Best way to get through FA

[jarmenia]

What type of sim schedule would you guys recommend to get get through FA in a timely manner without loosing the enjoyment of the hot stove season for the rest of the league members?

We are planning on using two sims a week 7 days per sim for our season, would you recommend we stick to that for free agency or adjust our schedule in some way?

[snnort]

I have seen it done where there is 3 sims from WS to winter meetings... then 1 sims that covers winter meetings, then 14 day sims every other day until spring training.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by jarmenia

We are planning on using two sims a week 7 days per sim for our season, would you recommend we stick to that for free agency or adjust our schedule in some way?

Two sims a week, seven days per sim, for how long, in game time? There are four months between the end of the playoffs and the beginning of Spring Training. That's sixteen weeks, and eight weeks of real-time is way too long for a league to spend between seasons. Two weeks is the maximum I'd ever spend on an off-season, and even that's not advisable.

[Corsairs]

Our league actually likes to move a little slower during the offseason to enjoy the hot stove action, as you say. It takes us about 5 weeks to get to the next season. I've attached a sample schedule so you can get an idea of what an offseason in the PEBA looks like. Of course this pace will be too slow for some, so adjust to taste.

[Alan T]

We slow down for the offseason as well (only take 3 sims for the offseason vs only 1 for the regular season)

In all seriousness though, re-negotiations really only need 1 sim after the postseason to happen along with picking up or turning down of team options after the playoffs are over. Teams run the risk already of not having enough time before free agency at that point anyways.

Realistically you can just do one free agency period between the start of free agency and the rule 5 draft as well. Immediately after the rule 5 draft is the biggest judgement call depending on your league and its members to what would be best. Since free agency activity is the highest at the end of November and the first three weeks of December, You want to set a pace there that works best for your league.

Once you hit January and on, things kind of die down until you get to spring training really to the point where you really want to speed it up just to get things over with in my experience.

[Corsairs]

Part of your choice will boil down to whether you want to find ways to fill the post-Winter Meetings void. For instance, we've recently added a second human league (the LRS). This upcoming offseason, we're going to be scheduling a champions tournament between the PEBA and LRS during January in-game. So for us, that period of time won't be so dead boring as it is in most leagues. The nice thing is it provides some justification to slow things down and give owners an opportunity to haggle with free agents while still having box scores to look at. But again, the #1 goal for a lot of leagues is to get to the next season, and that's reasonable. If that's your top priority, yeah, you want to blow through the post-Winter Meetings portion of the calendar in particular as fast as you can.