Lots of Trades

[wiggleman83]

I'm in a custom game and I just simmed to the next season and I noticed there was an insane number of trades so I counted for fun. There are 155 trades. In one 32-team league. All on announced on July 1. That seems like a lot, right?

[wiggleman83]

It's continuing to happen when I get to September. There are roughly 15 trades per day and most of them involve the same teams. At this point, I might as well have created a fantasy draft after the season lol.

[jumpSeat]

Originally Posted by wiggleman83

I'm in a custom game and I just simmed to the next season and I noticed there was an insane number of trades so I counted for fun. There are 155 trades. In one 32-team league. All on announced on July 1. That seems like a lot, right?

Yeah, works out to 4.84 trades per team (on average), so I'd say that's a lot.

[wiggleman83]

Every phone in the league ringing nonstop

[wiggleman83]

Update: The trades keep coming fast and furious into the preseason and they all seemed to be straight up player-for-pick deals

[JeffR]

Upload the save, please. That sounds like there may be some issue with the league finances that's forcing some teams to dump salary, or something broken with the roster status of some teams.

[wiggleman83]

I uploaded it as Lots of Trades, thanks!

[JeffR]

Looks like the problem is so many teams being very close to, or over, the cap - they're desperately trying to clear space by dumping players, but with the whole league like that, there's not much that can be done and when one team moves some salary to a team that can take it, that's often putting the recipient closer to cap trouble of its own, which continues the cycle. If you play forward a while, the trade activity eventually slows down as the situation stabilizes (although there will continue to be a lot of waiver movement.)

If you significantly increase the cap next July 1 by at least $20 million or so, that'll temporarily cut down on the cap problems, but the real source of the problem is the number of junior teams - you've got 200+ of those, and they're generating talent for a much smaller number of top-level teams. So after a few years, you get a very top-heavy talent pool and a lot of 4-5 star guys sitting in free agency, so teams quickly consume whatever cap space they have available.

I'd suggest contracting the number of junior teams down to at least half of what you have now. Also, the Percentage of Talent from Stats (in File-Setup/Options) is set at 0 right now, so the players' actual performance counts for very little in the way their talent is evaluated and their salary demands are set. If you increase that to 50 (or maybe even 75), the "5-star" guys who aren't playing or are on 4th lines won't be rated as highly and won't break the salary structure the way they are now.

[wiggleman83]

The fact that some of the junior teams are really low level, like .52 or .48, doesn't affect them generating a ton of 5-star talent?

[wiggleman83]

And is there a way to completely eliminate a whole junior league?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by wiggleman83

The fact that some of the junior teams are really low level, like .52 or .48, doesn't affect them generating a ton of 5-star talent?

That's about the equivalent of a middling junior A league, so yeah, you will get some prospects out of those.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by wiggleman83

And is there a way to completely eliminate a whole junior league?

Not at the moment, the most you could do is cut it down to 2 teams.