How to be financially stable...?

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by battists

Rizon, what is the column labeled CR?

Current Rating. It's my formula I use*, based on ratings and such, to determine a player's value. So basically a number rating I assign a player.

I had to cut out the rest of the spreadsheet cause it's almost 2 feet wide.


* totally arbitrary values I assign to ratings. I've changed it about 600 times since v2, and I can't argue the value of them one way or the other.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Mr. Baseball

If you want to be evil, sign guys to no longer than three-year deals with a vesting option for the third year if they play 100 games. If you don't like their performance, bench them after they've played in 99 games and save the additional money on the third contract year.

It might seem like an obvious strategy, but a lot of people don't take advantage of vesting years like they should. You should at least try and include them in virtually every initial offer. They're extremely helpful IMO.

If this happened just once in real life, the commissioner would get involved and the player's association would file a grievance.....if you made a habit of it, you'd soon find that no players would ever sign your fake contracts......

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Orcin

A couple of general suggestions:

Don't become emotionally attached to your older players. It's hard, but you will need to keep dumping them to replace them with cost-controlled players.

Use the time between the end of the season and free agency to dump salary, before offers are out that tie up the other team's available budget.

Don't spend a lot of money on your bullpen. You don't need a $10M closer to win. Look for young hard-throwers that are cost-controlled, and trade them when they get ready to demand the big bucks.

This is why I hate the current MLB financial model.....I WANT to get attached to my players and let the old guys stick around.....When you play to maximize your economic power, then THAT is the game and the baseball and the players become secondary......who's that playing left this year?....does it matter?....he's just a contract that is outperforming his value and the minute that is no longer true, there will be someone different playing......not the way I like to see baseball......back in the days before free agency, the teams were really teams and not just a collection of interchangeable parts....the rivalries of the teams is what made the game so awesome....the Reds really hated the Dodgers in the 70s and the Giants REALLY hated the Dodgers.....now the teams are all indiffernt to one another 'cause opponents today are teammates tommorrow and teammates are just some guys that I see at the ballpark.....don't really get to know them, 'cause after the game I got to manage my millions and I have meetings scheduled......

sorry for the rant......I usually do play with financials, however, but I try to keep the teams together as much as possible.....

[Matt Arnold]

1. Cheap bullpen. Probably should sit around 10-12M total on it as a maximum if you're challenging in the post-season. Otherwise it should be barely over the minimum.

2. Take advantage of signing guys to a long term deal. I've signed a guy like Bundy, right before his first arbitration award, for something like a 5 year deal at 5-6m per year. Yes, I might be overpaying in year 1 compared to his arbitration estimate, but odds are he will be much more expensive later. Find 2-3 top quality starters and do that, and I've had the best starting rotation in the league signed for under 20M total.

The other thing with this is to scan your most important players for extensions a few times a year. Starting even in the year before their contract is up, then again in the offseason before their last year, then every month or 2. You will occasionally find that sweet spot time when they will accept a deal for under market value. Don't always wait until the end of the season - sometimes it works out, but especially if they're having a big season, it can cost you 5M more to sign them in October than if you gave them a deal in May.

3. Play the rule 5/waiver wire/after start of season signings game. You can often find a quality reliever, or a good backup outfielder, in rule 5 or waiver wire. Grab a few guys from there, and they'll often give you good value. Same thing with signing guys after the season starts. I've found a solid #4 starter asking for a 1 year deal at 1.5M or so. Give him 2 years, and you now have a cheap asset. Play him out the first year, and then either deal him in the off-season, or keep him as a cheap vet the next year. It works wonders!

4. As said above, don't get too attached to players. It sucks to let your vet who's been on the team walk away, but if he wants 25M per year and you have a prospect who can bring the same value, let him walk. That being said, watch him closely - I've seen a guy ask for 25M in November, but he signs day 2 of the season for 5M. At that price, it can be worth bringing him back. Heck, or even letting someone else sign him, and then deal for him straightaway.

5. Deal off bad contracts for less bad contracts. I've had guys get hurt and lose nearly all their value. 3 years and 15M left per year on the deal, and they're a borderline AAA player? Trade them for someone else's head case who has 1 year and 18M left on their deal. Maybe you lose a few mill in year one, but that savings can go a long way down the road.


Between that, it's usually not hard to play and compete and stay within your budget. Every now and then you get that crunch, where you hate to let a player go but he doesn't fit in your budget. And at that point, you just have to deal with it. I find I trade and dump players more for fit on the team (L/R balance, for example) than for money following the above moves.

[Ts-Rock]

Originally Posted by Questdog

When you play to maximize your economic power, then THAT is the game and the baseball and the players become secondary

well said! I get to caught up in trying to playing the economic side of the game and then once you win that I get "bored" and realize I'm not attached to my dominant team at all and end up quitting and starting over.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by UWHabs

1. Cheap bullpen. Probably should sit around 10-12M total on it as a maximum if you're challenging in the post-season. Otherwise it should be barely over the minimum.

2. Take advantage of signing guys to a long term deal. I've signed a guy like Bundy, right before his first arbitration award, for something like a 5 year deal at 5-6m per year. Yes, I might be overpaying in year 1 compared to his arbitration estimate, but odds are he will be much more expensive later. Find 2-3 top quality starters and do that, and I've had the best starting rotation in the league signed for under 20M total.

The other thing with this is to scan your most important players for extensions a few times a year. Starting even in the year before their contract is up, then again in the offseason before their last year, then every month or 2. You will occasionally find that sweet spot time when they will accept a deal for under market value. Don't always wait until the end of the season - sometimes it works out, but especially if they're having a big season, it can cost you 5M more to sign them in October than if you gave them a deal in May.

3. Play the rule 5/waiver wire/after start of season signings game. You can often find a quality reliever, or a good backup outfielder, in rule 5 or waiver wire. Grab a few guys from there, and they'll often give you good value. Same thing with signing guys after the season starts. I've found a solid #4 starter asking for a 1 year deal at 1.5M or so. Give him 2 years, and you now have a cheap asset. Play him out the first year, and then either deal him in the off-season, or keep him as a cheap vet the next year. It works wonders!

4. As said above, don't get too attached to players. It sucks to let your vet who's been on the team walk away, but if he wants 25M per year and you have a prospect who can bring the same value, let him walk. That being said, watch him closely - I've seen a guy ask for 25M in November, but he signs day 2 of the season for 5M. At that price, it can be worth bringing him back. Heck, or even letting someone else sign him, and then deal for him straightaway.

5. Deal off bad contracts for less bad contracts. I've had guys get hurt and lose nearly all their value. 3 years and 15M left per year on the deal, and they're a borderline AAA player? Trade them for someone else's head case who has 1 year and 18M left on their deal. Maybe you lose a few mill in year one, but that savings can go a long way down the road.


Between that, it's usually not hard to play and compete and stay within your budget. Every now and then you get that crunch, where you hate to let a player go but he doesn't fit in your budget. And at that point, you just have to deal with it. I find I trade and dump players more for fit on the team (L/R balance, for example) than for money following the above moves.

Most of this would not fly in real baseball, because the people you are dealing with/against have the same knowledge......if you want to play against the AI and make it a reasonably accurate simulation of building a real MLB team, you HAVE to set yourself some house rules.....and turning off the waiver wire is one of the first things that you need to do....the AI lets WAY too many good players fall into the waivers abyss.....this is not realistic, this is just a stupid computer AI doing stupid things...

of course, if you WANT to game the system and spend your effort in maximizing your results via exploitations of the computers shortcomings rather than just enjoying becoming attached to players and watching their careers unfold, then by all means have at it.....but you should really consider playing in an online league where your fellow owners are also trying to game the system and then it will be an interesting contest (in theory, anyway......I lost interest in this mode of play when I could not find a league where other owners were competing as hard as I was)......

sorry for another rant, but, in short, if you want to win games in OOTP by outsmarting the computer in the financial wars, it is not at all challenging......

[Nunyer]

Originally Posted by Questdog

This is why I hate the current MLB financial model.....I WANT to get attached to my players and let the old guys stick around.....When you play to maximize your economic power, then THAT is the game and the baseball and the players become secondary......who's that playing left this year?....does it matter?....he's just a contract that is outperforming his value and the minute that is no longer true, there will be someone different playing......not the way I like to see baseball......back in the days before free agency, the teams were really teams and not just a collection of interchangeable parts....the rivalries of the teams is what made the game so awesome....the Reds really hated the Dodgers in the 70s and the Giants REALLY hated the Dodgers.....now the teams are all indiffernt to one another 'cause opponents today are teammates tommorrow and teammates are just some guys that I see at the ballpark.....don't really get to know them, 'cause after the game I got to manage my millions and I have meetings scheduled......

sorry for the rant......I usually do play with financials, however, but I try to keep the teams together as much as possible.....

I don't see ye olden days being radically different. Nobody kept teams together to bask in the warm and fuzzies. If somebody didn't perform, they were gone. If somebody did perform, they didn't have the right to go anywhere else... But they could be sold if the owner needed money... or traded if they tried to hold out... Ask Indians fans how well the team was held together once Colavito asked for a raise... and thank God that Boston finally won a WS, otherwise we'd still be hearing about the worst financially motivated trade of all time. If anything, free agency forces as many players to stay put as it encourages player movement. For every young player that Kansas City can't afford to re-sign, there will be an Angel or Yankee that nobody else would touch with a 10 foot pole due to the contract.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Nunyer

I don't see ye olden days being radically different. Nobody kept teams together to bask in the warm and fuzzies. If somebody didn't perform, they were gone. If somebody did perform, they didn't have the right to go anywhere else... But they could be sold if the owner needed money... or traded if they tried to hold out... Ask Indians fans how well the team was held together once Colavito asked for a raise... and thank God that Boston finally won a WS, otherwise we'd still be hearing about the worst financially motivated trade of all time. If anything, free agency forces as many players to stay put as it encourages player movement. For every young player that Kansas City can't afford to re-sign, there will be an Angel or Yankee that nobody else would touch with a 10 foot pole due to the contract.

Not even close.....

Getting rid of a player because someone beat him out of his job is the way athletic struggles are SUPPOSED to happen......I'm not advocating keeping Pete Rose around until he's 46 and hitting .240 with no power just because you think he's a sweet guy......by all means, I don't play guys when I think someone better is on the team....I AM trying to win ballgames.....

But if you think that free agency encourages as much stabilty as instability in player movement, and think that it's really just a wash, you are in some kind of delusional world.....and those players that remain on the payroll of the Yankees when they are sucking, a lot of time aren't even playing.......I bet there are years when they pay as much to guys who aren't playing as to guys who are.....

Take the poor teams: KC in the 1970's and 80's vs now.....you think there is any question that the Royals had more stability in their roster back then than now?......you think they would be able to retain George Brett for his whole career in today's market?.......even though free agency officially came in 1976, it wasn't until the 1990's that players were priced out of some markets....before that, payrolls were a small enough piece out of the revenue pie that anyone could sign anybody.....sometimes they refused to spend as much as another team, but they could have, if they wanted....once the $10 million contracts started hitting the books, then some teams were priced out of the competition.....

Take the rich teams: Yankees, before free agency (1960's and before) and now.......are there more career Yankees from those days or is their huge payroll and overpaying of players making more career Yankees nowadays?.......if that answer is not obvious to you, then look it up.....

So where is this idea of yours showing itself?......

As for financial motivations for trades in the past (and player sales), the fact that they happened was because the owner of the teams that did this were greedy SOBs, not because they were forced to by the system.....The Red Sox in the late teens and early 20's sold a lot more than Ruth to the Yankees.....and the A's in the 50's acted as if they were the Yankees minor league team......but though that is/was bad, it was a decision of the owner and not a necessity of the system.....

[Nunyer]

I wouldn't say it's a wash... and now that I re-read my post... I probably didn't word it quite correctly. Obviously superstar players can price themselves out of certain markets. But again, that has always happened to a degree. When you had 16 teams in the MLB, the small market teams were always feeders for the rich. You can dismiss all those owners as 'greedy', that's fine... but it was their necessity at the time. To maximize profit. It was the system, no different then today. "Player X might be worth more to the Yankees then he is to me... so I better sell high." Today, the shoe has been moved to the player's foot once he reaches free agency status... but it's still the same system... assets usually get maximized.

Proportionally speaking, I don't think the haves and have-nots are that much more out of whack when they were in the reserve clause days... where decades would pass with over a quarter of the league never being remotely competitive despite the ability to hold their guys forever.

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by Questdog

This is why I hate the current MLB financial model.....I WANT to get attached to my players and let the old guys stick around.....

Because of the way most teams are now actively trying to lock up young talent for the long haul before they get a sniff of free agency, I wonder if we'll see a return to basically that, albeit in a roundabout away.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Nunyer

I wouldn't say it's a wash... and now that I re-read my post... I probably didn't word it quite correctly. Obviously superstar players can price themselves out of certain markets. But again, that has always happened to a degree. When you had 16 teams in the MLB, the small market teams were always feeders for the rich. You can dismiss all those owners as 'greedy', that's fine... but it was their necessity at the time. To maximize profit. It was the system, no different then today. "Player X might be worth more to the Yankees then he is to me... so I better sell high." Today, the shoe has been moved to the player's foot once he reaches free agency status... but it's still the same system... assets usually get maximized.

Proportionally speaking, I don't think the haves and have-nots are that much more out of whack when they were in the reserve clause days... where decades would pass with over a quarter of the league never being remotely competitive despite the ability to hold their guys forever.

It's not a question of parity.....parity is boring.....it's a question of fans feeling invested in their teams and (more importantly) vice versa........and you cannot argue that small market teams had the same problems 100 years ago, because there weren't any small market teams.....

But anyways, this has nothing to do with the OP......my point is that if you want to play high stakes poker with OOTP, you either have to set up some house rules to overcome the system's limitations, or learn to enjoy 120 win seasons with high roster turn over.....after a while winning loses its joy, when you realize there isn't really any chance of losing......and then you are left with a long team history populated with players and teams that you can't remember......

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

Because of the way most teams are now actively trying to lock up young talent for the long haul before they get a sniff of free agency, I wonder if we'll see a return to basically that, albeit in a roundabout away.

I have always suspected that the small market teams have more opportunities to build good teams than they let on......

As a Red's fan, I am glad that they have signed a lot of their core young players to long-term deals.....but I am also afraid that it's gonna come back to bite them in the rumpus.....50 years ago, you could count on having players for as long as you wanted them, however, if you didn't want them anymore, you could cut them......now, if the Reds decide that one of these players has turned into a liability, they are just stuck.....

[nyy26wc]

Originally Posted by Questdog

sorry for the rant......I usually do play with financials, however, but I try to keep the teams together as much as possible.....

Me too.

Intellectually, I know I shouldn't fall in love with my players. But, I do it. I can't help it. I can bring an older player's contract down from what he's making now, but I know I'm still overpaying for him. I know I shouldn't do it, but I do it so many times.

[battists]

Threadjackers!!

*shakes fist*

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by battists

Threadjackers!!

*shakes fist*

While you were gone, threadjackers took over the forum.

[battists]

Well, woot! Not about the threadjackers, but I got the aforementioned SS to sign a 5-year deal for 65 million.

[Nunyer]

Wow... that's quite the steal there... Unless you made the final season a team option at $55m... then you are soulless exploiting scum!!!

And hey... most message boards would be a little less interesting if the occasional threadjacking didn't take things in unexpected directions. That said, I won't thread jack anymore. Go be fiscally responsible and win some games!

[battists]

Yeah, I managed to nab him, plus two starting pitchers for in the neighborhood of 5 mil per year, plus a starting right fielder. So, apart from the one guy who I was hoping would play first base who WAY over-values himself, I thought I did pretty well...

[PSUColonel]

I hate to say it, but I don' think it's all that complicated (I wish it were more challenging) Just keep an eye of players current and future salaries, and dont's spend over what's designated for Free Agents (not that you really can) or contract extensions. If you have a guy making 16 mil, the is in the last year of his deal, and you know you aren't going to sign him, well it's obvious you will have cash on hand...but then again, I play as the Phillies, so finances probably aren't as big a deal to my team.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

Because of the way most teams are now actively trying to lock up young talent for the long haul before they get a sniff of free agency, I wonder if we'll see a return to basically that, albeit in a roundabout away.

I think that's a strategy coming from the use of advanced stats that make it obvious that if you are going to overpay (and you will overpay) for talent better to do it in the player's 20's vs his 30's.