Jellio
05-04-2010, 05:20 PM
I don't have 2011, so I don't know whether the parity issue(teams stockpiling players) has been fixed or not, so what I'm about to say may be completely irrelevant. What I'm about to say applies to 2010 and earlier, at least.
As some may remember, I used to have a lot of different ideas on how to get parity, and some of the suggestions were either really complicated or really time-consuming(Parity Draft). All those things worked pretty well, but the bad part about the Parity Draft, in addition to it taking quite a bit of time, was that you essentially made decisions for the teams, instead of the AI doing them themselves.
I have now found a perfect solution, that actually makes the game follow the pattern of real baseball quite accurately. What I mean by that, is that the Yankees and other big market clubs never really have extended periods of non-contending, but they do not dominate 25 years in a row either like what happens in BM if left to their own. And the small market teams are able to compete every now and then, even though they usually don't do it for many years in a row.
The solution is really simple: When you are in free agency, don't let the same teams sign too many players, especially big money players. If you see a team signing two, three or four big money players in short succession(usually at the start of free agency), simply go to Commish Mode, and make that teams cash negative, by adding a "-" sign in front of whatever cash they have. This will more or less prevent that team from signing anyone until you make their cash positive again, and this lets other teams get in on the action. I haven't used strict rules on what the amounts are how much teams can sign in one offseason, and I've generally been more lenient to teams that have struggled lately and more harsh to teams that have been contenders for a while. I have used this system for a couple of my saves, and have simmed a few times to the 2040's, and the results have really been great. Teams winning 105+ games are very very rare, and there are on average maybe one team per year that wins 100, and one team that loses a 100. I haven't seen any ridiculous division pennant streaks, and the postseason droughts and especially winning droughts have stayed at very realistic levels. It doesn't take all that much time to do this, and all it requires is that you keep an eye on the free agent transactions during free agency.
I usually give the teams their cash back in mid-February simply by removing the "-" from their cash, and I haven't seen any negative effects to the AI even though at times half the league can have negative cash.
I really think this is 1000x better than doing a Parity Draft or a Rule V, because this way you don't have to make exact decisions for the AI teams on who to get. This way they do their own deicisions on who to get(and sometimes they are bad), and the only thing you decide is when a team has spent enough. It really is fun to see when December comes along, as Milwaukee and San Diego suddenly sign multi-year deals with solid free agents, who would have otherwise been wasting their careers in the minors for the Yankees. It really follows a pretty realistic pattern, with the big teams getting the big name FA's for the big bucks, while the lesser teams still sign some solid players.
You can decide the specifics yourself, but I have generally given a team negative cash if they sign three or four $8M+/year guys in the same offseason(I have Salary Demands at +10), or if a team signs four or five $5M+/year guys. Also if a team signs a lot of those $2,5M/year free agents. I give them negative cash, because most of those guys will just be stuck in the minors anyway.
Try it out, if you want parity.....
As some may remember, I used to have a lot of different ideas on how to get parity, and some of the suggestions were either really complicated or really time-consuming(Parity Draft). All those things worked pretty well, but the bad part about the Parity Draft, in addition to it taking quite a bit of time, was that you essentially made decisions for the teams, instead of the AI doing them themselves.
I have now found a perfect solution, that actually makes the game follow the pattern of real baseball quite accurately. What I mean by that, is that the Yankees and other big market clubs never really have extended periods of non-contending, but they do not dominate 25 years in a row either like what happens in BM if left to their own. And the small market teams are able to compete every now and then, even though they usually don't do it for many years in a row.
The solution is really simple: When you are in free agency, don't let the same teams sign too many players, especially big money players. If you see a team signing two, three or four big money players in short succession(usually at the start of free agency), simply go to Commish Mode, and make that teams cash negative, by adding a "-" sign in front of whatever cash they have. This will more or less prevent that team from signing anyone until you make their cash positive again, and this lets other teams get in on the action. I haven't used strict rules on what the amounts are how much teams can sign in one offseason, and I've generally been more lenient to teams that have struggled lately and more harsh to teams that have been contenders for a while. I have used this system for a couple of my saves, and have simmed a few times to the 2040's, and the results have really been great. Teams winning 105+ games are very very rare, and there are on average maybe one team per year that wins 100, and one team that loses a 100. I haven't seen any ridiculous division pennant streaks, and the postseason droughts and especially winning droughts have stayed at very realistic levels. It doesn't take all that much time to do this, and all it requires is that you keep an eye on the free agent transactions during free agency.
I usually give the teams their cash back in mid-February simply by removing the "-" from their cash, and I haven't seen any negative effects to the AI even though at times half the league can have negative cash.
I really think this is 1000x better than doing a Parity Draft or a Rule V, because this way you don't have to make exact decisions for the AI teams on who to get. This way they do their own deicisions on who to get(and sometimes they are bad), and the only thing you decide is when a team has spent enough. It really is fun to see when December comes along, as Milwaukee and San Diego suddenly sign multi-year deals with solid free agents, who would have otherwise been wasting their careers in the minors for the Yankees. It really follows a pretty realistic pattern, with the big teams getting the big name FA's for the big bucks, while the lesser teams still sign some solid players.
You can decide the specifics yourself, but I have generally given a team negative cash if they sign three or four $8M+/year guys in the same offseason(I have Salary Demands at +10), or if a team signs four or five $5M+/year guys. Also if a team signs a lot of those $2,5M/year free agents. I give them negative cash, because most of those guys will just be stuck in the minors anyway.
Try it out, if you want parity.....