The Brewster

Watching Williamson Prushnok's slow decline I started thinking it would be a cool feature if you could negotiate a player's retirement. It would have to be really difficult, but it happens in real life. Just kind of a, "We can't guarantee you a spot in the rotation going forward. You can sit in the bullpen and collect your check for the next 2 years, or we can come to a settlement to terminate your contract and you can try to catch on with a winner in the free agent market."

There was an American League first baseman a few years ago that this happened with. His club told him he would only be a part-time DH so they settled his contract and he signed with an NL team. Didn't do too badly...damned if I can remember who it was...

I remember the Packers trying to do this to a player a couple years ago.

Not a bad idea. Id post it in the suggestions for the next version on the forums. Ive never seen anyone bring something like that up before.

Im sure as OOTP advances the contract negotiations and options will get more and more complex. Eventually probably anything relevant in real life contract negotiations will be in the game.

The financial aspect is probably the least developed aspect of the game.

cheekimonk wrote:Watching Williamson Prushnok's slow decline I started thinking it would be a cool feature if you could negotiate a player's retirement. It would have to be really difficult, but it happens in real life. Just kind of a, "We can't guarantee you a spot in the rotation going forward. You can sit in the bullpen and collect your check for the next 2 years, or we can come to a settlement to terminate your contract and you can try to catch on with a winner in the free agent market."

There was an American League first baseman a few years ago that this happened with. His club told him he would only be a part-time DH so they settled his contract and he signed with an NL team. Didn't do too badly...damned if I can remember who it was...

Yet another good idea that fits my current motif of getting extra money out of the system. I'd say that a good implementation would be paying 100% of a player's remaining contract ($/year * years left) up front out of your cash on hand to void the player's contract and place him in the FA pool. So, essentially, it gives a team the option of trading cash for budget - which would be a fun, strategic way to help the league's financial construct (and, also, as a byproduct, improve the FA market - though by how much is arguable, since players being bought out probably won't be very good - though you may occasionally get a player whom is still servicable, but just wasn't worth his deal on a cap-strapped team). Throw some PP on there (10/year bought out) to make it less abusable as well.

agrudez wrote:

cheekimonk wrote:Watching Williamson Prushnok's slow decline I started thinking it would be a cool feature if you could negotiate a player's retirement. It would have to be really difficult, but it happens in real life. Just kind of a, "We can't guarantee you a spot in the rotation going forward. You can sit in the bullpen and collect your check for the next 2 years, or we can come to a settlement to terminate your contract and you can try to catch on with a winner in the free agent market."

There was an American League first baseman a few years ago that this happened with. His club told him he would only be a part-time DH so they settled his contract and he signed with an NL team. Didn't do too badly...damned if I can remember who it was...

Yet another good idea that fits my current motif of getting extra money out of the system. I'd say that a good implementation would be paying 100% of a player's remaining contract ($/year * years left) up front out of your cash on hand to void the player's contract and place him in the FA pool. So, essentially, it gives a team the option of trading cash for budget - which would be a fun, strategic way to help the league's financial construct (and, also, as a byproduct, improve the FA market - though by how much is arguable, since players being bought out probably won't be very good - though you may occasionally get a player whom is still servicable, but just wasn't worth his deal on a cap-strapped team). Throw some PP on there (10/year bought out) to make it less abusable as well.

100% of remaining contract in cash is what's required now (basically the same to buy any player's contract out...old or young). My point in negotiating retirement was to arrange a smaller buyout (better for the team) and the player retires early or becomes an FA (good for player if he really doesn't want to sit in AAA for 2 years at 39).

cheekimonk wrote: 100% of remaining contract in cash is what's required now (basically the same to buy any player's contract out...old or young). My point in negotiating retirement was to arrange a smaller buyout (better for the team) and the player retires early or becomes an FA (good for player if he really doesn't want to sit in AAA for 2 years at 39).

AFAIK in the engine that money still counts against your team budget for the duration, though (could be wrong). The idea behind my rebuttal was that the player would come completely off the books and be paid through cash on hand, so that the team could open up space under the $100M league cap for the remainder of the terminated contract.

agrudez wrote:

cheekimonk wrote: 100% of remaining contract in cash is what's required now (basically the same to buy any player's contract out...old or young). My point in negotiating retirement was to arrange a smaller buyout (better for the team) and the player retires early or becomes an FA (good for player if he really doesn't want to sit in AAA for 2 years at 39).

AFAIK in the engine that money still counts against your team budget for the duration, though (could be wrong). The idea behind my rebuttal was that the player would come completely off the books and be paid through cash on hand, so that the team could open up space under the $100M league cap for the remainder of the terminated contract.

You can do this by cutting the player in October, before the new season starts....it does count against the budget, but if you cut him prior to the following season starting then it essentially uses your cash...

So, if I have a guy making 10M for the next 3 years and I cut him today. 30M comes out of my current cash reservoirs and I have nothing counting against my player payroll from the guy over the duration of his former contract?

That is what I am proposing... using CASH to buy BUDGET (under the 100M league-wide cap) by dumping unwanted contracts.

Not today - but if you did it before the end of the postseason last year, then yes.

Hm, interesting.

Yeah, this idea doesn't accomplish anything the game doesn't already handle correctly.