Free Agent Bidding...take first offer every time?

[Qrashman]

I run a sim league, and its our free agent bidding period.

After 2 years of entering bids, I've noticed that the player always takes the first acceptable bid.

In other words, as soon as he shows up in the "display offers" page, he won't take another offer....unless its ridiculously larger.

We had Jay Payton deny 3 offers of about 2.5M The Jays offer him 3.5M over 3 years and he accepts.

Then one team offers him 4M over 3 years and he doesn't accept. the Cardinals offer him 5.1M over 4 years and he doesn't accept either.

Now, I'm all for having a player not always sign for the most money. But this is a constant. The player ALWAYS takes the first acceptable offer.

If this is true, this ruins sim leagues. You get the advantage if you bid first. I don't like this one bit.

Of course, I could be wrong. Can someone comment?

[sporr]

Hmm...this would be troublesome. Here's what I would do to test your theory. Go through the bidding process with several different copies of the league file and switch the order that you input the bids. Unless a players preference to play with certain teams changes randomly on the fly, then he should accept the same bid each time. If he doesn't, then the problem that you propose must exist. If you do this test, please post the results as I'm sure all of the commishes out here will be greatly interested in the results (and may have to work out a new way to do bidding).

[Killebrew]

Good idea Sporr. Qrashman: Good luck testing this, but please understand I must hope you are wrong .

[Clipper]

Is there any chance that a player's "desire to play for a winner" rating would help determine what team he would choose. Say he is offered 3.5 million from a team that won the world series last season and 5.5 mill from a team that was awful...does the team's record factor into his decision?

Just a thought.

[InfamousMP]

I hate to say it but the free-agent system is a fraud, which is why I also refuse to join just any league when playing OOTP3.

One offer and done? That alone makes it a joke, not to offend anyone who might have created that system. :-)

I enjoy the FBBL system, where it is more of a bidding war with equal consideration going to money and quality of the team.

In other words, you have to take free agency out of the computers hands. A human must do it. It is the only way to make it somewhat correct.

This is the same reason I hate playing solo. Just takes away from the fun without a little bidding war.

[Killebrew]

[quote]Originally posted by Clipper:
<strong>Is there any chance that a player's "desire to play for a winner" rating would help determine what team he would choose. Say he is offered 3.5 million from a team that won the world series last season and 5.5 mill from a team that was awful...does the team's record factor into his decision?

Just a thought.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I think you are right, I guess there is a fear something else is also going on though. I have always assumed "unusual" FA signings (IMO defined as a player who signs for much less $$$ than another team offered) could be attributed to randomness and a players desire to play for a winner.

[Oldlamp]

Qrashman : You are right.

I run an online league, too. If a player gets some offers from GMs, I enter the first bid with the best offer.
Which is the best offer? yeah... It is very hard to choose the best offer. but right now, that way of bidding may be the best choice.

I totally agree with Qrashman. The player ALWAYS takes the first acceptable offer.

And I have a question.

The manual says the cash formula is
"New cash = income - payroll + old cash"

I want to know about "avaiable money formula"
Thanks in advance.

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Oldlamp ]

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Oldlamp ]

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Oldlamp ]

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Oldlamp ]</p>

[Qrashman]

I dont mean to start a war here or bash the game. I love the game, but I just noticed this now. It really kills the best part of the season.

I will test it out, but I'm almost positive that I'm right.

[Clipper]

If what you have found is true, then I'll just have to force myself to maybe one free agent bid per free agent round and patiently wait the three-four months until OOTP4 is released. It won't ruin my experience, though it is somewhat sad.

[Qrashman]

here's my test:

The subject was Jay Payton. I used 4 teams with different records. Baltimore is among the league's worst, Saint Louis was the WS champs, Montreal was the NL Wildcard winner and Toronto missed the AL Wildcard by a game or 2.
---------------------------------------------------

Jay Payton (bids listed in the order I entered them)

Baltimore - 3.5M x 3 years (Accepted)
St. Louis - 5.1M x 4 years (denied)
Toronto - 4.5M x 4 years (denied)
Montreal - 5.5M x 4 years (Accepted)

-------------------------------------

St. Louis - 3.5M x 3 years (accepted)
Montreal - 5.1M x 4 years (denied)
Baltimore - 4.5 x 4 years (denied)
Toronto - 5.5M x 4 years (accepted)

--------------------------------------

Toronto - 3.5M x 3 years (Accepted)
St. Louis - 5.1M x 4 years (denied)
Montreal - 4.5M x 4 years (denied)
Baltimore - 5.5M x 4 years (Accepted)

---------------------------------------

Well, I wish I was wrong but it doesn't look that way. The player will always accept the first good offer, unless someone else offers considerably more.

I don't like this. damn.

[Specs]

maybe you should order the same bids all differently.

[Qrashman]

not sure what you mean. My test proved that it had nothing to do with the offering team, at least.

[Go Tribe]

ok there is a HUGE problem with the game.

after further testing (btw i am st louis in qrash's league) i discovered the following

i entered 3.5 M for jay payton from baltimore (all bids were kept at 4 years for testing)
the best offer page of course said baltimore had the highest bid.

from there i went alphabetically through each team offering increasingly higher bids ie anaheim 3.6 atlanta 3.7 boston 4.0 - after every bid i checked the best offer and it continued to say baltimore through every offer!!!

it finally changed after i entered 5.2 M from detroit - keep in mind detroit and baltimore are 2 of the 3 worst teams in the league record wise. after the detroit bid, i continued bidding, going higher on each bid - it seems that at the 5.2 threshhold, payton now went with the highest bidder every time - houston offered 5.3 - houston was now the best offer, and so on.

some background info - payton played last with PITT - his loyalty and desire to play for a winner are both minimal. when you right click on him on the free agent screen, he said he wanted 5,030,000 for 5 years. what's interesting is that in our bidding and in my testing, he didn't start to go to the highest bidder at 5,100,000 - which is the first bid over what he was asking - he went to the highest bidder once 5,200,000 was reached.

either way this is BAD news for online leagues

[Raven]

Somewhat different, but another thing I noticed about Free Agency...

In my online league, we started in 1980 and are now about 100 games into the '81 season.

We folded two teams due to lack of participation, so those players along with a ton of very good free agents made the free agency period stocked with a lot of very good players after the '80 season. The first round saw most teams going after the high profile free agents, but there were two guys that I signed relatively cheap because noone else bid on them in the first round. Lloyd Moseby was a blue-chip prospect, and I was the only team to bid on him at 1.2mill for 2 years. Dave Stieb was also a very good prospect with 7 ratings acrossed the board. I offered Stieb 2.3mill for 2 years and he also signed because noone else bid on him.

Maybe these guys would have signed with me anyway, but since noone else bid on them, and their offers were acceptable, they signed with me.

In real life these players probably wouldn't have jumped on the first (acceptable) offer made to them, and probably would have held out a round or two to see if any better offers were made to them.

Maybe OOTP4 will need to incorporate some kind of "wait and see" process for free agents to evaluate offers that they get before they sign.

[Qrashman]

well, you can't really argue with that. That doesn't really ruin leagues.

However, a pattern based on something as arbitrary as "which team gets entered first" can ruin a league.

If I have 6 teams all bid 3.5M x 3 years, who do I enter first? Whoever I enter first he will accept.

THAT ruins leagues.

[Qrashman]

I really don't like flaming the game, and I'm a big fan of Markus and his team. So if you guys want to delete this, go ahead.

Maybe this is something we should discuss in private. I really dont want to discourage anyone from buying the game because it really is a great game.

[Go Tribe]

more testing with even worse results

chad kreuter - 95 games with LA - rating is "LOYAL"

offered same amount from 6 teams - last one from LA - he took the first offer every time - never went to LA - what the hell does the loyalty rating mean then??????????

[Steve Kuffrey]

This is something that we need to investigate further, but I will tell you that the FA period and process are being changed for v4. Even before this discussion started.

[Go Tribe]

steve - sorry to go off like this - i love the game but this just ruins alot of hours we spent trying to come up with a great free agent system.

i hope that something can be fixed for ootp3 on this - even if it just accepts the highest bid automatically.

this explains why it seems so easy to get players in single player ootp3 - we bid before the computer does

[Qrashman]

ok, i'd be happy to test it out if you guys need any help.

then again, who wouldn't.

[ December 22, 2001: Message edited by: Qrashman ]</p>