leagues w/ no free agency

[Cras]

I often run the first several decades of my league with out any form of free agency and this often leads players to be paid in such a way that bankrupts all the teams in the league and has them well over budget. As a result teams rarely are able to trade amongst themselves and also results in players getting paid their worth, rather than mimic real historical baseball in the pre-free agency era, in that the teams were able to corner the player into signing for a lets say less than market value.

Is this going to be addressed either in the way the game reups the players to new salaries for the next year or that I must negotiate with each player and should we not reach an agreement he in essnence holds out and I must keep him on the reserve roster.

Cheers

[hfield007]

I usually run my league's in the beginning with 12+ years before they are granted free agency and i've never run into issues. I also make it so they aren't granted arbitration until the 6th or so year as well. Still no issues though.

[Le Grande Orange]

If you're running your league with finances on but no free agency, you're basically doing the reserve clause era. And the game, strictly speaking, isn't really designed to mimic that period. You'd probably get better results, as hfield007 noted, to use a high service limit for free agency if you have finances on.

[fhomess]

I've been thinking about running a league with a very high time to free agency but a very short time to arbitration such that players have quite a number of years in arbitration. I was thinking that this is probably the closest you could get to reserve clause era concepts in that you are forced to negotiate with the players. Obviously, the point where it would differ from reality is that they could win their case against you and make you pay what they want, but I figured this could probably be chalked up to a storyline in such a universe.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

You'd probably get better results, as hfield007 noted, to use a high service limit for free agency if you have finances on.

Yep, I've seen this noted before and it is a good idea. Have players automatically make the minimum for a few years, then basically use the arbitration model for the rest of their careers. Set arbitration to start in year 3-5 somewhere, then set FA to start at like 25 years.

[John C]

One question I have through this is...if you run a true historical setup, and have no FA/no draft, how do you prevent teams from being absolutely dominant for a decade at a time? By "absolutely dominant", I mean 105+ wins.

In one of my recent trials, the AL was not this way, but the NL was constantly. I could disperse the talent better, but outside of that, I'm kind of stumped.

[ctorg]

I've started before with the 12 years to FA/4-6 years to Arb model and I think it works reasonably well as a stand-in for true reserve clause finances.

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by John C

One question I have through this is...if you run a true historical setup, and have no FA/no draft, how do you prevent teams from being absolutely dominant for a decade at a time? By "absolutely dominant", I mean 105+ wins.

In one of my recent trials, the AL was not this way, but the NL was constantly. I could disperse the talent better, but outside of that, I'm kind of stumped.

I'm not sure you really can. If you think about it, the real life Yankees basically did this. Maybe they didn't win 105+ games every year, but from 1926-1964 they finished 1st 26 times, and 2nd 6 times in that 39 year span. Only 7 times did the finish 3rd or lower.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by fhomess

I'm not sure you really can. If you think about it, the real life Yankees basically did this. Maybe they didn't win 105+ games every year, but from 1926-1964 they finished 1st 26 times, and 2nd 6 times in that 39 year span. Only 7 times did the finish 3rd or lower.

Yeah, this was kinda my thought too. Though there are cases where players were sold off too. There is no real incentive in OOTP to sell a player for cash. Unless Markus adds luxury yachts to OOTP 12.

[Cras]

My leagues with no draft, no FA, no arbitration often did lead to teams that would dominate in ten year spans. And if you play with no minor leagues it can get only more so, in that every rookie class had a slew of major league ready talent that a rich club could sign up and dominate the league. But then there was a decline, no team I saw was dominate for much longer than 10 years before then having to rebuild.

The big issue with these teams is they have dominate teams and they pay through the nose for those players, and since there is no FA or draft, there is little incentive to care to be under budget. As a result, no teams are under budget, not team is in the black, and little trading is done since it turns almost into an NBA situation where salaries have to match up in order to make a deal.

I thought about the high service time FA, but didn't go that route since it locks a player's contract wage to what it is in terms of automatical renewal. I thought if there was an option where you can force a player to be paid minimum for the first six years, then allow the player to be paid what he is worth, that would help a bit, since it is beneficial for good players to be paid more than the crap, and it helps when those good players getting big bucks start to age and loose ability for their wages to then slip as well.

So I came up with the idea of still going with no FA, but having players arbitration eligable after a long time, at 10 years in my case. This way, you can go young, save on payroll, then when a player is "established" the player is still under your control (unless you release him of course) but at least when he is getting paid I am involved in the negotiations instead of just being at the mercy of the cpu determining how much he should get paid.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Cras

So I came up with the idea of still going with no FA, but having players arbitration eligable after a long time, at 10 years in my case. This way, you can go young, save on payroll, then when a player is "established" the player is still under your control (unless you release him of course) but at least when he is getting paid I am involved in the negotiations instead of just being at the mercy of the cpu determining how much he should get paid.

That's not far off from how it worked during the reserve clause era, though your arbitration eligibility period is perhaps too long. On average, player salaries during the reserve clause era were tied to experience. Generally, a player in his 3rd/4th season made double what he made in his 1st season; in his 6th/7th season he made triple the salary of his 1st season; and in his 10th season he was making four times the salary of his 1st season.

Of course, star players usually exhibited faster salary growth.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Yep, I've seen this noted before and it is a good idea. Have players automatically make the minimum for a few years, then basically use the arbitration model for the rest of their careers. Set arbitration to start in year 3-5 somewhere, then set FA to start at like 25 years.

Can they become Roman citizens when their contract expires in 25 years?

[Cras]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

That's not far off from how it worked during the reserve clause era, though your arbitration eligibility period is perhaps too long. On average, player salaries during the reserve clause era were tied to experience. Generally, a player in his 3rd/4th season made double what he made in his 1st season; in his 6th/7th season he made triple the salary of his 1st season; and in his 10th season he was making four times the salary of his 1st season.

Of course, star players usually exhibited faster salary growth.

Yes indeed. And even after some more thought it is clear than waiting 10 years is way too long, so I started it at 5 years instead, just for the sake if anything that I move it up when arbitration became a reality in 1972.