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Post by Exposgm on Oct 7, 2007 17:22:02 GMT -5
In the 2k8, re-signing players is a lot more complicated than it used to be in the 2k4.
The plan we had originally come up with (salary demands at -10% and owners with 3 negociations) doesn't work as I had thought it would. The big flaw is that each time I try to negotiate using the same numbers, I get different results. This is too big a problem to ignore. We need to get a simpler way to re-sign players, and this is what this poll will determine.
Option #1: Let the commissioner negociate
This is similar to the original plan, in the sense that we would keep the same settings (-10% in salary demands) and 3 negociations would be allowed. But the commissionner would act as the "agent" and I would negociate and sign the players myself.
All that would be requested from the owners would be to tell me for how many years they want to sign the players. We would do away with no-trade clauses and team/player options.
Since you guys can already negotiate with your players, you would all have a general idea of how much I would your players to sign to. It's just a matter of avoiding several posts and replies that would never end. In other words, make it as simple as possible.
Option #2: A signing table.
We use a pre-set table and determine by the lenght of the contract offer, how much will the player sign for. We have to have two different tables, one for veterans or players of age 25 and older, and one for rookies or players aged 24 and younger.
Let's use for example a player whose demands are of 5M x 4 years.
If he's a veteran or 25 years old and older:
Veteran or age 25 and older asking 5M x 4.
Sign to 1 year he's 5M + 30%, total 7.25M per year Sign to 2 years he's 5M + 20%, total 6.5M per year Sign to 3 years he's 5M + 10%, total 5.75M per year Sign to 4 years he's 5M x 0%, total 5M per year Sign to 5 years, he's 5M - 10%, total 4.5M per year Sign to 6 years, he's 5M - 20%, total 4M per year Sign to 7 years, he's 5M - 30%, total 3.5M per year
Veterans always want to sign for longer and always accept less money for more seasons or want more money if it's for less years.
So, in our example, if you wanted to sign your veteran who's asking 5M x 4 years to a 7 year deal, you would get him at 3.5M per year thanks to a -30% reduction.
This would apply to all players (+30% for one year, -30% for 7 years, and so on) meeting the criteria of being a veteran aged 25 or older.
For rookies or age 24 or younger, it would look like this:
Rookie or age 24 and younger asking 5M x 4.
Sign to 1 year he's 5M - 30%, total 3.5M per year Sign to 2 years he's 5M - 20%, total 4M per year Sign to 3 years he's 5M - 10%, total 4.5M per year Sign to 4 years he's 5M x 0%, total 5M per year Sign to 5 years, he's 5M + 10%, total 5.5M per year Sign to 6 years, he's 5M + 20%, total 6M per year Sign to 7 years, he's 5M + 30%, total 6.5M per year
Rookies or younger players do the opposite of veterans: they want to sign short term as much as possible. In the 2k4, any youngster and rookie would ask less money in the short term and a lot more on the long-term. This is why we would use 2 seperate tables.
With a young rookie, using the same example of a salary demand that is of 5M x 4 years, if you signed him to a 1 year deal, you'd get him at 3.5M and if you wanted him to sign to a 7 year deal, he would cost you more money (30% more), a total of 6.5M annually.
Option #3: We keep the same way of signing players that we had come up with, but with one major restriction.
The plan was to set up salary demands at -10%, and let you guys negociate up to 3 times with the player.
This doesn't work out well in that, the numbers that one person uses gets him to one specific result, and me (using the same negotiation numbers) to another result.
It's even worst than that. I can load the game 3 times and try the same numbers each time, I get 3 different results.
This would lead us to this type of signing attempt:
Owner post his re-signing consisting of 3 negotiations with a final result that either he or the player accepts.
I reply that I get different numbers and ask if he accepts.
Owner replies that he does, or doesn't, in which case more talk would go on.
What is the big restriction I'm talking about?
An owner posts his signing of a player; I get different numbers, but I sign the player nevertheless.
We can't get into replying to each other because it is nonsense. Some owners are active enough that 10 minutes after I've replied, they'll re-post and that will be done. But we can't expect that from everyone. And I'm not going to chase after each of you in emails to tell you that I got different numbers from what you had posted to ask you what you want to do with that.
We're Sunday, October 7, slightly around 6:30pm. This poll will be opened for a very short time because we need to get things going. You have until Tuesday October 9 at 7pm to vote on this poll. In other words, 48 hours.
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Post by sjrand on Oct 7, 2007 17:37:10 GMT -5
Option 1 is fastest and easiest all around. It also makes the most sense since, as Terry pointed out, an owner can negotiate his ass off and leave very detailed notes, but when Terry tries to duplicate the results it just ain't gonna happen.
I confirmed this with him when he told me about one player he'd already been through this with. The owner got one set of numbers. Terry tried a few times and got different number each time, reloading the game after every try. So he asked me to look at it too.
Same problem; I didn't get owner's numbers OR Terry's numbers.
If you decide to vote for the illusion of negotiating yourself just remember that it's exactly that; an illusion. When Terry tries to duplicate your negotiations he'll still not going to get the same numbers and you're going to have to accept what he ends up with anyway. Just a waste of time and effort.
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Post by Scott on Oct 7, 2007 17:40:26 GMT -5
I vote Option 3, because while it may be a big waste of time to negotiate ourselves, I still would feel better about it.
How far off are you guys from each other and the owner who posted? If I had to guess, it is a 100K-300K off per year. I would be fine with that.
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Post by sjrand on Oct 7, 2007 17:45:46 GMT -5
I vote Option 3, because while it may be a big waste of time to negotiate ourselves, I still would feel better about it. Ah shit, admit it. You just like going against the flow How far off are you guys from each other and the owner who posted? If I had to guess, it is a 100K-300K off per year. I would be fine with that. Millions. Multi-millions. Plus options. Options of different lengths (2 years - 5 years). Plus in my case a no trade clause that never was asked for when Terry ran it. On one try, the guy ended up with a final demand giving him the no trade clause and what amounted to an 11 year contract, 7 contract years and a 5 year player option at more per season than the contract was for. Annoying.
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Post by Scott on Oct 7, 2007 17:53:49 GMT -5
That is interesting. I guess if we are going to be off millions, then it would be best to let the commish negotiate.
That is going to create a lot of extra work though.
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Post by boffer on Oct 7, 2007 17:55:06 GMT -5
Option one is fine with me.
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Post by Exposgm on Oct 7, 2007 18:00:50 GMT -5
I'm not talking about slightly different numbers. We're dealing with total randomness. Sure, one of the times I was repeating the owner's numbers, I was getting results 300k away from his. But on other occasions, I was getting results a lot more off than that. Re-loading the game each time to be sure my negociations with the players had no influence on the results.
And when I asked Rand to test it, I gave him both the owner's numbers and my own numbers I had written down. The results were scary.
Even working together, from the same file, at the same time, on the same players, we couldn't get the same final numbers even by offering 3 identical offers. So different that it's insane.
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Post by reds on Oct 7, 2007 19:59:12 GMT -5
Option one is probably the easiest, but I like the presence of player/team options in 2K8. Couldn't Terry negotiate a contract with options? Maybe we can make a rule that the options years have to be the same yearly contract rate as the rest of the deal. So...
5 years at $6M/year + 2 option years at $6M/per is a legal contract 5 years at $6M/year + 2 option years at $10M/per is not a legal contract
As long as we keep the yearly amounts the same for the option years, I don't think this makes any extra work for Terry. I just tell him, sign my guy for 5 years with 2 years of team option and Terry does the negotiations and gets it done.
Also, I think no-trade clauses should be illegal. Just my opinion.
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Post by sjrand on Oct 8, 2007 11:06:59 GMT -5
As long as we keep the yearly amounts the same for the option years, I don't think this makes any extra work for Terry. I just tell him, sign my guy for 5 years with 2 years of team option... Team options shouldn't even be a consideration. Since the owner only has to decide to not exercise the option, they don't add any value to a contract at all. Also, I think no-trade clauses should be illegal. Just my opinion. Agreed, and I think it was decided to disallow them. Restrictions on trading are bad for a fantasy league in the long run; less activity, less interest, more owners go AWOL. Fortunately, it only takes a few mouse clicks to remove them from the player contract. Unlike options which get buried out of sight of the editor somewhere in the BBM main database.
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Post by reds on Oct 8, 2007 13:00:19 GMT -5
Team options shouldn't even be a consideration. Since the owner only has to decide to not exercise the option, they don't add any value to a contract at all. Huh? Obviously the team will have to pay more in the immediate term to have the luxury of team options at the end of a deal. A young player who would normally accept this contract: 5 years at $5M per season will not accept an offer of 5 years at $5M per season, plus two years of team option at $5M. To get him to accept the team option as part of the deal, you have to pay him more in the guaranteed portion of the contract (probably $5.5M or $6M a year in this example). This is how it works in Mogul and real life. Why should team options not be a consideration?
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Post by Exposgm on Oct 8, 2007 14:28:03 GMT -5
It's too strange to allow team options but not player options.
Allowing negotiations as they currently are in the game was an odd idea from the programmer. He should have known that, since the people who play the game aren't really agents, no one is going to use the player option.
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Post by reds on Oct 8, 2007 14:49:30 GMT -5
Yea, I didn't mean to disallow the use of player options. Using a player option lets a GM sign a guy cheaper than he would normally cost, so instead of $5M/year for 4 years you could get a player for say $4.5M/4 years with player option for the fifth year. I couldn't tell you whether or not GMs will use player options or not but there is certainly a short-term advantage to doing so.
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Post by sjrand on Oct 8, 2007 16:19:20 GMT -5
Huh? Obviously the team will have to pay more in the immediate term to have the luxury of team options at the end of a deal. A young player who would normally accept this contract: 5 years at $5M per season will not accept an offer of 5 years at $5M per season, plus two years of team option at $5M. To get him to accept the team option as part of the deal, you have to pay him more in the guaranteed portion of the contract (probably $5.5M or $6M a year in this example). This is how it works in Mogul and real life. Why should team options not be a consideration? Why are you offering him a team option instead of going 7 in the first place, unless it's worth it to you to pay an extra few hundred k (sometimes more) for less guaranteed time in case he tanks, but getting the insurance of being able to keep him 1 - 3 years longer if he does well? And if it's allowed, can expect to see owners who always sign everybody for 7 years as it is, signing them for 10 years? Do we have so many quality free agents now that we want to lower the pool? Sometimes we can't avoid a player option without paying through the nose, but we can avoid team options.
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Post by reds on Oct 8, 2007 18:23:58 GMT -5
Why are you offering him a team option instead of going 7 in the first place, unless it's worth it to you to pay an extra few hundred k (sometimes more) for less guaranteed time in case he tanks, but getting the insurance of being able to keep him 1 - 3 years longer if he does well? Aren't you answering your own question? The point of the team option is to remove some of the risk of a 7 year guaranteed deal (especially since the word is that players are re-rated often in 2K8). Like you said, it's insurance, pay a little more now but take on less risk in the end. I guess I don't really understand what you are trying to get across with this, are you saying giving players team options would be bad business? I understand your second point about potential 10 year deals lowering the free agent pool. I don't really think this would happen though - to sign a guy at 7 years + 3 team option years, I'm guessing it would take a mammoth per year offer. This would take up a large chunk of a team's payroll space, not giving room for other players to be resigned. I don't think the advent of contract options (player or team) would have a significant effect on our free agent pool.
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Post by sjrand on Oct 9, 2007 12:27:03 GMT -5
Aren't you answering your own question? The point of the team option is to remove some of the risk of a 7 year guaranteed deal Yep, but I'm saying that I don't think it's a good thing, which is obviously a matter of opinion. I still tend to think in terms of overall impact on the league rather than what would be good for my own team. If this discussion was taking place in another league I'd probably be 100% in agreement with you. When I'm only considering running the Mets, I don't think there are more than a couple of other owners as willing as I am to pay more for short term contracts so I don't get hurt in the long run. I understand your second point about potential 10 year deals lowering the free agent pool. I don't really think this would happen though - to sign a guy at 7 years + 3 team option years, I'm guessing it would take a mammoth per year offer. As far as I know you're right, but I think that could be lowered by offering player options in the same deal. Either way, I wouldn't underestimate the willingness of some owners to shoot themselves in the foot if they convince themselves that getting a player tied up for 10 years would be to their advantage. A few seasons back, I'd probably have done 10 years with Petrocelli. That would have been before his astounding 1969 .189 BA 15HR .293 OBP performance
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Post by Philthydelphia on Oct 9, 2007 16:33:29 GMT -5
The problem with team options (with no limits) is an owner can offer a team option of 20 million for x number of years to get the players to sign for a lesser amount. Then, we the team option comes up, just not excercise it.
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Post by Scott on Oct 9, 2007 16:47:45 GMT -5
That is what I was thinking as well. I am against all options.
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Post by reds on Oct 9, 2007 20:43:35 GMT -5
The problem with team options (with no limits) is an owner can offer a team option of 20 million for x number of years to get the players to sign for a lesser amount. Then, we the team option comes up, just not excercise it. I stated earlier that the option amount would have to be for the same amount as the rest of the contract.
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Post by reds on Oct 9, 2007 20:51:15 GMT -5
To respond to Rand: I agree that 10 year deals would be bad for the league. I'd be fine with setting the maximum length of a contract at 7 years, including options.
It seems like we are removing a cool feature of 2K8 for no compelling reason. We can stop the sticky parts of options (stop super long contracts, stop people from making ridiculous per-year options) without outlawing them all together. So my proposal is this:
Allow team and player options, with two caveats: 1. The total length of contract (including options) can be no longer than 7 years. 2. The per year amount of the whole contract must be the same (base years and option years).
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Post by Exposgm on Oct 9, 2007 20:58:14 GMT -5
It doesn't change the fact that there's a big flaw with the so-called options.
I tested them, both the player options and the team options.
When the contract is up, if it's a team option, the team is asked whether they want to exercise their option or not. If it's a player option, the player tells us if he accepts or refuses the option.
What happened when either I made the team decline to exercise the option or the player declined it himself is troubling.
The team still has the possibility of negotiating with the players. After the option was declined.
Not only that, but whatever amount the player had been signed to when it included an option at the same amount or higher, I was now able to sign the player to fewer money than he had on the option, whether it was team or player. No player would accept to decline the use of his option, or have his team do it, and sign with the same team to a cheaper contract. It just doesn't make sense.
This means that all the team has to do is offer team options, then not exercise it when the time comes, and sign the player for even cheaper.
Therefore and for obvious reasons, options will not be allowed. The same goes for no-traude clauses.
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Post by Exposgm on Oct 9, 2007 21:05:55 GMT -5
So my proposal is this: Allow team and player options, with two caveats: 1. The total length of contract (including options) can be no longer than 7 years. 2. The per year amount of the whole contract must be the same (base years and option years). I understand that, as an owner, one would want to have the right to use options. The 2 rules you propose would make a lot of sense - if the game didn't allow what I mentionned previously. Now, if I could mention this: I would like us to disallow options for the moment although I would be open for discussions on the subject in the future. Why? 1970 will be our first year with the 2k8. We have no idea yet how the players will perform, how the game will be exactly. We should play out that season first and see how things go. Then, after that first season has gone by, we can do corrections on what didn't work, make adjustments, and eventually start thinking about a way of using team or player options. For the moment, though, we're just too much in the dark about many things to start using every option around at once.
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Post by Exposgm on Oct 10, 2007 0:17:27 GMT -5
The poll is now locked.
By 9 votes to 4, the "Let the commissioner negotiate" plan is adopted.
Reminder:
Option #1: Let the commissioner negociate
This is similar to the original plan, in the sense that we would keep the same settings (-10% in salary demands) and 3 negociations would be allowed. But the commissionner would act as the "agent" and I would negociate and sign the players myself.
All that would be requested from the owners would be to tell me for how many years they want to sign the players. We would do away with no-trade clauses and team/player options.
Since you guys can already negotiate with your players, you would all have a general idea of how much I would your players to sign to. It's just a matter of avoiding several posts and replies that would never end. In other words, make it as simple as possible.
As of now, signing players is allowed again.
The way to go is simple: post the name of the player you want to sign and tell me how many years you want his contract to be (one to seven).
With salary demands kept at -10% as we had decided, I will negotiate 3 times with your player and sign him by trying to lower his demands as much as possible, following the number of years you have requested he be signed for.
This way, we will avoid getting into ongoing replies of how I got different numbers from yours and what to do from then on.
The players should be signed to amounts very similar to the ones you got if you tested yourself how the player reacted during negotiations.
A few days will be allowed to sign your players at March 1 prices. After that, the file will be advanced to April 1.
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Post by sjrand on Oct 10, 2007 12:39:27 GMT -5
I stated earlier that the option amount would have to be for the same amount as the rest of the contract. That right, you did. I'm a witness. It seems like we are removing a cool feature of 2K8 for no compelling reason. Everything else being equal, I'm just not sure I like the insurance policy aspect of this feature. Especially not in this first season when teams are going to have the option of dumping a lot of salary with the 5 free releases. I'm in favor of the releases, but if we combine them with options it seems like we're making things too easy in the short term. The team still has the possibility of negotiating with the players. After the option was declined. Not only that, but whatever amount the player had been signed to when it included an option at the same amount or higher, I was now able to sign the player to fewer money than he had on the option, whether it was team or player. That might be largely due to all the re-rating 2k8 is going to be doing to our players for the next couple of seasons. I like your idea of not making a decision for a season or two. If nothing else, by the beginning of 1972 the game should have finished with the majority of the more dramatic re-ratings. The way to go is simple: post the name of the player you want to sign and tell me how many years you want his contract to be (one to seven). With salary demands kept at -10% as we had decided, I will negotiate 3 times with your player and sign him by trying to lower his demands as much as possible, following the number of years you have requested he be signed for. I have one suggestion. Some players insist on a no trade clause, and go sky high if you don't accept it. Others don't seem to care. If a player includes a no trade clause in his demands, it might be a good idea to add it to your offer then turn it off through edit player when he's signed.
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Post by Exposgm on Oct 10, 2007 12:46:18 GMT -5
I have one suggestion. Some players insist on a no trade clause, and go sky high if you don't accept it. Others don't seem to care. If a player includes a no trade clause in his demands, it might be a good idea to add it to your offer then turn it off through edit player when he's signed. Oh yes, obviously. If I can't get the player to sign because of the no-trade clause, I'll "include" it in the deal then remove it once he is signed. It's just something I had forgot to mention.
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Post by reds on Oct 10, 2007 16:12:25 GMT -5
Everything else being equal, I'm just not sure I like the insurance policy aspect of this feature. Especially not in this first season when teams are going to have the option of dumping a lot of salary with the 5 free releases. I'm in favor of the releases, but if we combine them with options it seems like we're making things too easy in the short term. Understandable. Though I have to add, I may agree more about things being easier if I didn't just pay another team $5M to take one of my bad contracts, only to see 5 free releases granted to all teams a couple days later.
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