An Exploit And How To Fix It

[Dactyl]

Even when playing a Mogul level, I find that I can field a powerhouse team that stands a very good chance of winning the World Series almost every season. The cornerstone of my strategy is as follows. After the minor-league draft has been completed, I trade my players who are in the last years of their contracts for the first-round draft picks of other teams. Doing that, I soon get to the point where I'm trading for the top one or two pitching prospects every season, ensuring me of a starting rotation of very cheap pitchers with overall ratings in the mid-90's. From an algorithmic point of view, this shouldn't be too difficult to fix. I would suggest doing as follows. If a trade is proposed for a first or second round trade pick, one should check the number of years remaining on the contract of the player or players being offered. If it is one or two years, then the trade should only be executed if: 1) the team to which the trade is being offered finished at or near the top of its division, and; 2) the players being offered will materially improve the team. It this method were used, it would approximate what happens in the real world. Teams that are close to winning their divisions might be willing to trade talented draft picks for a year or two of a star. Teams that are rebuilding would be much less willing to trade a talented draft pick for one or two years of a star. Likewise, I would suggest that a team that is not very good should be very unwilling to trade first or second round draft picks unless they are given an overwhelming offer. Being a software engineer myself, I don't think that this would be too difficult to implement and it would make for a better game.

[Blinkbizkit21]

Good point! There is a rule that a player cannot be traded after he is drafted for 1 year until after the next draft. He can be a PTBNL but cannot be officially send to the other team until after the next amateur draft. Implement that and it shall fix it along with the previous post

[dabluebery]

This is my Mogul strategy, in a nutshell.

I've always got cheap pitching, and they're always young. Then when they're in their last year, I trade them all. Despite the fact that they're rookies with 300k salaries and 1 year remaining, they get HUGE cash values in trades, and are subsequently worth quite a bit.

Rob

[Dactyl]

dablueberry,

That's precisely the point, and if you trade them for the top one or two pitchers of the draft, you'll always have top-notch pitchers. I made my suggestion as a way of making these deals more realistic, and more difficult to pull off.

[argh1]

another way to exploit the game is to sign unsigned free agents after the season ends and before the postseason begins.. you can usually sign about 2-8 players that are rated 90-100 for every cheap (500k-2 mill for 7 years).. it's possible to spend very little and yet have a roster AND bench full of players with 90-100 ratings. since you'll have so many, you can trade them to fill holes.