Let the wookiee win.

Posted by Mwett on 8/26/2022 3:51:00 PM (view original):
AHA ! I KNEW this was somewhere.

GM/Contracts/Arbitration Report/?(help tab) :

Position - blah blah blah blah blah . . . You should arbitrate with all position players and pitchers. Players with whom you do not arbitrate will automatically win their hearings.

So, as to what I've been wondering all along and an easier and more realistic sensible solution than the wrong and non-answers so far, if you don't want to irritate a player who you'd like to keep cost-controlled long-term and not risk likely future contract squabbles including larger arb asks or FA walk or exorbitant LT demands, do NOTHING during his initial couple arbs and let him win until it's time to wrap him up for awhile.

You can also offer him what he is asking for in Arb and it will always say he wins.

Just ask me in the future. Send me a sitemail or something. Always glad to help. I don't check the forums as much as I used to, mostly due to work but I'll try to help where I can. Damag and Tlowster are pretty helpful as well.

I only arb players with impactful salaries. Players asking for $1.6M or something I just let the sim automatically offer them the 70%, I'm pretty sure I've actually "won" some of these.

As a rule I offer everyone 70%, I've won more than lost.

In my experience, I've never had any negative consequences for low-balling guys in arb.

I've never had a player refuse to sign long-term with me going into their 3rd Arb year because I low-balled their Rd 1 and Rd 2 Arb offers.

I could be wrong, but I do not believe the code of this game has any sort of negative consequence if the players win the arbitration hearing.

As I said, this is only based on my experience (which seems to be different than every other person in this thread?) but I've never once had a player refuse to sign Long-Term because of anything I've done during Years 1 and 2 of Arbitration.

Posted by jimt14120 on 9/8/2022 11:59:00 AM (view original):
As a rule I offer everyone 70%, I've won more than lost.

This is very close to what I do (I'll offer less sometimes) and I've gotten some studs on cheap 1-year deals then they still signed long-term with me.

You can offer them whatever you want in Arb 1 and 2 and they will still sign long term in 3. I think the OP was saying if you let them win in 1 and 2 you may get them cheaper long term for Arb 3. The tricky part is I don't know how you would be able to prove that.

Posted by Mwett on 9/8/2022 12:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jimt14120 on 9/8/2022 11:59:00 AM (view original):
As a rule I offer everyone 70%, I've won more than lost.

Misses the point of this thread and not a good general rule anyway. If you care about a good player and want to keep him around long-term reasonably cost-controlled, you don't want to 'win' arb against him from which he could likely bolt or jacked up demands in the future.

Not really, but thanks for the snippy reply. I offer the 70% in years 1 and 2, the 3rd year if I don't care if they walk. If I want to keep them, I sign them long-term.

I said this in the other thread - here's what I've actually observed: If you arb a player three times and he has a Patience rating lower than 99, he is going to walk to free agency.
I have not actually observed anything to show that if I win an arb at any time against a player, that he asks for more money next time, or is more likely to seek free agency in later years.
In other words, the only time I've ever seen evidence that a player is "ticked off at ownership" is if you arb him three times. And frankly, if you actually arb a player three times you don't really care if he sticks long term or not; if he's even a good player you're angling to get the comp pick when he walks.