Team Options - Let's Hire Some Smarter Agents

Buane · 09-19-2013, 03:02 PM

Over the last couple seasons in my online league, we've seen a growing prevalence in the use of Team Options. Specifically, in the use of very large Team Options at the end of players' contracts that they have no intention of honoring. For a while it was believed to just be one of those harmless things that people were doing without knowing whether it was having an effect. It didn't cost them anything, so why not close out a contract offer with a really big Option season that you knew you'd just be able to turn down when you got to it?

Well, lately the unrest in the league has gotten a bit louder, so I finally got around to doing some testing on what kind of effect the Team Options could be having.

I created a test league, simmed a few years, and jumped into free agency with a few teams to see how things would shake out.

First we'll start with Melvin Bly, a 39-year-old infielder who's demanding 3 years and $8 million per:

Here are the offers I made him:
Dallas: 3 years - $8M, $8M, $8M
Detroit: 3 years - $8M, $8M, $12M (T)
San Antonio: 3 years - $8M, $15M (T), $15M (T)

And of course, the offer he decided to favor was San Antonio's offer of $8M guaranteed, over offers of $16M and $24M guaranteed respectively.

As you can see, he also adjusts his demands for future negotiations based on the non-guaranteed money he was offered, so now bidders have absolutely no clue what to pay him. I make the following offer:

Dallas: 3 years - $9M, $9M, $9M

Which he surprisingly accepts! So despite listing his demands as much higher (to match the option money that his previous contract contained), he was willing to accept much, much less. Of course, $24M guaranteed was not enough to beat out $8M guaranteed + $30M not guaranteed, but $27M guaranteed is? Seems random to me.

You can see his demands have normalized again, based on the $27M guaranteed contract he current favors.

So next I made him the following offer:

Detroit: 3 years - $9M, $15M (T), $15M (T)

...and he told me it was an insulting offer. So why the heck did he favor that kind of offer the first time? Come on Melvin, work with me here, you're confusing the nice bidders.

Melvin was just a warm-up though, to give you all an idea what I was trying to show here. Now we'll turn your attention to another player to test with: 27-year-old star outfielder Luis Galindo who wants 7 years and $23 million per year.

I make the following initial offers:

Dallas: 5 years - $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M
Detroit: 7 years - $18M, $18M, $18M, $18M, $18M, $35M (T), $35M (T)
San Antonio: 5 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $50M (T), $50M (T)

And he favored San Antonio's offer. Choosing $75M guaranteed + $100M non-guaranteed over offers of $92M guaranteed + $70M non-guaranteed, or $115M guaranteed. Mr. Galindo has a very naive perspective as well, it appears.

Here are his new demands, to boot:

With demands like that, how the heck would a team have any idea what to bid at this point? Since I know what the leading offer is, and since I remember how negotiations with Melvin went, I try to make the original Dallas offer again:

Dallas: 5 years - $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M

He turns me down. I try to up it a little bit:

Dallas: 5 years - $24M, $24M, $24M, $24M, $24M

And now he favors Dallas! So let me get this straight, Luis, $115M guaranteed wasn't enough to sway you, but $120M guaranteed is just peachy?

Alright, but I want to try to structure the same kind of deal he initial favored now:

San Antonio: 5 years - $26M, $26M, $26M, $52M (T), $52M (T)

And now he's back to favoring San Antonio! So $120M guaranteed was better than $75M + $100M (T), but NOT better than $78M + $104M (T)?

Just for fun, I try the following:

Detroit: 5 years - $26M, $26M, $26M, $75M (T), $75M (T)

Which he of course now favors. More fake money! I hope for this guy's sake he never gets an email from a Nigerian Prince.

At this point I remember he was initially asking for a 7-year deal. So I figure I can sway him by trying to get back to his more realistic original demands and give him a few more years:

San Antonio: 6 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M

He doesn't want to discuss it. I try a seventh year?

San Antonio: 7 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M

Which he also doesn't want to discuss! At this point he's turning down $175 guaranteed million in favor of $75 million guaranteed and $150 in fantasy bucks.

However, I get an idea and I cut the offer back a bit:

San Antonio: 5 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M

And he loves me again. I'm entirely lost at this point. $175 guaranteed over 7 years (the length that he was originally asking for!) wasn't good enough, but $135 guaranteed over 5 years is?

Ok, I guess maybe he changed his mind and didn't want to be locked up so long, but how hard is it to follow along with this guy's thoughts? At this point he started out asking for 7 years at $23M per, and is now more eager to jump at 5x27 than he is 7x25? How are human bidders supposed to follow along and not get anything but frustrated?

I'm starting to notice a rough pattern though. I try again to entice him with a team option deal:

Detroit: 5 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $60M (T), $60M (T)

He doesn't like this offer, as I expected. But what if...

Detroit: 5 years - $29M, $27M, $27M, $60M (T), $60M (T)

So what I've noticed is that the longterm value of the contract doesn't appear like it's carrying any weight until the guaranteed portion of the contract is even or nearly even. So I bump up the initial season by just $2M and...

...he is back on board once again! So basically he's now chosen 29/27/27/?/? over 27/27/27/27/27 which is yet another new level of poor financial planning. Let's try to get a little more unorthodox:

San Antonio: 5 years - $35M, $20M, $20M, $50M (T), $50M (T)

I really hope he doesn't accept this deal. I actually decreased the overall guaranteed value of the contract from $83M to $75M, and lopped off $20M from the fantasy team options to boot. But I increased the upfront money a good deal...is that enough to sway him?

Thankfully no. I try the same thing again but increasing the option years back to $60M, but still no dice. Ok, one more try:

San Antonio: 3 years - $31M, $31M, $31M

But he still won't accept. He doesn't seem to understand those team options are just fantasy money, since at this point he is chosing to favor $83 guaranteed over three seasons (plus two fake options) instead of this offer which is $93 guaranteed over three seasons (plus no fake options).

Time to go back to some demands I made previously. Dallas decides to jump in and give him the 7 years he was looking for originally.

Dallas: 7 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M

Which now he decides to favor. ...

So let me summarize what just happened:

When he favored: 5 years - $26M, $26M, $26M, $75M (T), $75M (T)
He turned down: 7 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M (increase of 124% in guaranteed money)

When he favored: 5 years - $29M, $27M, $27M, $60M (T), $60M (T)
He ACCEPTED: 7 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M (increase of 128% in guaranteed money)

More randomness. How would you feel to be one of the other bidders in this when Galindo signs and you're left to wonder what the heck was wrong with your offer?

Anyway, I'll try to kick in some more non-guaranteed money and see if that sways his decision again like it seemingly did the first time.

Detroit: 5 years - $30M, $30M, $30M, $75M (T), $75M (T)

And he turns it down. He seems firmly ensconced in his 7-year deal now he has one. So let's turn some of those 7 years into fake years again and...

Detroit: 7 years - $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $50M (T), $50M (T)

...and he accepts. This is a decrease in guaranteed money by 30%, so I can safely conclude by now that both Mr. Galindo and Mr. Galindo's agent just never passed basic math classes and have been winging it all these years.

One thing seems clear so far though, I can't make too large a jump down from guaranteed years. To get a player to back off of 7 guaranteed years, I need to give him 5 guaranteed years + two options years. To go from 5 guaranteed, I had to do 3 guaranteed + two options. However, every time I do that, he seems very hesitant to go back UP in years, despite originally wanting a nice long contract when we started.

And let's please keep in mind that every time you go to negotiate with the player, it is impossible to tell how much money the last guy guaranteed him:

Anyway, one final thing to test, I made the following offer:

Dallas: 7 years - $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $40M (T), $40M (T)

However THIS time, on those team options I added a buyout of $10M each year. So in effect, this contract was for the same number of years, same annual pay during years 1-5, but instead of a guaranteed $0M + potential $100M in years 6 & 7 it was for a guaranteed $20M or potential $80M in years 6 & 7.

He rejected this offer.

Ok, that was a lot of testing and took me a few hours to run through. If you're still reading, here are My Conclusions:

#1: The "buyout" function is already built into the game. During negotiations, in my opinion, Team Options MUST look at the buyout value only. Team Option for $25 Million with a buyout of $0? This should be treated as basically worthless. What player would agree to this in the real world? It's a fantasy. Team Option for $25 Million with a buyout of $10 Million? Well, that's $10 million that's guaranteed and player should treat it as such.

#2: The player needs to stop reporting his demands to the next team that comes along with the team option money built in. This is just downright confusing and WRONG, and makes the whole practice of teams using Team Options seem more underhanded than it actually is.

#3: The way player demands for contract length works seems a little wonky. Once I was able to get a contract in his favor that was for a shorter length, he didn't seem to care about his original contract length and even actively rejected offers that went that long. This also seems needlessly complicated - if a guy wants a 7-year contract, that seems to me to be a desire that should persist throughout negotiations. Sure, the best offer he gets might be a 5-year deal, but he shouldn't be turning down equally good or better 7-year deals because suddenly he thinks they're too long or something.

A couple things that I already realize:

A lot of the above examples are a bit extreme. They probably wouldn't play out this way in a real league. But there are plenty of examples that have occurred in the league I run, and they don't have to be extreme in order to be a problem. If non-guaranteed Team Options are being weighed by the AI incorrectly, then it stands to reason even a Team Option that's reasonable is still skewing things.

We could just enact a new rule barring Team Options or mandating a 50% minimum for buyouts. I plan to do something like this anyway, but after putting this much time into researching the issue I wanted to share it for everyone and bring the numbers to Markus's attention as well.

Randomness in Free Agent demands is good and realistic. To a point. I'd argue this is well beyond the point of common sense. It's unrealistic AI behavior at best, and an exploitable loophole in online leagues at worst.

subtle · 09-19-2013, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buane;3574769

[B

Randomness in Free Agent demands is good and realistic[/B]. To a point. I'd argue this is well beyond the point of common sense. It's unrealistic AI behavior at best, and an exploitable loophole in online leagues at worst.

If they want to make normal games more fun and challenging then this is something that certainly should be addressed.

PSUColonel · 09-19-2013, 04:25 PM

I believe you AI evaluation percentages can play a role in contract demands. What are you using BTW?

hefalumps · 09-19-2013, 04:29 PM

Excellent research! I know Markus is always tweaking the contract negotiation AI but based on what you've shown it does appear to still need some work, especially in the area of evaluating those team options.

Matt Arnold · 09-19-2013, 05:39 PM

The simplest model I'd like to see for FA demands is have them look at their stats/ratings/age, and figure out what they will likely be in a few years, to determine what they might expect. If they think that they will be worth less than the team option at that time, then they should treat that as automatically declined.

Obviously it's complicated, but I think a system like this would solve a lot of these insane team options. To all players, a 3 year/30M deal should look exactly the same to them as a 3 year/30M deal with a 60M option in year 4.

RchW · 09-19-2013, 06:34 PM

Very nice piece of work. The entire options feature is a giant exploit. I used AB to guarantee not having to pay a pitcher a large option year salary. I should be embarrassed for doing it but... ... ...

Winnipeg59 · 09-19-2013, 07:21 PM

There are several similarly themed threads to this one (I wrote one myself not long ago dealing with this and a few other things), but love the detail and pictures.

This should be looked at from the agent perspective.

Not to cloud this argument (in fact it is noted in the thread), but the other thing that I find unrealistic is the lack of a buyout on any of these team options. If you're offering an obscene amount ($50mil+, $100mil+, etc) and can void the contract with $0 penalty, that's absurd. If I had an agent I would be asking why the penalty isn't %50 and then we can chat with the team again (and yes, I have been told the percentage is consistently lower IRL, but you get the point). And I would completely shut-down negotiations with obvious huckster management

!

Solo or Online would benefit big-time from some tightening (and also some varying personalities/options/counter-offers) in this area. In my opinion only of course.

The Wolf · 09-19-2013, 07:46 PM

Markus, can we get this fixed in 15?

sterjs · 09-20-2013, 03:37 AM

A simple fix is that you simply cannot offer backloaded option years. The option years can be no higher than the last guaranteed year of the contract. Even with this rule, the AI needs work to evaluate option years. And of course all the other option year exploits should be removed.

Another huge problem with AI contract negotiations is the way that arbitration buyouts are handled. When a player is in the second year of major league service, you can nearly always resign him to either a 10 year deal w/ 2 team option years and low salaries or in some cases you are limited to a 4-year max deal with low salaries. Even 5* players will sign themselves into indentured servitude for the remainder of their careers.

estyles · 09-23-2013, 04:17 PM

I was giving into temptation and trying to pickup Kershaw as a free-agent using this method last night. And he eventually rejected my "best" offer and signed with another team. I thought maybe there had been a stealth fix to this issue (I didn't think OOTP downloaded updates automatically, but hey, maybe...). Then I looked at the offer he accepted and saw that it was better than mine in all the "real" years, and had a $75 million team option on the end of it.

So apparently the AI is just better at this than I am.

hluraven · 09-23-2013, 04:33 PM

I was in an online league that had problems with this, but now has good rules in place to stop it. It's just one of those little issues that you can choose to exploit or not in solo, but online needs the rules from the start or it will eventually descend into farce.

HerbD · 09-23-2013, 06:38 PM

It would be nice to be able to toggle the ability to offer option years. It is difficult to monitor an entire online league and every contract offer.

TPinrose · 09-23-2013, 08:17 PM

It would be nice if this were fixed.

stevew · 09-25-2013, 11:29 PM

somewhat easy fixes would be to either have the ability to either eliminate options altogether for the league, or to set a minimum guarantee percentage. it's kind of a pain to try to enforce this league wide.

Also, I may be wrong but it certainly appeared to me at some point that declining multiple team options which each contained buyouts would result in only one of the amounts being paid, but not both.

Nunyer · 09-26-2013, 10:51 AM

As stated by the OP, I think the easiest solution is for the AI to ignore or very lightly weigh the non-guaranteed chunk of a team option. I've fallen into this exploit quite a bit starting back in v12... My quick and dirty negotiation process was to simply turn his requested final year player option into a team option. It wasn't until a 4-5 seasons down the road when I realized that probably three out of every four team options I was declining and that I was reaping too much of the benefit.

I still use team options in my solo league, but only for veteran hole filler signings late in the offseason... and then only one 1 year contracts with a 1 year option with identical salaries. I figure if nobody else is giving them any contract love, I can weasel an extra season out of them if they perform well.

Matt Arnold · 09-26-2013, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunyer

As stated by the OP, I think the easiest solution is for the AI to ignore or very lightly weigh the non-guaranteed chunk of a team option. I've fallen into this exploit quite a bit starting back in v12... My quick and dirty negotiation process was to simply turn his requested final year player option into a team option. It wasn't until a 4-5 seasons down the road when I realized that probably three out of every four team options I was declining and that I was reaping too much of the benefit.

I still use team options in my solo league, but only for veteran hole filler signings late in the offseason... and then only one 1 year contracts with a 1 year option with identical salaries. I figure if nobody else is giving them any contract love, I can weasel an extra season out of them if they perform well.

You have to be careful to not go the other way, though. If the AI suddenly stops caring about option years, then we might see teams tack on 2 years at 1M per year team options to steal the last few seasons from a player cheap. It's stupid to value a 50M option for his last year, but it's just as stupid for a player to sign a deal with a team option for 1M when he likely will be worth a lot more.

olivertheorem · 09-26-2013, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UWHabs

The simplest model I'd like to see for FA demands is have them look at their stats/ratings/age, and figure out what they will likely be in a few years, to determine what they might expect. If they think that they will be worth less than the team option at that time, then they should treat that as automatically declined.

Obviously it's complicated, but I think a system like this would solve a lot of these insane team options. To all players, a 3 year/30M deal should look exactly the same to them as a 3 year/30M deal with a 60M option in year 4.

I've been asking every now and again if we could get some kind of player stats projection system in the game. Either MARCEL (simpler but not as accurate) or PECOTA (hey, they've got comparables in there already and the splash page shows the BP logo), preferably. Get that in and you can have the game projecting out three years (with PECOTA anyway) and base contract negotiations off that.

OBSL Commish · 09-27-2013, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

I've been asking every now and again if we could get some kind of player stats projection system in the game. Either MARCEL (simpler but not as accurate) or PECOTA (hey, they've got comparables in there already and the splash page shows the BP logo), preferably. Get that in and you can have the game projecting out three years (with PECOTA anyway) and base contract negotiations off that.

The game already has PECOTA projections in it. If you export the rosters and open them in Excel, you can easily see some shortened projections in lines CF through CL.

greenrebellion · 09-27-2013, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevew

somewhat easy fixes would be to either have the ability to either eliminate options altogether for the league, or to set a minimum guarantee percentage. it's kind of a pain to try to enforce this league wide.

Also, I may be wrong but it certainly appeared to me at some point that declining multiple team options which each contained buyouts would result in only one of the amounts being paid, but not both.

Having a setting for minimum guarantee percentages is a nice idea...may be an easy way to fix this issue.

estyles · 09-27-2013, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UWHabs

You have to be careful to not go the other way, though. If the AI suddenly stops caring about option years, then we might see teams tack on 2 years at 1M per year team options to steal the last few seasons from a player cheap.

That's not that hard really. A team option should always be negative, or at best neutral (with buyout being a positive).

Check my math, but you should be able to do a formula like:
A = (Value(Years - 1) + Buyout) / (Years - 1)
B = Value(Years) / Years

Where Years is the total years including the option year, Value(Years) is total value including the option year, and Value(Years - 1) is the value of the non option years. Assuming just 1 team option year here.

A and B are the average amount per year, and you value it at the MINIMUM of the two If A >= B, then value the contract as $B per year, for Years. If B > A, then value the contract as $A per year for Years - 1.

i.e. The value of a contract of $7M per year for 6 years with a 7th option year would be:
a) If option year = $1M, no buyout: $6.14M over 7 years.
b) if option year = $40M, no buyout: $7 per year over 6 years.
c) if option year = $10M, $2M buyout: A = $7.33M, B = $7.43M, so it's valued as a $7.33M deal over 6 years.

Basically, this assumes that if the option year is greater than the average of the rest of the deal (adding in the buyout to the rest of the deal), it won't be picked up. and if it's less than the average of the rest of the deal, it *will* be picked up, potentially screwing the player.

If there are two team options, you can figure out the value of the deal for the non-option years + 1 option year using the formula above. Then use that as the value to plug into the formula again with the second option year.

(I believe you can use the same formula for figuring out the value of a player option, by flipping the inequalities.)

09-19-2013, 06:34 PM	#6
RchW Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Toronto ON by way of Glasgow UK Posts: 15,629	Very nice piece of work. The entire options feature is a giant exploit. I used AB to guarantee not having to pay a pitcher a large option year salary. I should be embarrassed for doing it but... ... ... Attached Images __________________ Cheers RichW If you’re looking for a good cause to donate money to please consider a Donation to Parkinson’s Canada. It may help me have a better future and if not me, someone else. Thanks. “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” Frank Wilhoit

09-19-2013, 07:21 PM	#7
Winnipeg59 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Canada Posts: 2,027	There are several similarly themed threads to this one (I wrote one myself not long ago dealing with this and a few other things), but love the detail and pictures. This should be looked at from the agent perspective. Not to cloud this argument (in fact it is noted in the thread), but the other thing that I find unrealistic is the lack of a buyout on any of these team options. If you're offering an obscene amount ($50mil+, $100mil+, etc) and can void the contract with $0 penalty, that's absurd. If I had an agent I would be asking why the penalty isn't %50 and then we can chat with the team again (and yes, I have been told the percentage is consistently lower IRL, but you get the point). And I would completely shut-down negotiations with obvious huckster management ! Solo or Online would benefit big-time from some tightening (and also some varying personalities/options/counter-offers) in this area. In my opinion only of course. Last edited by Winnipeg59; 09-19-2013 at 08:27 PM. Reason: Added: IRL above to clarify

09-25-2013, 11:29 PM	#14
stevew Minors (Double A) Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 125	somewhat easy fixes would be to either have the ability to either eliminate options altogether for the league, or to set a minimum guarantee percentage. it's kind of a pain to try to enforce this league wide. Also, I may be wrong but it certainly appeared to me at some point that declining multiple team options which each contained buyouts would result in only one of the amounts being paid, but not both. __________________ Sim Tsar The Peanuts and Crackerjacks Baseball League

09-19-2013, 03:02 PM	#1
Buane Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 164	Team Options - Let's Hire Some Smarter Agents Over the last couple seasons in my online league, we've seen a growing prevalence in the use of Team Options. Specifically, in the use of very large Team Options at the end of players' contracts that they have no intention of honoring. For a while it was believed to just be one of those harmless things that people were doing without knowing whether it was having an effect. It didn't cost them anything, so why not close out a contract offer with a really big Option season that you knew you'd just be able to turn down when you got to it? Well, lately the unrest in the league has gotten a bit louder, so I finally got around to doing some testing on what kind of effect the Team Options could be having. I created a test league, simmed a few years, and jumped into free agency with a few teams to see how things would shake out. First we'll start with Melvin Bly, a 39-year-old infielder who's demanding 3 years and $8 million per: Here are the offers I made him: Dallas: 3 years - $8M, $8M, $8M Detroit: 3 years - $8M, $8M, $12M (T) San Antonio: 3 years - $8M, $15M (T), $15M (T) And of course, the offer he decided to favor was San Antonio's offer of $8M guaranteed, over offers of $16M and $24M guaranteed respectively. As you can see, he also adjusts his demands for future negotiations based on the non-guaranteed money he was offered, so now bidders have absolutely no clue what to pay him. I make the following offer: Dallas: 3 years - $9M, $9M, $9M Which he surprisingly accepts! So despite listing his demands as much higher (to match the option money that his previous contract contained), he was willing to accept much, much less. Of course, $24M guaranteed was not enough to beat out $8M guaranteed + $30M not guaranteed, but $27M guaranteed is? Seems random to me. You can see his demands have normalized again, based on the $27M guaranteed contract he current favors. So next I made him the following offer: Detroit: 3 years - $9M, $15M (T), $15M (T) ...and he told me it was an insulting offer. So why the heck did he favor that kind of offer the first time? Come on Melvin, work with me here, you're confusing the nice bidders. Melvin was just a warm-up though, to give you all an idea what I was trying to show here. Now we'll turn your attention to another player to test with: 27-year-old star outfielder Luis Galindo who wants 7 years and $23 million per year. I make the following initial offers: Dallas: 5 years - $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M Detroit: 7 years - $18M, $18M, $18M, $18M, $18M, $35M (T), $35M (T) San Antonio: 5 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $50M (T), $50M (T) And he favored San Antonio's offer. Choosing $75M guaranteed + $100M non-guaranteed over offers of $92M guaranteed + $70M non-guaranteed, or $115M guaranteed. Mr. Galindo has a very naive perspective as well, it appears. Here are his new demands, to boot: With demands like that, how the heck would a team have any idea what to bid at this point? Since I know what the leading offer is, and since I remember how negotiations with Melvin went, I try to make the original Dallas offer again: Dallas: 5 years - $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M, $23M He turns me down. I try to up it a little bit: Dallas: 5 years - $24M, $24M, $24M, $24M, $24M And now he favors Dallas! So let me get this straight, Luis, $115M guaranteed wasn't enough to sway you, but $120M guaranteed is just peachy? Alright, but I want to try to structure the same kind of deal he initial favored now: San Antonio: 5 years - $26M, $26M, $26M, $52M (T), $52M (T) And now he's back to favoring San Antonio! So $120M guaranteed was better than $75M + $100M (T), but NOT better than $78M + $104M (T)? Just for fun, I try the following: Detroit: 5 years - $26M, $26M, $26M, $75M (T), $75M (T) Which he of course now favors. More fake money! I hope for this guy's sake he never gets an email from a Nigerian Prince. At this point I remember he was initially asking for a 7-year deal. So I figure I can sway him by trying to get back to his more realistic original demands and give him a few more years: San Antonio: 6 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M He doesn't want to discuss it. I try a seventh year? San Antonio: 7 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M Which he also doesn't want to discuss! At this point he's turning down $175 guaranteed million in favor of $75 million guaranteed and $150 in fantasy bucks. However, I get an idea and I cut the offer back a bit: San Antonio: 5 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M And he loves me again. I'm entirely lost at this point. $175 guaranteed over 7 years (the length that he was originally asking for!) wasn't good enough, but $135 guaranteed over 5 years is? Ok, I guess maybe he changed his mind and didn't want to be locked up so long, but how hard is it to follow along with this guy's thoughts? At this point he started out asking for 7 years at $23M per, and is now more eager to jump at 5x27 than he is 7x25? How are human bidders supposed to follow along and not get anything but frustrated? I'm starting to notice a rough pattern though. I try again to entice him with a team option deal: Detroit: 5 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $60M (T), $60M (T) He doesn't like this offer, as I expected. But what if... Detroit: 5 years - $29M, $27M, $27M, $60M (T), $60M (T) So what I've noticed is that the longterm value of the contract doesn't appear like it's carrying any weight until the guaranteed portion of the contract is even or nearly even. So I bump up the initial season by just $2M and... ...he is back on board once again! So basically he's now chosen 29/27/27/?/? over 27/27/27/27/27 which is yet another new level of poor financial planning. Let's try to get a little more unorthodox: San Antonio: 5 years - $35M, $20M, $20M, $50M (T), $50M (T) I really hope he doesn't accept this deal. I actually decreased the overall guaranteed value of the contract from $83M to $75M, and lopped off $20M from the fantasy team options to boot. But I increased the upfront money a good deal...is that enough to sway him? Thankfully no. I try the same thing again but increasing the option years back to $60M, but still no dice. Ok, one more try: San Antonio: 3 years - $31M, $31M, $31M But he still won't accept. He doesn't seem to understand those team options are just fantasy money, since at this point he is chosing to favor $83 guaranteed over three seasons (plus two fake options) instead of this offer which is $93 guaranteed over three seasons (plus no fake options). Time to go back to some demands I made previously. Dallas decides to jump in and give him the 7 years he was looking for originally. Dallas: 7 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M Which now he decides to favor. ... So let me summarize what just happened: When he favored: 5 years - $26M, $26M, $26M, $75M (T), $75M (T) He turned down: 7 years - $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M, $25M (increase of 124% in guaranteed money) When he favored: 5 years - $29M, $27M, $27M, $60M (T), $60M (T) He ACCEPTED: 7 years - $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M, $27M (increase of 128% in guaranteed money) More randomness. How would you feel to be one of the other bidders in this when Galindo signs and you're left to wonder what the heck was wrong with your offer? Anyway, I'll try to kick in some more non-guaranteed money and see if that sways his decision again like it seemingly did the first time. Detroit: 5 years - $30M, $30M, $30M, $75M (T), $75M (T) And he turns it down. He seems firmly ensconced in his 7-year deal now he has one. So let's turn some of those 7 years into fake years again and... Detroit: 7 years - $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $50M (T), $50M (T) ...and he accepts. This is a decrease in guaranteed money by 30%, so I can safely conclude by now that both Mr. Galindo and Mr. Galindo's agent just never passed basic math classes and have been winging it all these years. One thing seems clear so far though, I can't make too large a jump down from guaranteed years. To get a player to back off of 7 guaranteed years, I need to give him 5 guaranteed years + two options years. To go from 5 guaranteed, I had to do 3 guaranteed + two options. However, every time I do that, he seems very hesitant to go back UP in years, despite originally wanting a nice long contract when we started. And let's please keep in mind that every time you go to negotiate with the player, it is impossible to tell how much money the last guy guaranteed him: Anyway, one final thing to test, I made the following offer: Dallas: 7 years - $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $29M, $40M (T), $40M (T) However THIS time, on those team options I added a buyout of $10M each year. So in effect, this contract was for the same number of years, same annual pay during years 1-5, but instead of a guaranteed $0M + potential $100M in years 6 & 7 it was for a guaranteed $20M or potential $80M in years 6 & 7. He rejected this offer. Ok, that was a lot of testing and took me a few hours to run through. If you're still reading, here are My Conclusions: #1: The "buyout" function is already built into the game. During negotiations, in my opinion, Team Options MUST look at the buyout value only. Team Option for $25 Million with a buyout of $0? This should be treated as basically worthless. What player would agree to this in the real world? It's a fantasy. Team Option for $25 Million with a buyout of $10 Million? Well, that's $10 million that's guaranteed and player should treat it as such. #2: The player needs to stop reporting his demands to the next team that comes along with the team option money built in. This is just downright confusing and WRONG, and makes the whole practice of teams using Team Options seem more underhanded than it actually is. #3: The way player demands for contract length works seems a little wonky. Once I was able to get a contract in his favor that was for a shorter length, he didn't seem to care about his original contract length and even actively rejected offers that went that long. This also seems needlessly complicated - if a guy wants a 7-year contract, that seems to me to be a desire that should persist throughout negotiations. Sure, the best offer he gets might be a 5-year deal, but he shouldn't be turning down equally good or better 7-year deals because suddenly he thinks they're too long or something. A couple things that I already realize: A lot of the above examples are a bit extreme. They probably wouldn't play out this way in a real league. But there are plenty of examples that have occurred in the league I run, and they don't have to be extreme in order to be a problem. If non-guaranteed Team Options are being weighed by the AI incorrectly, then it stands to reason even a Team Option that's reasonable is still skewing things. We could just enact a new rule barring Team Options or mandating a 50% minimum for buyouts. I plan to do something like this anyway, but after putting this much time into researching the issue I wanted to share it for everyone and bring the numbers to Markus's attention as well. Randomness in Free Agent demands is good and realistic. To a point. I'd argue this is well beyond the point of common sense. It's unrealistic AI behavior at best, and an exploitable loophole in online leagues at worst. __________________ Commissioner - Rising Star League Congratulations to the 2082 Champion Montreal Harfangs! Last edited by Buane; 09-19-2013 at 03:15 PM.

09-19-2013, 04:25 PM	#3
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 13,143	I believe you AI evaluation percentages can play a role in contract demands. What are you using BTW?

09-19-2013, 04:29 PM	#4
hefalumps All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 1,392	Excellent research! I know Markus is always tweaking the contract negotiation AI but based on what you've shown it does appear to still need some work, especially in the area of evaluating those team options.

09-19-2013, 05:39 PM	#5
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 16,254	The simplest model I'd like to see for FA demands is have them look at their stats/ratings/age, and figure out what they will likely be in a few years, to determine what they might expect. If they think that they will be worth less than the team option at that time, then they should treat that as automatically declined. Obviously it's complicated, but I think a system like this would solve a lot of these insane team options. To all players, a 3 year/30M deal should look exactly the same to them as a 3 year/30M deal with a 60M option in year 4.

09-20-2013, 03:37 AM	#9
sterjs Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 39	A simple fix is that you simply cannot offer backloaded option years. The option years can be no higher than the last guaranteed year of the contract. Even with this rule, the AI needs work to evaluate option years. And of course all the other option year exploits should be removed. Another huge problem with AI contract negotiations is the way that arbitration buyouts are handled. When a player is in the second year of major league service, you can nearly always resign him to either a 10 year deal w/ 2 team option years and low salaries or in some cases you are limited to a 4-year max deal with low salaries. Even 5* players will sign themselves into indentured servitude for the remainder of their careers.

09-23-2013, 04:17 PM	#10
estyles Bat Boy Join Date: Sep 2013 Posts: 15	I was giving into temptation and trying to pickup Kershaw as a free-agent using this method last night. And he eventually rejected my "best" offer and signed with another team. I thought maybe there had been a stealth fix to this issue (I didn't think OOTP downloaded updates automatically, but hey, maybe...). Then I looked at the offer he accepted and saw that it was better than mine in all the "real" years, and had a $75 million team option on the end of it. So apparently the AI is just better at this than I am.

09-23-2013, 04:33 PM	#11
hluraven Major Leagues Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: London, England Posts: 360	I was in an online league that had problems with this, but now has good rules in place to stop it. It's just one of those little issues that you can choose to exploit or not in solo, but online needs the rules from the start or it will eventually descend into farce.

09-23-2013, 06:38 PM	#12
HerbD All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Indiana Posts: 982	It would be nice to be able to toggle the ability to offer option years. It is difficult to monitor an entire online league and every contract offer.

09-23-2013, 08:17 PM	#13
TPinrose Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 199	It would be nice if this were fixed.

09-26-2013, 10:51 AM	#15
Nunyer All Star Reserve Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Baseball Ned Flanders stares into your soul... Posts: 594	As stated by the OP, I think the easiest solution is for the AI to ignore or very lightly weigh the non-guaranteed chunk of a team option. I've fallen into this exploit quite a bit starting back in v12... My quick and dirty negotiation process was to simply turn his requested final year player option into a team option. It wasn't until a 4-5 seasons down the road when I realized that probably three out of every four team options I was declining and that I was reaping too much of the benefit. I still use team options in my solo league, but only for veteran hole filler signings late in the offseason... and then only one 1 year contracts with a 1 year option with identical salaries. I figure if nobody else is giving them any contract love, I can weasel an extra season out of them if they perform well.