1 Year Max Contracts

jlech1805 · 01-20-2016, 10:38 AM

I seem to always have the advantage relative to the AI on the financial side even with small budget teams. One way I thought of increasing the challenge was limiting free agent contracts to 1 year. Now injuries or decline in performance won't kill the AI controlled budgets.

Has anyone tried this?

In terms of consequences to the league:

1) Veterans might be under-rated as there is basically no long term financial risk in acquisition. - Might be even more true for pitching.
2) The FA pool will eventually be very large. I would guess there will be tons of pre-season bargains.
3) With a higher percentage of the talent pool available to teams not only will there be more player movement, but more balance in the league. Teams could more easily buy their way into relevance.

Any Others?

Orcin · 01-20-2016, 12:40 PM

I tried a 3-year limit with good success. I would be concerned about the AI's ability to plan a good roster if it had to re-tool and/or re-negotiate every spot every year.

jlech1805 · 01-20-2016, 02:59 PM

Thanks for the reply.

Just to be clear players will still have to go through arbitration so each and every spot won't be open, but still i get your point. I'll play through this version to see if anything weird happens, but I am liking the 3 year limit as well.

Orcin · 01-20-2016, 03:06 PM

Many players will be automatically renewed too, so it might not be as big a deal as I think.

NoOne · 01-20-2016, 03:45 PM

that's a sound idea.

even if you don't do 1 year... a little trial and error of variations and it seems like it could definitely help the AI in that regard, or at least minimize mistakes.

how would you evaluate? # of bad contracts you see in the top 20/50/100 players? how can you compare to normal setting to see the differences it caused and to what extent etc...

i've found with a cash limit, i don't get a ton bad contracts, though. i do see a few in the top-20/25 salaries on the financial report page. i kinda like repercussions for poor financial decisions, though. more lifelike from my perspective. i still would like to know about results if you test any of this out.

jlech1805 · 01-21-2016, 11:23 AM

Good point on how would you measure the effectiveness of this.

My guess is you would measure it on number of unique teams who made the playoffs over a certain time frame.

There was an article a month or so back about the impact of a bad contract on a team. Imagine a player is getting paid $20M a year and is under-performing as a 2 Win player. If WAR is ~7M on the open market the team is really on losing $6M in value or less than 1 win over the course of a season. Even during a 5 year contract that is not a significant loss. So maybe I am over thinking the impact of large contracts, but still will be an interesting test.

NoOne · 01-21-2016, 12:00 PM

not at all... unless you have the yankees-type budget, just 1 bad contract can hamstring you for its duration.

i wouldn't base it on playoff success or making it... that adds luck into the equation.

get a baseline figure of how many "bad" contracts you see with default settings as a rate. you'll need multiple years to get a solid idea of the %.

start from the same backup and make changes to contract lenghts. sim out until no one has a longer contract. start getting rate of bad contracts per year and average it out just as above.

as i think about it more, you might see greater spread between the haves and havenots. every year they get to pick through the most expensive players and those organizations that cannot enter the bidding war will never get the better players (or very rarely).

i guess keeping club control for the first 6years, or whatever, is still going to help them a bit, but free agents will be more common and deeper every year. that is something that does not help the poorer teams as much as the richer teams.

01-20-2016, 10:38 AM	#1
jlech1805 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 51	1 Year Max Contracts I seem to always have the advantage relative to the AI on the financial side even with small budget teams. One way I thought of increasing the challenge was limiting free agent contracts to 1 year. Now injuries or decline in performance won't kill the AI controlled budgets. Has anyone tried this? In terms of consequences to the league: 1) Veterans might be under-rated as there is basically no long term financial risk in acquisition. - Might be even more true for pitching. 2) The FA pool will eventually be very large. I would guess there will be tons of pre-season bargains. 3) With a higher percentage of the talent pool available to teams not only will there be more player movement, but more balance in the league. Teams could more easily buy their way into relevance. Any Others?

01-20-2016, 12:40 PM	#2
Orcin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 9,798	I tried a 3-year limit with good success. I would be concerned about the AI's ability to plan a good roster if it had to re-tool and/or re-negotiate every spot every year.

01-20-2016, 02:59 PM	#3
jlech1805 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 51	Thanks for the reply. Just to be clear players will still have to go through arbitration so each and every spot won't be open, but still i get your point. I'll play through this version to see if anything weird happens, but I am liking the 3 year limit as well.

01-20-2016, 03:06 PM	#4
Orcin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 9,798	Many players will be automatically renewed too, so it might not be as big a deal as I think.

01-20-2016, 03:45 PM	#5
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,167	that's a sound idea. even if you don't do 1 year... a little trial and error of variations and it seems like it could definitely help the AI in that regard, or at least minimize mistakes. how would you evaluate? # of bad contracts you see in the top 20/50/100 players? how can you compare to normal setting to see the differences it caused and to what extent etc... i've found with a cash limit, i don't get a ton bad contracts, though. i do see a few in the top-20/25 salaries on the financial report page. i kinda like repercussions for poor financial decisions, though. more lifelike from my perspective. i still would like to know about results if you test any of this out.

01-21-2016, 11:23 AM	#6
jlech1805 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 51	Good point on how would you measure the effectiveness of this. My guess is you would measure it on number of unique teams who made the playoffs over a certain time frame. There was an article a month or so back about the impact of a bad contract on a team. Imagine a player is getting paid $20M a year and is under-performing as a 2 Win player. If WAR is ~7M on the open market the team is really on losing $6M in value or less than 1 win over the course of a season. Even during a 5 year contract that is not a significant loss. So maybe I am over thinking the impact of large contracts, but still will be an interesting test.

01-21-2016, 12:00 PM	#7
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,167	not at all... unless you have the yankees-type budget, just 1 bad contract can hamstring you for its duration. i wouldn't base it on playoff success or making it... that adds luck into the equation. get a baseline figure of how many "bad" contracts you see with default settings as a rate. you'll need multiple years to get a solid idea of the %. start from the same backup and make changes to contract lenghts. sim out until no one has a longer contract. start getting rate of bad contracts per year and average it out just as above. as i think about it more, you might see greater spread between the haves and havenots. every year they get to pick through the most expensive players and those organizations that cannot enter the bidding war will never get the better players (or very rarely). i guess keeping club control for the first 6years, or whatever, is still going to help them a bit, but free agents will be more common and deeper every year. that is something that does not help the poorer teams as much as the richer teams.