Shopping players: only receiving offers for players on 40 man rosters

[mdtwnkfey]

Hi,

Whenever I shop a player, regardless of whether he's in the majors or in my minor league system, I only get offers from other teams of players who are on their 40 man rosters. This is non-lifelike and not cost-effective of course, because I often shop redundant minor league players to fill areas of need (I have a surplus of SP in AA and AAA right now, and could use more OF in A ball).

I changed the AI trading preference from 'favor prospects' to 'neutral', but no dice. Anyone know what's up?

[SunDevil]

I'm also very interested in this. Does anyone have any insight. You should be able to see players not on the 40 man roster when shopping a player.

[r0nster]

Do you have your setting in WIN NOW. It seems where if you want to win now then they seem to appear to offer more major leaguers not exclusively but of you change it to rebuilding your team then you would get more minor league prospects or neutral as well. Might help. The setting can be found in the financial page of your team Lower left corner

[SunDevil]

I shopped around my ace pitcher who won the Cy Young award last year. Same players offered for "Win Now", 'Neutral", "Rebuild" all on the 40 man roster. No one younger than 25 years old. No one without a Major League Contract. Everyone was on the 40 man roster.

I then offered my other pitcher that won the Rookie of the Year award last year. He is 25. The same one player was offered regardless of "Win Now", "Neutral", or "Rebuild". One player. He had a minor league contract. He was in AAA and not on the 40 man roster.

[EKomrska15]

What are your trade settings at?

[dkgo]

obviously its infeasible to list every single player in an organization that they would trade, take "shop around" as a guideline to gauge interest and then just try out other prospects

[BIG17EASY]

I've always gone on the understanding that the Win Now, Neutral and Rebuild affect the type and frequency of trades offered to you randomly by the AI, not the ones in the Shop A Player function. Seems that it should affect the Shop A Player offers, but it doesn't.

[goalieump413]

I have found this as well. I have had my team focus on neutral consistently, but have noticed that when shopping a player, regardless if he's on my active, 40 man, or in the minors, the AI will largely offer 40 man roster players in exchange. I can't say with certainty that the AI ONLY offers 40 man players, but there seems to be a built in bias towards the AI dumping 40 man players instead of prospects.

So here's my $.50 theory: Your team's focus affects what kind of trade the AI initiates, right? If you're in "win now", the AI will offer players with ML contracts who are on active or 40 man rosters, etc. I would then assume that if your focus is "rebuilding", the AI trade logic initiates trades with players that could help in the future? "Neutral" then obviously should remove this bias.

But when shopping one of my players, I look for my trade partner's team focus, as well as their OSA team needs to try to improve the liklihood that both I and the AI team get what they want. But I notice that the team focus doesn't appear to work inversely like when the AI offers a trade.

For example, I offer a veteran, moderately priced player to a team in "win now" who has a slight weakness at (a given) position, but the AI trade partner doesn't appear to reciprocate with kind of talent I'm after in exchange.

My only thought is that if I set my team focus to "rebuilding", the AI would be more amenable to trading prospects to help bolster my organization's future. Sounds great, but if I set my team focus to "rebuilding", does that affect my owner's budget, fan interest/loyalty, and current roster player's intangibles? In other words, is there a detrimental effect to trying to trick the AI?

Sorry if this is a little off track from the OP's direction, I just thought I'd throw out some possibilities to consider.

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

I've always gone on the understanding that the Win Now, Neutral and Rebuild affect the type and frequency of trades offered to you randomly by the AI, not the ones in the Shop A Player function. Seems that it should affect the Shop A Player offers, but it doesn't.

I don't know why it necessarily should affect the shop a player offers. Just because I want prospects, doesn't mean another team is more likely to include them in their first offer. They have their own priorities/players they're trying to get rid of.

In any case, I can confirm that I have seen a few non-40 man players offered in response to shopping a player (playing the MLB quick start, trade settings on average and neutral). But I haven't played enough to say whether it's a rarity.

[EKomrska15]

We are looking past the bigger picture here and that is this...

Why would I start negotiations right away with my prospects? It is every teams goal to include players that they don't have plans for.


Also, what are the trade settings at? This is another thing we need to be analyzed way beyond Rebuild, Neutral or Win Now

[RchW]

What if the AI wants to dump contracts and save those not on major league contracts? Not every move should be considered a flaw, nor should it be considered a flaw if the AI doesn't offer what you want. This is a fine line. I complained recently that the lack of reasonable trade returns was causing me to keep excess talent and watch it decline due to limited playing time.

What passes for a reasonable middle ground? Don't know.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by EKomrska15

We are looking past the bigger picture here and that is this...

Why would I start negotiations right away with my prospects? It is every teams goal to include players that they don't have plans for.


Also, what are the trade settings at? This is another thing we need to be analyzed way beyond Rebuild, Neutral or Win Now

Because sometimes your prospect(s) is/are your trading chip. Just because you don't have plans for a guy doesn't mean he's not a prospect. See the Yankees continued shopping of Jesus Montero (or any other prospect they've had) before finally sending him to Seattle.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

I don't know why it necessarily should affect the shop a player offers. Just because I want prospects, doesn't mean another team is more likely to include them in their first offer. They have their own priorities/players they're trying to get rid of.

In any case, I can confirm that I have seen a few non-40 man players offered in response to shopping a player (playing the MLB quick start, trade settings on average and neutral). But I haven't played enough to say whether it's a rarity.

My thinking is that it's common knowledge that you're in Win Now/Neutral/Rebuild mode. If I'm the GM of a team in rebuilding mode and shop around a player, I would think that other GMs would understand that I don't want a guy making big money at the end of his career. Just like everyone with a pulse knows the Astros are in rebuild mode right now. But maybe what "mode" I'm in isn't necessarily common knowledge to the AI.

[EKomrska15]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Because sometimes your prospect(s) is/are your trading chip. Just because you don't have plans for a guy doesn't mean he's not a prospect. See the Yankees continued shopping of Jesus Montero (or any other prospect they've had) before finally sending him to Seattle.

But if I have a team shopping them to me their bargaining power is down.

Shopping a player is different than offering a player back for someone you are shopping.

I'm not going to just come out right away if you offer me Player A for one of my prospects. I'm going to begin with lower based players and that could be someone on my 40 man roster so A.) I can open up more space on my 40 man and B.) maybe gain some more financial abilities.

[Fyrestorm3]

Considering the fact that shopping a player around only gets you 1-for-1 trades anyway, I've always just used the Shop a Player function to gauge interest. I shop someone I might be looking to trade, see 6 teams that are interested, and 1 of those teams is offering a 4-star MR. So I then go into trade talks with that team. I don't want that MR, but they're obviously interested enough in my player to possibly hammer out a deal.

Therefore, I don't see a problem with teams not offering non-40-man-roster guys; if it's prospects I want, I'll look through them after I know the team is interested.

EDIT: Also, if we want to talk about realism, there is no equivalent in real life to the Shop a Player function. You don't put his name out there and have other teams immediately say "oh yeah, we'll trade you Player X for him." No, teams would call and let you know that they're interested in trading, and if you are too, THEN specific names might come up.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by EKomrska15

But if I have a team shopping them to me their bargaining power is down.

Shopping a player is different than offering a player back for someone you are shopping.

I'm not going to just come out right away if you offer me Player A for one of my prospects. I'm going to begin with lower based players and that could be someone on my 40 man roster so A.) I can open up more space on my 40 man and B.) maybe gain some more financial abilities.

I don't necessarily agree, but it's all a matter of opinion. Shopping a player around in OOTP is somewhat different than in real life because we can't tell the other teams what we're looking for.

I'll use Jesus Montero for argument's sake -- everyone knows the Yankees were willing to trade him for pitching. When the Yankees were shopping him around, they did it by contacting specific teams looking for specific returns (elite pitching -- Cliff Lee from Seattle, which fell through when Texas jumped in; Michael Pineda from Seattle, which eventually happened). At no point were the Yankees at a disadvantage because they didn't back down from their demand of a top-notch starting pitcher.

In OOTP, you're basically throwing a player on the table and asking every team who they're willing to trade for him, which means you can get all sorts of one-player offers.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

Considering the fact that shopping a player around only gets you 1-for-1 trades anyway, I've always just used the Shop a Player function to gauge interest. I shop someone I might be looking to trade, see 6 teams that are interested, and 1 of those teams is offering a 4-star MR. So I then go into trade talks with that team. I don't want that MR, but they're obviously interested enough in my player to possibly hammer out a deal.

Therefore, I don't see a problem with teams not offering non-40-man-roster guys; if it's prospects I want, I'll look through them after I know the team is interested.

EDIT: Also, if we want to talk about realism, there is no equivalent in real life to the Shop a Player function. You don't put his name out there and have other teams immediately say "oh yeah, we'll trade you Player X for him." No, teams would call and let you know that they're interested in trading, and if you are too, THEN specific names might come up.

This is exactly what I do. Shopping the player allows you to find out teams who might be interested in your guy, then you can work on a trade with that team that isn't the one-for-one deal that the shop around function generates.