Rebuilding and Signing Free Agents Topic

Has anyone ever had the sack to sign a Max or near max level free agent while re-building with the intention to then trade said player immediately?  Can it be done?  If playing in a league where most of the contenders have limited budgets, could you not sign the marquee player to a huge deal and then turn around and market him to the highest bidder for prospects?  Essentially you could pick up free prospects?  I understand it's difficult to trade big time contracts but if the finances worked out could this be done??

Thanks...  asking for a friend!  lol
1/5/2016 10:44 AM
I haven't tried this-- if guys really want a near-max player they'll just outbid you for them, although I guess you could win a max player on a tiebreaker and trade him.

However-- I have, a couple of times, signed mid-range FA to contracts with very large signing bonuses, so I've paid almost the whole contract up front, and then tried to trade those players now that their salary is much less than their value to the receiving team.  In this case, from your perspective, you're "purchasing" the prospects with the big signing bonus.
1/5/2016 10:56 AM
Posted by knellypsu on 1/5/2016 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has anyone ever had the sack to sign a Max or near max level free agent while re-building with the intention to then trade said player immediately?  Can it be done?  If playing in a league where most of the contenders have limited budgets, could you not sign the marquee player to a huge deal and then turn around and market him to the highest bidder for prospects?  Essentially you could pick up free prospects?  I understand it's difficult to trade big time contracts but if the finances worked out could this be done??

Thanks...  asking for a friend!  lol
Why rebuild there is no reason I can see that a person could not compete for a title every season.
1/5/2016 12:25 PM
Posted by brianp87 on 1/5/2016 12:25:00 PM (view original):
Posted by knellypsu on 1/5/2016 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has anyone ever had the sack to sign a Max or near max level free agent while re-building with the intention to then trade said player immediately?  Can it be done?  If playing in a league where most of the contenders have limited budgets, could you not sign the marquee player to a huge deal and then turn around and market him to the highest bidder for prospects?  Essentially you could pick up free prospects?  I understand it's difficult to trade big time contracts but if the finances worked out could this be done??

Thanks...  asking for a friend!  lol
Why rebuild there is no reason I can see that a person could not compete for a title every season.
I'm starting to go this way too.
1/5/2016 5:59 PM
I can answer.   In a good world, it's virtually impossible to not have to reboot every 10 seasons or so.   The process shouldn't take more than a season or two, you're just letting some contracts play themselves out. When the vast majority of owners are trying to win, you're likely to be forced to give out a bad contract or two.   If you do that for 2-3 seasons, you might have half a dozen albatross contracts at any given time.   And, because it's a good world, people aren't going to take them off your hands for their best prospect. 
1/5/2016 6:10 PM
I never do rebuilds anymore. You never know when a world going to roll with 8 openings and take 2 months to fill - I don't want that to happen in the middle of a rebuild.
1/5/2016 7:23 PM
Cooperstown rolled in 47 minutes.
1/5/2016 7:34 PM
I signed a guy to a max deal (during a rebuild) and thought about shopping him immediately. I was planning to start turning the corner that season, and thought the guy (huge bat, slightly below avg defense at 2B) might help me sneak into the playoffs. (this was also like my 3rd season playing HBD ever, so I was still learning - and farther from the playoffs than I thought). I was able to trade him (in year 2 of the deal, I think) for a couple good ML players, and learned some good lessons.

But... all that to say, I thought about shopping him since I had clearly been forced to go max by at least 1 owner who may have been willing to give me a stud prospect (or more) for him. In hindsight, I wish I had at least thrown it out there (but in the moment I was too geeked about having a player like that on my roster, especially after inheriting a bad team with little talent on the ML squad or on the farm).
1/6/2016 11:59 AM
also... I think an important factor would be that the owner(s) who lost out on said stud would A) be miffed about not getting the player for just the huge salary(+bonus?) and B) may not want the player if he costs a huge salary (+bonus?) in addition to a stud prospect or 2 - all of which makes the earlier suggestion of "buying" the prospect(s) with the signing bonus (and/or by paying up to $5M of the current season salary) the most likely scenario, IMO.
1/6/2016 12:03 PM
Rebuilding and Signing Free Agents Topic

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