Moneyball Baseball League Chat

yes, but going back to the last rescinded bid doesn't necessarily work. what if it's you and I bidding on a guy and I've bid you up to 3 mil and then I bid 3.2 or whatever....but I win a different auction so I get to rescind my 3.2. So you'd get him for 3 mil. Essentially I bid him up to 3 mil on you. You'd have had him for way lower if I hadn't been bidding. and there's no way to know if I was serious about the player or just bidding him up.

That's very true Paul, I hadn't even thought of it from that standpoint and it's not even addressing my nightmare scenario. Let's say in my example I've been awarded my 1st FA and since I have total control I can determine which of those initial FA I actually take. Let's say I take one that costs me $5 mil and the rest get rescinded. I still have $15mil to use to put a winning bid on the remaining eleven and do the whole process over again. Starting the bidding from scratch or reverting back to the highest previous bid won't even matter that much. I'm not saying you couldn't make rules to stop this. I just don't think we should go down the route where we can put all our money on all available free agents without some way of avoiding what I described in my scenario. Madal raised a point earlier about maybe this not taking as long as one might think. I tend to agree with him. I know in my case I'm not going to have that many empty slots maybe 5-10. As I get the ones that I'm most interested in my money will dry up and I'll be bidding on the scrubs that will probably take 24 hrs. People will begin to drop out as rosters fill out accelerating the process. And if we find problems with time or process we can make adjustments for year 2.

from my history of auction drafting, which is what this will be like, it starts slow and then picks up quickly late.

yes, but going back to the last rescinded bid doesn't necessarily work. what if it's you and I bidding on a guy and I've bid you up to 3 mil and then I bid 3.2 or whatever....but I win a different auction so I get to rescind my 3.2. So you'd get him for 3 mil. Essentially I bid him up to 3 mil on you. You'd have had him for way lower if I hadn't been bidding. and there's no way to know if I was serious about the player or just bidding him up.

Who's to say another team won't jump in and make an additional bid? I'm not advocating the previous bidder automatically gets the player, not at all. I'm saying rescinding your (potential) winning bid gives 24 more hours for someone else to jump in and beat my $3M. Plus I don't see what difference it makes whether someone is bidding him up, or serious about the player. If you bid me up to $3M, and I get him for $3M instead of $2M had you not bid at all, I'm sorry, but I fail to see the problem with that. Good for you for prying open my pocketbook!

Another factor I hadn't incorporated into this discussion, but will now, is that the number of years offered matters, and although it seems to be a lesser factor, it is still something to consider when making bids.

What if we limited bidding to available funds so that you cannot bid on a player if winning the bid would put you over your salary cap? In others words, your bidding commitments at any time are limited to available funds after deducting the cost of salary increases, additional prospect salary requirements, and minimum roster salary requirements.

For example, say you have $20 mil in salary cap available and you have five roster spots to fill with one being the need for a #1 starter. You would need to set aside $1.5 mil of that cap to pay for your prospect picks, and $2 mil for the other four roster spots assuming you pay the league minimum for one year contracts ($500,000 for 1 year). That leaves no more than $16.5 mil available for bidding.

Assume both Glasnow and Manaea are available next year with cards similar to what they produced this year. Someone opens the bidding on Manaea at $10 mil a year for five years on day 1 and someone else opens a bid on Glasnow for $8 mil over four years on day 2. Given your $16.5 mil of cap space available, you would only be able to bid on one of these two aces. Since the Manaea bid expires first, you could bid on him and if you lost, you could then make a bid on Glasnow. You would not be allowed to place simultaneous bids on both if the bids put you over the $16.5 mil you have in available cap.

This would solve the problem of committing more salary than you have available, and it would remove the need to rescind offers.

Phil

What if we limited bidding to available funds so that you cannot bid on a player if winning the bid would put you over your salary cap? In others words, your bidding commitments at any time are limited to available funds after deducting the cost of salary increases, additional prospect salary requirements, and minimum roster salary requirements.

For example, say you have $20 mil in salary cap available and you have five roster spots to fill with one being the need for a #1 starter. You would need to set aside $1.5 mil of that cap to pay for your prospect picks, and $2 mil for the other four roster spots assuming you pay the league minimum for one year contracts ($500,000 for 1 year). That leaves no more than $16.5 mil available for bidding.

Assume both Glasnow and Manaea are available next year with cards similar to what they produced this year. Someone opens the bidding on Manaea at $10 mil a year for five years on day 1 and someone else opens a bid on Glasnow for $8 mil over four years on day 2. Given your $16.5 mil of cap space available, you would only be able to bid on one of these two aces. Since the Manaea bid expires first, you could bid on him and if you lost, you could then make a bid on Glasnow. You would not be allowed to place simultaneous bids on both if the bids put you over the $16.5 mil you have in available cap.

This would solve the problem of committing more salary than you have available, and it would remove the need to rescind offers.

Phil

While I agree that you shouldn't be able commit more salary than you have available, your example shows the problems that come with bidding on multiple FA at the same time. Problem is Manaea won't be the one that expires first necessarily. If I beat the original bid on Manaea after Glasnow is put up on day 2 it's now Glasnow that will expire first. Assume I valued both pitchers the same and there are no further bids on Glasnow. I'm now stuck with Manaea at god knows what final price and I never even got a chance to get Glasnow for as little as 8.1mil per year. Also your example doesn't remove the need for rescinding. What if it was 2 pitchers that you could afford to put a bid on each. Let's say you win one of them. Wouldn't you now want to rescind the offer on the other if you only needed one pitcher?

still much rather see us bid on only 1 at a time or a small group at a time so that someone could bid on all the players they'd like rather than having to choose. There will be a lot of dead time in this league after the second season runs and we'd have plenty of time to run free agency. I'd propose we limit how many free agents we do at a time to either:

a.) 1 at a time
b.) 3 or 6 at a time
c.) 12 at a time (1 from each guy....when the guy you brought up is won by someone, you bring up another)

While I agree that you shouldn't be able commit more salary than you have available, your example shows the problems that come with bidding on multiple FA at the same time. Problem is Manaea won't be the one that expires first necessarily. If I beat the original bid on Manaea after Glasnow is put up on day 2 it's now Glasnow that will expire first. Assume I valued both pitchers the same and there are no further bids on Glasnow. I'm now stuck with Manaea at god knows what final price and I never even got a chance to get Glasnow for as little as 8.1mil per year.

This is a risk of the bidding process. If you can't afford to bid on both, you have to decide who to offer and at what terms. Over paying is always a risk. I'm an Orioles fan, I know all about the dangers of over paying.

Also your example doesn't remove the need for rescinding. What if it was 2 pitchers that you could afford to put a bid on each. Let's say you win one of them. Wouldn't you now want to rescind the offer on the other if you only needed one pitcher?

You'd be stuck with them both.

I think if we have a rule stating that you can't have more money committed to free agency bids than you have available then most of the bidding problems would be solved. Yes, you might over pay by bidding early on a player. Yes you might end up with two players at a position rather than one. If these things happen, you messed up as a GM. One way to try and avoid these issues is to make the initial offer on players you want.

still much rather see us bid on only 1 at a time or a small group at a time so that someone could bid on all the players they'd like rather than having to choose.

I think having to choose is part of the strategy of free agency.

I'm just thinking out loud here and want to continue this discussion. We'll get to an agreement eventually.

Phil

I'd guess for this first free agency we'd have to do more than 1 at a time as there will be more fa's than normal. That's why I said small groups at a time. I don't like "you'd be stuck with them" as that's not how the real mlb operates. If the Angels were going after a stud 3B this year and offered Rendon and Donaldson big deals, as soon as they signed Rendon they would notify Donaldson's agent that their offer to him was no longer available. He couldn't say "too bad, I'm going there too, play me at DH." So I don't think we want to get into sticking a guy with an unwanted player. That's why I think if we do free agency in small groups you can avoid that easier.

I don't like "you'd be stuck with them" as that's not how the real mlb operates. If the Angels were going after a stud 3B this year and offered Rendon and Donaldson big deals, as soon as they signed Rendon they would notify Donaldson's agent that their offer to him was no longer available.

Makes sense, but allowing retracted bids could set off a chain reaction of retractions. Should everyone be able to pull bids at anytime? I think we'd have to allow it because teams might get stuck with winning bids they had given up on.