Free Agent signing strangeness

[JeffWard]

Free Agent signing strangeness
Dear All,

Thanks for the help on the fluctuating roster size problem. But here's another one.

As the Cubs I've been playing the "going after the free agents no one else wants game." So far so good, we've won 2 straight World Series.

So, I went after Jonathan Sanchez who would be out out a long time with Tommy John surgery. I offer him a 3 year contract at $7, $8 and $9 million. He like the offer, but takes some time to think about it.

Meanwhile the Rockies offer him a little less that $5 million a year for five years and he takes that offer!

First issue, in older OOTP versions you'd get an email from the player saying they got a better offer. That didn't happen in this case.

Second, he may have signed for more years, but less money than I offered. And he would have been playing for the world champions.

Why didn't the game give me an opportunity to counter bid, and, though it happens in real life (Kerry Wood) why would he take less money?

Thanks!

Jeff

[edm]

Yeah I am also seeing this on a regular bases. I made a post about it here.

Hopefully its something that will be looked at for the next patch.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by JeffWard

Thanks for the help on the fluctuating roster size problem. But here's another one.

I assume you're talking about here: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/ootp-12-general-discussions/213147-why-am-i-stuck-24-man-roster.html

So, given the thanks, does that mean it's not a problem any longer? You never returned to the thread to answer the questions there.

[silentrob]

This has been vexing me as well. I can understand why players don't always take the offer with the most cash, that does happen here and there. But to not even have a chance to counteroffer just doesn't seem right.

[cblacker]

Well, the Rockies did offer him $1 million more total, so the player actually is taking the most cash. But it does seem that you should get a chance to counteroffer. Or I guess it was maybe about the same in total cash, since you said "a little less" than 5 million per year for the Rockies offer?

[ODB72]

This is a major problem for me as well. I am just going to back to 11 after seeing the following problems:

1) Players not waiting for a counter-offer.
2) Players taking significantly less. In the most recent case we sent a 3 year 27.0/yr offer and the next day the guy signed for 3 yr 20.0/yr. It's like his agent just didn't give **** about next offer.

[edm]

I'm surprised there isn't more complaining about this issue. It really kills the fun of free agency. I just made 3 offers and all 3 signed else where without allowing me to even make a counter offer.

Shouldn't this be listed as a bug?

[silentrob]

Related to this issue and also hurting free agency is that many of the best players are the first to sign, often within the first couple weeks of free agency. Perhaps this is because the AI is coded to offer on the best players first rather than the lesser ones, but logically you'd think they'd wait at least a little while so teams have a chance to bid each other up a bit.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by edm

I'm surprised there isn't more complaining about this issue. It pretty much kill the fun of free agency. I just made 3 offers and all 3 signed else where without allowing me to even make a counter offer.

Shouldn't this be listed as a bug?

I'm not sure that this is quite as unrealistic, or as much of a killjoy as it appears to be at first. I had this happen to me in my first offseason of my "I kind of know what I am doing now" modern MLB league. Playing as the Red Sox, I let Papelbon leave for the picks after the 2011 season, and decided to replace him with Broxton. I offered Broxton a 5-year deal at 10.5-10.5-11.5-11.5-12.5, and he said it met his needs so I could submit it. He sat on it for a few days, then signed with Arizona for a 1-year, 10.5M deal. I was not given the opportunity to counter-offer.

In a way, though, this makes sense. If Broxton felt that, while my 5-year deal was "good enough", that he could do better after another excellent season in Arizona, he might be better off playing for the same 10.5M 2012 salary, then hitting the open market again in a year, instead of in 5 years. I can see a real player making that same decision - neutral salary, and trading future certainty for more salary upside.

It would certainly be desirable for the player to always give me the chance to counter-offer, but does that really always happen in real life? I'm honestly not sure. If it does, or at least most of the time, then I agree that it's unfortunate that players do not allow the human player to counter-offer the deal that they ultimately end up accepting. Either way, a player taking a lesser deal somewhere else, for whatever reason, strikes me as reasonable. It happens in real life, so it should happen in the game at times as well.

[ODB72]

First, your comparing apples to oranges in terms of the contract. It's essentially same $ but different years, in which case a player may have a valid reason to have a preference of one over the other.

Yet still, what player or agent is going to leave money on the table? Why wouldn't that player say I prefer 1 year @10.5 to your escalating 5 year, do you want to counter with something similar to my preference? That is what NEGOTIATING is!

In my example above, how is it rational to accept 3 yr @20.0 and ignore 3 yr @ 27.0? I also agree with the poster that the best players are accepting much too quickly, whereas, they should be dragging out the process to bid up their prices.

Finally, I've been playing this game since 2003 and have been very conservative about moving to each new version, waiting until patches have come out and the community consensus is that it is stable. I have always been satisfied with the latest version when I did switch and had never reverted back to a prior version until now. Frankly, I'm surprised that nobody else notices this FA wierdness or is alarmed by it.

[dcd111]

Originally Posted by silentrob

Related to this issue and also hurting free agency is that many of the best players are the first to sign, often within the first couple weeks of free agency. Perhaps this is because the AI is coded to offer on the best players first rather than the lesser ones, but logically you'd think they'd wait at least a little while so teams have a chance to bid each other up a bit.

This is one of the more disappointing changes in OOTP12, I think. The suspense of not knowing well into January or even February whether you'll have that superstar on the roster was a fun aspect of previous versions, even if it could drive you to fits when they took another offer at the last minute and left you hanging. It added to the challenge of deciding where to invest your free agent dollars. It was also more realistic than everybody worth signing being gobbled up by the end of November.

I suspect the elimination of bidding wars is a consequence of the developer's attempted solution to ever-increasing superstar free agent salaries that were leading to financial problems in some leagues in previous versions, especially ones with static financial settings. Rather than asking the AI to handle the multiple counter-offers of a bidding war while still maintaining financial balance, maybe it was necessary to cut short the bidding wars.

[rudoggy]

I too have noticed the bug of not informing you of their better offer in hand. That said, so complete the bug, if you go to your pending offers, it will tell you they have received better, but when you try to offer them more, it says you already have a contract submitted, so you can do nothing about it.

Has this been logged yet?

[ink625]

I can verify this problem as well.

I recently took over the worst team in my league and I'm in the process of trying to build them into a contender. I had plenty enough money in my first offseason to sign anyone I wanted. I thought maybe this was going to be too easy and made several very good offers to some of the better free agents. All 4 players signed with other teams without giving me the opportunity to counter-offer. I thought I would just have to make better offers next season. I would let some of my young players develop and see what I had in the veterans on my team.

So in the next offseason I offer the 3 top SP free agents exactly what they demanded, and again they all signed with other teams without the chance for a counter-offer. Now don't get me wrong, I don't plan on just throwing a bunch of money at the best players in the game in order to build a contender. However, it will be pretty hard to turn a team around without being able to sign a decent free agent during the offseason.

[PSUColonel]

Version 11 was very good in this department I thought

[silentrob]

Just wondering if anyone has any further information here. Has anyone submitted a ticket, or learned whether or not the final game update will look at this?

[conception]

Originally Posted by silentrob

Related to this issue and also hurting free agency is that many of the best players are the first to sign, often within the first couple weeks of free agency. Perhaps this is because the AI is coded to offer on the best players first rather than the lesser ones, but logically you'd think they'd wait at least a little while so teams have a chance to bid each other up a bit.

I really think it actually makes a lot of sense for stars to sign first.

[dougmichel]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Version 11 was very good in this department I thought

I agree 100%. I have not yet finished a season in this version and am frightful reading some of the threads on FA in 12. Hopefully this gets ironed out before I finish my season (i play them all out).

[silentrob]

Originally Posted by conception

I really think it actually makes a lot of sense for stars to sign first.

Does it make sense for a star to sign 2 or 3 weeks in free agency without even considering counter offers from teams that have shown interest in him? That is the issue most people in this thread seem to be concerned about. Pretty sure that most real life free agents will not sign with new teams by the middle of November this year.

This is not to say it isn't a good idea to try and sign the prestigious guys to contracts first, only that it takes much longer than a couple weeks.

[mouse001]

Maybe he reallllllly wanted to play for the Rockies. Not making excuses but players have different motivations than just plain "who's offering me the most money." And in that case waiting for a counter offer doesn't make much sense.

[Ktulu]

I'm not saying the process is perfect or can't be improved, but... people are always complaining that the game is too easy. Now it's too hard because they can't sign all the free agents they want. Can't have it both ways. Players signing for other reasons than 'top dollar' is a welcome addition IMO.

As for the timing aspect, this is also how it works in real life. Most players sign early and don't wait till Jan-Feb.