Too many quality free agents left in the pool...

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Too many quality free agents left in the pool...

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Sports] >> PureSim Baseball >> Too many quality free agents left in the pool...

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Too many quality free agents left in the pool... - 9/1/2007 7:06:16 PM

Walewander

Posts: 85
Joined: 9/22/2005
Status: offline

This has been bugging me for a quite a long time and I'm wondering if there is some sort of quick fix in the XML file for this sort of thing. I've always seen what I consider to be a very high number of quality free agents left in the pool every season I play. First basemen with 60/60/60 on contact and power and eye are left, seemingly because they're unwilling to take big pay cuts and they are on an early downslide at the age of 32. It just seems that players like this would be willing to back off on contract demands for a chance to make some sort of cash and get noticed by a team in the midst of a pennant race. It's even more of a concern with pitchers, who rarely seem to back off at all on money demands, and there are always lots of pitches with ratings of 75/50/75 who aren't picked up - while I am starting guys with worse abilities who put up respectable numbers. Anyone else have any thoughts?

I just hate to see solid players left untouched, their careers prematurely ended as they linger in the free agent pool before I sign them and let them retire with me.

Post #: 1

RE: Too many quality free agents left in the pool... - 9/1/2007 7:22:04 PM

jeremy7227

Posts: 161
Joined: 1/24/2006
Status: offline

I know that is frustrating but it is what I call the "Vance Law" principle. (that's not original it is after a late 80's SI article on the pitfalls of free agency) In today's free agency baseball there is no room for pretty good and still serviceable players with 5+years of experience. You have stars and minimum salary youngsters. It's the reason guys go to Japan. The players union won't let a veteran guy play for the league minimum (it's graduated by years of service) but they can't command a big salary because they are 10 HR .260 hitting guys. GM's would rather try to catch lightning in a bottle with a $300,000 rookie prospect. Unless you are in Boston, NY, Chicago, LA or SF Teams aren't willing to pay for depth in real life either.

(in reply to Walewander)

Post #: 2

RE: Too many quality free agents left in the pool... - 9/1/2007 7:30:04 PM

BleacherBum

Posts: 56
Joined: 8/21/2005
Status: offline

I've noticed this too. I've been in the bidding on more than one free agent, eventually backed off, and then find that he went unsigned. I also have noticed toward the end of the free agency round that one or two teams will have the high standing offer on 10+ players each, and then they don't sign them. I think there is a flaw in the how the CPU teams finish up free agency. If the most aggressive team is monopolizing the top offers, once they finally fill their desired spots, that team bails out on the other players, and then free agency abruptly ends. There needs to be some sort of double check process once the game thinks all teams are done bidding.

Note that in the league I'm talking about, there are no cash constraints on the CPU teams. The most anyone is spending right is about 60% of their max.

< Message edited by BleacherBum -- 9/1/2007 7:31:12 PM >

(in reply to Walewander)

Post #: 3

RE: Too many quality free agents left in the pool... - 9/1/2007 11:17:05 PM

modred

Posts: 64
Joined: 8/19/2005
Status: offline

Yup, this is an ongoing issue. There are many facets to this issue.

First a couple that you can influence with the XML:

1. Players don't back off on their salary demands enough (and sometimes I don't think they ever do). You can change how often this occurs by changing the value of DYNAMIC_SALARY_DEMAND. I am currently using a value of 1.5 and it meets my expectations. You'll want to make small changes from the default value of 1.125 until you find what works for you.

2. Too many players are introduced into the game for the amateur draft. I changed TOTAL_PLAYERS_PER_SEASON from 1d1+6 to 1d1+4 and have not noticed any adverse effects on the talent in the game.

And now some others that can't

3. Players of replacement level talent do not retire aggressively enough when left in the free agent pool. Similarly their skills do not decrease fast enough.

4. CPU teams bid too early and too often on roster filler guys even when they have money to go after better guys.

5. Following from #4 the CPU teams end up with 20 year olds in the majors filling back up positions because they did not sign any quality bench players. I would like to see the CPU be made a little smarter about bringing up player 23 and younger - if they are not going to play at least 50% of the time, leave them in the minors.

I've tried to fix #3 by retiring players manually but all that clicking gets old. I also tried it directly via SQL against the database and while I could retire the player I couldn't get them to be removed from the player list and if you clicked on them it would crash things so I stopped doing that. Updating directly via SQL is probably best done just before the end of the season and then the game will clean them up as part of the offseason processing. However, with fewer subpar options to choose from you do end up forcing the AI to actually go after free agents with some talent.

Speaking of offseason processing I would love for the list of retirees to list players on my team or who were last on my time at the top of the list. As it is now I just click blindly through and then try to remember how many players I had on my roster before hand.

Another random AI annoyance is the propensity of CPU teams to sign a 35 year old starting pitcher to a 2 or 3 year deal at a large portion of their salary cap.

(in reply to BleacherBum)

Post #: 4

RE: Too many quality free agents left in the pool... - 9/2/2007 11:23:38 PM

Walewander

Posts: 85
Joined: 9/22/2005
Status: offline

I think I'm probably going ot take a look at the free agent pool right after the all star break from now on and manually retire players who don't need to be waiting around. I hate to see Joe Carter sit there and rot from 1990-1996 with little change in ability before finally dropping off and retiring.

One other thing about this trend... I have noticed that once players hit thirty two years old, some of them have a nearly impossible time keeping in game shape. They tire and are replaced by myself or the AI within a few innings and don't see action again for a few days. This seems a little overdone, in my view. Does anyone know any fixes for this sort of thing?

(in reply to modred)

Post #: 5

RE: Too many quality free agents left in the pool... - 9/3/2007 2:24:01 AM

modred

Posts: 64
Joined: 8/19/2005
Status: offline

I don't know how to prevent it from happening but there are two hidden abilities in the database - rest and durability. Rest is how tired the player is currently, durability is the maximum amount of rest that a player can accumulate. Durability seems to only go down over time.

(in reply to Walewander)

Post #: 6