FWIW, the current system doesn't bother me much.   Minimum win rules applied to several seasons takes care of the problem.   Wanna transfer 40m so you have 40m in prospect?  Go ahead but you better win some games.

Posted by tecwrg on 6/10/2011 10:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by AlCheez on 6/10/2011 9:57:00 AM (view original):
The total money is out of whack because the nature (in terms of certainty and widespread knowledge) of the talent available is out of line with real life - so I don't think you impose artificial restrictions without taking steps to address the actual cause of the problem.  Again, you only have to look back to 1996 to see what happens in MLB when top, well-known amatuer talent winds up on the free agent market - and that's basically what we have in HBD with IFAs.

I agree with your original comment of "treat the disease, not the symptom", which is what you seem to be reiterating here.  Fuzzy ratings, consistently low starting bid, etc.

I do think that these will help, but my gut feeling is that it wouldn't completely solve the problem.  My proposals with capping the prospect budget, capping the max bonus, and restricting the number of max bonus IFA's one could sign might still be needed to curb the problem.

I'd like to try before we go down the path of a bunch of artificial restrictions on the bidding process itself.  Throwing a set of restrictions on the bidding process to superimpose some appearance of reality in terms of the dollars when we all acknowledge the system doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to reality is bound to have some unintended negative consequences.

Like I said though, I'd be fine with more restrictions on budget transfers now.  They weren't originally part of the game, and I don't think they were added with the intent that they would be used strategically.  Doing that, along with reforming the starting demands and possibly going to a one bid process like Mike suggests would probably go a long way to restoring order.

 

 

I also like the one-bid proposal.  Forgot to mention that earlier.

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/10/2011 10:27:00 AM (view original):

No you don't.

i do! i've seen em! maybe not all of the rules in one league, but variations on those rules in seperate leagues

I don't believe you.

Here's the logic for one bid:

As HBD is currently set up, I can see, almost to the dollar, how much each owner has left in prospect money.   So I know how high I can bid to either win, or lose, a player.  If I'm sitting on 33m and Owner B has 28m, I know I have to bid more than that.  If he's not playing the same way I am, he may pull out at 14m so I get the player for just a dollar more and still have 19m.  With one bid, I have to bid a dollar more than him right now.  Therefore, I'm not getting another top IFA.

I like the single bid, low demands idea.  I also don't mind the way it is now, but i concede that the way it is now is completely different from RL.

The low starting demands idea should be implemented right away, because the current  setup allows teams with super-low scouting to make reasonable guesses at who might be good. It should more strongly reward teams that spend more on scouting (which could cut into prospect money). I'd also like to see the number of prospects seen correlate even more strongly to the scouting budget amount; I've been on both sides of it, and it "feels" out of whack to me.

I'm not too wild about the single-bid process, and I don't like capping prospect money or contract offers. Win requirements should discourage teams for tearing everything down to the floorboards.

(1) I like the hard cap on Prospect budget rule and that does exist in some form in some private leagues. ("You are not to exceed $25 million in prospect payroll for the entire year" - upper deck).
(2) I like the "lower" opening "demand" but would suggest 1,000,000.  Then if no bids the demand goes down with time (like free agency). 
(3) Eliminate the "draft - like" commentary (probably won't sign etc)
(4) I would not cap the amount bid or the number of bids on a single IFA - but would cap the total number of bids for the season (like the waiver wire).  (If the prospect $$ are capped in some manner then bidding on an individual free agent will be limited to some degree)
(5) I would disclose an estimate of the highest bid and number of bidders on every FA and IFA (in real life you usually have soome idea what you are bidding against)
(6) Given the nature of the game I do not think the "projections" can be made "fuzzy" enough to add the level of reality suggested and not have open revolt by those who expect the projections to be accurate.  Though the DITR process should be improved to actually lead to some diamonds and not just Zirconium

Posted by grivfmd1 on 6/11/2011 11:21:00 AM (view original):
(1) I like the hard cap on Prospect budget rule and that does exist in some form in some private leagues. ("You are not to exceed $25 million in prospect payroll for the entire year" - upper deck).
(2) I like the "lower" opening "demand" but would suggest 1,000,000.  Then if no bids the demand goes down with time (like free agency). 
(3) Eliminate the "draft - like" commentary (probably won't sign etc)
(4) I would not cap the amount bid or the number of bids on a single IFA - but would cap the total number of bids for the season (like the waiver wire).  (If the prospect $$ are capped in some manner then bidding on an individual free agent will be limited to some degree)
(5) I would disclose an estimate of the highest bid and number of bidders on every FA and IFA (in real life you usually have soome idea what you are bidding against)
(6) Given the nature of the game I do not think the "projections" can be made "fuzzy" enough to add the level of reality suggested and not have open revolt by those who expect the projections to be accurate.  Though the DITR process should be improved to actually lead to some diamonds and not just Zirconium

Suggestions 2 and 3 would penalize owners who use IFA to stock their minors (which is good) without doing much to curb "excessive" signing bonuses. It would also increase the odds of an owner sitting on millions of dollars in unused prospect payroll if he bid and lost out several times.

Posted by travisg on 6/13/2011 12:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grivfmd1 on 6/11/2011 11:21:00 AM (view original):
(1) I like the hard cap on Prospect budget rule and that does exist in some form in some private leagues. ("You are not to exceed $25 million in prospect payroll for the entire year" - upper deck).
(2) I like the "lower" opening "demand" but would suggest 1,000,000.  Then if no bids the demand goes down with time (like free agency). 
(3) Eliminate the "draft - like" commentary (probably won't sign etc)
(4) I would not cap the amount bid or the number of bids on a single IFA - but would cap the total number of bids for the season (like the waiver wire).  (If the prospect $$ are capped in some manner then bidding on an individual free agent will be limited to some degree)
(5) I would disclose an estimate of the highest bid and number of bidders on every FA and IFA (in real life you usually have soome idea what you are bidding against)
(6) Given the nature of the game I do not think the "projections" can be made "fuzzy" enough to add the level of reality suggested and not have open revolt by those who expect the projections to be accurate.  Though the DITR process should be improved to actually lead to some diamonds and not just Zirconium

Suggestions 2 and 3 would penalize owners who use IFA to stock their minors (which is good) without doing much to curb "excessive" signing bonuses. It would also increase the odds of an owner sitting on millions of dollars in unused prospect payroll if he bid and lost out several times.

(3) is just useless verbage - I have never seen an IFA turn down a contract - it has no impact on the negotiation process
(2) players would not be "instantly available" but if they taperred down quickly (see FA period as an example) then in 21 HBD days (7 of our days) they would be practically begging for a contract

Yeah, I don't see how #2 would do anything but maybe cause a delay for guys who use IFA to stock their minors.  There are certain types of players they could get more cheaply now than they do, and I can't imagine they'd end up paying more for the guys that are really cheap now.   Do people that stock their minors with IFA do it before the end part of the season anyhow?

The only thing the "signability" impacts for IFAs is their initial demands relative to their talent, so it's basically redundant now, and would be completely worthless if everyone had the same starting demand, regardless of what the size of that demand was.

I am not driven to protect owners from themselves - IF they want to piddle away their money on an IFA contract I see no reason to limit that (as relates to a single contract) - I do object to the idea of stripping the underlying team of assets to bid on IFAs, therefore the preferance for an overall cap (see 1) and an overall limit on number of bids with reasonable transparency (see 4 & 5).  Single bidding I think will actually inflate contracts.

As an example of what I mean by decreasing salary demands - If after 2 days there were no bids the "asking demand" could decrease 20% of the previous demand every other cycle (every 8 hrs - 1 HBD day) If a player starts at 1000000 then by the end of the 21st cycle (21 HBD days - 7 of ours) their demand would be down to about 35000 and in 2 more of our days (21 HBD days from the start of demand lowering) it would be down to about 9200 - the next demand should be "sign for salary".

"At sign for salary" stocking minors with IFA makes sense - otherwise it is spending excess $$ on signing bonuses (that are higher than a draft bonus) because you were to lazy to stock your minors during free agency.

Either I'm not understanding griv or everyone else isn't. 

He's not saying the demands never lower.   They do.  They just start at 1m.    Does anyone start chasing the 40k IFA on a Day 1?   Do they have to?