Trade Difficulty

[x McLovin x]

In all previous iterations of OOTP, I always set the trading difficulty to max as I felt like otherwise, it would be constant swindling of the AI. In the beta of the new game, I chose to do the same thing again, however, this time around it seems to be MUCH more difficult to match up in a trade. For example, I ran the current day Yankees and I had to eat about a 30% of Aaron Judge’s salary to even be offered a mediocre reliever. I tried trading manually with many teams that had sufficient budget space to take on his salary but still not much to be had. Obviously this doesn’t reflect reality because if the “real world” Yankees were offering to trade Judge whilst eating 30% of his salary, every MLB team should be head over heels with their offers instead of valuing him similar to a AAAA reliever. Was the trading difficulty significantly ratcheted up in this version? Or is the AI super averse to taking on any players making more than the league minimum now? I’m probably going to re-run my franchise on the default level trading difficulty so I can compare but was wondering if there were any other people running into similar situations or if the developers may have specifically mentioned something about this?

[Charlie Hough]

Yes, depending on your AI talent evaluating settings, you need to significantly reduce the AI trade difficulty now. You need to be well below the maximum, otherwise it will be virtually impossible to get a reasonable trade. I used to use the max, but I had already started reducing the setting a bit in OOTP24, and now I've reduced by another two or three ticks in OOTP25.

Keep in mind that I use AI settings of 70/25/5/0 or 75/20/5/0, so my AI is a lot tougher as a starting point. Since it emphasizes ratings and is not easily fooled by current or past-season stats, the AI is far more competitive with the human GM. Using those settings with trade difficulty that's a bit above average, it's still very tough to get a good trade. But I find that, in the right situation, you can get a good deal that's fair to both teams.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

So to be clear, you always max out the difficulty to make it difficult....but are now upset its.....difficult? And if you want to "reflect reality" the current Yankees are never trading Judge to begin with.

[Hammercraft]

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

So to be clear, you always max out the difficulty to make it difficult....but are now upset its.....difficult? And if you want to "reflect reality" the current Yankees are never trading Judge to begin with.

He's not upset. He's observing. Shhhh.

[x McLovin x]

Thanks for the responses, at least I know I'm not crazy since other people seem to be experiencing a difference. And by no means am I "upset"....I just noticed that something seemed different in this version and thought to ask in case there was an intentional change.

[MikeS21]

I have noticed that even when I set the trade preference slider all the way to the left, where it favors veteran players, it still seems to over value prospects. Tried easy trade setting, but still couldn’t find a partner. Ought to be able to flip a 30 year old multi All-Star player for a decent prospect. Can’t find any takers.

[CBLCardinals]

This is probably a good thing right??

How many teams are lining up for a 31 y/o OF, who has history of injuries, making 40M per year for 9 more years?

Judge is awesome and all, but realistically what other teams could even take on that contract commitment??

Mets, Dodgers….??

[x McLovin x]

Originally Posted by CBLCardinals

This is probably a good thing right??

How many teams are lining up for a 31 y/o OF, who has history of injuries, making 40M per year for 9 more years?

Judge is awesome and all, but realistically what other teams could even take on that contract commitment??

Mets, Dodgers….??

Thanks, you made some fair points. I can’t recall which exact teams I tried trading him to (the Dodgers were definitely one of them) but they all had more than sufficient budget space after eating ~30% of his salary. In most sims, Judge is ~5+ WAR per year player for the majority of his contract. IMO, teams should honestly be lining up to pay $28M for superstar production assuming they have the budget space. Put it this way - if he was a free agent today and was asking for $28M per year, at least half of MLB would be in on him.

[Cactusguy21]

This is likely part of a recurring issue with Financials. Contracts have gone up steeply the past several years but the financial system has remained relatively unchanged (doesn't it still list superstar baseline at like 30m?)

[20_range]

In real life, Stanton was traded after hitting 59 hrs and winning MVP, with the Marlins picking up 10 or 20% of his contract... but with ten years $200m or so left on his deal, he was only worth Starlin Castro (a small salary offset) and two non-prospects

These baseball reference pages are kind of sad: Jose Devers and Jorge Guzman

[x McLovin x]

Originally Posted by 20_range

In real life, Stanton was traded after hitting 59 hrs and winning MVP, with the Marlins picking up 10 or 20% of his contract... but with ten years $200m or so left on his deal, he was only worth Starlin Castro (a small salary offset) and two non-prospects

These baseball reference pages are kind of sad: Jose Devers and Jorge Guzman

Stanton also had a full no-trade clause and essentially took all the leverage away from the low-budget Miami Marlins. He basically forced the trade to NY and in the process Miami basically got pennies on the dollar. The two scenarios are apples to oranges.