Reserve clause era/Full financials problem

[Mike45]

Posted this in the general discussions but realized it might belong here...

Am doing a historical league. Started the league in 1921 and my plan was to have full financials and a league draft every year. I like the history of baseball, so all league settings, expansions, financial and statistical co-efficients are set to do it normally as per the game. The one thing I do like to do differently is to have Free Agency on from inception. See how the game/world/players perform if they were always able to change teams when contracts were up, etc. I also like to pick a team and "run" then for 10 years, so dual role of commish and GM/manager. Never changing any settings, and only play 1-2 games a month, mostly it's just making roster changes, picking the draft, setting lineups/rotations, etc and then simming a few weeks at a time. Peeking in on both the league and my team.

So anyway, I set up my league and all the options and rules. 1921 is over and no free agents were available after the season. Figured this was due to being the inception of the league, no ones contract was up etc.

1922 came and went, and in looking at team financials-salaries and upcoming FA, I started wondering why no one on my team had a contract longer than the current year and why again, in the off-season, no FAs were available.

1923 has begun, up to pre-season. I take a glance at my options and rules and low and behold, Enable Reserve clause era is checked. When I created the league, I am sure I checked full financials, but I guess in importing the league settings/financials it unchecks and goes to reserve clause? Either that or maybe I accidently checked it disabling the full financials. So I make the adjustment and then go to my team to start setting our roster for the upcoming season.

Check the financials, and every one of my players who isn't either Arb eligible or Auto resign contract is going to be a FA this upcoming season. I check the league upcoming FAs and same for every team. Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Pete Alexander, every player from superstar award winner to 1* MR who pitches 1 inning a season.

So I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can help me with.

A) Am I screwed here? Is this off-season going to be anarchy with every major star being a FA and bidding wars ensuing? Or will the teams be smart and re-sign their own stars before the off-season?
B) The one caveat of my screw up is that every team has hundreds of thousands of dollars in budget room (since they weren't spending any money the first 3 seasons). So depending on the answer to question A, I could conceivably take control of every team and resign all their stars now in the pre-season and "pretend" this is the start of the league with players becoming FAs a little at a time each season, as was originally intended, instead of the entire league becoming FAs at once.
C) am I going to run into this problem annually with the Reserve clause era getting re-checked every new season when it imports? Will I have to recheck full financials. And if so, will this continue to happen? (i.e. reserve clause nullifys the extentions, and checking full financials makes everyone a FA again).

Please help. I'm early enough in that I can restart if this will be a continuing problem.

[sprague]

Hi Mike

Short reply. I have never had this problem, if I put free agency on in year on it stays, even with the update finance box checked.

I would start a new test game and try again and see if the same thing happens. I havde a suggestion if it does, but try a new test to see

good luck

[Mike45]

Originally Posted by sprague

Hi Mike

Short reply. I have never had this problem, if I put free agency on in year on it stays, even with the update finance box checked.

I would start a new test game and try again and see if the same thing happens. I havde a suggestion if it does, but try a new test to see

good luck

Thanks Sprague, will try duplicating this and running a test. Any ideas on what will happen with 2/3 of my league all be FAs at year end? I guess that is the easiest issue to fix. Could wait til Sept 1st and if the majority of players didn't get resigned, go in an manually resign the stars with their current teams (or atleast most of them).

[sprague]

I know your problem now. Should have seen it earlier.

simple fix. When you switch over to a free agency game, after you uncheck the reserve clause box, you then have to click (functions button below I think) or maybe below all finances- remake player conacts (cuz until you do that they will still have the old reserve clause 1 yr deals) then click on remake team finacials to get the right team figures
I would then recommend you edit a few teams you think should be higher markets then the game gave them from this "salary remake"


If that does not work or
If you want to start a new game then,

When you start the new game, in the wizard before you go to deep click on advanced settings

In there you will have almost all the same screen as you have for game setup. Look around so you can check the things you want or don't want, say player pics, scouting, spring training rct

Here for you the key is financials. Go there and click off the reserve clause box and have everything as you want it. When you start the game the contracts will come in as if the free agency rules apply.

PS if you do that, don't forget to name your game so you dont get a game labelled"new game" or something

Hope that helps

[Mike45]

Originally Posted by sprague

I know your problem now. Should have seen it earlier.

simple fix. When you switch over to a free agency game, after you uncheck the reserve clause box, you then have to click (functions button below I think) or maybe below all finances- remake player conacts (cuz until you do that they will still have the old reserve clause 1 yr deals) then click on remake team finacials to get the right team figures
I would then recommend you edit a few teams you think should be higher markets then the game gave them from this "salary remake"

Perfect, this is what I was hoping for. So players contracts vary in the 1 yr deals, long term deals, etc. Thank you!

[Mike45]

Originally Posted by sprague

I know your problem now. Should have seen it earlier.

simple fix. When you switch over to a free agency game, after you uncheck the reserve clause box, you then have to click (functions button below I think) or maybe below all finances- remake player conacts (cuz until you do that they will still have the old reserve clause 1 yr deals) then click on remake team finacials to get the right team figures
I would then recommend you edit a few teams you think should be higher markets then the game gave them from this "salary remake"


If that does not work or
If you want to start a new game then,

When you start the new game, in the wizard before you go to deep click on advanced settings

In there you will have almost all the same screen as you have for game setup. Look around so you can check the things you want or don't want, say player pics, scouting, spring training rct

Here for you the key is financials. Go there and click off the reserve clause box and have everything as you want it. When you start the game the contracts will come in as if the free agency rules apply.

PS if you do that, don't forget to name your game so you dont get a game labelled"new game" or something

Hope that helps

Just a quick update. I backed up my league and then ran the remake player contracts. Stuff got a little wacky (ie 35 year old players with 8 years remaining on their contracts. Some teams with $300k budget room while others were pretty much out of money. So I scrapped that idea.

I was going to start over, but I decided to go the other route and force re-sign players on teams. Since every team had between 250k-400k of budget room, no one was going to be at risk of being broke given the contact amounts of the early 1920's.

I used the real life 1923 MLB standings as a starting group, and placed a 1-17 for 1st place team, 1-15 for 2nd place team, 1-13 for 3rd place team, etc. as a min/max for a random generated number.

Got a number for every team, for example, the NY Yankees were a random number between 1-17 as they finished first in the AL in 1923. They got a 5.

Went to their team, and picked 5 players who were their biggest producers over the 1st 2 seasons of my league, regardless of age or ratings. Acting as GM, I resigned those 5 players, meeting their demands, with the exception of no one getting a deal that would pay them over the age of 39. So, for example, if a 35 year old's request was for a 6 year deal at 10k per year, I game them an offer of a 4 year deal at 15k per. Same total dollar amount, just taking them until they were 39 as opposed to 41. Every player resigned.

Some teams got randomized numbers of 1-2. Some as high as double digits. So some teams have quite a few upcoming FAs this offseason (with some superstars included), and some have no upcoming FAs with all their players locked up.

Not the ideal way of doing it, but it was better than restarting in my mind and losing 2 years of history, including Walter Johnson's 23-1 1921 season and Rogersy Hornsby winning the triple crown both years, going for a 3peat this season. And with all the randomized numbers, and various lengths of contracts, end result was a good feel of varity in upcoming FAs/resigned players and contract lengths.

Thanks again for the advice and help Sprague.