Shop A Player - Page 2

BusterKing · 06-24-2022, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andyhdz

I have no idea what you guys are talking about when you say Shop a Player is some kind of cheat that requires a house rule. All I get offers for are run of the mill relievers and salary bloated veterans. Whenever I do make a trade I feel both sides benefit and never feel I'm ripping off the AI. I'll sometimes use make it work and the AI always wants my best players. Never do I use force trade. The AI trading is clearly better than previous versions.

what are your trading difficulty settings? Default?

andyhdz · 06-24-2022, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BusterKing

what are your trading difficulty settings? Default?

Two clicks before max difficulty and right in the middle of favor prospects and vets.

Pelican · 06-28-2022, 11:43 AM

I keep edging up trade difficulty on the advice of veterans who have played far more seasons than me. It’s a click or two below max; but heading there. I moved the slider a couple of notches to have the AI prefer veterans, so that I have a better chance of getting prospects (or so I thought). I usually take over hopeless teams, so unloading vets and hoarding prospects generally makes sense for me.

My experience with shopping players (vets in this scenario) is that I normally get lots of bad bordering on ridiculous offers (just how stupid does the AI think I am - it never hurts to ask). But usually, buried in there, is a quality player or two, if I bother to do the research and get an updated scouting report. Think of it as a scavenger hunt. Somewhere there may be a deal worth making.

I like it that 23 allows me to shop multiple players and packages; although the response get more complicated. This facilitates how I have used shopping players in past versions: as a basis for negotiating trades starting from the shopped player and then mixing and matching with interested teams.

PSUColonel · 06-28-2022, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pelican

I keep edging up trade difficulty on the advice of veterans who have played far more seasons than me. It’s a click or two below max; but heading there. I moved the slider a couple of notches to have the AI prefer veterans, so that I have a better chance of getting prospects (or so I thought). I usually take over hopeless teams, so unloading vets and hoarding prospects generally makes sense for me.

My experience with shopping players (vets in this scenario) is that I normally get lots of bad bordering on ridiculous offers (just how stupid does the AI think I am - it never hurts to ask). But usually, buried in there, is a quality player or two, if I bother to do the research and get an updated scouting report. Think of it as a scavenger hunt. Somewhere there may be a deal worth making.

I like it that 23 allows me to shop multiple players and packages; although the response get more complicated. This facilitates how I have used shopping players in past versions: as a basis for negotiating trades starting from the shopped player and then mixing and matching with interested teams.

Honestly I’d go most difficult trading and Neutral on the favor prospects/vets

PSUColonel · 12-06-2022, 04:25 PM

After some tests, and this will be one of the last things I share here, but I didn't do the work for nothing.

It is my honest opinion the more difficult trading settings don't necessarily affect the AI and its willingness to do trades. What it seems to do (at least from what I am observing) is make it tougher for you to come up with the right combination of players to make a deal. So basically, the "make this work now" and "shop player" features only return better players. The AI still like what you would consider scrubs within your organization, you just have a much, much tougher time figuring out which combination of scrubs will do the trick.

So basically, it seems the harder trade setting curtails the "make this work" and "shop" functions...two features I have always been a fierce critic of. So IMO, this is not a bad thing.

oldfatbaldguy · 12-07-2022, 06:25 PM

That's interesting, Colonel. Thanks for doing that.

I've seen situations where AI teams went after players my staff considered to be scrubs and it turned out the AI team was right and my staff was wrong, so I'm not sure that's a bad thing, either.

Pelican · 12-08-2022, 05:19 PM

I guess it qualifies as a kind of sniff test house rule, that I do not go through with some proposed trades when shopping a player, if they don’t look fair to me. It’s rare, such as when the ‘71 Cubs offered me an aging Ernie Banks for a younger fringe player. Not gonna happen. The AI wasn’t wrong. Sentiment was not a part of it. But for me, it just wouldn’t be right.

What I usually find when shopping a player is teams trying to unload marginal and worse players. How stupid does the AI think I am? But I patiently go through the list, because once in awhile there is a “diamond in the rough” who is worth acquiring. Of course I still go through the process of letting my assistant GM pass on the deal.

I find that “make it work” similarly leads to a succession of awful proposals, with the AI simply listing the best players on my team, and saying it would do the Joe Slabotnik for Joe Schmoe deal, if I added any one of them. But again, every once in awhile, the AI adds a marginal player I don’t need or want, and the deal gets done.

My favorite use of shopping a player is putting up an older guy on the decline, and asking for a prospect. If the guy I’m shopping still has some residual value, a team might offer a decent (but unknown) prospect. Need to do my scouting to evaluate said prospect. But I have gotten some good player this way.

I may not be using the trading block correctly. Normally when I try this, there is little or no serious interest. Maybe that’s because the player I put on the block has zero value. But the same guy will always provoke some interest if I shop him. Whereas guys languish on the block without any proposals.

BusterKing · 12-09-2022, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pelican

I guess it qualifies as a kind of sniff test house rule, that I do not go through with some proposed trades when shopping a player, if they don’t look fair to me. It’s rare, such as when the ‘71 Cubs offered me an aging Ernie Banks for a younger fringe player. Not gonna happen. The AI wasn’t wrong. Sentiment was not a part of it. But for me, it just wouldn’t be right.

What I usually find when shopping a player is teams trying to unload marginal and worse players. How stupid does the AI think I am? But I patiently go through the list, because once in awhile there is a “diamond in the rough” who is worth acquiring. Of course I still go through the process of letting my assistant GM pass on the deal.

I find that “make it work” similarly leads to a succession of awful proposals, with the AI simply listing the best players on my team, and saying it would do the Joe Slabotnik for Joe Schmoe deal, if I added any one of them. But again, every once in awhile, the AI adds a marginal player I don’t need or want, and the deal gets done.

My favorite use of shopping a player is putting up an older guy on the decline, and asking for a prospect. If the guy I’m shopping still has some residual value, a team might offer a decent (but unknown) prospect. Need to do my scouting to evaluate said prospect. But I have gotten some good player this way.

I may not be using the trading block correctly. Normally when I try this, there is little or no serious interest. Maybe that’s because the player I put on the block has zero value. But the same guy will always provoke some interest if I shop him. Whereas guys languish on the block without any proposals.

The response from the trading block can certainly use some improvement, not very useful presently imo.

'94 EXPOS · 12-12-2022, 06:39 PM

"I may not be using the trading block correctly. Normally when I try this, there is little or no serious interest. Maybe that’s because the player I put on the block has zero value. But the same guy will always provoke some interest if I shop him. Whereas guys languish on the block without any proposal."

My uneducated theory: The Shop a Player/trade engine runs separately from the Trading Block. I see Shop a Player as a GM saying I am moving this guy NOW, let's get this done, whereas Trading Block is where you can put your wares out to see if someone will eventually bite. I personally only use the Trading Block when I am willing to eat someone's salary dump if the player is useful to me despite his bloated contract.

Very rarely will all teams not give an offer at any time of year for any player on Shop a Player (but I have been shutout the odd time lol). You also see this with the waiver wire vs Shop a Player. You can grab a guy off of waivers and turn around and trade him the next day. I get that because of 40 man roster management, that this is possible and probably has happened a couple of times in real life but it def wouldn't happen every time.

Overall, I still think the way this game handles such a complex world of roster and player development is amazing.

MikeS21 · 12-12-2022, 07:09 PM

I never feel as if I am cheating the trade AI per se. Sometimes I can get the other team to toss in a prospect reliever/closer in a deal - especially if I agree to eat some salary. I can get a decent prospect if I eat all the salary, but salary relief is usually why I use the Shop Player feature to begin with.

Most of the time, the Shop Player feature looks at the salary I am trying to unload, and tells me to go fly a kite.

Melo · 12-14-2022, 11:05 AM

The issue I have with trades is when the AI overpays preseason for a vet FA and then immediately tries to dump them, usually as early as April.

"Make this work now" isn't that bad, IMO. If the AI doesn't really want to deal a player the list will be short and have high impact players/prospects. If they are open to move a player the list will expand. I would expect a real GM to do the same.

I'm in the process of re-evaluating my whole way of looking at the game and how it presents talent so this is all good food for thought.

jimmysthebestcop · 12-14-2022, 11:20 AM

Trading difficult is pretty pointless imho. Trading in ootp is more of a puzzle then anything else. Like the Colonel said a human can nearly get almost any trade completed it is just about which teams want what and what teams dont want.

Typically if you are looking for prospects from find a player and say you get a dozen of players. They will be nearly identical but some teams wont want to trade them and other teams wont care about them.

The exact same thing goes for your players. AI will just be in love with some of your players no matter what the stats or ratings are.

So technically speaking the trade difficulty doesnt really stop the player it might take more time for the player to get what they want or they need to perform more trades but that is about it.

The AI trading block again is one of those things that makes no sense and is probably completely broken, Like "Melo" pointed out the AI signs players then a 2 weeks later they are on the block. Or playoff team with ample money trying to dump contracts at trade deadline. Then some teams will take anything for players even scrubs and still tske on some salary. It gives the human a huge trade asset. You can just go down the list on trade block trading for stars where the AI will take anything and eat contract. Then the player has a dozen top assets that can be turned into multiple prospects.

It is possible for a human to basically always have a minimum budget which gives so much power to the player. You can shop a scrub like life long .5 star minor leaguer who is 35 and you can see which contracts the AI wants to dump and how % much they will eat. And a lot of times its players who have 1 or 2 years left. Which turns into a huge trade asset for the human,

I think the AI trade logic for player vs player not taking into account any finances is fine. But once contracts, budgets, finances, years left, options left etc come into the picture it is a huge mess.

You can sit there and shop all of your player who are out of options and just get younger players who have options left. Half the time the AI has to waive your players cause they wont put them on the 40 man. So why did they trade for them in the first place.

free agency, trading shop player, trading block, waivers, rule 5, 40 man all suffer the same flawed logic.

If you are a GM is your goal is to acquire assets and earn money and if the human sets that as their goals the ootp program absolutely crumbles it cant handle it.

And if the human gm doesnt want to acquire assets or earn money then there is literally nothing to do in the game except watch the outcome.

EDIT
also the AI doesnt at all consider a prospects 3rd pitcher for starters or if those int amat free agents only have 20s for fielding. Fielding will almost never ever develop even though they will be instantly listed as a top prospect. And the pithers will be rated high based upon the potential of that 3rd pitch but us humans knows its like under a 5% chance of it ever developing.

So you either avoid those players or actually just acquire them since they are rated so high as prospects you can then trade for anything you want,

LansdowneSt · 12-14-2022, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melo

The issue I have with trades is when the AI overpays preseason for a vet FA and then immediately tries to dump them, usually as early as April.

I've called out this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde AI issue too. The logic of FA signing by the AI needs to better align with their viewpoint after they sign them. It is finances and the logic therein that needs work as has been mentioned at length.

I ignore the trade block as it seems to just anger the player without trade offers coming in. I do use it to see who I can get on the cheap. And part of that over-cheapness is related to the issue above. On me putting players on the block, it would be better if say, I put Player X on the Block, I got actual offers. If I shopped him using the three different types of trade types, I could have 60-70 offerings. Change the type of players I'm looking for and that's more. Randomly generate these offers as if I had shopped him and send me an email, AI. I don't think I'm gaming the "shop a player function" with this passive shopping approach offered by the Block - I'm just reminding the AI that the phone here receives calls as easily as it does make them. So, send me some offers!

Lastly, a simple fix for the AI logic on the dollar value of a player it just signed might be to spot the AI some funds. If the AI is running a team, spot him $50M that he can't use for FA (because I think it does that fine) but can see in the bank of his budget for thinking about his roster flex for trades (acquisitions and dumps). Thus, he signs FA as he currently does, but then values better once the player is in-hand. Changing the $50M in my example up or down makes the AI more or less freaked out about its current budget, so if you think it is great now, put at $0 fluff budget to the AI's thought process. But if you want the exploit reduced, add $.

Those seem to me to be current in-game mechanic ways of trying something new to address the issues.

Pelican · 12-18-2022, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by '94 EXPOS

Overall, I still think the way this game handles such a complex world of roster and player development is amazing.

Well put. I agree. I just went through offseason free agent negotiations, and a few trades, and I’m about as worn out as I was after a long arbitration hearing or mediation, when I was doing those for a living!

Also, IMHO the 1994 Expos may have been the best team ever. In the 1994 sim I started - completing the season from the point of the strike - the Expos are quite predictably kicking butt. And I am acknowledging that as a Phillies fan!

zappa1 · 12-18-2022, 05:51 AM

If you don't like shop a player or make this work, now then don't use it. Why take it away from others who want to use it. Sounds like a stupid supreme court decision.

By the way I've used shop a player but never use make this work, now.

12-08-2022, 05:19 PM	#27
Pelican Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2021 Location: Wilmington, Delaware Posts: 3,022	I guess it qualifies as a kind of sniff test house rule, that I do not go through with some proposed trades when shopping a player, if they don’t look fair to me. It’s rare, such as when the ‘71 Cubs offered me an aging Ernie Banks for a younger fringe player. Not gonna happen. The AI wasn’t wrong. Sentiment was not a part of it. But for me, it just wouldn’t be right. What I usually find when shopping a player is teams trying to unload marginal and worse players. How stupid does the AI think I am? But I patiently go through the list, because once in awhile there is a “diamond in the rough” who is worth acquiring. Of course I still go through the process of letting my assistant GM pass on the deal. I find that “make it work” similarly leads to a succession of awful proposals, with the AI simply listing the best players on my team, and saying it would do the Joe Slabotnik for Joe Schmoe deal, if I added any one of them. But again, every once in awhile, the AI adds a marginal player I don’t need or want, and the deal gets done. My favorite use of shopping a player is putting up an older guy on the decline, and asking for a prospect. If the guy I’m shopping still has some residual value, a team might offer a decent (but unknown) prospect. Need to do my scouting to evaluate said prospect. But I have gotten some good player this way. I may not be using the trading block correctly. Normally when I try this, there is little or no serious interest. Maybe that’s because the player I put on the block has zero value. But the same guy will always provoke some interest if I shop him. Whereas guys languish on the block without any proposals. __________________ Pelican OOTP 2020-? ”Hard to believe, Harry.”

12-14-2022, 11:20 AM	#32
jimmysthebestcop Banned Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 1,727 Infractions: 0/2 (5)	Trading difficult is pretty pointless imho. Trading in ootp is more of a puzzle then anything else. Like the Colonel said a human can nearly get almost any trade completed it is just about which teams want what and what teams dont want. Typically if you are looking for prospects from find a player and say you get a dozen of players. They will be nearly identical but some teams wont want to trade them and other teams wont care about them. The exact same thing goes for your players. AI will just be in love with some of your players no matter what the stats or ratings are. So technically speaking the trade difficulty doesnt really stop the player it might take more time for the player to get what they want or they need to perform more trades but that is about it. The AI trading block again is one of those things that makes no sense and is probably completely broken, Like "Melo" pointed out the AI signs players then a 2 weeks later they are on the block. Or playoff team with ample money trying to dump contracts at trade deadline. Then some teams will take anything for players even scrubs and still tske on some salary. It gives the human a huge trade asset. You can just go down the list on trade block trading for stars where the AI will take anything and eat contract. Then the player has a dozen top assets that can be turned into multiple prospects. It is possible for a human to basically always have a minimum budget which gives so much power to the player. You can shop a scrub like life long .5 star minor leaguer who is 35 and you can see which contracts the AI wants to dump and how % much they will eat. And a lot of times its players who have 1 or 2 years left. Which turns into a huge trade asset for the human, I think the AI trade logic for player vs player not taking into account any finances is fine. But once contracts, budgets, finances, years left, options left etc come into the picture it is a huge mess. You can sit there and shop all of your player who are out of options and just get younger players who have options left. Half the time the AI has to waive your players cause they wont put them on the 40 man. So why did they trade for them in the first place. free agency, trading shop player, trading block, waivers, rule 5, 40 man all suffer the same flawed logic. If you are a GM is your goal is to acquire assets and earn money and if the human sets that as their goals the ootp program absolutely crumbles it cant handle it. And if the human gm doesnt want to acquire assets or earn money then there is literally nothing to do in the game except watch the outcome. EDIT also the AI doesnt at all consider a prospects 3rd pitcher for starters or if those int amat free agents only have 20s for fielding. Fielding will almost never ever develop even though they will be instantly listed as a top prospect. And the pithers will be rated high based upon the potential of that 3rd pitch but us humans knows its like under a 5% chance of it ever developing. So you either avoid those players or actually just acquire them since they are rated so high as prospects you can then trade for anything you want, Last edited by jimmysthebestcop; 12-14-2022 at 11:23 AM.

06-28-2022, 11:43 AM	#23
Pelican Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2021 Location: Wilmington, Delaware Posts: 3,022	I keep edging up trade difficulty on the advice of veterans who have played far more seasons than me. It’s a click or two below max; but heading there. I moved the slider a couple of notches to have the AI prefer veterans, so that I have a better chance of getting prospects (or so I thought). I usually take over hopeless teams, so unloading vets and hoarding prospects generally makes sense for me. My experience with shopping players (vets in this scenario) is that I normally get lots of bad bordering on ridiculous offers (just how stupid does the AI think I am - it never hurts to ask). But usually, buried in there, is a quality player or two, if I bother to do the research and get an updated scouting report. Think of it as a scavenger hunt. Somewhere there may be a deal worth making. I like it that 23 allows me to shop multiple players and packages; although the response get more complicated. This facilitates how I have used shopping players in past versions: as a basis for negotiating trades starting from the shopped player and then mixing and matching with interested teams.

12-06-2022, 04:25 PM	#25
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 13,107	After some tests, and this will be one of the last things I share here, but I didn't do the work for nothing. It is my honest opinion the more difficult trading settings don't necessarily affect the AI and its willingness to do trades. What it seems to do (at least from what I am observing) is make it tougher for you to come up with the right combination of players to make a deal. So basically, the "make this work now" and "shop player" features only return better players. The AI still like what you would consider scrubs within your organization, you just have a much, much tougher time figuring out which combination of scrubs will do the trick. So basically, it seems the harder trade setting curtails the "make this work" and "shop" functions...two features I have always been a fierce critic of. So IMO, this is not a bad thing.

12-07-2022, 06:25 PM	#26
oldfatbaldguy Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 393	That's interesting, Colonel. Thanks for doing that. I've seen situations where AI teams went after players my staff considered to be scrubs and it turned out the AI team was right and my staff was wrong, so I'm not sure that's a bad thing, either.

12-12-2022, 06:39 PM	#29
'94 EXPOS Major Leagues Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 318	"I may not be using the trading block correctly. Normally when I try this, there is little or no serious interest. Maybe that’s because the player I put on the block has zero value. But the same guy will always provoke some interest if I shop him. Whereas guys languish on the block without any proposal." My uneducated theory: The Shop a Player/trade engine runs separately from the Trading Block. I see Shop a Player as a GM saying I am moving this guy NOW, let's get this done, whereas Trading Block is where you can put your wares out to see if someone will eventually bite. I personally only use the Trading Block when I am willing to eat someone's salary dump if the player is useful to me despite his bloated contract. Very rarely will all teams not give an offer at any time of year for any player on Shop a Player (but I have been shutout the odd time lol). You also see this with the waiver wire vs Shop a Player. You can grab a guy off of waivers and turn around and trade him the next day. I get that because of 40 man roster management, that this is possible and probably has happened a couple of times in real life but it def wouldn't happen every time. Overall, I still think the way this game handles such a complex world of roster and player development is amazing.

12-12-2022, 07:09 PM	#30
MikeS21 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 276	I never feel as if I am cheating the trade AI per se. Sometimes I can get the other team to toss in a prospect reliever/closer in a deal - especially if I agree to eat some salary. I can get a decent prospect if I eat all the salary, but salary relief is usually why I use the Shop Player feature to begin with. Most of the time, the Shop Player feature looks at the salary I am trying to unload, and tells me to go fly a kite.

12-14-2022, 11:05 AM	#31
Melo All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Where the baned reside Posts: 1,428	The issue I have with trades is when the AI overpays preseason for a vet FA and then immediately tries to dump them, usually as early as April. "Make this work now" isn't that bad, IMO. If the AI doesn't really want to deal a player the list will be short and have high impact players/prospects. If they are open to move a player the list will expand. I would expect a real GM to do the same. I'm in the process of re-evaluating my whole way of looking at the game and how it presents talent so this is all good food for thought.

12-18-2022, 05:51 AM	#35
zappa1 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2,152	If you don't like shop a player or make this work, now then don't use it. Why take it away from others who want to use it. Sounds like a stupid supreme court decision. By the way I've used shop a player but never use make this work, now.