As a rule, the first step in my pre-draft preparations is to sort the players according to "Background Info" and immediately push anyone using his mother down to the bottom of the list. Experience has shown that these guys always ask for exhorbitant sums and then don't even sign, so why bother? And let's be psuedo serious for a minute: Would you want a guy on your team that was using his mother for an agent?

Well ... this past draft in L.E.G. I never got around to filtering these guys, and I wound up taking two momma's boys: one in the first round and one in the 3rd.

The first rounder was a low OVR catcher that profiled as a decent late 1st round sleeper (I picked 35th) and asked for $8M. I made him an offer thinking that it wasn't a totally unreasonable request for a comparable IFA and he would probably turn it down anyway and give me a comp pick for the next season. As expected, he waited a few days and then rejected the offer - giving me the last pick in next season's first round.

The 3rd rounder projected as a borderline useful ML 1B with serious makeup issues (he maxes out at 17). Other than the fact that he wanted $5.5M he was again a reasonable value skills-wise for the end of the third round. Once the cash freed up from the 1st rounder I offered it to him and waited for confrmation that I'd have another 3rd round pick the next season. Instead, a few days later I got this from Mom:

The wording of mom's message is interesting . . . implying that you may want coaches with high patience ratings to maximize his development?  I've never seen a "hint" like that in any scout/agent messages before.

Unless I'm just reading something into her message that really isn't there.

Based on things I've seen in the forum and in my worlds, I think that a player with mom as his agent decides to sign (with a low probability of signing) per offer, not per player. I don't know the exact probability... but if it's (for example) 2% every time you offer, then you'll have an 18.3% chance of signing him after 10 offers, and one in 50 will sign on the first try. I have seen a couple sign after a large number of offers, and I have seen that approach fail... My guess is that Roberto is a lucky dice roll (or unlucky, if you'd rather have had the comp pick and the $5.5M than the player).

The number of times you make an offer to a guy is completely irrelevant. You make an intial offer that, as long as it meets his demands, you then sit back and wait on. Making another offer before he decides is useless and just wasting money. He will eventually either (A) sign, (B) decide he is not going to sign at all, or (C) up his demand at which time you can either increase your offer or let him go, possible getting an extra pick the following year if he was an early rounder.

I also don't think there is any difference between mom as an agent and a real agent. that (and the messages you receive) are all just fluff.

I have to agree with tankerwood on both counts.    I SERIOUSLY doubt the mom's message gives us any signs about what sort of coaching he wants.

Posted by csherwood on 11/9/2010 9:59:00 AM (view original):
The number of times you make an offer to a guy is completely irrelevant. You make an intial offer that, as long as it meets his demands, you then sit back and wait on. Making another offer before he decides is useless and just wasting money. He will eventually either (A) sign, (B) decide he is not going to sign at all, or (C) up his demand at which time you can either increase your offer or let him go, possible getting an extra pick the following year if he was an early rounder.

Well I assume he's talking about making the 2nd offer after he rejects your first offer outright, in which case I think he's correct.  There's a chance any kid will sign, and if you could offer them 1,000 times, then odds are they'll sign at least once, or ask for more money.  Of course there are the kids that reject your initial offer and don't allow you to even be able to offer a 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc..) time.  I had to go thru 4 or 5 cycles in one world recently, but the kid eventually agreed to sign for a higher asking price after flatout rejected my offers the first 3 (or 4) times around so he could sign his NFL contract.

Posted by csherwood on 11/9/2010 10:00:00 AM (view original):
I also don't think there is any difference between mom as an agent and a real agent. that (and the messages you receive) are all just fluff.

There's no difference per se. Having said that, if you sort draft prospects by signability you'll see that everyone in the "Probably won't sign. He's determined to finish out his college career" group is using his mother as an agent. So practically speaking, yes, there is a difference - players using mom as an agent are the least likely to sign.

I do agree though that the messages are 100% fluff, just like the ones from the minors hitting coach that gratuitously mention how well your DH is playing in the field. 

Posted by csherwood on 11/9/2010 9:59:00 AM (view original):
The number of times you make an offer to a guy is completely irrelevant. You make an intial offer that, as long as it meets his demands, you then sit back and wait on. Making another offer before he decides is useless and just wasting money. He will eventually either (A) sign, (B) decide he is not going to sign at all, or (C) up his demand at which time you can either increase your offer or let him go, possible getting an extra pick the following year if he was an early rounder.

Taz is right.  I'm talking about making another, identical, offer AFTER he "decides he is not going to sign at all."  That "decision" is fluid; I have seen players sign after that message, and the number of offers (all of which have to be allowed to go all the way to "rejection") is what I believe to be the deciding factor.  I was unclear about that in my initial post.

I've confirmed in the past with admin that the agent has no effect on whether or not the player signs.