How to/Best way to sign players?

Tiresais · 03-05-2017, 05:49 AM

Soccer/Football fan here, and very used to the luxury of just signing players up to the budget, but Baseball is a different beast.

The list of help I need is too long, but for now can you give me some hints and tips on how I might go about improving my roster? For example, my board goal at the moment (custom league) is to upgrade my RF and improve the squad to reach the playoffs in 3 years (as well as attendance and achieve a "winning record" whatever that is).

I'm in the winter meetings now, having just taken over as GM.

Thanks for your help!

eriqjaffe · 03-05-2017, 01:03 PM

It's not really all that different. You still have a budget and you can attempt to sign free agents up to that limit.

Alternately you can trade for players (basically, a transfer) that will improve your team. You can initiate trade discussions or you can simply list your team needs and other teams will occasionally offer you trades. You can also claim players that are on waivers, in which case you basically just assume their contract as-is and they're on your team. Of course, you need to keep within your budget regardless.

As far as a winning record goes, that just means you win more game than you lose.

TGH-Adfabre · 03-05-2017, 01:28 PM

I will just address the "Owner Goals".
1) You can turn them off if you want.
2) Owners have horribly stupid ideas at times. Just because the owner wants you to do it does not mean you should.
3) There is an option that allows you spend the entire budget.
4) The most important owner goal is winning. If you win the other goals are almost irrelevant.
5) I would look for a RF in Free Agency. You can also convert a talented LF/CF to RF by Force Starting them there.
6) What was your record last season?
7) A winning record is over .500 which is even.

BBGiovanni · 03-05-2017, 06:10 PM

If you are playing MLB-style, it's important to produce your own players (whether you play them or trade them). Free agents are expensive, so even backup.catchers and mediocre relievers that come from your minors save you millions of dollars per year. Try to use free agency to fill a single lineup hole or get a real impact pitcher that improves your whole staff.

NoOne · 03-05-2017, 06:28 PM

Signing tips for international FA: fast and easy - double the demand... starting in this release, you sometimes have to go a bit above 2X initial demand... that will nearly 100% of the time sign the amatuer FA in 2 days with no negotiation update.
-- slow and smart: wat a day and then bid... you'll notice the initial demanded bonus in the contract offer screen is lower than the "Demand" displayed on teh main int'l ama fa screen. this is GOOD! you can offer double and likely get them for cheaper now.. you can try less than double too. remember this is playing with fire though.. if you really want that guy, don't be cheap about international ama FA.

you'll find in some instances you are actually baiting the AI to bid again... don't up your bid by minute amounts! the ai will just keep taking the bait to an even higher value than you would have paid had you just upped it a couple million and bullied the AI out of it. watch its behaviour, avoid traps, manimize contact costs!

FA signings: sometimes wiating helps... jsut don't let them sign with someone else while waiting, lol. takes time to learn timing on this. if you see many teams bidding, well then it's probably closer to his demand than not... but if his demand is 50% above a normal high end contract, then you can definitely underbid the demand. like i said it takes time to build the knowledge to make easy decisions on this. Remember, be cheap about FA... they will ruin your budget. Make good use of Salaries screen for decisions on lenghts of contracts.

(side note: i recently dropped max length from 10 to 7 and i love the resutls!)

As far as the budget- if you want the entire avaialbe thats an option, and i do that too... if want to model cheap and lavish owners, leave it on... manipulate how much revenue teams get if you want to raise or lower it as a whole. you have options if oyu like that setting is what i am saying.

when you start drafting near the bottom of the first, i'd focus more revenue into scouting minors and international amatuer FA. spend where you're going to get the most return for that time -- it can change year-to-year.

Take advantage of international ama FA as much as you can. when you have a big budget and small payroll, go spend that spare 50-60M on those guys.. so what if 1/5 pans out? that money was going to be lost anyway.

the max cash on hand should be the only 'room' you should give yourself -- and that is a safety valve meant to be spent when necessary -- maybe on a FA, maybe on international ama FA, it doesn't matter what. it does you no good if you never spend it.

(definitely leave max cash on hand as default value, fyi, or somewhere in that neighborhood if you do feel the need to change it)

So, you can splurge every other year on those july 2 int'l ama. maybe you skip a year because you don't like what you see? be as sophisticated about it as you want. just buy them up any time you can. (note: penalties are huge when you go over 3M, you have to double any contract offer - front office does an okay job of giving feedback on this in the expense info pane, plus as you offer contracts to them, too on the left side).

one note: scouting budget for international AMA have a much different accuracy curve than the upper levels of minors or themajors (still similar in rookie/SA for sure). spending a ton won't always increase probability of accuracy on those players as much as you might think. you're going to get a ton of false positives, and also those players, if highly-rated, have a pretty good chance of their ratings falling off a cliff while aging 16-18 or whenver you move them over to your MiL system, even with a good work ethic. This is money that wouldn't be used... no worries... don't cause a deficit in your yearly budget, though.

FA are normally expensive... sometimes you can get them cheaply, but more times than not the latter is true. don't be afraid to put feelers out to see a demand and length.

if the demand is WAY too high for what you typically see in your leageu, give it a week or two and see if his demands drop... better be certain though, or he'll sign with someone else, lol. double-edged sword when you try to reduce costs of acquiring a FA. i will look into the teams bidding and guess if they can overspend or not. other info can help with this decisions, too... it's a learning curve that will take time.

Owner goals are annoying... but, don't be too worried about them when things are going well and you've built up some brownie points with the owner.

i.e. if he says to sign an all-star and the only one available is a bad idea, then don't do it... although in the first year i might think a bit more on it -- if the budget is wide open it's not going to have a negative effect - or less of one.

if you are winnign and going to playoffs, you should be mostly fine... do the easy things he asks that don't cost your team in the short- or long-term. is there some meter? if not it just going to work similar to morale - a drop in a bucket each time he asks somethign and you do or don't do it... it changes slowly over time as you do things.

you can turn that off... you can still be fired for incompetence etc... if you play with "cannot be fired" or commish mode then you might as well turn it off, for example. others just don't like it... some do.. all good reasons to use or not use it.

you'll need someone with experience to know just how often you can deviate from the owner -- hopefully info for when you are sub-.500, neutral, playoff+ team. i'm assuming that like morale, winnig is a contatnt plus of some sort to that 'owner's meter' for you relative to owner goals.

Managing player turnover is the biggest key to consistent success... handle age, contracts well and you will do fine. now when you can splurge, when you should be conservative etc. etc.. most of the time your on the fence between those two factors and it's difficult to know for sure -- that's the fun decision because you can be wrong.

rarely do i have a top-heavy team regarding age... i won't have 4/5ths of my lineup 30+ -- EVER. i trade players before the end of their prime. i find MiL players that the AI undervalues - you have to look periodically and intelligently. a good scouting budget helps here.

Tiresais · 03-06-2017, 03:39 PM

Thanks a lot people! I made a trade for a top-10 RF to a club with a weak starting pitcher line-up - gave them my 3rd best SP prospect (Gerald Connolly) for their best RF (Quentin Pryor) and a risky SS prospect (Simon Scotcher - I had a red ball for SS and they were willing to part with him, so took it).

Didn't realise I couldn't put the SS in my AAA team, so now he's stuck on my roster. Lives and learns!

Was this a good deal? Gotta learn by trying I figure, and there didn't seem to be any good Free agents - max OVR 63, which was Quentin's level, only 10 years older! There weren't any international FA players posted either

TGH-Adfabre · 03-06-2017, 04:30 PM

Is scouting on?
I would do that deal. It looks like you won on that one.

eriqjaffe · 03-06-2017, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiresais

Didn't realise I couldn't put the SS in my AAA team, so now he's stuck on my roster. Lives and learns!

It looks like Scotcher has a major-league contract, so he has to be on your 40-man roster. But you should still be able to assign him to your AAA squad since I can't imagine an 18-year-old would have accumulated enough major league service time to be out of options.

I know it's a lot of terminology that you might not be familiar with, but Wikipedia has a pretty good article about MLB transactions and is a good place to start to get a grasp on what a lot of it means.

Tiresais · 03-07-2017, 06:09 PM

It says he has no more minor league option years left or something? I'm playing with a custom leagues. Thanks for the article I'll check it out.

Glad to hear the trade isn't so bad - I've read a bit around the subject and I think I prefer he steady build of contact players overall, although I need a hitter or two just for the chance of loaded plates. So when I saw him I thought despite the power being terrible he might reliably get on base

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

03-05-2017, 05:49 AM	#1
Tiresais Bat Boy Join Date: Dec 2016 Posts: 18	How to/Best way to sign players? Soccer/Football fan here, and very used to the luxury of just signing players up to the budget, but Baseball is a different beast. The list of help I need is too long, but for now can you give me some hints and tips on how I might go about improving my roster? For example, my board goal at the moment (custom league) is to upgrade my RF and improve the squad to reach the playoffs in 3 years (as well as attendance and achieve a "winning record" whatever that is). I'm in the winter meetings now, having just taken over as GM. Thanks for your help!

03-05-2017, 01:03 PM	#2
eriqjaffe Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2003 Location: Under The Christmas Fish Posts: 7,644	It's not really all that different. You still have a budget and you can attempt to sign free agents up to that limit. Alternately you can trade for players (basically, a transfer) that will improve your team. You can initiate trade discussions or you can simply list your team needs and other teams will occasionally offer you trades. You can also claim players that are on waivers, in which case you basically just assume their contract as-is and they're on your team. Of course, you need to keep within your budget regardless. As far as a winning record goes, that just means you win more game than you lose. __________________

03-05-2017, 01:28 PM	#3
TGH-Adfabre Hall Of Famer Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,599	I will just address the "Owner Goals". 1) You can turn them off if you want. 2) Owners have horribly stupid ideas at times. Just because the owner wants you to do it does not mean you should. 3) There is an option that allows you spend the entire budget. 4) The most important owner goal is winning. If you win the other goals are almost irrelevant. 5) I would look for a RF in Free Agency. You can also convert a talented LF/CF to RF by Force Starting them there. 6) What was your record last season? 7) A winning record is over .500 which is even. __________________ You mock me, therefore I am My wife

03-05-2017, 06:28 PM	#5
NoOne Banned Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,273 Infractions: 0/2 (4)	Signing tips for international FA: fast and easy - double the demand... starting in this release, you sometimes have to go a bit above 2X initial demand... that will nearly 100% of the time sign the amatuer FA in 2 days with no negotiation update. -- slow and smart: wat a day and then bid... you'll notice the initial demanded bonus in the contract offer screen is lower than the "Demand" displayed on teh main int'l ama fa screen. this is GOOD! you can offer double and likely get them for cheaper now.. you can try less than double too. remember this is playing with fire though.. if you really want that guy, don't be cheap about international ama FA. you'll find in some instances you are actually baiting the AI to bid again... don't up your bid by minute amounts! the ai will just keep taking the bait to an even higher value than you would have paid had you just upped it a couple million and bullied the AI out of it. watch its behaviour, avoid traps, manimize contact costs! FA signings: sometimes wiating helps... jsut don't let them sign with someone else while waiting, lol. takes time to learn timing on this. if you see many teams bidding, well then it's probably closer to his demand than not... but if his demand is 50% above a normal high end contract, then you can definitely underbid the demand. like i said it takes time to build the knowledge to make easy decisions on this. Remember, be cheap about FA... they will ruin your budget. Make good use of Salaries screen for decisions on lenghts of contracts. (side note: i recently dropped max length from 10 to 7 and i love the resutls!) As far as the budget- if you want the entire avaialbe thats an option, and i do that too... if want to model cheap and lavish owners, leave it on... manipulate how much revenue teams get if you want to raise or lower it as a whole. you have options if oyu like that setting is what i am saying. when you start drafting near the bottom of the first, i'd focus more revenue into scouting minors and international amatuer FA. spend where you're going to get the most return for that time -- it can change year-to-year. Take advantage of international ama FA as much as you can. when you have a big budget and small payroll, go spend that spare 50-60M on those guys.. so what if 1/5 pans out? that money was going to be lost anyway. the max cash on hand should be the only 'room' you should give yourself -- and that is a safety valve meant to be spent when necessary -- maybe on a FA, maybe on international ama FA, it doesn't matter what. it does you no good if you never spend it. (definitely leave max cash on hand as default value, fyi, or somewhere in that neighborhood if you do feel the need to change it) So, you can splurge every other year on those july 2 int'l ama. maybe you skip a year because you don't like what you see? be as sophisticated about it as you want. just buy them up any time you can. (note: penalties are huge when you go over 3M, you have to double any contract offer - front office does an okay job of giving feedback on this in the expense info pane, plus as you offer contracts to them, too on the left side). one note: scouting budget for international AMA have a much different accuracy curve than the upper levels of minors or themajors (still similar in rookie/SA for sure). spending a ton won't always increase probability of accuracy on those players as much as you might think. you're going to get a ton of false positives, and also those players, if highly-rated, have a pretty good chance of their ratings falling off a cliff while aging 16-18 or whenver you move them over to your MiL system, even with a good work ethic. This is money that wouldn't be used... no worries... don't cause a deficit in your yearly budget, though. FA are normally expensive... sometimes you can get them cheaply, but more times than not the latter is true. don't be afraid to put feelers out to see a demand and length. if the demand is WAY too high for what you typically see in your leageu, give it a week or two and see if his demands drop... better be certain though, or he'll sign with someone else, lol. double-edged sword when you try to reduce costs of acquiring a FA. i will look into the teams bidding and guess if they can overspend or not. other info can help with this decisions, too... it's a learning curve that will take time. Owner goals are annoying... but, don't be too worried about them when things are going well and you've built up some brownie points with the owner. i.e. if he says to sign an all-star and the only one available is a bad idea, then don't do it... although in the first year i might think a bit more on it -- if the budget is wide open it's not going to have a negative effect - or less of one. if you are winnign and going to playoffs, you should be mostly fine... do the easy things he asks that don't cost your team in the short- or long-term. is there some meter? if not it just going to work similar to morale - a drop in a bucket each time he asks somethign and you do or don't do it... it changes slowly over time as you do things. you can turn that off... you can still be fired for incompetence etc... if you play with "cannot be fired" or commish mode then you might as well turn it off, for example. others just don't like it... some do.. all good reasons to use or not use it. you'll need someone with experience to know just how often you can deviate from the owner -- hopefully info for when you are sub-.500, neutral, playoff+ team. i'm assuming that like morale, winnig is a contatnt plus of some sort to that 'owner's meter' for you relative to owner goals. Managing player turnover is the biggest key to consistent success... handle age, contracts well and you will do fine. now when you can splurge, when you should be conservative etc. etc.. most of the time your on the fence between those two factors and it's difficult to know for sure -- that's the fun decision because you can be wrong. rarely do i have a top-heavy team regarding age... i won't have 4/5ths of my lineup 30+ -- EVER. i trade players before the end of their prime. i find MiL players that the AI undervalues - you have to look periodically and intelligently. a good scouting budget helps here. Last edited by NoOne; 03-05-2017 at 06:47 PM.

03-06-2017, 03:39 PM	#6
Tiresais Bat Boy Join Date: Dec 2016 Posts: 18	Thanks a lot people! I made a trade for a top-10 RF to a club with a weak starting pitcher line-up - gave them my 3rd best SP prospect (Gerald Connolly) for their best RF (Quentin Pryor) and a risky SS prospect (Simon Scotcher - I had a red ball for SS and they were willing to part with him, so took it). Didn't realise I couldn't put the SS in my AAA team, so now he's stuck on my roster. Lives and learns! Was this a good deal? Gotta learn by trying I figure, and there didn't seem to be any good Free agents - max OVR 63, which was Quentin's level, only 10 years older! There weren't any international FA players posted either Attached Images

03-05-2017, 06:10 PM	#4
BBGiovanni All Star Starter Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Republic of California Posts: 1,910	If you are playing MLB-style, it's important to produce your own players (whether you play them or trade them). Free agents are expensive, so even backup.catchers and mediocre relievers that come from your minors save you millions of dollars per year. Try to use free agency to fill a single lineup hole or get a real impact pitcher that improves your whole staff.

03-06-2017, 04:30 PM	#7
TGH-Adfabre Hall Of Famer Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,599	Is scouting on? I would do that deal. It looks like you won on that one. __________________ You mock me, therefore I am My wife

03-07-2017, 06:09 PM	#9
Tiresais Bat Boy Join Date: Dec 2016 Posts: 18	It says he has no more minor league option years left or something? I'm playing with a custom leagues. Thanks for the article I'll check it out. Glad to hear the trade isn't so bad - I've read a bit around the subject and I think I prefer he steady build of contact players overall, although I need a hitter or two just for the chance of loaded plates. So when I saw him I thought despite the power being terrible he might reliably get on base Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk