We are having just an insane IFA year. Believe 5 guys showing over 90 overall projections. Probably 50-60 project as future ML players many as all stars and we are only half way through the season. Seems like a glitch. Anyone else seeing similar?

Could be that network issue from a month ago.

It's throwing off competitive balance. Some paid market for early IFA's before we realized it was a glitch and are now out of cash. We are seeing mid 90 projected prospects signed for 3-4-5 mill. It's nuts.

Must be a glitch.

I've spent a bit of time thinking about player generation, competitive balance, and the ongoing re-seeding of a world.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, and might be necessary for a world to periodically renew itself.

Contrast it to the many complaints we often see about "terrible IFA / draft class"... "haven't had a good one in years"...

We also complain that scouting doesn't let us "see everything." Well, if you could see everything, you'd know this had been going to happen. THAT would have been a competitive disadvantage.

And BTW it doesn't mean, to my mind that all these players will be super studs. One or two of them will be. If as you say the world is suddenly being flooded with fresh talent, much of it will cancel each other out, especially if more or less equally distributed within the teams.

What it WILL do, IMO, is relegate much less talented players who have till now been performing relatively well, to bench fodder.

I'm only saying this from having played in one world for over 40 seasons. Great players come and go. What I've realized is that, for instance, when there's a lot of "great" pitching around, what we in this forum think of as an average hitter (in a vacuum) is just an average hitter.

Ten seasons later, a generation of pitchers is gone, maybe the talent level of the world decreases, now that average hitter (based on ratings alone) performs at all star level. Changes how you are able to build a team.

If this occurred naturally, that world probably won't see another IFA class like this for at least 20 seasons. Maybe not even a good one.

It's such a dramatic change there's no way it's naturally occurring and the fact no one was given a heads up this change was happening it's thrown off the competitive balance based on sheer dumb luck.

I agree with your points on restocking worlds with fresh talent but there should at least be a heads up so people can properly account for it in how they manage their team...

Report if it happens again next season. If it doesn't, it was just the season with more good IFA's than other seasons.

The season my world just finished had a horrible IFA class. That doesn't mean I expect the next one to be great. I assume, like all things math, there will be occasional outliers.

ct_duck --- How was the amateur draft class? It is common for the draft class to be good and the IFA market suck or vis versa in the same season.

Also, are you running low or high prospect and advanced scouting budgets? If you are running low budgets the players will look a lot better than they actually are.

that sounds messed up. i'd submit a ticket about it. that sort of imbalance can ruin a league.

i probably wouldn't want to keep playing if things got that wacky because the game is not functioning as intended.

Posted by dyoungquist on 4/12/2024 7:19:00 PM (view original):
ct_duck --- How was the amateur draft class? It is common for the draft class to be good and the IFA market suck or vis versa in the same season.

Also, are you running low or high prospect and advanced scouting budgets? If you are running low budgets the players will look a lot better than they actually are.

draft class was very good as well, but not insane.

They just keep coming. It's not uncommon to get 12-15+ IFA prospects in my inbox a day. I currently have about 250 IFAs on my prospect board and it's only growing. Glad other leagues aren't this messed up.

NCAA II world also has this problem. I have 26 pages of International FA. 26 x 25 on a page, you can do the math. 106 games into the season for me. People are getting all stars for under $1M now.

Yeah so I know I posted basically "don't worry" but the more you discuss this the more alarming it sounds, I have to admit...

Posted by ct_duck on 4/17/2024 12:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dyoungquist on 4/12/2024 7:19:00 PM (view original):
ct_duck --- How was the amateur draft class? It is common for the draft class to be good and the IFA market suck or vis versa in the same season.

Also, are you running low or high prospect and advanced scouting budgets? If you are running low budgets the players will look a lot better than they actually are.

draft class was very good as well, but not insane.

They just keep coming. It's not uncommon to get 12-15+ IFA prospects in my inbox a day. I currently have about 250 IFAs on my prospect board and it's only growing. Glad other leagues aren't this messed up.

geez, that's enough to ruin a world for 10-15 years. Hope they get it lined out.

I've rebuilt my team over the past few seasons and made the playoffs for the first time last year. Signed a max deal pitcher this offseason to try and push me over the line. Based on where I'm at in my cycle my prospect budget is half what it was a couple seasons ago. Realistically I will not be able to compete in a few seasons when some of the teams that just happened to have large prospect budgets this season have multiple all stars on rookie deals. No exaggeration we have seen 8-12 pitchers already get signed for 2-8 mill (I got 1 of em...) that would each be the best pitchers in the league if they hit projections. We saw a position player that got signed who's ratings at time of signing are better than any of my ML position players right now. And again I'm currently sitting with the 3rd best record in the league. Like Joek, all star level prospects are currently getting signed for under a mill as we are now 100 games into the season.

NCAA II and Casey Stengel both "hit the button" on the same day; budget day was 2/21 for both. Which means that the Rule 5 draft for both would have been 2/28... which means that the first INTL's would have been generated in the middle of the Leap Day service breakdown. Maybe a connection?

FWIW I expect these are the only two worlds in this situation. Moonlight Graham was the previous world to set budgets and we're OK, and the next world to hit the button was Kaline and there are no complaints in their chat.

No clue how WiS remedies this. There's really no appropriate compensation for damaging a long-held dynasty franchise for 10-15 seasons.

Posted by dedelman on 4/18/2024 12:23:00 PM (view original):
NCAA II and Casey Stengel both "hit the button" on the same day; budget day was 2/21 for both. Which means that the Rule 5 draft for both would have been 2/28... which means that the first INTL's would have been generated in the middle of the Leap Day service breakdown. Maybe a connection?

FWIW I expect these are the only two worlds in this situation. Moonlight Graham was the previous world to set budgets and we're OK, and the next world to hit the button was Kaline and there are no complaints in their chat.

No clue how WiS remedies this. There's really no appropriate compensation for damaging a long-held dynasty franchise for 10-15 seasons.

great insight dedel! IMO WIS should allow the "bug" to continue in these two worlds. Allow owners advance notice and to prepare for this annual onslaught. Otherwise the few teams that were in the right place/right time and just going to dominate these two worlds for years.