Time for another rant... Topic

I think I've seen this topic posted in the forum about 3 times in the past year.

IMO, FA negotiations is one area the game could be greatly improved.  If WIS ever decides to invest any money back into the game.

I think the process would be more fair and interesting if -

The only limit on offers is we can't offer more than amount in our current budget plus the amounts that could be transferred from other budgets. Budget transfer would be done automatically if needed to fund the offer. We'd get a warning screen if an offer would require a transfer.

Players would quickly accept any offer that is much higher than their demands or any other offer.  If we tried to game the system by making  $10MM offers to average FAs, those offers would be accepted within 4 hours.  That should prevent anyone from trying to drive up prices on players they really don't want.

We'd get better information.  Some idea how far our bid is from the top.  That would be somewhat like the information provided by agents in MLB.  An agent wouldn't tell a owner to just keep bidding.  They'd tell you what their best offer is and let you know what needs to be done to match or beat it.

We'd get an email from any player we ever made an offer (current or withdrawn) to let us know if we were back in the bidding if a higher offer had been pulled or our offer was now close.

If we had the top offer, unless a much higher offer was made, we'd have at least a full cycle (8-16 hours) to counter.  Unless there's a super high offer, no more going from top offer to the player signing with another team without having a chance to increase our offer.

There would not be a deadline for players accepting the top offer that at least meets their demands.  If 2 or more teams keep upping offers by a reasonable amount every 8-12 hours, bidding could continue through spring training and the regular season.

None of this would be very hard to program or explain.  WIS would just need to tell us the rules they're using to determine what makes an offer high enough to be accepted right away.  And if there are any other rules in place to minimize gaming the system, like reducing offers or raising offers by small amounts.

IMO, all of this make much more sense than the way it works now.

8/30/2011 7:23 PM
Everything I've seen in favour of this is basically asking for the game to be dumbed down, and is always a reaction to taking one up the pooper on the final cycle.

I don't want this dumbed down. Period.
And really, how hard is it now?

Do I have the top bid? No. Make it higher or get out.
Do I have the top bid? Yes. Has he signed? No. Has he not signed and is it late in the process? Yes. Therefore, someone else is in the running, so I better make my bid higher or I'm taking a chance.

I have yet to see someone stroll in here and say "I signed this FA on the last cycle, and I just don't feel right about it"
8/31/2011 8:26 AM
Posted by Jtpsops on 8/29/2011 11:41:00 PM (view original):
...about FA.

It's seriously time to start letting us offer more than our available cap space, even if it's a pre-determined amount like $10mil.  In Puckett we recently had a solid FA class. I went after a pitcher who was probably the 5th or 6th most sought after FA.  I had other guys targeted, but a limited budget, so I put it all towards this guy. I was leading for him for the last 10-12 cycles, then some guy sneaks in at the end with a better offer, the FA snags it and I'm screwed. No other FA are left to sign. And the guy who beat me out likely lost out on one or two of the bigger name guys, and came to my guy, who I had been pursuing since the beginning, and snagged him. I didn't have that luxury.

There is nothing competitively fair about that setup.  It comes down to luck of the draw - who can sneak their offer in at the right moment.  I thought stuff like team, competitiveness, etc. were supposed to factor in, but he signed for a few million more dollars (which I could have matched) to go to a worse team.
what would having offers more than available cap space do to make it so you don't get outbid on a free agent?
8/31/2011 8:43 AM
This is crazy:

"There would not be a deadline for players accepting the top offer that at least meets their demands.  If 2 or more teams keep upping offers by a reasonable amount every 8-12 hours, bidding could continue through spring training and the regular season."

First, it doesn't mirror MLB at all.     Second, how in the hell can you make plans for the regular season if you're still bidding on FA?
8/31/2011 9:42 AM
and it makes a great addition to the tanker toolbox - "I know I lost the first 10 games, but I'm bidding on that stud FA that will turn things around" then "oops, I didn't get him, time to transfer than money to prospects and build for next year"
8/31/2011 11:39 AM
Posted by MikeT23 on 8/31/2011 9:42:00 AM (view original):
This is crazy:

"There would not be a deadline for players accepting the top offer that at least meets their demands.  If 2 or more teams keep upping offers by a reasonable amount every 8-12 hours, bidding could continue through spring training and the regular season."

First, it doesn't mirror MLB at all.     Second, how in the hell can you make plans for the regular season if you're still bidding on FA?
If you think the most important thing is knowing your regular season lineup at the start of spring training, you can stop bidding.

If other owners want to keep trying to improve their team, they can keep bidding.

The odds of a bidding war going past spring training would be very small, if there was a good algorithm

In many real world auctions, there are rules regulate bids.  A next bid must be a certain amount higher than the previous bid.  Easy to implement that here. All it would take is comparing offers to our previous offerand the current high offer.  If our next offer isn't enough, we get an email like, "You're wasting my time with these Mickey Mouse bids. I've decided to sign with another team."

8/31/2011 1:43 PM
If you don't think knowing your regular season line-up before the regular season starts is important, I don't know what game you're playing.

First, it doesn't mirror MLB at all.  Second, why make a big change in the game for a very small possibility? 
8/31/2011 1:50 PM
Posted by deathinahole on 8/31/2011 8:26:00 AM (view original):
Everything I've seen in favour of this is basically asking for the game to be dumbed down, and is always a reaction to taking one up the pooper on the final cycle.

I don't want this dumbed down. Period.
And really, how hard is it now?

Do I have the top bid? No. Make it higher or get out.
Do I have the top bid? Yes. Has he signed? No. Has he not signed and is it late in the process? Yes. Therefore, someone else is in the running, so I better make my bid higher or I'm taking a chance.

I have yet to see someone stroll in here and say "I signed this FA on the last cycle, and I just don't feel right about it"
IMO, the way it works now is as dumbed down as it could possibly be.

If there are 3 good SPs in the FA market, we have to blindly pick one to go after.  How dumb is that?

And if there are 3 others that would help, we can't put a bid on them at a lower price unless we pass on all of the top options.  How dumb is that?

In real world bidding, it's possible to put out 4 year, $60MM offers to 3 different players (or anything else) with the condition that the first one who accepts gets the deal and that pulls the other deals off the table from the others.

Allowing that kind of FA bidding in HBD would make FA bidding more fun, more realistic, and add strategy.  The only strategy now is blind luck.

8/31/2011 1:53 PM
Posted by MikeT23 on 8/31/2011 1:50:00 PM (view original):
If you don't think knowing your regular season line-up before the regular season starts is important, I don't know what game you're playing.

First, it doesn't mirror MLB at all.  Second, why make a big change in the game for a very small possibility? 
Some owners are always trying to improve their teams. They don't freeze their team at the start of spring training.  If you do, that's fine.  But I don't think you should force that on all other owners.

IMO, this is a better process than the current process. Where there's one 1/2 cycle where all offers are accepted.  Extending the bidding a few days into ST isn't going to hurt anything. And it would add strategy & options.

If you did a little MLB research, I think you'd find that some FAs sign in spring training.  And some sign after the season starts.
8/31/2011 1:58 PM
hbd /= mlb
never has, never will cause it cant
end of story
8/31/2011 2:00 PM

You should be trying to improve your team all season.  However, losing out on a FA(after all decent FA are gone) after game 10 is really going to hurt.   Surely you understand this.

Sure, plenty of FA sign during ST in MLB.   Because they didn't get offers until then.   What you suggest is COMPLETELY different from that.

8/31/2011 2:01 PM
amen and amen
8/31/2011 2:02 PM
There are ways to bid big amounts on multiple guys to get a feel for things, but it takes a little work

1) Make a big offer

2) Wait a cycle to see if that is good for #1 offer. Make note of results

3) Withdraw offer and return to step 1 for next FA

In half a day you migh glean some information. This isn't perfect of course, but it is hardly "blindly" picking a FA to bid on

A modified approach is to pick a FA, bid up for a few cycles to see where the top offer is, and move on quickly if you never get there. Same thing if everytime you get top offer you get trumped the next cycle.
8/31/2011 2:05 PM
but that's like 'hard' and 'unfair' and ****
8/31/2011 2:07 PM
What tuft fails to mention is that you can view anyone's budgeted/committed payroll.   If I'm bidding into ST, I've already checked to see who(and it could be more than one) I'm bidding against(hint:  trade screen).  I'll know if I can outbid them.   However, if a big-time FA is out there halfway thru ST, more bidders can join.   So, it's entirely possible that several teams will get shut out in the FA market.   Will this help competition?
8/31/2011 2:28 PM
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