Releasing Players

[Jpotapoff]

My league setup is no trades and no free agents (at least until i hit the 70s when free agency came about). So that means all players are perpetually on 1 year contracts. Is there a way I can release a player without having to buy out their contract? Shouldn't there be some point in the year (during the off season?) that I can release players I no longer want without having to pay them. I thought that when the off season hits I could do it, but that didn't work in my second season. Bit of a shame if I can't dump players without getting charged for them. Seems to me in the real world before free agency came up the GM's could dump their players whenever they wanted without much problems. Would like to be able to do that in my league. (for example when the time comes to dump that 37 year old who has nothing left but used to be good so he has a largish salary. Seems wrong that I have to buy out his contract even though he's pretty much useless and i'm playing in an era when GM's could drop players whenever they wanted)

[Curtis]

I can't give advice on how to do what you're asking, but I do know that contracts had to be honored through the end of a season in the 1946-1975 era. If you signed a player in March and released him in May, you'd still have to pay him though September.

[injury log]

I play with FA and arbitration on, but there's a point in the offseason, before contracts are renewed for next year, and before arbitration awards are given, that I can release players with no penalty. I don't know how salaries are set in your league (is it arbitration?), but try releasing a guy the day the off-season officially starts. If you can't release him then without penalty, then you can't do it during the offseason. In that case, do it during the playoffs! Salaries aren't paid after the regular season ends, and if you release guys in the playoffs, their contract shouldn't yet be renewed for the following year. If you're in the playoffs, do it the day the World Series ends, before the OOTP offseason starts.

[Jpotapoff]

Ok, I'll give that a try (releasing during the World Series, and lord knows my team won't be in it so that shouldn't be a problem... )

As for how the salaries were deterined, can't remember actually. I might have forced the system to randomly create contracts or touched nothing and kept it at whatever the program set them at when they imported the players. I know there is no arbitration and without free agency the contracts are not changing much. The only time a contract is made is when a team signs someone who was released. Most of the contracts are 1 year contracts so I'm thinking I probably didn't randomly generate contracts when I created the league. Not the most realistic system at the moment but I didn't fiddle much with the settings and i'm thinking once free agency kicks in that'll change rather quick.

[overparduffer]

Why don't you shop the guy around and trade him for some youngster with a minor league contract or much smaller salary?

[Mad Jackal]

Originally Posted by overparduffer

Why don't you shop the guy around and trade him for some youngster with a minor league contract or much smaller salary?

Because of the 1st line in his post.

My league setup is no trades and no free agents

[BigRIJoe]

[quote=injury log;2213415]I play with FA and arbitration ........How does one turn free agency and arbitration off?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Curtis

I can't give advice on how to do what you're asking, but I do know that contracts had to be honored through the end of a season in the 1946-1975 era. If you signed a player in March and released him in May, you'd still have to pay him though September.

I don't think that's correct.

All contracts prior to 1947 had a ten-day clause which effectively meant clubs could release a player and only owe ten days' severance pay. (A small number of players were able to get that clause waived which converted it into a one-year guaranteed contract. This was a form of bonus, as opposed to the kinds of bonuses which awarded players extra pay at the end of the year for reaching various performance goals).

The ten-day clause was always considered as very unfair by the players, and in Sept. of 1946 it was finally changed to thirty days. Now players released during the season were entitled to thirty days' severance pay; if they were released during spring training or the off-season, however, they still received no severance pay at all. The 1970-72 CBA was the first to introduce severance pay for players released during spring training; it was thirty days. Players released during the regular season were entitled to sixty days' pay, and starting in 1972, players released after May 15 were entitled to their pay for the rest of the year. By 1976 players released at any point of the regular season were entitled to the rest of that season's pay.

Today, players under the reserve clause (i.e. those with less than six years of major league service) are entitled to thirty days' pay if released during the off-season or the first half of spring training, and forty-five days' pay if released in the second half of spring training. Players released during the regular season are entitled to their pay for the rest of the year.

Minor league players, in comparison, to this day are still entitled to no severance pay whatsoever and can be released with no prior notice.

[1998 Yankees]

[quote=BigRIJoe;2526804]

Originally Posted by injury log

I play with FA and arbitration ........How does one turn free agency and arbitration off?

Game, Game Setup, League Setup, Rules, Financial Rules. For Minimum Service Years for Free Agency, select No Free Agency. Same deal for Service Years for Arbitration - No Arbitration. I think you have to be in Preseason to make the changes.