Free Agency in Historical Simulations

[Sig]

Hey all...

I'm working through a historical sim starting in 1901. I'm currently in 1944 and noticed something that has been bothering me.

Is there anyway to temporarily turn off free-agency? It bothers me that after a few years, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams are free agents. I wish they would stick with their teams for a greater stretch of time.

And if there is a way to extend the time they are on their "imported" teams, is there a way to reverse so that when I reach the 1970s, free-agency can then once again become full storm once again?

Any work-arounds or suggestions would be appreciated!

SIG

[Cool Papa Bell]

Not sure if this works consistently or if it was dumb luck , but it worked for me in early season sims starting in 1901 or even 1871. I changed the minimum service years at start up to the max of 10 years I think it was in the league rules. I then erased the service time of all players in the other functions dropdown and assigned fictional financials to teams and fictional contracts to players in the financial dropdown. This kept players on their historical teams a little longer which was what I was after. Not going free agent too soon or being traded because a team was clearing cap space with an older player.

I was using a modified financial coefficient, but the result was that everyone was in their first year with a team and had the same contract values until they hit their free agency season. In case you try it, make sure you back up your league so you can restore it if you don't like the results. Have fun!

[Charlie Hough]

You can enable or disable free agency during the preseason period of your league. This usually begins in early February. You can turn it off again in the future, probably during the same preseason time.

As a general rule, I have done simulations implenting free agency starting with the 1976 season, which is when it actually began. However, it tends to have too much of an impact in those early years, because it applies the current frequency of free agent movement to a period when it was very slow to take hold in MLB. It wasn't until well into the 1980s that we saw the level of free agent activity that we see today.

[btheflash]

You could edit the players' loyalty to 100. That should keep them on one team.

[chimanbj]

Originally Posted by btheflash

You could edit the players' loyalty to 100. That should keep them on one team.

Only problem is, they players weren't loyal. They were slaves. They weren't allowed to entertain offers from other teams. It sucked. Really. Sucked.

So, the way I handled it, is to keep free agency off until 1960, which is when you really need to start paying attention to the league structure anyway (up to that point, I just fiddled with the financials here and there). Then, when I set free agency, I set it at 10 years for a few seasons, then to 8, 7 and finally to 6, and then add arbitration soon after that. I'm in the big expansion of 1969, and I'm moving free agency to 7 years. It's not necessarily accurate to the exact timing IRL, but for my sim, it will do.

I'm finding some very interesting stats as the sim is rolling along, from 1901 - 2020 (to see how current major leaguers play out, like Albert Pujols). For instance, Babe Ruth is NOT in the HOF!!! When the sim is done, I'll post my findings....