SIM COMPLETE - 1985 - Offseason 3

[Lintyfresh85]

Did someone just get JJ'd?

[Riverman]

(A) Yes, you are the giant douche

(B) Where did I say I'd be surprised if I were wrong? I said "...I'd be shocked if no one was making over say $12.0 if people would be asking for $30.0" It's not a statement on whether or not my opinion is correct... it's a statement on how I think the game is setup. Not to mention the fact that I prefaced it with an "I don't know".

(C) Jeez stop taking yourself so seriously. Do I need to start putting smiley faces on everything so you won't get shitty?

(D) There's still less total money available per team than their was prior to the last expansion.

All right, I'll grant you A, B and C but D is not relevant to anything discussed in this thread. It is absolutely clear that there is more money available for FAs to chase than there was before the last expansion. That is my thesis, that the more dollars potentially available for FAs the higher their demands will be.

I am skeptical but I am going to assume that you are right and that I am not just a douche but a giant one. Accordingly, I am assigning myself pennance and will not be reading or participating in the forums for the next 10 weeks with the hopes of teaching myself a lesson. Unfortunately, there will be some minor exceptions as I need to follow the trade threads, and I'll need to check in on the draft thread once that is posted but I'll avoid posting myself unless necessary to post or confirm a trade, for instance. I am also going to make one last comment on one of the rule change forums. I'll also be monitoring and responding to my PMs so if something comes up that I need to know, I hope someone will shoot me a PM.

Good luck all (except you know who). I'll be back in 10 weeks.

[Clay]

Someone is angling for 72 virgins...

[Carlos]

Since everyone and their mother is experiencing this problem in their OOTP Worlds, I'm not sure what we can attribute to with full confidence. The boards say it's money available in the world. Other's that have cut money in the world, have responded back saying that demands are still outrageous.

In that other league I'm in, the commish has changed free agency to be a message board battle that occurs out of game. One person starts a thread with an initial offer to a player, and then the bidding begins. His rules are: the next person must offer 10% more per year than the previous offer (years offered don't matter), and the bidding is only closed if no one continues to bid 48 hours after the last post.

Then, he makes an executive decision, along with his co-commish, if there is a possibility that a player would have taken the deal prior to the last post. This only comes up with a player were offered for example $5/year for 2 years, and the previous offer was $4.4/year for 7 years. Considering the player's age, situation, he might take the long term contract so he'll overrule the last bid.

Once those contracts are done (and that's determined by people no longer posting new threads for players) he then allows owners to begin offering minor league deals in-game.

I'm not suggesting we do this, but it has worked. It's allowed free agents to sign and not sit. It's allowed teams to control their money better. It's also abritrarily controlled contract demands. I honestly can't say what it's done for contract extensions because this started at a time I was unloading vets and restocking my entire farm system. My first true star player is only now heading into his second season so I don't know what his extension demands might be in a few years after arbitration.

I will say this: We just completed free agency and I offered the biggest contract of $21 MM/3 years to arguably the top pitcher in the market. I'm looking over the top team's contracts and they just signed their best player and probably the best player in the league to a 3 year extension worth $44 MM. A far cry from what we see in this league where average players are asking for that much in free agency.

[Andrew]

If you look at the settings for demands in game I think the "average" demand for superstar players is somewhere around 13m or 14m. Despite that, they're asking for double that in some cases. I don't think it has anything to do with what other players are making. The reason I see is because there's a crapload of money available. If we're serious about wanting to change this the only option I see is to reduce the amount of available money in the league.

[Andrew]

Actually the 2nd, and probably best, solution is to change the timing of how we run FA. We run a week at a time to start when very few players will sign. Then after new years when players start to drop their demands we run 30 day sims so they sign with whoever submitted the best offer at the time.

I think our off-season would work better if we went at a quicker pace through December and slower pace during Jan and Feb.

[Spectre]

Actually the 2nd, and probably best, solution is to change the timing of how we run FA. We run a week at a time to start when very few players will sign. Then after new years when players start to drop their demands we run 30 day sims so they sign with whoever submitted the best offer at the time.

I think our off-season would work better if we went at a quicker pace through December and slower pace during Jan and Feb.

I like this solution the best

[spot]

That's how we run it in the PCBL. I have no actual data to show the difference, but it seems that demands are a bit higher here. We don't do any external edits on fan/market etc. however.

[Delandis]

Actually the 2nd, and probably best, solution is to change the timing of how we run FA. We run a week at a time to start when very few players will sign. Then after new years when players start to drop their demands we run 30 day sims so they sign with whoever submitted the best offer at the time.

I think our off-season would work better if we went at a quicker pace through December and slower pace during Jan and Feb.

I like this idea better. However, I don't see why its such a problem that their demands increase with the money available. The model insures that one team with 50+ mil to spend doesn't go out and just Yankee everyone.

[Andrew]

That's how we run it in the PCBL. I have no actual data to show the difference, but it seems that demands are a bit higher here. We don't do any external edits on fan/market etc. however.

How fast do you go during the start of FA? I'd like to edit our schedule but don't want to have the opposite problem where guys sign too quickly.

[spot]

I actually blow through until 1/1. I set it up so that there is no possibility of an offer from the time FA file until 1/1. Then I run 14 day sims through the start of Spring Training. It works pretty well.

[mahoney2]

That doesn't sound too bad. What effect does it have on the players offers? Do they actually come down, or do they stay the same and sign quicker?

[Carlos]

I like this idea better. However, I don't see why its such a problem that their demands increase with the money available. The model insures that one team with 50+ mil to spend doesn't go out and just Yankee everyone.

Because if the money is out there then the free agents think, "Hey, you can afford my ridiculous demands."

[Clay]

I actually blow through until 1/1. I set it up so that there is no possibility of an offer from the time FA file until 1/1. Then I run 14 day sims through the start of Spring Training. It works pretty well.

The best part of that system is that there's the "rescout" on 1/1 that gives you another source for ratings before bidding on FAs.