In Season Free Agents - Suggestions

[Lou Brown (Indians)]

We had a discussion about how in season free agents are handled. The current mode is "first come, first serve", which I think is unrealistic (because the player signs for less than he could get) and unfair (because not everyone is around for a given time).
Therefore, I'd like to make two suggestions that gives everyone the same chance while not increasing the workload of the commish.

Right now, free agent offers start at noon and the first GM to offer a contract that the player will agree to gets him.

I propose, that instead of this procedure, there will be a deadline until which every offer must be send to the commish (e.g. two ours before the sim or midnight). Every GM can send one (blind) offer to the commish and the highest bid will get the player. If the player doesn't want to sign with that team for any reason, the next highest offer wins.
This way, the player will get top money and it's not a race to beat the message board's clock.

The second suggestion is, that during the season, no team may offer a MLC. Every player have to be signed to the league minimum, usually $316,000. This has some advantages:
First, it reduces the work of the commish because there should be less offers.
Second, it keeps players in the free agent pool because nobody can or would want to sign them all.
Third, teams have to think about acquiring a player instead of just handing out MLC to everybody.
Fourth, the players will reenter the free agent pool once their Arbitration period is over. This keeps teams from hogging players in the minors forever and at no cost (Very important, IMHO).

Please take a second and think about these suggestions. I really think they will help create a balanced league.

[General]

I think 6 year minor league free agents should definitely stay.


Other than that, I don't think all that stuff is necessary.

[Slyder]

We had a discussion about how in season free agents are handled. The current mode is "first come, first serve", which I think is unrealistic (because the player signs for less than he could get) and unfair (because not everyone is around for a given time).
Therefore, I'd like to make two suggestions that gives everyone the same chance while not increasing the workload of the commish.

Right now, free agent offers start at noon and the first GM to offer a contract that the player will agree to gets him.

I propose, that instead of this procedure, there will be a deadline until which every offer must be send to the commish (e.g. two ours before the sim or midnight). Every GM can send one (blind) offer to the commish and the highest bid will get the player. If the player doesn't want to sign with that team for any reason, the next highest offer wins.
This way, the player will get top money and it's not a race to beat the message board's clock.

The second suggestion is, that during the season, no team may offer a MLC. Every player have to be signed to the league minimum, usually $316,000. This has some advantages:
First, it reduces the work of the commish because there should be less offers.
Second, it keeps players in the free agent pool because nobody can or would want to sign them all.
Third, teams have to think about acquiring a player instead of just handing out MLC to everybody.
Fourth, the players will reenter the free agent pool once their Arbitration period is over. This keeps teams from hogging players in the minors forever and at no cost (Very important, IMHO).

Please take a second and think about these suggestions. I really think they will help create a balanced league.

1st The only time it will be "race the clock" will be immediately after free agency, usually most people will put their MLCs for the last week of FA. Just like real life.

2nd With the salary Cap I hate that idea. because many of the players you sign off of FA are going to be plan r,s,t and its going to penalize those who try and find cast offs that they feel can be effective backup plans. Leave MLCs alone its part of the game just look at how it worked for Rich Aurilia in Cincinnati . And also penalize spects who people release if you got to sign everyone to MLB contract.

3rd Some players wont take MLC regardless. You cant organize a plan to make everyone MLC, theres 30 gms someones likely to give 80% of guys worth signing at least the minimum if not more.

4th Heck No. People cant do that regardless unless they want to kill their team, the majority of the players on MLCs will be either spects or really old guys that its not sure how much they have left in the tank. You cant just "keep people in the minors". Could you imagine what Albert Pujols would do to the Cards organization if they tried to ship him down to the minors every year just to keep him on an MLC... It wont work. Plus teams cannot build for long hauls if as soon as a player can he hits Free Agency where his price will be even higher than it be to sign him to an extension because theres so many owners that someone will give them an inflated contract, you cant hoarde good/great talent in the minors for long, eventually they will demand big pay day plus with the cap better free agents will hit the market as teams gotta choose between two players.

[RockiesGM]

I have been in a ton of leagues with all different variations on FA. I do know that I would support almost any ruling that doesnt involve first come first serve. I have seen leagues that you pm the commish your bid before each sim & the highest gets awarded (keep in mind after this intial surge the FA bidding will slow down). I am currently in a league that you are allowed 2 FA requests per 24 hr period, posted on forum board (the bid is whatever the player requested). This is somewhat first come, but each team gets 1 overide per season with a worse record than the team that requested.

ex...1
subject- M.Ordonez rf
Body-team A requests
reply at sim timefrom commish- Ordonez signed 1 yr 2.5 million

ex 2
subject-M.Ordonez rf
body- Team A requests
reply- Team M will overide team A
commish reply- Team M has worse record awarded their overide. ordonez signed

[Slyder]

I dont like that idea because then all your division rivals will put requests in just to keep you from signing someone you really need.

Just for Note... Regular FA Period goes as follows: Crazy sets a time frame usually 3-7 days in advance and usually allows for 2-4 day window. Every team puts in requests on players they want, Crazy enters every offer, and sims. He takes the results and posts them for that period. Its not first come first serve.

I dont want to have to worry about 2-3 ofs getting hurt and hoping to not get messed up by a division rival who claims everyone I want just to hurt my team.

[Lou Brown (Indians)]

1st The only time it will be "race the clock" will be immediately after free agency, usually most people will put their MLCs for the last week of FA. Just like real life.

This will happen every time a decent player is released. If realeasing is common or not depends on other rules though.

2nd With the salary Cap I hate that idea. because many of the players you sign off of FA are going to be plan r,s,t and its going to penalize those who try and find cast offs that they feel can be effective backup plans.

You can still sign 10 backup plans for $3M, that's 4% of the salary cap. This rule actually encourages finding cast offs instead of just fishing for all and hoping there will be one.

You cant just "keep people in the minors". Could you imagine what Albert Pujols would do to the Cards organization if they tried to ship him down to the minors every year just to keep him on an MLC...

The problem isn't that team keep superstars on MLC, but that they keep a horde of borderliners in the minors that might get a spot on other teams.

[Slyder]

This will happen every time a decent player is released. If realeasing is common or not depends on other rules though.

You can still sign 10 backup plans for $3M, that's 4% of the salary cap. This rule actually encourages finding cast offs instead of just fishing for all and hoping there will be one.

The problem isn't that team keep superstars on MLC, but that they keep a horde of borderliners in the minors that might get a spot on other teams.

You cant sign em if youre at 74.9 Mil. Decent players do not constitute 26 yr olds whos talent is 4,5,7,3,2 1.0 star which is what 95% of the releases will be, if someone decent and have a huge contract teams will do 1 of 2 things. Let them sit in AAA/bench em or Trade em.

But again you kill any chance of someone signing some 21 yr old who a team gave up on cause his talent was marginal at best and finding a late bloomer. And anyways most of the players end up getting cut eventually ANYWAYS. Its a short term flux because of the lack of FA period, after this year there wont be the mass letting of MLC guys cause most will go after them the last week of Free Agency. Trust me Im part of 2 leagues here that has at least 15 of the same gms in both and many will just list the MLC the last couple weeks of the actual FA period and it will even itself out. Plus if there is someone of some actual value Crazy could bring it to everyones attention (IE when Jason Bay as a 3.0 star was released in S3SL).

[Lou Brown (Indians)]

You cant sign em if youre at 74.9 Mil.

So you can't sign them, that's the point of a salary cap. That you can't sign everybody.

But again you kill any chance of someone signing some 21 yr old who a team gave up on cause his talent was marginal at best and finding a late bloomer.

Why? You can still sign him if you think he's worth the risk.

But really don't see the disadvantage other that it makes the job of an GM a bit more challenging.

[DiamondDave]

Why make it more complicaed??? First come first serve is easy enough...

There is no need for this crap complications in the regular season

[volzok]

Why make it more complicaed??? First come first serve is easy enough...

There is no need for this crap complications in the regular season

I totally agree. I think first come, first serve is fair and easy. Some times early bird gets the worm, not always who is offering more money.

[Lou Brown (Indians)]

Why make it more complicaed??? First come first serve is easy enough...

Easy, but rather unfair and unrealistic. The today's results are absolutely ridiculous.* It wasn't so that much talent involved, but some were still pretty upset. Why risk that this escalates the next time?
I can see that the MLC thing is debatable, but the blind bidding? I can't see what kind of reason there is against it other than "we always did it like that".


* This is not to critizise crazy nor a plead to do it again. That's just objective (expressed with emotional words ). Look at the results yourself and you'll have to agree with me.

[volzok]

Whats wrong with blind bidding. How is that unrealistic?????

[Kingdom]

A simple potential solution is ... no more than __ free agents may be signed per 24 hours. 3-5 or so. Something like that.

I like blind bidding, cause if you open it up to the public, you're going see contracts get driven up to insane amounts. Which could happen even with the salary cap, and the cap was designed to stop the CC Sabathia's of the world from getting 20 million, 7 year deals.

[Lou Brown (Indians)]

I think first come, first serve is fair and easy. Some times early bird gets the worm, not always who is offering more money.

You can't be serious?! How is sitting and waiting for the clock to tick down with your pm ready to be sent fair and easy? What about GMs who can't be there?

Whats wrong with blind bidding. How is that unrealistic???

I'm for blind bidding. It's more realistic.

[CrazyEights]

A simple potential solution is ... no more than __ free agents may be signed per 24 hours. 3-5 or so. Something like that.

That rule would be fine for the type of period that we had today. I don't like that idea for the regular free agency period though. Most teams are lucky if they get that many free agents in a 24 hour period anyways. The thing is that there will likely never be a Free Agent period like what we just had. Teams don't release players very often, because they will be responsible for the remaining contract. I only gave a "free release" period to help teams relax their payroll due to the AI drafting older more expensive players.