Negotiating with Draft Picks / The "Impossible" Rating

[rylinus]

One of the parts of the game that seems most unrealistic is what happens when you draft an "impossible" player. We all know that despite the "impossible" name tag, enough money will sign the player. But for reasons that seems very unlikely in real life, in OOTP the player will give you a base demand but claim he wants more than the demand. Then, even if you exceed the figure he gave you by millions of dollars, he will often cut off negotiations entirely, not even giving you a chance to counter-offer. These players have agents and they entered the draft with an eye on making some outrageous figure if they could get it. Why reject a good faith offer by slamming the door altogether? It doesn't make sense. These are not really negotiations at all.

For what it's worth, I do not recall a single actual negotiation over my last 20 or so seasons of drafts. The "impossible" player either takes or rejects the initial offer every single time. This also seems remarkably unrealistic to me and seems like an easy fix.

What would make more sense is if the player asks, for example, for 2 million dollars, you offer $4m and he says he won't sign for less than $5m (or $15m) and you have one more chance to get it right. That sounds like what Boras or any other agent would do assuming the kid is legitimately interested in going to college or is willing to take the risk.

In addition to being realistic, I think it would make the game more fun. When you see the "impossible" rating, you would know you may have to pay through the nose but you don't know how bad it will be. If you have a decent store of cash you can take a risk and see where negotiations go. You can reassess as the negotiations deepen, especially as you see what your other picks may have signed for. And maybe, to make this more interesting, you could have players that give you one last chance, terminate negotiations and then come back to you later asking to open them up again. I really like this feature in free agency and would work nicely here as well. In real life a player might let his agent tell him to hold out for a little while, but when he is looking at no $$ and going to school, he might ask him to open negotiations up again. Or, also like real negotiations, the player could reject an offer, ask for more, and as the window for negotiations is closing come back to the team and offer a new figure. We know in real life that many of these deals happen right at the signing deadline. Why not in OOTP?

Lastly, I would add that if we are going to call the rating "impossible" it should probably be just that. Maybe that kid only wants to play for his hometown team. I am assuming that in real life there are examples of this but I think it has to be a lot more rare in real life that very good professional baseball players turn down millions just to go to college. Instead, have a "extremely difficult" or "extremely unlikely", something that signals what the situation really is.

[Drstrangelove]

Maybe I'm reading the word "impossible" differently. I regard that as a scout's guidance, not a statement with the same meaning as the laws of physics. The scout is telling you that you should regard the draft pick as someone who might not ever be swayed to play. Period. That some players are scouted that way and eventually sign, doesn't prove anything except the scout was wrong this time, but it doesn't mean he's always wrong.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by Drstrangelove

Maybe I'm reading the word "impossible" differently. I regard that as a scout's guidance, not a statement with the same meaning as the laws of physics. The scout is telling you that you should regard the draft pick as someone who might not ever be swayed to play. Period. That some players are scouted that way and eventually sign, doesn't prove anything except the scout was wrong this time, but it doesn't mean he's always wrong.

I don't think "impossible" is scout specific. If it was then when you drafted you would find that some of those "impossible" players aren't really but players your scout didn't identify that way actually are. Since it doesn't seem to work that way, I'm going to conclude that "impossible" is a statement of fact and not something that every scout interprets differently. I have yet to see a scout be "wrong" about the impossible tag and I've run through hundreds of drafts.

[Drstrangelove]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I don't think "impossible" is scout specific. If it was then when you drafted you would find that some of those "impossible" players aren't really but players your scout didn't identify that way actually are.

But I've signed a high proportion of players labeled impossible by my scout.

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Since it doesn't seem to work that way, I'm going to conclude that "impossible" is a statement of fact and not something that every scout interprets differently.

I play with another person. And we found draft picks show different signability ratings according to something team or scout related. Someone impossible for me, might not be impossible for him. Logically, it's scout specific in the same way that different scouts rate speed, strength, range differently, but it could be team specific as well.

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I have yet to see a scout be "wrong" about the impossible tag and I've run through hundreds of drafts.

I've drafted a few hundred and seen him be wrong several times.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by Drstrangelove

Well, no. When I looked at it, my scout gets a different set of "signability remarks" than my nephew's scout. And those differ from the OSA scouts. It might not be due to the scout, and it might not be 100% based upon the players salary demands. (E.g., playing for a winning team might improve his preferences, while a loser might be lower. A big market team might be less desired than a small market team.) I didn't write the code, so I'm only suggesting the variables.

But it certainly differs from my team to his team to the computer owned teams.

Yes it differs by team but I bet if you changed scouts for a team, it wouldn't change.

[Juggernt]

Originally Posted by Drstrangelove

But I've signed a high proportion of players labeled impossible by my scout.

I play with another person. And we found draft picks show different signability ratings according to something team or scout related. Someone impossible for me, might not be impossible for him. Logically, it's scout specific in the same way that different scouts rate speed, strength, range differently, but it could be team specific as well.

I've drafted a few hundred and seen him be wrong several times.

Drstrangelove, what has been your strategy for signing draftees listed as impossible? Have you noticed anything in common between the ones who have eventually agreed to sign? And is several out of a few hundred worth the risk of drafting them in the first place?

[Drstrangelove]

What I found is that 1) there are two types of impossible players, and 2) a person that is impossible when viewed from one team, might not be so when viewed from another. That's spread over 15, 18, and 19, so I can't vouch that both are exactly true for each version.

As far as the first point, my experience has been that a player who is "impossible" that has a dollar amount for a demand can be signed if the correct offer is made. That amount for me has turned out to be 50-100% of the demand. This was only on a handful of picks, so it's certainly possible some players have much higher requirements.

Otoh, an impossible player with no dollar amount, seems as if he can't be signed. Whether it's working as intended or meant to be difficult to do, it seems easy to cause that type of pick to refuse all negotiations. I've also lost players like that. I think it's reasonable to suppose that the same player might have signed with another team, had I not drafted them.

[azepeda]

If a player's initial demand is 2800000 then I offer 2.7 times the amount, 7,800,000. That almost always gets them signed, about 95% of the time.

[Cactusguy21]

Going back to the OP though, the issue isn't necessarily the "impossible" name, it's that you can only offer them one thing. That seems wrong.

[Silfir]

Originally Posted by rylinus

These are not really negotiations at all.

I was always under the impression that was the entire point. These are guys who will attend one meeting - out of courtesy - but their decision is already made. You're not negotiating with them; you're throwing huge piles of money at their faces hoping they'll blink.


They have already picked out a college, are guaranteed a ride on a full baseball scholarship, they've signed the lease on the apartment, their highschool sweetheart is moving in too since they got accepted at the same place, and they've already adopted two dogs. Their names are Wuffles and Carl Barks and they're the best dogs in the entire world. Are you going to be the one to tell them that their daddy can't come live with them after all because he has to go to Nowheresville, Wyoming to play minor league ball?


Obviously as grown men in the baseball business we know that there's nothing a huge pile of money can't buy - including a prettier girlfriend and any number of better dogs - but these are 18-year-olds; you can't expect them to understand grown-up stuff just yet.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by Silfir

I was always under the impression that was the entire point. These are guys who will attend one meeting - out of courtesy - but their decision is already made. You're not negotiating with them; you're throwing huge piles of money at their faces hoping they'll blink.


They have already picked out a college, are guaranteed a ride on a full baseball scholarship, they've signed the lease on the apartment, their highschool sweetheart is moving in too since they got accepted at the same place, and they've already adopted two dogs. Their names are Wuffles and Carl Barks and they're the best dogs in the entire world. Are you going to be the one to tell them that their daddy can't come live with them after all because he has to go to Nowheresville, Wyoming to play minor league ball?


Obviously as grown men in the baseball business we know that there's nothing a huge pile of money can't buy - including a prettier girlfriend and any number of better dogs - but these are 18-year-olds; you can't expect them to understand grown-up stuff just yet.

Exactly, these group of guys have their mind set made on going to college whether its for baseball or other reasons (Basketball? Football? Becoming a doctor? Religion duty?) so not sure why would these group of guys would even hire a agent to negotiate on their behalf. One shot deal seems realistic.


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[Cactusguy21]

I feel like though that if you get close enough to what they want, they should allow you to renegotiate.

[Reggie]

I offer them 1 beverage and 1 dollar and tell them good luck. Haven't got time for shenanigans from someone who may never produce.

[Silfir]

Originally Posted by Cactusguy21

I feel like though that if you get close enough to what they want, they should allow you to renegotiate.

You can feel that way, but you have no sound argumentative basis for feeling that way. As far as I can tell everything is working exactly as intended. Even the fact that you only get one chance to sway an "Impossible" player from their resolve not to sign with you is announced upfront in the "Negotiate with Draftees" screen.

[jeffw3000]

Originally Posted by Silfir

I was always under the impression that was the entire point. These are guys who will attend one meeting - out of courtesy - but their decision is already made. You're not negotiating with them; you're throwing huge piles of money at their faces hoping they'll blink.


They have already picked out a college, are guaranteed a ride on a full baseball scholarship, they've signed the lease on the apartment, their highschool sweetheart is moving in too since they got accepted at the same place, and they've already adopted two dogs. Their names are Wuffles and Carl Barks and they're the best dogs in the entire world. Are you going to be the one to tell them that their daddy can't come live with them after all because he has to go to Nowheresville, Wyoming to play minor league ball?


Obviously as grown men in the baseball business we know that there's nothing a huge pile of money can't buy - including a prettier girlfriend and any number of better dogs - but these are 18-year-olds; you can't expect them to understand grown-up stuff just yet.

These 18-year-olds grow up fast when thrown a bunch of money as evidenced by Josh Bell for the Pirates.

He sent a letter to all teams not to draft him because he was going to college. His mother, a teacher, wanted him to go to definitely college first. He gets drafted in the second round, and the Pirates throw 5 million at him. The highest bonus ever for a player in the second round. He says the heck with mom and college, and signs on the dotted line.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by jeffw3000

These 18-year-olds grow up fast when thrown a bunch of money as evidenced by Josh Bell for the Pirates.

He sent a letter to all teams not to draft him because he was going to college. His mother, a teacher, wanted him to go to definitely college first. He gets drafted in the second round, and the Pirates throw 5 million at him. The highest bonus ever for a player in the second round. He says the heck with mom and college, and signs on the dotted line.

Was 5 million their first offer? If so that seems to be consistent with what we see in OOTP. If you can throw a lot of cash at them, they may reconsider.