Trading the Riff Raff

[ovccsteve]

Just migrated from 6.5. I tend to accumulate prospects and borderline players. In earlier versions, I'd package up 3-4 of those guys--the ones who'd dropped too low on my organizational depth charts or reached key ages without the progress I was looking for--and trade them for one or two younger prospects or a role player. When I put the package together in 6.5, each team would offer me players. Can't seem to get that to work in '07. Am I missing something?

[ovccsteve]

Does anyone know a shortcut to getting real value in multiple-player, meduim-talent trades? So far, the only way I know to trade multiple players is to guess a player (or players) the other team might give, then wait a day or two until the other GM tells me he'll complete the trade if I give him one of six players I'm not wanting to trade (but who aren't off-limits because I'd trade them for the right offer). Then I go try another team.

As I accumulate talent, I always have players who aren't good enought to play in my Majors or AAA but who could play elsewhere. If I release them, somebody else will snatch them up and I'll have wasted valuable resources. If I try to trade these players one at a time, I won't get any real value in return.

(I know, I bumped my own post, but this is really frustrating me and making me question if I made the right call purchasing 2007 instead of sticking with 6.5 and Baseball Mogul.)

[Cras]

You can shop players around, but you cannot shop a package around.

The feature in 6.5 which shows all the players a team is willing to give up in return is not there anymore. There is the "Make this work now", but that works the other way. You select a guy you want and the other team says exactly what they want to complete the trade immediately and not wait the 2-3 days for a response.

[Mets Man]

Originally Posted by ovccsteve

Does anyone know a shortcut to getting real value in multiple-player, meduim-talent trades? So far, the only way I know to trade multiple players is to guess a player (or players) the other team might give, then wait a day or two until the other GM tells me he'll complete the trade if I give him one of six players I'm not wanting to trade (but who aren't off-limits because I'd trade them for the right offer). Then I go try another team.

As I accumulate talent, I always have players who aren't good enought to play in my Majors or AAA but who could play elsewhere. If I release them, somebody else will snatch them up and I'll have wasted valuable resources. If I try to trade these players one at a time, I won't get any real value in return.

(I know, I bumped my own post, but this is really frustrating me and making me question if I made the right call purchasing 2007 instead of sticking with 6.5 and Baseball Mogul.)

Well, first of all, what is your trading difficulty set at? I, like most other people have it set to Hard because it seems to the most reasonable/realistic trade setting. It has fine balance between being able to acquire players and not being able to rip the computer off.

To answer your question, I really don't think you should be able to trade away those borderline players and expect to get anything of value in return. Would you do the same trade vice versa and acquire all the CPU's junk players while giving away your players of value? I think OOTP 2007 does a decent job of preventing human teams from getting rid of their junk on the CPU teams, it could always improve, but I'd say it does a pretty decent job.

The truth is, in terms of actual 1-on-1 or even equal numbered player(s)-for-player(s) trade, you usually get the short end of the stick from the computer, at least on the Hard difficulty setting. The only way you can acquire players with talent, is by giving talent. You always have to give something to get something.

What I do is, I trade a quality player on my team and swap him for another quality player on the other team. If my quality player is better than his slightly, then I'll usually try and nab a few extra throw-ins or medium-level players to even it out. The CPU is stiff, so don't expect to get much or equal value alot of times. For example, if I have an already good 3rd baseman that I'm satisfied with, I may still end up trading him away just to try to get a certain player or upgrade at another position of need BUT here's the key. I don't finish there, I also try to pry an extra "okay" 3rd basemen in the deal to offset my loss. This new 3rd basemen isn't likely of the same calibre as the original 3rd basemen I traded, but I make sure that I would be satisfied with him to fill the slot. I would also do this if I had an extra 3rd basemen in my organization that I wouldn't mind starting (ie. if I have two good 3rd basemen). Most of the time, you have to throw-in a few solid extra players to seal the deal. This I don't like doing, but you gotta do what you gotta do, so I may throw in an extra prospect or solid backup. A way around giving up too much extra quality with these throw-ins is to compromise a position that you feel you can replace rather easily or replace with players that you see that you can acquire from the CPU for next to nothing (and you don't mind having these players fill those roles). These players are often not rated high, but they're adequate or have solid statistics. You can usually have the CPU throw these players into the trade without adding much or anything to the value of the trade on the CPU side. I usually compromise the bullpen in this case. Not that I think the bullpen isn't important - it is extremely important, in fact its one of my top priorities. However, I feel that I could replace my bullpen parts with solid players without high statistics. To me, the bullpen is like a crap-shoot. Even a highly rated reliever can and often does fail. You just gotta keep trying new parts in the bullpen and give them a chance and see how they fair. Once you find several effective relievers, who are cheap and not highly rated (so they are no value to the CPU teams), then you have your solid bullpen. Whenever I usually have a good reliever who is highly rated or expensive, I'll usually trade them to the CPU because I know I can get good value in return for them and simply replace them with effective cheap alternatives. However, I usually have 2 spots in my bullpen for superstar high rated relievers (usually the closer and one of my setup men) just to keep things balanced. With my method, I usually go through several shuffle/cycles of different players on my squad after trading with a team. You can't expect to keep your team stable with the same assortment of players if you try to get value players from the CPU teams. You have to constantly shuffle your players with the CPU players and find the right value combination that will allow the trade to happen. And the team you end up with is the end result. So if you want to upgrade at one position, you may have to compromise and downgrade at another position slightly. The key is to minimize this downgrade as much as possible, try to get a lower rated high performer (these are the best pickups), guys who do well for some reason, but aren't particularly rated high. It could be a luck thing or statistical anomaly from a small sample size, but for some reason, some low rated players seem to always do well, while some high rated players always seem to do so poorly (this is with scouts off).

Good luck

[Mets Man]

One thing worth noting:

I almost always use the "Make this work now" feature, one thing is to get information from the CPU about who they want but also because I don't like waiting the extra days for a trade to happen. Also, most of the time, when you submit for a trade, it barely happens (I think I've had the CPU accept only once). However, somebody could correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that if you wait the extra days by submitting a trade, you could probably get a slightly better deal than you would through immediate "Make this work now" method. To me, this works fine, that's the way it should be.

[ovccsteve]

What makes it frustrating for me is I usually have the deepest farm system in the league. That means the guys I find borderline in my system sometimes end up playing prominent roles for the team I trade them to. I regularly trade 25-year-olds who are major-league-ready but aren't skilled enough for my dynasty team and don't have as much potential as the 22-year-olds who are pushing them. Maybe I can use the "Make It Happen" button to find them good homes.

[zonk84]

I don't usually do a lot of trading outside the Trading deadline and Winter Meetings period.

You DO get immediate responses during those timeframes (last week before 7/31, then another week usually in the first wk of December).

The AI isn't NEARLY as susceptible to the old "here's a bucket of chaff for a stud 19 yo" type trade any more -- so however the trade mechanics have been redone, and though tougher, I like them a lot better.

I also make draft picks tradeable -- the AI does seem to have an appreciation for draft picks, so I normally 'sell' most of my 10-15 through 25 picks.

[ovccsteve]

I gave up accepting the their "young stud for my borderline players" offers a couple years ago, but I could still maintain my conscience and get a reserve infielder, bullpen fodder, or a long-shot A kid or three.