What do teams have against free agent position players?

[grmagne]

If the players begin with lower demands and then let supply/demand and bidding wars kick in then they'd be more likely to get a fair market value, I think.


For Bill Dick in the original example, if he's asking for $40m/year then likely only a few teams can afford to sign him. And once those teams start picking up a few lower-dollar free agents they might not have enough budget leftover to sign him and eventually he's forced to settle for a garbage contact.


Maybe the player should start out asking for $20m/year and let a few teams get into a protracted bidding war for him. I find players can gain millions per year when multiple teams want them badly enough.

[Doc_Brown]

Originally Posted by grmagne

If the players begin with lower demands and then let supply/demand and bidding wars kick in then they'd be more likely to get a fair market value, I think.


For Bill Dick in the original example, if he's asking for $40m/year then likely only a few teams can afford to sign him. And once those teams start picking up a few lower-dollar free agents they might not have enough budget leftover to sign him and eventually he's forced to settle for a garbage contact.


Maybe the player should start out asking for $20m/year and let a few teams get into a protracted bidding war for him. I find players can gain millions per year when multiple teams want them badly enough.

This.^

If the 'super star' contract is say $20m/year, shouldn't the guy start out wanting that per year and then hopefully he gets a few teams interested in signing him and he ends up signing for $30m/year for several years instead of these silly pillow contracts super stars sign for in game.

[Matt Arnold]

Once things calm down more, I definitely plan to take another look through how we handle FA contracts, to make sure that the top players get paid properly.

[Habsfan18]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Once things calm down more, I definitely plan to take another look through how we handle FA contracts, to make sure that the top players get paid properly.

Good to hear. It's not game breaking, but it's definitely frustrating seeing this happen every off-season.

Thanks Matt.

[VARoadstter]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Once things calm down more, I definitely plan to take another look through how we handle FA contracts, to make sure that the top players get paid properly.

Knowing that this is something that gets ongoing analysis is heartening. Free Agency itself has evolved significantly IRL. Subtle changes to rules can have significant impacts that can be hard to predict. This is a classic example of the devs being out front looking at possibilities and the community responding with fair (if occasionally hyperbolic) criticisms. The devs do as good a job in processing this feedback as any other game out there.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by VARoadstter

Knowing that this is something that gets ongoing analysis is heartening. Free Agency itself has evolved significantly IRL. Subtle changes to rules can have significant impacts that can be hard to predict. This is a classic example of the devs being out front looking at possibilities and the community responding with fair (if occasionally hyperbolic) criticisms. The devs do as good a job in processing this feedback as any other game out there.

There's also a million different league configs. It might work fine in most of them, but even a couple small changes in options can cause someone's individual league to work in a completely different way. Stuff like this is always being worked on to make it better and more realistic.

[GoBucsGo]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There's also a million different league configs. It might work fine in most of them, but even a couple small changes in options can cause someone's individual league to work in a completely different way. Stuff like this is always being worked on to make it better and more realistic.

Just to chime in here. I NEVER change financial settings when I start a new game, specifically a standard MLB game.

Like others have said, these guys are asking for way more than most teams can afford, and by time their asking price goes down, it's for a measly one year deal.

I'm seeing star players play for different teams 5 years in a row sometimes.

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[NoOne]

i'm afraid to look into this, myself... ignorance is bliss, lol. i've seen a few good players bounce around before, but they still get paid well in my league from what i've seen.

seriously: check if any market sizes have gotten 16,17,18+ type... i'm fairly certain the initial demands are based on budget sizes in the league. say, if you made your team a "20", this might exacerbate the problem of large initial demands.

if you figure out what drives FA demands in the game, you can likely affect the change you want to see. ie lower initial demands. whether or not those options are palatable is another discussion.

[Habsfan18]

I may put my game on hold until this is adjusted. Here are 4 stars that were affected by this in the same off-season. Wolf, Prieto and Dunn are considered top 10 position players in the MLB. These players were each requesting around the 40 million per season range.

All 4 signed 1 year deals because of their initial demands. Prieto wasn't signed until April 29th, and Wolf not until some time in May!

[Habsfan18]

This seems to really only affect the STAR position players. The ones that initially request too much money. Other good but not great position players are signed no problem.

My workaround for the time being may be to go into the editor and give them extensions using fair market value, this of course assuming they have the available extension funds.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Not sure if it only affect star players but of course they stick out but I do however see lower tier guys who should be signing to a team end up going unsigned for the year. Not even a indy league deal for them.


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[CMH]

Count me in as someone that would like to see more bidding wars versus starting off with a ceiling.

It does seem that players are programmed to ask for their ceiling worth versus building up to it.

I know agents are likely to tell real world teams their client is worth ceiling worth but I think it's safe to assume that teams bid lower and build toward that figure.

Also, it's probably realistic for major free agents to spend more time in free agency. IRL it seems to work that way. I think many of us are okay with this but the issue is the star players aren't signing in February. They are doing the Ian Desmond thing and signing in March.

And the Ian Desmond talent should have that problem in a league. I'm okay if a above average talent sits in free agency. But a star player should be desired by every team even if most realize they don't have any chance at some point.

Also another thing causing issue is teams can make offers to star players that are below ceiling value and those players, instead of engaging in the teams further, immediately get enraged and remove them from consideration.

This should probably be handled differently. Why don't we get messages from free agent players? Maybe the player can respond to an offer with something like, "Thanks for your interest but a few other teams are offering more money."

And, this is the key part, that player should keep your offer in reserve somehow so when those dominoes fall, and those interested teams turn elsewhere, the player can send you a message and say, "we should discuss your deal again."

This would allow teams to reenter the bidding for a free agent instead of being locked out. Because what happens often is a team that never entered the fray can suddenly jump in with a $10 mm deal and sign the player. In reality, several teams should be able to enter those new negotiations and drive the price up.

Many free agents are pricing out competition too soon. And then doubling up by blocking potential bidders when demands drop.

['94 EXPOS]

A previous short term fix I have used in the past was for my team to go and make a lowball or 'reasonable' offer early in FA....you get told to go pound salt but then it seemed to adjust the market closer to acceptable for what that specific player was asking for either in $ or term.

[Habsfan18]

First day of free-agency. Right away, I know that Almonte and Hufstedler won't sign until March or April, and they will be 1 year deals for low salary. As you can see, teams appear to only have initial interest in pitchers. No position players. Some of them will end up signing, but the big money deals go to the pitchers, and the star position players get the crap deals. Teams initially only want to talk to pitchers. Once the pitchers are signed (many big money deals for long-term commitments) the teams will focus on the position players that have reasonable demands. For the most part they will sign decent deals, but the stars will sign 1 year deals for crap salaries every single time.

[Lukey_Pooky25]

Jason Heyward in my Cubs franchise recently showed a demand for nearly 70 Million Dollars a year in the free agency period. Simply ridiculous.

[pgjocki]

What did he end up with?

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[MrWideFrame]

Heyward is asking for that much annually because you initially offered him close to $70 million for one year.

[Pirates]

There are some problems I believe in the free agency market in this game:
Start Year 2000
1. Too many players asking for $30,000,000 to $45,000,000 per year.
2. Too many players signing long term contract for $25,000,000 to $38,000,000 per year.

When the above events take place all the teams are now strapped for cash. When this happens, the following example occurs with numerous players every year.
Example: Albert Pujols 26 years old is a free agent.
1. He is seeking a $38,000,000 per year contract.
2. By April 1 the Start of the new season he is down to a 1 year $8,000,000.
3. Yet he still is not signed because no-one has any money left to sign him.

Setup:
Historical League
Defaults for everything left alone.
International ametures activated
Random Rookies from all eras

Please don't respond with the number of players in today's game getting $25,000,000. It is no where near the amount, as the number of players making that and much more in this game.

I believe the Pricing structure may need to be tweaked when it comes to free agency.

[NYYANKS98]

So what I'm getting is that in the new OOTP every free agent is Stephen Drewing themselves?

[Habsfan18]

It was an issue last year as well from what I remember, just on a much smaller level. This year, it's essentially happening with every star position player free agent.