AI using insider knowledge of FA

[le receveur]

Originally Posted by RchW

I don't look for who is new. Sorting by overall ratings and/or filtering by position work for me.

Outside the winter FA period through ST, 95% of FA in-season are non-entities. The 5% that may be entities are relatively easy to spot.

YMMV

i would generally agree for the major roster, except those that can be reassigned (SS currently used as MR, MR that can be stretched out)... but i still have not found a decent filter to identify help for minors except going through one by one.

[hefalumps]

Well, I'm sure some of these players stay FAs long enough for humans to sign them, but not the ones I've seen.

In the example I gave originally, I had a player who had been signed to a minor league contract with major league option - so after 30 days if I didn't call him up, he'd be a free agent. I had been watching him closely, because while I didn't want to bring him up, I was hoping I'd get a chance to resign him to a straight minor league contract when he left (although I knew chances were slim).

I had my team transactions screen up when I advanced a day, and I saw that the player was no longer in my minor league system. So I immediately checked the FA board. Nope, he wasn't there. So I searched for the player's last name. Lo and behold, he was now sitting on someone else's minor league team. Checking the transactions log for both majors AND minors, he became a FA and was signed by the other minor league team on the same day - before I had a chance to take any kind of action.

Again, this is only happening with fringe minor league scrubs - none of these players will probably amount to much and are only depth, which is why I never thought to bring it up until the OP brought it up. But it's still happening.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by le receveur

i would generally agree for the major roster, except those that can be reassigned (SS currently used as MR, MR that can be stretched out)... but i still have not found a decent filter to identify help for minors except going through one by one.

I think we just have different ways of playing the game. I don't see help for the minors as anything that needs more detail in a search for what is likely non developing talent.

That's what makes this game great.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by hefalumps

Well, I'm sure some of these players stay FAs long enough for humans to sign them, but not the ones I've seen.

In the example I gave originally, I had a player who had been signed to a minor league contract with major league option - so after 30 days if I didn't call him up, he'd be a free agent. I had been watching him closely, because while I didn't want to bring him up, I was hoping I'd get a chance to resign him to a straight minor league contract when he left (although I knew chances were slim).

I had my team transactions screen up when I advanced a day, and I saw that the player was no longer in my minor league system. So I immediately checked the FA board. Nope, he wasn't there. So I searched for the player's last name. Lo and behold, he was now sitting on someone else's minor league team. Checking the transactions log for both majors AND minors, he became a FA and was signed by the other minor league team on the same day - before I had a chance to take any kind of action.

Again, this is only happening with fringe minor league scrubs - none of these players will probably amount to much and are only depth, which is why I never thought to bring it up until the OP brought it up. But it's still happening.

Okay, now you've caught my attention. I didn't think this was a big deal before, because I was assuming this was only happening AI-to-AI. And if that was the case, I would say, who cares? It's a depth minor leaguer that's a dime a dozen; why is it so important to have a shot at every single free agent in the league?

But if this is happening player-to-AI, now we've got an issue. Not having a chance to at least talk with and try to re-sign a player in your own system - that's not good, no matter how weak the player might be.

[endgame]

I'll make sure the item gets logged for review or comment, and return post here should there be any reaction. By the way, while there does exist a timeline for the signing of scout-found free agents- think it's 14 days -to be signed by the discovering team, I am not aware of any hard and fast "rule" as mentioned in an earlier post about the human controlled team having to wait two days for any released player to FA. If that's true and can be demonstrated, I'd be curious to know.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

Okay, now you've caught my attention. I didn't think this was a big deal before, because I was assuming this was only happening AI-to-AI. And if that was the case, I would say, who cares? It's a depth minor leaguer that's a dime a dozen; why is it so important to have a shot at every single free agent in the league?

But if this is happening player-to-AI, now we've got an issue. Not having a chance to at least talk with and try to re-sign a player in your own system - that's not good, no matter how weak the player might be.

Except that there is realism based on the fact that the player was not promoted after 30 days. Essentially hefalumps team released him. If I'm that player there is no way I sign a regular minor league contract with the same team after that. Once bitten twice shy.

I'd like to know if that is by design. Now I think it may be. If it is then I support it staying in the game. Any other application is an exploit for the human player as the game algorithm will present a minor league contract with a 30 day option as a better deal than a base contract. The human can then hoard players on a revolving series of essentially bogus contracts.

In any fuzzy area the game should give the benefit to the AI. This appears to be such a case.

[hefalumps]

Originally Posted by RchW

Except that there is realism based on the fact that the player was not promoted after 30 days. Essentially hefalumps team released him. If I'm that player there is no way I sign a regular minor league contract with the same team after that. Once bitten twice shy.

I agree that, in this player particular's scenario, it wouldn't have made sense for him to resign a minor league contract with me, even if I had a chance to offer him one after his 30-day one expired. I'm sure he'd rather sign a minor league contract with another team where he might have a better shot of reaching the majors (which he did very shortly after he signed with the new team). But the fact remains that I still never got a chance to offer him a deal and have him respond "I have no interest...".

Here's a better example from my transaction logs. There were two other players from other teams who were on the same "major league option" contract who became free agents on the same day as my guy. I never saw those guys on the FA board either. All three players signed minor league contracts with the same minor league organization before I had a chance to offer a contract to any of them.

Thanks endgame for putting this on the list of issues of things to look into. I still think basically the easiest way to prevent this from happening is to put some kind of limitation in the game that keeps a player from being released and signed on the same day. Otherwise, if the player is fringe and desperate just to have a job, he'll probably sign the first offer he gets, which could easily be from an AI team as part of that same day's transaction processing. Actually, another solution might be for all player releases to happen AFTER all other transactions for that given day. That way, no AI teams could make an offer to the released player until the following day, ensuring that every released player will be on the FA board for at least one day.