Now that it's (virtually) Sept, can we talk Free Agency?

[Al-Hoot]

...It's not the price of FAs that I dislike, it's that I find out after the sim that the player came back with Blake's offer and gave me a chance to counter 11 days ago before signing with Des Moines 3 days ago. There's an 8-day window when I would normally have the chance to jump into a bidding war if I wanted or even bluff Blake into paying more.

So what we "should not" be able to do is just immediately throw a sky-high amount that you figure no other team will approach at a player and land him because you offered the most money and no one responded to his request for counter-offers because no one could...not because you had the best offer. I hope that made sense.

I gotta agree with Ben here. There is a lack of realism and a lack of ability to negotiate with free agents that takes both some fun and some strategizing away from the game, the way we now sim it. It would be wonderful to have more than one shot to sign someone. Money ain't cheap, so just throwing blind amounts at FAs isn't an ideal way to go.

[Al-Hoot]

I think the key is to have a couple shorter sims from after the LMS until the end of December. This is where most of the big names will go, anyways, unless their demands are way too high.

I'll work out a schedule for everyone's approval.

This would be fantastic. And indeed a look at this past off season shows most free agents being signed in December. Free agents declared on 23 November. So what would that mean, 5 7-day sims from then through December? Would those be short enough sim lengths to allow for a genuine second chance to sign free agents who decline a team's first offer? Since that is the main idea behind slowing down the free agent-signing period, someone needs to think this possible schedule through. Or would 7 5-day sims be better? We gotta do the Rune V draft in there anyway, so that is a short sim in that time period already.

I haven't looked at the link Ben provided for the free agent auction. If that's a better alternative to more sims, then we should consider it seriously. I'll take a look at that link ASAP. We have some time this Thanksgiving break to discuss it more.

[recte44]

We always did two short sims at the end of November. But then we stretched out to 15 and 16 day sims to close out December. Those two sims are ones we need to break up. It depends on where the "Winter Meetings" fall in that stretch, as a majority of signings will happen during that time.

[Al-Hoot]

We always did two short sims at the end of November. But then we stretched out to 15 and 16 day sims to close out December. Those two sims are ones we need to break up. It depends on where the "Winter Meetings" fall in that stretch, as a majority of signings will happen during that time.

Appreciate the discussion.
Just a glance, again, at this past off season shows that a lot of free agents were signed before Winter Meetings started.

[recte44]

Right...but those are already short sims.

[cheekimonk]

Right...but those are already short sims.

Agreed. I'll sometimes catch 1 counteroffer chance during those short sims, but December is when I get the "Thulsa Doom reacts to your contract offer." / "Thulsa Doom reacts to your contract offer." / "Thulsa Doom has signed with Des Moines." message trio from a 10-day span.

I really didn't want to cause more sims. I just felt like I should look forward to free agency time and I dread it instead. The last two offseasons I've literally lost my top 3 targets when I would have had a chance to counter on all of them. Doubly humiliating when your team is losing 100+ games a year and you're sitting on $30+ million in cap space. I'm surprised the fans in Charlotte haven't stormed team offices with pitchforks yet.

[Al-Hoot]

I felt like I was flying in the dark regarding offering contracts to free agents during the month-long January sim.

It was certainly the case this year that a lot of outstanding free agents were still in the midst of negotiations at the end of December.

[cheekimonk]

It was unusual to see so many guys hold out as long as they did, but I thought the revised offseason schedule was a smashing success!! It was a pretty exciting week...at least for me...and more back-and-forth trade negotiations than I remember.