Free Agency

[gMa]

Kind of a messed up thing with free agency... I logged on just as i woke up to check how the last leg of free agency would go, as I was hoping to land todd helton or bobby abreu. I noticed another team had put in a bid on both. So I bid them both up a notch, but by the time the second bid had gone through, the first had been bid up again (and no it wasn't just someone's max bid in effect, each time it said "you are now the new high bidder for <name>"). So I bid up again, and suddenly I realized i was in the middle of a last minute bidding war, cause both players bars were full, and the sim was in 45 seconds.

Well I kept bidding up as fast as i could, but in the end I came up short on both. Abreu went to my competition in the bidding war, and Helton went to an AI team.

So this raises two questions, one, why don't the AI teams participate in the bidding like regular teams, so we can see where we stand? And secondly... why would a player sign if his price is rising, and quickly (~30 points in 2 minutes)?

It seems like this might work better with more of a sealed bid process. Like... everyone submits a bid, and if none meets their requirements you can resubmit if you like. If it starts entering his ballpark, the top few teams are told what he wants, and asked to submit a final offer. I dunno... something more like an actual negotiation and less like an auction.

[Particleman]

You could always just enter in the true "MAX" bid you are willing to pay. This way the other person will just stop bidding once the price gets too high. Plus there would be no way the guy could click bid 50 times in the last few seconds.

[gMa]

Well the max I'd pay to either was 110, but my concern was that I'd end up with both at that price. Besides, I felt that considering the bidding was at 60 points just a few minutes before they were to sign, setting a max that high would just force his price even higher. At least it seemed like a good idea at the time anyway.

[Particleman]

He doesn't see your max bid when you enter it though, all he sees is one point higher than his last, but everytime he bids, your bid will be one point higher. Eventually he will stop at the max price he's willing to pay.

[gMa]

I know... however one can enter a max bid of say... 200 points, then it will bid 1 higher than the max bid. Then you can reduce your max bid back down. So setting a high max bid in the situation i was in would only increase the rate at which salaries were raised.

But that aside, it doesn't change the problem of avoiding signing both players and inflating my payroll higher than I'd like.