Free Agent Bidding

[Farsight]

It seems odd that a player will sign the instant any team matches "what he's looking for"... if teams are still bidding on him, why wouldn't a player wait for at least a week to go by w/o any additional offers?

[James Grove]

Clay and I were just discussing that.

We're trying to find a solution that satisfies a number of issues:

1.) People want to know whether or not they have locked up their first choice for pitcher (or 1st base or whatever) before they start bidding on their backup player. So somehow we need the option to bid enough to get the player to sign.

2.) We want a real auction, so that if two teams REALLY want a guy, his price will keep going up as they raise their bids.

3.) We want the process to be easy, so that users don't have to decide on their own "Would he rather have 20 points for 3 years or 18 points for 4 years..."

4.) We don't want people to have to stare at their computer screen all day in case they get outbid.

5.) We don't want all the players to sign before some managers even get a chance to review them and have the chance to make an offer. Of course, if the player never logs in, they will loose the chance to bid. But we don't want players signing right away with the first good offer. (See #2.)


We think we can find a solution that meets all these criteria. But we're trying to hammer out the exact details.


Thanks for your patience while we improve the process.

Cheers,
James

[Farsight]

Yeah, this is especially difficult in the Fast-Sim leagues, where having to do -anything- away from the PC can cost you a great player for his entire career...

Perhaps the Fast-Sim process could be scheduled a bit differently, so that there's always a full evening/night before the game simulates the most important aspects, like the start/end of free agency?

Otherwise, it sounds like you've got the priorities down, and I look forward to seeing what you've come up with... :)