Why Sign a Guy Just To Release him a Few Days Later?

[The Game]

Dont really get this one. While the P is not great 2 stars, they signed him and released him without him pitching for them.

[TGH-Adfabre]

What is your DFA length?
Was he ever put on the ML roster?
My first guess is they have a full 40 man and some injuries they are trying to cover for. They sign him to cover the injury but have no 40 man space for him. Someone heals and he is no longer needed so good bye.
My first guess giving the AI the benefit of the doubt.

[TheMaus2]

They found him flirting with the equipment manager

[old fat bald guy]

Did they acquire another reliever between signing Downing and releasing him? I'm thinking they needed a cheap guy for depth, signed Downing, found a slightly better cheap guy, tried to send Downing to the minors and he refused the assignment.

Like TGH, I'm trying to give the AI the benefit of the doubt.

I have traded for guys and released them without using them -- taking a guy I don't really want to dump a larger salary, then he won't go to the minors. I've done that twice in my current save which is in its fifth season, in fact. But with a free-agent signing it makes a little less sense.

[Orcin]

Perhaps you are seeing another of the legacy bugs in this game that need to be fixed. Here's an example of a player in my league that has been busy packing and unpacking and re-packing during May of 2017. He is not the only player in my current league that has been added and dropped repeatedly, but I am used to this stuff by now.

I have been posting about this particular bug since OOTP13. If I get time, I will go back and dig up some of the posts. I am always told it is my settings blah blah blah, but there is absolutely no reason to sign a player to a minor league contract and then drop him the same day in a league that has no roster limits on the lowest level of minors. But even if there were, it is even worse when a team signs and releases the same player four times in a span of 10 days.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by TheMaus2

They found him flirting with the equipment manager

Stop being an ass. If your not gonna help the topic, then move along.

[bwburke94]

Sign-and-release bugs are annoying, and really need to be fixed.

Thought: maybe your minor leagues have age limits?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by bwburke94

Sign-and-release bugs are annoying, and really need to be fixed.

Thought: maybe your minor leagues have age limits?

Yes, some of mine (AAA, AA) have roster limits and the rest (A, Rookie) have age limits. I have none that do not have a limit of some kind. This is probably the reason that I see the issue in my league. Maybe that applies to the OP as well.

If you don't have some sort of limit in the minors, how do you prevent the AI from hoarding players?

Doesn't the AI realize that the limits are in place before it signs the player that would violate the limits?

[Padreman]

Yeah that still happens a lot actually something that happens every single season in my game dishes want me to tear every hair on my head off AI signing multiple high-priced players on the same position when logically you can only play one. I hate that. And it's not just one team at several teams to do that

[Rain King]

This type of thing happens, that was a really small investment. In real life this may happen because the guy shows up and is overweight or his velocity is way down. It's a low-risk signing and they didn't like what they saw when he got there.

AI-wise it is probably because he was signed as a back of the bullpen guy, wasn't used because they didn't need their 12th pitcher or whatever overr that time, a better guy (in their eyes) came off the DL or got signed, he refused an assignment to the minors.

I maybe agree that the AI (and human mangers for that matter) should know ahead of time whether a guy is likely to accept a demotion before making a signing like this, it should be part of the contract discussion. Something like discussing their role as a "depth player" where they understand they may be sent down before getting signed.

[T-Bone]

This happens all the time when there are too many free agents. If you can, try adding another level of minors and see if that helps.

I think it is just a bug....

[CivicEvo]

This happens a lot in my FIFA-style dynasty, due to using only a reserve roster (limit depending on amt of teams in the league). The way I generally see it is that the player showed up for a tryout, and the team decided not to keep him on the roster. It's a run-around justification, and ideally, I'd like it to be fixed, but it's not the end of the world.

What DOES bother me is that with the reserve rosters, teams don't release players by potential - just current ratings - so there's times first and second round picks are moving teams before they even play a game. It's not overly disruptive, but frustrating to see "Player signs major signing bonus with Team X, released next day, signed by Team Y, becomes an ace for Team Y within 3 years."

Maybe that's something I can change in settings?

[ihatenames]

This is definitely a legacy bug. The sign and release bug has shown its face since I started playing OOTP 4 (probably earlier). Markus has done a great job reducing the frequency but you still see it pop up every once in a while. Hopefully, one day it'll be gone for good.

[TheMaus2]

Originally Posted by The Game

Stop being an ass. If your not gonna help the topic, then move along.

The chances of this being the famous sign-release bug are higher than Rick James when he met Charlie Murphy.

Moving along now.

[Rain King]

I think it is mislabeling this to call it a "bug" when it is this type of borderline player and that inconsequential amount of money on the contract. The AI could use tweaking and maybe both the human and AI should have an idea whether a player will accept a demotion when signing "depth" players like this.

[JDOldSchool]

For those saying this isn't a bug: This happens in the off season with players who receive Major League contracts, too. Many times every off season, in fact.

It's not at all unusual to see the SAME TEAM sign and release a guy multiple times in the same week of the off season.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by ihatenames

This is definitely a legacy bug. The sign and release bug has shown its face since I started playing OOTP 4 (probably earlier). Markus has done a great job reducing the frequency but you still see it pop up every once in a while. Hopefully, one day it'll be gone for good.

+1

It is a long-running issue.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Rain King

I think it is mislabeling this to call it a "bug" when it is this type of borderline player and that inconsequential amount of money on the contract. The AI could use tweaking and maybe both the human and AI should have an idea whether a player will accept a demotion when signing "depth" players like this.

It's happened twice also to 3 star + players who had good seasons the year before making top money for 1995 in my EBL league.

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by The Game

It's happened twice also to 3 star + players who had good seasons the year before making top money for 1995 in my EBL league.

Maybe show one of those examples? Not trying to be an ass, but this one can be explained pretty easily.

Those of you that keep wanting to call this a "bug" just don't quite understand how these decisions work in the AI. There isn't likely a few lines of code that can go in and prevent the "sign & release" issue...at least not without creating problems and/or breaking other parts of the AI. The AI just needs to get better at making these kind of decisions and that is going to happen slowly through tweaks and will likely never be perfect because of how customizable the universes are within the game.

That being said, it is definitely a good thing to show these and have a discussion. It just isn't helpful to go straight to "bug" when instead we could be discussing what information the AI should be looking at to possibly prevent it.

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by CivicEvo

What DOES bother me is that with the reserve rosters, teams don't release players by potential - just current ratings - so there's times first and second round picks are moving teams before they even play a game. It's not overly disruptive, but frustrating to see "Player signs major signing bonus with Team X, released next day, signed by Team Y, becomes an ace for Team Y within 3 years."

This is something I go back and forth on. Technically, if you aren't giving the franchise any minor league teams should they have players that they need to develop? I mean, if you only have 15 reserves spots how much of that should be guys who are prospects and can't help you this year...that is a tough conundrum for the AI and they likely haven't been built to make it.

I've tried to create a FIFA style league, but without having any kind of amateur drafts...but that also presents its' own problems.