Rules suggestion

[Goodell]

Every offseason NFL teams set up a target list that fits with in the there salary cap and bring these players in for visits. These players realistically set up 3 or 4 visits and in each visit the said player receives the best contract that team can offer.

I think we're replicating that with the current system, at least with the intention.

That's why we don't let people bid on dozens of players a day from their keyboard, but must target a select small group of players to go after at a time. For those targeted players of highest interest, there are usually 3-4 teams involved in bidding back and fourth to determine the market demand price. The best price amongst those interested teams comes out through the process with sim agent working to get the most for sim player and bidding ends when no team willing to give that sim player more.

The goal of the system is fair market-driven prices in the open.

It's great for a GM that sneaks a bargain, but I'm really against processes overall that become games of sneaking bargains or secrecy. I'm pro open systems and pro information. Baseball sim leagues I've been in over the years have blind bids where you send in and email with 2 bids a day for example and can only counter one player, etc. and many players in my view slip through the cracks with insane bargains because there isn't a more open bidding process and teams have to guess at their bids and have few options. I didn't want that kind of situation at all where it's a guess game or luck or secrets that determine prices. I wanted a more capitalistic realistic system of open negotiations. To me, if you have no idea of players who have bids on them by other teams, that greatly increases the likelihood of massive bargains slipping through the cracks with lack of market information.

If you're a player agent in REALITY, and you are close to an agreement with one team do people believe that agent isn't going to contact the other teams interested and tell them he's about to sign with Team X unless they have a better offer now? That's reality too, and how the market price set once price gets to a point nobody willing to pay more for player services.

[Aftermath2531]

I agree with everything you said. I'm not saying take away the information available as far as contract details, I'm just saying there's absolutely no use for the time stamp. Its used more for bad than it is for good. I do like the idea you were talking about earlier regarding first bids on a player.

[Goodell]

The system needs a time stamp, but how much that is published or not and whether it could improve the process/experience as you mention is something to think about and get more feedback on.

If people know what players have bids of not, though, and if a player has no bid now but does have a bid moments later... whether we try to hide that information it's certainly possible that highly involved and hyper active GMs wishing that information if they believe it will help them could gather that information themselves possibly by paying close attention and monitoring.

Having been through years or free agency and having to decide how to best use my limited bids, if you had no idea if a player was far from signing or close to signing it makes it more difficult to optimize your limited bids. If some GMs have more information that's secret from others if they are better at monitoring and keeping track of that themselves, it's possible some advantages gained in trying to hide information from most that could be collected by the most involved few looking for advantage.

There are some valid points to not having a countdown to signing, though, and trying to discourage unwanted behaviors. To me, we could cap that to prevent abuse. But there may be some middle ground between having no information about when a player is going to be signed (other than your own bids as you mention) and having exact information with a countdown.

Maybe a middle ground that has some basis in reality (which I like) is being more general about the signing time. Not publishing that the player will be signed on Tuesday morning at 10:59AM exactly if no other bids, but that he'll be signed just on Tuesday morning if no other bids.

That gives teams some idea of how to best optimize their limited bids. That cuts down on teams waiting and watching the clock count down to just before zero before they put in a frustrating last minute bid.

To reality, in real negotiations we can imaging a sim Agent working for the best deal for his player that takes some time, but ultimately putting it out there to other teams interested that the player has negotiated with multiple teams and is close to signing a deal that they'll sign later this afternoon if they don't hear back on another team wanting to give them something better before then.

If we have our information say "Tuesday afternoon" more vaguely instead of "Tuesday 2:05PM", maybe that lessens the last minute bid frustrations and cuts down on that strategy more while still allowing teams to know generally which guys are closer or further from signing when they think about who they focus their limited time/bids on now -- as well as still giving the market overall some idea of which players are about to be massively under-paid or not for the market to react as they should toward establishing a fair price. It also gives everyone some general signing time information to where if a GM tried to corner the market on perfect information on exact signing time by monitoring things closely themselves, that gained advantage for extra unencouraged work would be lessened since everyone has a general time period to plan against.

Something like that would be easy to implement (just modifying not printing the exact time and having it be more generalized into morning, afternoon, night, etc.) and not involve drastic changes to existing programming or processes, and possibly cut down on undesired strategies and frustrations.

Depending upon further discussions, I could see that maybe being something we test out in new leagues.

[Aftermath2531]

I like it! Say cut it up into four six hour time frames(morning, afternoon, night, and midnight)

[Strategist]

This is a terrible idea unless you have unlimited bids.

I disagree... NFL teams can't negotiate with all players either. It isn't a bad idea, and could help with people sitting on last second bids.

They could sign 10 players in one day though. They have zero limitations on how many offers they could make.

I don't understand why everyone gets so upset about last minute bids that prevent you from getting a great deal on a player. It has happened to me and I am like dang almost had him but I don't freak out and come to the boards demanding change.

I think our system provides a good way for players to get market value. What is wrong with that?

[robroach]

New here but thought I would give my thoughts / suggestions on what I've seen in free agency so far.

I see that some GMs had a strategy of sneaking players through on the first day. They would bid on a low to medium quality free agent at the veteran minimum for 3 years, and since everybody was so concerned with the blue chip guys, they got a good deal for those players. I unknowingly did it with Mark Sanchez when I signed him to a 3 year deal for 1mil per year and no signing bonus.


A couple suggestions:

Create a wave 1 window for free agency, maybe the first 10 days or so. No players could be signed in that time frame unless they were given a pre-determined signing bonus. You never see a guy sign on day one of free agency unless he's getting some pretty decent money. I saw guys going for 3 years and $730k on the first day. That's not realistic. This would also make free agency longer and more fun.

A 3 year deal for 730k with no signing bonus is not realistic either. Maybe it should only be a one year deal for players like that. I don't ever remember seeing a player sign for that in real life. It is always a one year "prove it deal." There should be a signing bonus minimum for a 2 year contract and a 3 year contract for veterans.


I'm having a great time here, those are just my suggestions to make it even better and more competitive.

[tino38]

I agree with Strategist, I haven't really got an issue with last minute bids. I've had it done to me, and I've done it to others. I also agree that it is similar to an agent in reality calling teams last second to see if any new offers would come up. I really don't see an issue with the time stamp but I guess I've never paid much attention to it much outside of the first 3 days.

[Zapotek]

Yeah. I don't enjoy getting outbid at the last minute, but I don't have a problem with it. The bid window is 24 hours - I don't really see an advantage in preventing people from using the whole 24.

[Ulrich82]

Just chiming in too. I have no problem with the time stamp or last minute bids. Its exciting to hope I get the guy and disappointing if someone ups an offer at the last minute, but I have no problem with it. Given that we only have 5 bids, sometimes you are waiting for a previous bid to clear so you can make a new offer. I hate the idea of removing the time stamp.

[jmdaz44]

Ditto the last couple posts. Teams get outbid at the last second in real life, so why shouldn't it happen here? Just regroup and make a new offer.

Also, I don't like the idea of removing the time stamp completely, but I do like the idea of only showing it to teams that have bid on that player.