Online League Free Agency: Let's Improve It

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Buane

Let's not oversimplify the problem. The issue I'm talking about is not "All Free Agents Want Too Much Money" which I suppose, as some as you have pointed out, can be tied to available cash on hand. The problem is that there are a handful of free agents who are laughably unrealistic about their demands.

Who's going to give a guy an 8-year deal off of three elbow surgeries in two years?

Who's going to shell out $25 mil for the 1B/DH when NO other 1B/DH in the league makes more than $10 mil?

It happens irl.

Originally Posted by Buane

And, I'm sorry, but the fact that you can't even get a player to talk to you if you offer him a $14 million dollar contract on Day 1 of the offseason, but that same player will happily sign a $6 million dollar contract on Day 90 of the offseason isn't a problem that anybody in any league would be interested in fixing?

How much was he asking for on Day 1? This seems very realistic to me. After 90 days the guy lowered his demand because he couldn't get what he wanted. What's wrong with that?

Originally Posted by Buane

If there was a financial setting that allowed players to "listen to" and "hold on" to any contract offer, you'd have a much more logical free agent system.

I've never seen the problem you're talking about here, where you say players won't even let you submit an offer. The only time that happens is when you low ball a guy and then I don't blame him one bit for not wanting to listen to you anymore. Straight up though, you should be able to submit an offer.

[OutS|der]

On day 1 the player thinks he's the best ever and that teams will be lineing up for him, on day 90 he realizes he's an idiot and nobody wants him so he signs for what he can. Sometimes he'll realize by day 60 and sign for 10 million but some are stubborn. This happens, let him sit there

There should be sometimes a handfull of stubborn players who have to sit out the year because nobody wants them at what then think they are worth, so they sit and wait untill someone calls and sometimes they will now take less and sometimes not. That is realistic is it not?

Does there have to be a setting for everything?
Does everything need an on/off switch?

[subtle]

I'm in 2 leagues in addition to the Rising Star League where I see this kind of issue and the cash on hand is maxed out at 15 MM in the others. Also, cash on hand does not help you sign long-term deals when you cannot go over your budget. If I have an $80 MM budget for next season, I can use up to all of my cash on hand for that one season but I cannot sign any players that would push me over my $80 MM budget for the next year or the next.

That's why it would make sense to have some sort of logic in the game that allows GMs to set the market or at least cause a player to negotiate down to the level of contracts they're offered or to the level of contracts that players similar to them have in the league.

It makes sense to have a few superstars ask for top dollar contracts from the get-go. It doesn't make sense for a large portion of the players in free agency to ask for them.

Originally Posted by OutS|der

On day 1 the player thinks he's the best ever and that teams will be lineing up for him, on day 90 he realizes he's an idiot and nobody wants him so he signs for what he can. Sometimes he'll realize by day 60 and sign for 10 million but some are stubborn. This happens, let him sit there

There should be sometimes a handfull of stubborn players who have to sit out the year because nobody wants them at what then think they are worth, so they sit and wait untill someone calls and sometimes they will now take less and sometimes not. That is realistic is it not?

Does there have to be a setting for everything?
Does everything need an on/off switch?

It's reasonable for a veteran like Clemons or Bonds to sit out if they don't think they're getting a fair offer. It's not reasonable for a player with David DeJesus's talent to sit out a season because they don't get what they want.

Also, how often does this happen in real life? With maybe 1 or 2 players every couple of seasons? And it almost only happens with old veterans who have made plenty of money. It doesn't happen with players under 30 who still have plenty of seasons left in them.

[SandMan]

One way to solve this problem in online leagues is to have a FA draft outside the game. Then the player that wins the player can just have the commissioner edit the player assigning him to the team. Have it set up like an auction to add a little flavor to the game.

[Buane]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

It happens irl.

So, because people do stupid things in real life, that should be hard-coded into a fake baseball game so that every league can have the "stupid idiot GM" experience? I'm not sure that's such a great design.

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Does there have to be a setting for everything?
Does everything need an on/off switch?

Can you give me an example where giving people FEWER options is a better choice than giving people MORE options? If the capability exists to add customization, what is so terrible about making a case for adding it?

[SandMan]

Originally Posted by subtle

It makes sense to have a few superstars ask for top dollar contracts from the get-go. It doesn't make sense for a large portion of the players in free agency to ask for them.

Again - more money available = more money the FA will want. Supply and Demand....

[McExpos]

The solutions in this thread are, as follows:

Problem: Players magically know how much money you have on hand, ask for contracts hundreds of times more than what they deserve and what their contemporaries are making, ignore any offers that are below that, and either suddenly retire when nobody offers them that value or sign for 1/100 of the contract at the end of free agency when people were offering them better deals from the get go.
Solution: No solution needed! This happens in real life. Like, all the time. Remember Ian Kennedy? That was kind of like this. Or we can draft outside the game, because REAL baseball fans run 90% of the game in excel. Like in the Matrix, I don't even see it anymore.
Problem level: SOLVED.

Problem: Players will hold onto multiple offers (of the exact same amount, as I sadly found out) for weeks without giving any feedback, and then randomly accept one of them.
Solution: Take a 30-person league, full of real people with real lives, and switch to daily sims for the better part of three months. Free agency will now take a quarter of a year in real life.
Problem level: SOLVED.

Problem: Although our GM has given us almost five years of hard work, balanced talent, precise finances, and exciting rule changes, this league doesn't look like other people's solo or online leagues.
Solution: A coup.
Problem level: UNSOLVED

Did I just add anything to the discussion? Nah. I'm rabble-rousing.

[Buane]

Originally Posted by SandMan

One way to solve this problem in online leagues is to have a FA draft outside the game. Then the player that wins the player can just have the commissioner edit the player assigning him to the team. Have it set up like an auction to add a little flavor to the game.

Originally Posted by SandMan

Also online leagues should have sim by the day in the offseason when the FA are accepting offers. This will allow for counter offers if the player you are going after likes the contract of another team.

I appreciate the suggestions, but I don't think either of these is really feasible. When free agents are going 3+ weeks without responding to an offer I don't see how daily sims are going to help, and having to hold an outside-the-game free agent bidding process seems to beg the question why I instructed 24 league members to spend $40 on the newest version of the game yet again.

[Buane]

And just for the record, the average Cash On Hand total at the start of Free Agency this season in the league was about $33 million per team. If that is the explanation for throwing the league financials off-kilter, doesn't it already warrant discussion on how to improve the system? As subtle already mentioned, the game doesn't even allow you to simply put that cash-on-hand amount back "into the market" immediately since you're restrained from going over your estimated budget in future seasons.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Originally Posted by Buane

The problem is that there are a handful of free agents who are laughably unrealistic about their demands.
Who's going to give a guy an 8-year deal off of three elbow surgeries in two years? Who's going to shell out $25 mil for the 1B/DH when NO other 1B/DH in the league makes more than $10 mil?
The majority of Free Agents have reasonable, meetable demands. If the problem was cash on hand, I would think everybody's demands would be off the charts.

Without knowing the specifics, I'll add that individual outrageous salary demands are often tied to greed rating and/or previous salaries. This does happen with a handful of players in real life. Sometimes teams even cave to the outrageous demands, who would have thought Jayson Werth would get $126 million?

Originally Posted by subtle

That's why it would make sense to have some sort of logic in the game that allows GMs to set the market or at least cause a player to negotiate down to the level of contracts they're offered or to the level of contracts that players similar to them have in the league.

OOTP already has financial settings to "set the market" for various buckets of talent. For most leagues, these settings hold true. Leagues with fantastical excesses of available cash are the only problem.

Easy solution? Allow the financial settings to work without being influenced by available cash. If I say superstar players should be paid $20 million per year, that should stick. Let $20 million be $20 million - not $20 million in a realistic environment and $30 million in a fantastical environment.

[subtle]

^^^Edit: I was writing this post before the one above me was posted which makes a good case for allowing an exemption for cash on hand so that it doesn't affect the market so violently.


The point is that we're trying to ask how a system that generates absurd demands for free agents (too much money from the start) and then does not seem to negotiate those demands in an effective way (players get left out in the cold or they just magically accept and offer without giving any feedback for 2 or 3 weeks) could be adjusted?

The solution to me would be to allow the game to understand that owners/GMs aren't going to part with 100% of their money just because they have it (Remember those Pirates' financial records that were leaked a season or two ago?) and to scale the demands of players to what's out on the market rather than some estimation of what a team could afford to pay for any given player. It would be up to a good commissioner to decide how to prevent GMs from abusing cash on hand by adjusting that amount in the game.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Buane

So, because people do stupid things in real life, that should be hard-coded into a fake baseball game so that every league can have the "stupid idiot GM" experience? I'm not sure that's such a great design.

I never said it should be or was hard coded. But I will say it should definitely be in the game. You want realism, tyhere it is. You want fanatsy, then learn how do the things that can be done to make it work the way you want it to. The choice is yours and you can have it right now, just start learning something about the in game financials and make the necessary adjustments. As previously stated, this is excactly why these types of things are open to editing by the user. Instead of running over here and saying it's broken, take some time and experiment with your financials until you find the setting you like. It can and has been done.

Originally Posted by Buane

Can you give me an example where giving people FEWER options is a better choice than giving people MORE options? If the capability exists to add customization, what is so terrible about making a case for adding it?

Where does the "fewer options" gripe come from? Where and when did I say there should be fewer options? Go read my post again. I said if it was in the game and wasn't an option, it would be a deal breaker for me. So go ahead and petition to get it put in, I don't care as long as it's an "option" as I said.

[Buane]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

I never said it should be or was hard coded. But I will say it should definitely be in the game. You want realism, tyhere it is. You want fanatsy, then learn how do the things that can be done to make it work the way you want it to. The choice is yours and you can have it right now, just start learning something about the in game financials and make the necessary adjustments. As previously stated, this is excactly why these types of things are open to editing by the user. Instead of running over here and saying it's broken, take some time and experiment with your financials until you find the setting you like. It can and has been done.

The league is entering its 22nd season, and we've been on four different versions of the game. We've experimented and changed settings and worked around the quirks of Free Agency for a long time. I did not simply run to the OOTPDev boards to complain about the problem right away.

I think that the solutions I proposed make a lot of sense not just for MY league, but for other leagues as well. Is there an online league out there that wouldn't rather have the GMs of the league setting the free market for free agents? I'm not sure I see a downside.

[TribeFanInNC]

I'm not a commish nor a super expert on the finances, but I think I'm going to agree with the consensus. I'll try to speak from what I know rather than speculate on cause-effect.

The most recent versions of OOTP are much more budget-focused in an attempt to be a little more realistic in terms of process; i.e. the owner provides you with a budget, the GM's job is to field the best possible team with the budget allowed. There isn't really supposed to be a "rainy day fund" (i.e. Cash) for a GM. He's supposed to spend what he has, then grovel for more or make it work by moving other pieces. There's no "I wanna get Cole Hamels mid-season because I have $20 million in the bank" in real life. There shouldn't be that in your league either.

The part I'm not experienced in is to know how much it will change demands by lowering the cash max. I would task the commish of your league (or you, if that is you) to figure that out independently with test leagues. I will speak that my online league uses a cash max/team of $25 million and most teams are far below that in a relatively modern financial world.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Buane

The league is entering its 22nd season, and we've been on four different versions of the game. We've experimented and changed settings and worked around the quirks of Free Agency for a long time. I did not simply run to the OOTPDev boards to complain about the problem right away.

I think that the solutions I proposed make a lot of sense not just for MY league, but for other leagues as well. Is there an online league out there that wouldn't rather have the GMs of the league setting the free market for free agents? I'm not sure I see a downside.

I think your solutions are nothing more than trying to add more complexity to an already complex game. That's just my opinion. I respect yours but disagree.

I've played in online leagues from the get go of OOTP, and never have seen the problems you bring up. The solutions to your problems are already in the game.

[McExpos]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

I never said it should be or was hard coded. But I will say it should definitely be in the game. You want realism, tyhere it is. You want fanatsy, then learn how do the things that can be done to make it work the way you want it to. The choice is yours and you can have it right now, just start learning something about the in game financials and make the necessary adjustments. As previously stated, this is excactly why these types of things are open to editing by the user. Instead of running over here and saying it's broken, take some time and experiment with your financials until you find the setting you like. It can and has been done.

You are in favor of the game being too broke rather than not broke enough?

Actually, wait-wait-wait. You are in favor of the game being too broke rather than implementing some small amount of commissioner control to decide how broke the game should be?

But should someone politely (much more politely than me, mind you) suggest said control, then your response is to suggest that they don't understand OOTP and need to get their own house in order?

I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT WE'RE ARGUING ABOUT ANYMORE

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by McExpos

You are in favor of the game being too broke rather than not broke enough?

Actually, wait-wait-wait. You are in favor of the game being too broke rather than implementing some small amount of commissioner control to decide how broke the game should be?

But should someone politely (much more politely than me, mind you) suggest said control, then your response is to suggest that they don't understand OOTP and need to get their own house in order?

I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT WE'RE ARGUING ABOUT ANYMORE

The game isn't broke. The tools are there to correct the problem already.

My response is to learn how to use those tools. But as you said, you don't even know what the topic is. No surprise that your response was way off.

[Isryion]

Not much to add here except to say to the OP that I took a look at league finances. It's NOT just a cash on hand issue, it's also a factor of how much money teams have available within their projected payroll.

There are several teams that are way under budget (tens of thousands of dollars), and I think this is what's causing a larger issue. In fact, only a handful of teams are posting a balance of less than $10M. Guessing from the report expenses, it looks like almost everything goes to payroll, so any money not being spent in the budget is the player payroll. In your case, that's a heck of a lot of money (I'd guess between around 200 million+ or more -- Heck, two teams have over $130 just between the two of them).

This means the financial situation in your league is not comparable to the MLB, where teams leave far less space in their payroll, and certainly not to the extremes we see in your league. GMs have far more money available than what they are spending on players, so it doesn't surprise me at all that you have a few FA who are asking for ridiculous amounts.

It does seem like a decent feature to insert would be to allow a GM to insert a "projected payroll" to allow for leagues like this and so that FA properly calculate it out, but as the game stands now, this is an issue where FA expect a more realistic use of teams' budgets but aren't seeing what teams actually want to spend. On the other hand, this may be an issue of just far too much money in your league and the engine doing what it can to bring player demands in line with it.

[subtle]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

I never said it should be or was hard coded. But I will say it should definitely be in the game. You want realism, tyhere it is. You want fanatsy, then learn how do the things that can be done to make it work the way you want it to. The choice is yours and you can have it right now, just start learning something about the in game financials and make the necessary adjustments. As previously stated, this is excactly why these types of things are open to editing by the user. Instead of running over here and saying it's broken, take some time and experiment with your financials until you find the setting you like. It can and has been done.





Where does the "fewer options" gripe come from? Where and when did I say there should be fewer options? Go read my post again. I said if it was in the game and wasn't an option, it would be a deal breaker for me. So go ahead and petition to get it put in, I don't care as long as it's an "option" as I said.

So then it's not unreasonable to ask that there could be a feature that would allow a commissioner to turn off the effect cash on hand has on players' demands? At the end of the day, all Buane is asking is for a feature to negate this effect. He's not asking that the entire logic of the game to necessarily be changed (although it would be nice if the game was coded so that players didn't negotiate themselves out of a job).

Also, like I said before, cash on hand doesn't necessarily affect the contract you can give a superstar player in free agency since you can only use it for the next season, anyway. What we're dealing with is talent that goes to waste because GMs don't want to negotiate with someone who's unreasonable in December or January so they go out and sign players who do have reasonable demands and then it doesn't matter what the first player wants in May.

Also, the fact that we're seeing a lot of players who wait several weeks to give a response before simply signing with a team when there are other competitive offers on the table seems a bit odd to me.

[Buane]

I think we've gotten a little sidetracked, too.


What the problem is NOT: players looking for too much money in Free Agency because of too much cash on hand. Whether or not this makes sense can be debated in a different thread.

What the problem IS: handful of players who price themselves out of free agency by rejecting offers the entirety of the league deem reasonable, instead of accepting the offer if it's the best offer they get.