I had two Free Agents who during the year had the message about testing the free agent market and wouldn't negotiate with me.

We are now in the set budget stage and I have noticed that both of their messages are now the "I'll play for whoever shows me the money". We are coming off of a world series victory so perhaps that changed there mind but I have never been in this situation before. Its too early for me to attempt to sign them because we are still in budgets but I was wondering if....

1) It is possible to re-sign them before they hit the open market or was their message from last season true?

and

2) If I can re-sign them is there any advice or tips in going about it


Thanks in advance

If they woundn't negotiate with you last season, they most likely will not negotiate with you this season.  They'll hit the open market and you'll have to compete for them.

This to me is a bug that should be addressed.  You should be able to definitely know that they plan to go FA no matter what on budget day, especially if they were telling you that the previous season.

They may change to "Unless you make an offer than blows me away, I'm filing for FA".     If they do that, you can re-sign them for more than the listed price.  Usually have to add a season too. 

Its a bug. It happened to me a couple seasons ago. As soon as budgets were done the player changed back to not signing. Lucky for me nobody else offered him a deal and I resigned him for cheaper money anyway.

Posted by tecwrg on 5/23/2011 7:55:00 AM (view original):
If they woundn't negotiate with you last season, they most likely will not negotiate with you this season.  They'll hit the open market and you'll have to compete for them.

This to me is a bug that should be addressed.  You should be able to definitely know that they plan to go FA no matter what on budget day, especially if they were telling you that the previous season.

I have had four instances where the player became willing to negotiate with me after rollover (genuinely, not just the pre-budget bug message).  All were type B, and only one needed to be "blown away" by the offer.  In at least one case the guy was willing to re-sign for his demands even though he did not suffer a ratings drop in the offseason.  This particular player had a patience of 30, so I'm guessing that rating doesn't matter in this calculation.

I cannot remember ever having a type A willing to re-sign with me.