Is this an exploit

[Sven Draconian]

Before the season I locked up a few of my soon to be arbitration eligible players up for 3-4 seasons. At the time they all had service time just over 2 seasons with arbitration eligible set at 3 seasons. Modern era financial figures.

Among the deals:
2B Phil Matthews. He's a 50 overall/55 potential
4 years for 16 million total.
His WAR by season:
1.1 (39 games)
4.8
5.2
2.8 (with 20 some games to go)

Closer Lee Wilson. 80/80
4 years/ 11 million total
0.9
2.0
2.3

Matt Howard. 47/64
5 year/ 18 million total
He would only be a Super Two guy if anything. He'll be just shy of 3 years.
5.7
3.7
(And a few partial seasons)

All of these guys have arbitration estimates at roughly double what they are scheduled to make next season. Does the AI just not handle pre-arbitration eligible contract extensions well? If this is a known exploit I'll go into commish mode and bump up their salaries.

Obviously these deals represent a tremendous value to me if their production stays.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Sven Draconian

Before the season I locked up a few of my soon to be arbitration eligible players up for 3-4 seasons. At the time they all had service time just over 2 seasons with arbitration eligible set at 3 seasons. Modern era financial figures.

Among the deals:
2B Phil Matthews. He's a 50 overall/55 potential
4 years for 16 million total.
His WAR by season:
1.1 (39 games)
4.8
5.2
2.8 (with 20 some games to go)

Closer Lee Wilson. 80/80
4 years/ 11 million total
0.9
2.0
2.3

Matt Howard. 47/64
5 year/ 18 million total
He would only be a Super Two guy if anything. He'll be just shy of 3 years.
5.7
3.7
(And a few partial seasons)

All of these guys have arbitration estimates at roughly double what they are scheduled to make next season. Does the AI just not handle pre-arbitration eligible contract extensions well? If this is a known exploit I'll go into commish mode and bump up their salaries.

Obviously these deals represent a tremendous value to me if their production stays.

This is what real life teams do right now. My current opinion is that OOTP does not make certain players more amenable to 3-4-5 year extensions that buy out arbitration years. You obviously got 3 where I struggle to find 1 each year.

[Sven Draconian]

Originally Posted by RchW

This is what real life teams do right now. My current opinion is that OOTP does not make certain players more amenable to 3-4-5 year extensions that buy out arbitration years. You obviously got 3 where I struggle to find 1 each year.

I actually got 5. I have 2 others (SPs), but their contracts are more in line with what they are worth.

It seems like I might have gotten too big of a discount (because they are both defensive specialists, maybe the game isn't calculating their defensive value enough in their contract demands). Just wondering if anybody else noticed the same. If not, I guess I just got a little lucky.

[dawg_gone]

Well, with the caveat that I'm not playing in the current era, I have to say no. What you're doing is overpaying the players now, and you're taking on the risk of a bust later. A player may be having sensational year right now and looks cheap but two years down the road he may only be blocking a better prospect and you can't trade him. What you're doing is taking a calculated risk. I don't see that as gaming the game. Not in the big picture, not over the long run.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by dawg_gone

Well, with the caveat that I'm not playing in the current era, I have to say no. What you're doing is overpaying the players now, and you're taking on the risk of a bust later. A player may be having sensational year right now and looks cheap but two years down the road he may only be blocking a better prospect and you can't trade him. What you're doing is taking a calculated risk. I don't see that as gaming the game. Not in the big picture, not over the long run.

I am playing in the current era, but I agree. It's not an exploit, it's a strategy to manage risk. To avoid the certainty of increasing arb year salaries in the event that the players continue to perform, you take the risk of the player tanking (performance or healthy) with you being committed to them for years beyond the end of their arb years, while the player mitigates injury risk with the certainty of known financial security for years to come.

It's quite common in the real world MLB game now (and is key to the roster construction of the Rays, for one), and I've found that OOTP does a solid job of varying the level of discount that any given player is willing to offer for such an extension. I wait until the arb estimate for arb year 1 is known, then generally offer the extension at or year the arb 1 salary rate. Some players will take that for a long period of time, others for a shorter period of time, and others won't settle for less than some compromise between their expected arb2 and arb3 year salaries, assuming linear growth. It is exactly how I would expect such players to behave, and the numbers vary nicely between potential targets.