjoying becoming attached to players and watching their careers unfold, then by all means have at it.....but you should really consider playing in an online league where your fellow owners are also trying to game the system and then it will be an interesting contest (in theory, anyway......I lost interest in this mode of play when I could not find a league where other owners were competing as hard as I was)......

sorry for another rant, but, in short, if you want to win games in OOTP by outsmarting the computer in the financial wars, it is not at all challenging......