Thought about FA...

[djmyte]

Is it really best to have public bidding? People can just come in and out bid each other by pennies and it basically takes all the intrigue out of the whole process. It's almost impossible for a team with low cap room to snag a decent player cause everyone with lots of cap room knows the exact amount they need to beat. Plus, it doesn't really force people to actually think about who they really need and what a certain player is really worth to them. I guess the only other viable process would be to have people send in lists with bids before each FA sim. Just a random thought I had about 2 mins ago...thought Id share.

Peace.

[Reevesport]

I agree that the system in place is probably not the best, not terrible, but not the best. If there was/is a way to do the "bidding" so other teams don't know how much to offer in order to defeat other teams then that would add something to the process, I think, for the suspence of not knowing who will sign a guy..

[SpursGM]

Just cause someone offers more, doesn't mean they will sign that player.

I've offered significantly less at times for certain FAs and still been able to re-sign them despite being outbidded.

Points taken, but here is the reason we do it like this.

Its a certainty that in real life, if multiple teams are bidding on the same player, the teams know the price theyll have to pay to get him. The player and the agent both would be very willing to let each GM know what the highest offer is. There are no secrets, players and agents dont go. "Well I cant tell you what team A is offering, but ya, youre offer is good too."

There are always surprises. Most of the top bids are the same teams that have lots of cap room. So as those teams cap room dissapears, there top offers go too, which leaves very good players without great offers. It will happen that way every year.

Some players wont take the highest bidder. Not always but sometimes players choose based on hometowns. Last year Samuel Dalembert picked Miami over Milwaukee, even though the Bucks gave the highest offer. Miami has a very good and very surprising free agent period, and it really was key in their trun around last year.

Also with secret bidding I could offer low contracts to guys that no one bids on, and fill my roster with talent. This would be unfair, and yet Im the only person that would have access to it. Also some players may get missed by GM's, and may sign for a low contract because alot of GM's just forgot he was out there.

This isnt a perfect scenario, but it is much more realistic then a secret offer. The reality of it being a bidding war is, it is a bidding war.

[djmyte]

"Its a certainty that in real life, if multiple teams are bidding on the same player, the teams know the price theyll have to pay to get him. The player and the agent both would be very willing to let each GM know what the highest offer is. There are no secrets, players and agents dont go. "Well I cant tell you what team A is offering, but ya, youre offer is good too."


This only really applies to MAX players. With regards to non max player, teams can speculate as to what certain players may get but agents/players certainly don't tell every team that's interested what other teams are offering. Why tell someone that your highest bid is 20 dollars when you can let them think it's possibly higher and therefore make more money? Remember Arod? His agent didn't tell other teams what exact bids were and the Rangers ended up out bidding teams by a mile.



"Also with secret bidding I could offer low contracts to guys that no one bids on, and fill my roster with talent. This would be unfair, and yet Im the only person that would have access to it. Also some players may get missed by GM's, and may sign for a low contract because alot of GM's just forgot he was out there."


Ok, what's the problem here again? It's not GM A's fault that GM B didnt spend the effort to check out all the FA's available.

As for you, you could give yourself an "advantage" in a number of ways. Infact, you already do have some advantages over the rest of us. That goes for anyone running a sim. It's part of the process.



"This isnt a perfect scenario, but it is much more realistic then a secret offer. The reality of it being a bidding war is, it is a bidding war."


I have to disagree. Yes, there are bidding wars but teams don't usually know who the other teams are and what the exact numbers are. Like I said, open bidding just takes all of the guess work out of the process(and therefore the intrigue). GM's have to think about what they are doing, not just react to what others are doing.

[Wiz]

Though I don't particularly like our FA I think it is the best we can have at the moment. You do make a couple of good points but

"I have to disagree. Yes, there are bidding wars but teams don't usually know who the other teams are and what the exact numbers are. Like I said, open bidding just takes all of the guess work out of the process(and therefore the intrigue). GM's have to think about what they are doing, not just react to what others are doing. "

other team's almost always know who the other bidders are. I mean internet sites post who the top contenders for players are and what kind of contracts they are getting offered. So I don't think that our FA is to far from being that accurate. The only major problem is how easy bidding wars get started because you can post your offer in 10 seconds but real teams have to evaluate everything over and over before upping the offer which is why contracts don't go up that fast in real life.

[rommie]

I agree with some of what has been said and some I don't agree with.

I don't think the system needs to change. Some GMs just need to change a little bit. Like not getting into a bidding war. I was looking through alot of the FA in 04 and noticed some bidding wars that raised the price of players who arent worth half of what they got. Basicly we just gotta decide what is to much and what is not.

We need to take age into consideration too more, I think so atleast. Some of these 30 or older year olds are getting these 6 year and deals at basicly max price. I say if they are 30 or more don't offer them that many years on a max deal. It just makes the league worse because players with bad contracts means players no one wants.

Just my 2 cents.

[SpursGM]

I had a question for you SDOG... can we prioritize our bids... for example.

If I bid for Player A and Player B... and I have limited cap space... and I offer both the same contract or if one accepts the contract, it would be impossible for me to sign the other... can I tell you who I want to offer the bid first... or is it whoever accepts accepts and I'm basically screwed?

You cannot prioritize. Itd be great if you could, but the FBB game doesnt allow for it.

I think the NBA free agency period is just what this is, a bidding war. I think Adam brought up good points about overpaying guys. Each of us needs to know when to walk away froma guy, and not up the bid again.