I still don't get WIS' logic on coach hiring.

I made three offers for major-league bullpen coaches -- $750,000 for my first choice, $749,000 for my 2nd choice and $748,000 for my 3rd choice.

I wound up with the $749,000 guy. The other two did not sign elsewhere. All three initially said they were interested (in other words, my 1st choice didn't rule himself out because he wasn't interested in a bullpen job).

Does that make any sense? Short of only bidding on one guy at a time, how do you steer WIS to give you your top choice for a position?

Um, bidding on one guy at a time IS the way to make sure you get your top choice.

Thanks for the snark, amorak. Helpful. Truly.

Of course, if I got outbid on that guy, it's possible I would have alos lost out on my #2 and #3 choices, if they signed elsewhere.

You have three outstanding offers. The first one who decides to sign gets the job.

How would you expect that to work any differently?

The one you offer the most to gets the job, because hypothetically, they'd be the one to accept fastest.

Or, make it so that you can only offer the job to one candidate at a time.

Why would they be the one to accept the fastest?

As I understand it, they go by first offered. So if you offered #2 first, he was the first to accept.

That I didn't know. Like I said, and maybe it was coincidence, but the guy I offered the most to was the one that I got.

Presumably, each coach has a different formula for when they sign -- so it's possible that Coach A needs six cycles to consider an offer of $750K, while Coach B needs only five cycles to consider an offer of $749K.

Whenever you have outstanding offers to more than one coach, you run the risk of any of them signing in a given cycle, and I just don't see how WIS can be expected to control for that.

Gotta agree with amorak. It's the same as with FAs. Some sign faster than others. It doesn't go in the order of how much $$ you offer.

Would it be that hard to make them accept your offer, and then you get one last chance to sign them or not? That way you could offer 3 coaches, and if 2 accept you can then choose which one to sign.

Oh, that could be exploited, maybe a short time limit on your last decision would work.

WIS got back to me and said it's completely random when you make multiple offers. So basically, the only way to guarantee that you get the guy you want is to make one offer at a time, and make sure you have the top bid.