2008 OFFSEASON SIM 4 Complete - Next SIM Wed 11/5

[Pat]

It boggles my mind that Hamilton isn't signed yet, especially with a DL team.

Ok, forget his numbers in Baltimore. He was a beast in arguably the most "pitcher friendly" park in the DL in New York a few years back. There's a chance that he drops off the face of the earth but I doubt it.

I think he is an example of an even bigger "issue" if you want to call it that.

With expanding player salaries, teams unwillingness to risk signing older/injury prone players and the new rule that requires teams to give players arbitration, this is what we should expect to see in Free-Agency every year.

Al Hamilton, Jon Morris, Terry Mast, Jerry Brown, Eron Deleon, Brendan Gleason, Sonny Marshburn, Shannon Roberts, Taylor Turney, Francois St. Laurent, Oscar Gomez, Gabrielle Clareno and Seisaku Naito are all asking for multiple-year deals at $10M+ per year. I for one would LOVE to have any of them added to my roster...but at this point there is no way I'm willing to meet their demands. That's about $200M in salaries for 2009 and I would imagine the cumulative budget room around the league is less than half that.

Some of those guys will be unsigned after Spring Training.

[Spear]

Yeah I agree with Pat, there is definitely an issue. It's also part of the reason why I refuse to rebuild.

But what's the fix? Restructure our financials? Expansion?

It's a damn shame that Enrique Ferreira's career appears to be over after having a break out season in 2007. He went unsigned last year and will have the same fate this year.

[Z]

I think he is an example of an even bigger "issue" if you want to call it that.

With expanding player salaries, teams unwillingness to risk signing older/injury prone players and the new rule that requires teams to give players arbitration, this is what we should expect to see in Free-Agency every year.

Al Hamilton, Jon Morris, Terry Mast, Jerry Brown, Eron Deleon, Brendan Gleason, Sonny Marshburn, Shannon Roberts, Taylor Turney, Francois St. Laurent, Oscar Gomez, Gabrielle Clareno and Seisaku Naito are all asking for multiple-year deals at $10M+ per year. I for one would LOVE to have any of them added to my roster...but at this point there is no way I'm willing to meet their demands. That's about $200M in salaries for 2009 and I would imagine the cumulative budget room around the league is less than half that.

Some of those guys will be unsigned after Spring Training.

A lot of teams are running $50-60 million balances. It's no surprise free agents want a big chunk of that money.

I don't understand the game's finances well enough to offer a good solution, but I would like to see one.

[Delandis]

A lot of teams are running $50-60 million balances. It's no surprise free agents want a big chunk of that money.

This is the issue. The game likely only sees the big picture of free cash.

[funclown]

A lot of teams are running $50-60 million balances. It's no surprise free agents want a big chunk of that money.

I don't understand the game's finances well enough to offer a good solution, but I would like to see one.

We've had a lot lower team salaries then this. Overall team salaries have been on the rise.

It's a catch 22 right now. We closed the arb loophole, but in the real world teams "try" to sign young teams long term even at the risk a player might not perform or get hurt. Sadly the AI had window where the young kids were stupid (thinking starting ootp 12?)

Long answer we put a "human" rule in place but the game doesn't know it so player salaries have been rising and oh ...... We never came up with a human rule to fix the bug on these 35+ vets asking for crazy 6 years 18 year deals!!!

Some good news is spring training the demands tend to go way down.

Should we raise the team cash max to 20mil. Each year millions of dollars come off the table by owners taking profits. Seems unfair to fiscally responsible teams and those teams can make huge splashes?

[Pat]

If there was an easy, realistic solution, we would have already fixed this.

Come May, most of these guys will be signed. There demands are just too much right now.

[Delandis]

I just signed Chiba to a 8 year less than 12 per deal so the ability to sign good young players relatively inexpensively is still there.

I really like the idea of upping the team profit limit. It would go a long way for teams to give a chance to some of these players that would literally singlehandedly change the face of a team.

[Z]

We've had a lot lower team salaries then this. Overall team salaries have been on the rise.

It's a catch 22 right now. We closed the arb loophole, but in the real world teams "try" to sign young teams long term even at the risk a player might not perform or get hurt. Sadly the AI had window where the young kids were stupid (thinking starting ootp 12?)

Long answer we put a "human" rule in place but the game doesn't know it so player salaries have been rising and oh ...... We never came up with a human rule to fix the bug on these 35+ vets asking for crazy 6 years 18 year deals!!!

Some good news is spring training the demands tend to go way down.

Should we raise the team cash max to 20mil. Each year millions of dollars come off the table by owners taking profits. Seems unfair to fiscally responsible teams and those teams can make huge splashes?

I don't see the pre-arbitration contract extension rule change as a major contributor here. We've had this issue for a long time. I feel like if anything it's a little better now than it was before the rule, when there were guys asking for $25+ million over nine years in free agency. I don't think there's a free agent now who's asking to even be one of the five highest paid players in the league. We do have a problem though.

I'm not sure how raising the cash max would help. It seems like doing so would make the situation quite a bit worse. The problem is teams have a lot of money and you're suggesting we let the teams have even more money. It would exacerbate the problem.

If we want lower free agent demands, we need to find a way to reduce the amount of money teams are banking. The obvious solution would be to reduce revenue somehow, maybe via lower media revenue. I don't know how to go about implementing it though.

[Delandis]

It's not the ability of GMs to
pay these guys, it's the desire to do so. I'm not sure that can be adjusted.

[umd]

It's not the ability of GMs to
pay these guys, it's the desire to do so. I'm not sure that can be adjusted.

I think the money is there, I just don't think anyone wants to pay them. Especially the teams that are rebuilding. That money is better spent on PD and scouting.

$17m/yr is what most are asking. I don't think the actual number is that out of whack... I think some of the players asking fro that are though.

They will come down as we move towards May and many of them will sign I think.

[funclown]

I think the money is there, I just don't think anyone wants to pay them. Especially the teams that are rebuilding. That money is better spent on PD and scouting.

Yep. We got plenty of that stashed away.

$17m/yr is what most are asking. I don't think the actual number is that out of whack... I think some of the players asking fro that are though.

It's the years they placed on these. Think even the bottom feeders would jump on one maybe two years deals even at the higher rates.