Online League Free Agency: Let's Improve It

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by cockypop

Totally understandable. Things got kind of nasty there for some reason.

This thread in a nutshell...

1. Online league has concerns that free agent demands seem to be out of whack with expected values, based on comparisons to equivalent players.

2. Comissioner of said league posts concerns and offers some possible solutions for discussion, one of which include ability to edit free agent demands.

3. Some helpful discussion occurs, including explanation of how excess cash on hand is a major factor in demands being made. Great, we're making progress. (I certainly learned something.)

4. Eventually one of the possible solutions that was originally proposed in the first post (option B... keep offers on the table even if they had been previously rejected) is logged as a feature request on the beta boards. Mission accomplished.

In between those points and scattered throughout 9 pages and counting is a lot of posturing, insults, some crazy misunderstanding that the league wants collusion (I'm in the league, I can asure you that's not what we want) and people like The Wolf trying desperately to get the last word in and 'win' a non existent argument.

If more discussion is required around how free agency works, then great I for one hope to learn more about this amazing game. But for the love of god can we please drop this silly collusion meme. It's just not true.

OK, thanks for the explanation. I think my confusion is in the complaint over the perceived "outrageous" free agent demands. I only play solo, so I don't know how those affect an online league like it does for you guys. It was just that the way some posts were written, it came across as asking for collusion. I may have missed it, but I never read anything that said something to this extent: "Superstar outfielders currently make in the range of $10-14M per season. Player X is a superstar outfielder and is a free agent asking for $22M per season. Why can't we edit his demand to more closely reflect the salary range of comparable players?"

If that accurately portrays what your league wants, then I can't disagree with the request. But I also feel that if players like this are eventually signing in the proper salary range ($10-14M in this example), then a simpler solution would be to have offers remain on the table. Or, I personally like this more, have the option to tell a player that your offer remains on the table when he rejects it. If you don't do this, then the offer goes away. It would be a similar button to the one we get in an e-mail when we get a trade proposal. This way the GM makes a conscious decision to leave the offer on the table, rather than forgetting that the offer remains out there and moving on to a second player, eventually signing that second player, then all of a sudden finding out the first player signed, as well.

[McExpos]

Originally Posted by rujasu

No, what I'm seeing is people asking for the FA's to stop demanding contracts way higher than what similar players are making. I guess that's where the disconnect is here?

At this point, the fact that free agents are asking for money based on cash-on-hand that they can't possibly know about is whatever. It's not a bug, it's a feature, and as The Wolf and others have mentioned, adapt or die. That's fine.

The idea is that, if they're going to ask for crazy amounts of money, they shouldn't just flat out ignore offers as they go through their various "signing windows." If a player is offered a lot of money early in free agency, they should remember that offer so, if they lower their demands and the demands match the original offer, they can renegotiate or continue negotiating from that point.

Anyways, as Cockypop said, the feature request was logged, so for all the fighting and sarcasm and anonymous posturing that only the internet can provide, hopefully they'll look at it for OOTP14.

[kon6749]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Or, I personally like this more, have the option to tell a player that your offer remains on the table when he rejects it. If you don't do this, then the offer goes away. It would be a similar button to the one we get in an e-mail when we get a trade proposal. This way the GM makes a conscious decision to leave the offer on the table, rather than forgetting that the offer remains out there and moving on to a second player, eventually signing that second player, then all of a sudden finding out the first player signed, as well.

Someone hit the nail on the head

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by subtle

Nobody is talking about trying to lowball legitimate star players. The example Buane keeps giving you (and people here keep ignoring) is a good but not star first baseman asking for more money than similar free agents have ever made.

We're trying to figure out why, for example, a 37 year old batter who had one good but not great season before free agency would come out of the gate demanding $18MM when his previous salaries have been: 8MM, 6MM, 7MM, 8MM in the previous 4 seasons. In real life, if a person was asking for 18MM in every free agency and ended up making 1/3 of that asking price every year, you'd think the logical thing would be to augment their original demand so they'd end up with more money or maybe a multi-year deal. That's reality.

Because in reality, baseball players rarely sit out rather than accept a reasonable offer. In major league baseball, it happens every few years with a veteran that teams don't want to take a risk on until they're backed into a corner. In this scenario, it's incredibly wide-spread.

Then I admit my error. Buane keeps using the phrase or similar phrases to "setting the market" or "what the market thinks he's worth." That can mean different things and I took it to mean "what the GMs think he's worth." If what Buane really meant was "value compared to similar players," then I agree that there may be a problem.

EDIT TO ADD: But I'm still not convinced that the proper "fix" is allowing commissioners to edit free agent demands. I'm not saying it would happen in Buane's league, but I can already see the thread with people complaining that the commish in their online league is editing demands in secrecy to help his own team or a friend's team. I think we need to fully explore the issue of contract offers basically disappearing after a player's initial rejection of that offer.

[cockypop]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Your suggestion The owners can offer whatever they want even if it's a super low offer and that player has to take it or is forced to take it.

Nobody wants to force players to take a lower option. What I want is a player to remember an earlier offer that had been previously made when it finally aligns to their demands. If the original offer is truly a lowball offer, it will never be accepted and that's fine.

So what's happening is players are making less money because the game forgets previous offers made.

It can't be collusion if the owners are trying to pay the players more than they accept.

[Who Killed Kenny?]

Wooo this is a hot topic!

In real life the owners we stockpiling all this money and still making money on top of that, then the players union would have a major fit. They would take the owners to court on anti-trust laws and eventually force a player's strike. In this kind of market no player would ever sign for lower than their perceived market value. To me the mistake that OOTP makes is even having that player sign with any team in that league!

To be fully realistic, OOTP should have several options. #1 have a player's strike to force the owner's hand. #2 Players should sit out the entire year instead of signing at a below value contract. #3 Players should sign with an alternate independent league or team even if at a lower contract (but only a 1 year deal!) to prove to the major league that they are worth it. #4 A competing major league is formed to compete with the players in your markets.

To be fair, I recognize the argument. OOTP is not all about realism, it is also about having fun. In an online league (or even in a solo league) its not fun when you offer a player a contract and he says no and then signs with another team for less. So I do agree with the original poster that having some options to mitigate this problem if only manually. In the meantime I do suggest that the online league just manually edit the contracts.

[rujasu]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

EDIT TO ADD: But I'm still not convinced that the proper "fix" is allowing commissioners to edit free agent demands. I'm not saying it would happen in Buane's league, but I can already see the thread with people complaining that the commish in their online league is editing demands in secrecy to help his own team or a friend's team. I think we need to fully explore the issue of contract offers basically disappearing after a player's initial rejection of that offer.

Note that Buane in his OP suggested editing FA demands as a "band-aid option." I don't think it's anyone's preference.

[Buane]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Then I admit my error. Buane keeps using the phrase or similar phrases to "setting the market" or "what the market thinks he's worth." That can mean different things and I took it to mean "what the GMs think he's worth." If what Buane really meant was "value compared to similar players," then I agree that there may be a problem.

I was trying to keep things simple, so I'm sorry if that ended up being confusing. I figured that by saying "GMs can set the market" it would open the door for player values to fall in line with similar players. That is the end goal here.

But I figured from a programming standpoint, it would be simpler to just remove the lower limit and let GMs have the burden of defining "the market" rather than ask Markus to reprogram the Free Agent Demands engine.

[rujasu]

Originally Posted by Who Killed Kenny?

In real life the owners we stockpiling all this money and still making money on top of that, then the players union would have a major fit. They would take the owners to court on anti-trust laws and eventually force a player's strike. In this kind of market no player would ever sign for lower than their perceived market value. To me the mistake that OOTP makes is even having that player sign with any team in that league!

Actually, IRL, owners make tons of money and put it in their pockets. See Marlins, Florida.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by rujasu

Note that Buane in his OP suggested editing FA demands as a "band-aid option." I don't think it's anyone's preference.

It's been so long since I read the OP that I had forgotten about the "band-aid option" part. It's a pretty significant feature that opens the door to a lot of possible issues for a "band-aid option." I personally would rather just have Markus look at how free agents are generating their initial demands.

Originally Posted by Buane

I was trying to keep things simple, so I'm sorry if that ended up being confusing. I figured that by saying "GMs can set the market" it would open the door for player values to fall in line with similar players. That is the end goal here.

But I figured from a programming standpoint, it would be simpler to just remove the lower limit and let GMs have the burden of defining "the market" rather than ask Markus to reprogram the Free Agent Demands engine.

No need to apologize. It's as much my fault for misinterpreting what you were saying. I know nothing about the coding of OOTP or any other computer program, but if this really is a major problem and Markus agrees, I'd rather him fix the free agent demands than create another option and leave it to us to set the free agent demands. But that's just my opinion as a user who DOES NOT play online leagues. So my experience is clearly different than yours.

[rujasu]

Originally Posted by Buane

But I figured from a programming standpoint, it would be simpler to just remove the lower limit and let GMs have the burden of defining "the market" rather than ask Markus to reprogram the Free Agent Demands engine.

You might have something there, but I wonder if it's really that difficult. I mean, I'm thinking it's something like:

A = my star rating
B = my primary position
get list C of all vet players under a post-arb contract at pos. B with rating A
D = average salary of players in list C
my starting demand = D * random(between 1.1 and 1.4)

I mean, maybe not THAT simple, but isn't that roughly what a real-life agent is going to do?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

So if the GMs only want to pay star players $3M a year in a certain offseason, even though comparable players under contract are making $10M per season, then isn't that the GMs colluding to set the market too low?

Collusion requires the GMs to be working in concert with each other, with some sort of understanding that they none of them will pay more than a certain amount and/or are operating an 'information bank' which allows them to see what other clubs have offered. If there is no such co-operation then it's not collusion.

However, the chances are very low that all the GMs of a league would not offer more than a certain amount for a player when some of those same clubs are sitting on ample available cash. When all of a sudden clubs, in spite of varying individual financial situations, all start offering about the same level of contract, that invites charges of collusion.

(The MLBPA is very sensitive about collusion. If there's even a hint of it happening again they file a grievance. But with triple damages written into the CBAs, the costs to clubs of being caught colluding again would be very high, which is why it is unlikely the type of collusion seen during the Ueberroth era will be seen again.)

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by rujasu

Actually, IRL, owners make tons of money and put it in their pockets. See Marlins, Florida.

I think the famous quote by Paul Beeston sums up not only baseball owner economics but I think all the team pro sports:

Originally Posted by Paul Beeston

Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point. Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every national accounting firm to agree with me.

This is why when it comes to labour disputes in pro sports I now generally side with the players, because with them you know exactly what you're getting. The player is paid a certain amount and one can then analyze their performance to see if that was money well-spent or not. With owners, with all the various accounting shenanigans that allow revenues to be hidden and profits erased, one is never quite sure what the true financial picture is. There's a long history of club owners crying poor while actually making out well financially.

[MrGreenGenes]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Collusion requires the GMs to be working in concert with each other, with some sort of understanding that they none of them will pay more than a certain amount and/or are operating an 'information bank' which allows them to see what other clubs have offered. If there is no such co-operation then it's not collusion.

However, the chances are very low that all the GMs of a league would not offer more than a certain amount for a player when some of those same clubs are sitting on ample available cash. When all of a sudden clubs, in spite of varying individual financial situations, all start offering about the same level of contract, that invites charges of collusion.

(The MLBPA is very sensitive about collusion. If there's even a hint of it happening again they file a grievance. But with triple damages written into the CBAs, the costs to clubs of being caught colluding again would be very high, which is why it is unlikely the type of collusion seen during the Ueberroth era will be seen again.)

I think the thing that's being forgotten about by anyone that bring up collusion as a serious concern is that none of us want our competitors signing a player for chump change. It's not like I'm going out of my way to work with the team(s) I'm trying to beat to help them get great deals. That doesn't make any sense at all.

I understand the concern, but in an online league where you are trying to make better teams than other human owners, I don't see it as a realistic concern.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by MrGreenGenes

Inone of us want our competitors signing a player for chump change

That is the whole point of collusion where everyone in the league agrees in keeping salaries down.
I'm sure no one in your league goes out of their way to work together on this but if you all agree not to pay a player their demand that is a form of collusion even if it's not meant that way. You all want to win but you all also keep salaries down because you feel they are to high, if they are is besides the point, where as in RL there are other factors like how the fans might react to know you missed out on signing someone overpriced if they might of helped you win but in reality there would be some team that gives in even if they know it's wrong.


Now to remembering an offer made, you make an offer of say 10 million for 2 years the player says i want 20 million then signs for 5 million down the road, That should be fixed or at least you should at least have the agent ask if you are still interested.
Otherwise if the player wants 20 million when everyone else makes 10 million then that's all he will listen to does happen though maybe not in this extreme but i'm sure there are players who think way to much of of their skills.

[rujasu]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

That is the whole point of collusion where everyone in the league agrees in keeping salaries down.
I'm sure no one in your league goes out of their way to work together on this but if you all agree not to pay a player their demand that is a form of collusion even if it's not meant that way.

Right, if there is agreement. If there is cooperation. None of that is happening, so there is no collusion. It's not even a case of "not going out of their way to work together" -- they are not making any agreement of any sort. And frankly, I'm baffled as to where people are getting the idea that there is any such agreement.

IRL, collusion happens primarily when owners hold back their resources to line their own pockets. That's not happening here. There are no pockets to line. The only priority is winning. Therefore, if no team is making a big enough offer, it's because no team finds the player to be worth that. There's no other possible explanation here. If you're a GM in a sim league, you have no incentive to save fake money for other GM's. "Collusion" doesn't make any sense, since helping other owners does nothing but hurt you. It would mean cheating in such a way that you could not possibly gain from.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by rujasu

Therefore, if no team is making a big enough offer, it's because no team finds the player to be worth that.

Then you are more rational than real-world team owners. Your real-life counterparts have no problem throwing lots of money at any player or players they really want to get.

It's also not (in real life) just a question of what the player is worth in terms of salary versus statistical performance - it's also a question of how much revenue the team thinks will be generated for the club by that player. You may think based on statistical performance that a player is only worth $5 million per year, but if that player adds $10 million in revenue to your club due to increased ticket sales, more merchandise sold, etc., then paying him $8 million per year in salary is a net plus since the club is still earning an extra $2 million per season it wasn't earning before.

There's a whole branch of Sabermetrics that looks at the player's salary versus the revenue that player is estimated to have earned the club due to his contributions to the team. (Search for articles on the 'marginal revenue product' of baseball players; there's a section in the book Baseball and Billions that covers the topic, for example.)

I have no idea if OOTP actually examines that aspect when it comes to the salaries of players. I would assume not, but maybe it does.

[olivertheorem]

I would say it only models it insofar as signing a popular player increases fan interest, which increases ticket sales and merchandising revenue (I think).

I don't think it's taken into consideration for either signings or releases.

[Isryion]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Then you are more rational than real-world team owners. Your real-life counterparts have no problem throwing lots of money at any player or players they really want to get.

I've found this whole discussion interesting, I think your quote is part of the issue here with the league discussed. I'm assuming they've got certain salaries set in their head but those salaries are based off of what they see in real life. However, their league finances have moved very far away from that. In the MLB, it's rare for a team to go well below its previous payroll -- justified or not, they'd hear about it from the fans, especially if they were losing (one of the big complaints in my home town is that the Twins did just that and people are upset it may be happening more next year).

In this league, it looks they have several teams that have a ton of salary space, and as the engine is designed to emulate real life, it's making for odd FA negotiations. It's as if their owners are saying, "You have this much money to spend," and the GMs are saying, "We don't need it." If an MLB GM took this strategy I think two things might happen. 1) The owner would keep the extra money and would eventually stop offering it, especially if the team was winning or 2) if they are losing the GM would be sacked.

It seems to have led to the opposite culture that I see in most leagues where FA tend to be in high demand and most players demands go up and not down. However, interestingly, this may have also led them to having found the issue where GMs get locked out if they make an early offer and the player later lowers his demands.

All that said, I think that there are plenty of leagues out there that that would prefer the method they are looking for , essentially ignoring the overall league financial situation in FA(and certainly looking to get rid of the oddities or bugs they see!). However, like I mentioned earlier, I could see this create problems with how extensions work. I'm very much hoping that some information comes from the dev team on this because I find it curious and am sure they put more time into thinking about this than anyone else.

[rujasu]

Originally Posted by Isryion

I've found this whole discussion interesting, I think your quote is part of the issue here with the league discussed. I'm assuming they've got certain salaries set in their head but those salaries are based off of what they see in real life.

I think this is a flawed assumption, though. Rather, the league is basing their expected salaries on other players they already have. IME, you can sign a player to an extension for far less money than he would ask for if he went to free agency. Since it's so easy to sign someone to an extension, free agents aren't such a high priority, and only the very best in the pool are going to be highly coveted.