Can't sign rookie free agent

Cardinal Rule · 05-03-2004, 10:25 AM

Running OOTP 6.01, on Win98se, AMD 566 processor, 128MB RAM, 20GB free HD space.

Loaded Lahman 5.1 rosters for 1901. Simmed week-by-week the entire season, proceeded to next season. In 1902 the Milwaukee Brewers became the St. Louis Browns, and since I chose to have rookies assigned to their original teams, I assumed the new Browns rookie would just drop into the FA pool to be signed after the normal FA signing period. I completed the FA signing period, and the FA pool was empty. I did a search by name and found this guy (Kane), but he didn't show up in the FA pool so I couldn't have the Browns sign him. Finshed Rule V and Spring Training, and he still didn't show up in the FA pool. I did have the amatuer draft disabled as well. Anyone know how to get this guy signed to the Browns?

Also, I assume to avoid this problem in the future I should change the team abbreviation prior to starting the new year?

hefalumps · 05-04-2004, 03:09 PM

Hey Cardinal...

This problem exists in OOTP5 as well. For whatever reason, if you import players to a non-existent team, they get dumped into the FA pool - but they don't show up in the main FA list. They only show up if you try to Edit Free Agents from the League Setup screen. My guess is because somewhere in the player data they have this "nonexistent team abbreviation" stored that is keeping them from being displayed as bonafide free agents. I'm surprised this hasn't been fixed yet.

The way I solved this was by doing a CSV roster export. The "phantom" FAs will show up on the CSV export as Free Agents. You can then cut and paste their names to the appropriate teams and do a CSV import of your roster file.

The only downside of this is that a CSV import causes everyone on your teams to be placed in the minors. You'll need to run the Computer Manager on all teams so that people can get properly promoted and moved back to where they belong.

This should really be in a FAQ somewhere - as I had to figure this all out on my own. I posted it somewhere else on the board... but this is a huge issue for those of us doing historical leagues with expansion. If you change the team name before you proceed to next season, the team history has the wrong abbreviation for that last year. If you wait until after proceeding to next season, you have the phantom rookie FA problem. Giant pain.

Hope this helps... if you have problems with the CSV export/import - let me know.

05-03-2004, 10:25 AM	#1 (permalink)
Cardinal Rule All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Omaha Posts: 1,190 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0x in 0 posts	Can't sign rookie free agent Running OOTP 6.01, on Win98se, AMD 566 processor, 128MB RAM, 20GB free HD space. Loaded Lahman 5.1 rosters for 1901. Simmed week-by-week the entire season, proceeded to next season. In 1902 the Milwaukee Brewers became the St. Louis Browns, and since I chose to have rookies assigned to their original teams, I assumed the new Browns rookie would just drop into the FA pool to be signed after the normal FA signing period. I completed the FA signing period, and the FA pool was empty. I did a search by name and found this guy (Kane), but he didn't show up in the FA pool so I couldn't have the Browns sign him. Finshed Rule V and Spring Training, and he still didn't show up in the FA pool. I did have the amatuer draft disabled as well. Anyone know how to get this guy signed to the Browns? Also, I assume to avoid this problem in the future I should change the team abbreviation prior to starting the new year? __________________ "There are three-hundred thousand sportswriters and they're all against me. Every one of them." Joaquin Andujar

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05-04-2004, 03:09 PM	#2 (permalink)
hefalumps All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 824 Thanks: 28 Thanked 64x in 44 posts	Hey Cardinal... This problem exists in OOTP5 as well. For whatever reason, if you import players to a non-existent team, they get dumped into the FA pool - but they don't show up in the main FA list. They only show up if you try to Edit Free Agents from the League Setup screen. My guess is because somewhere in the player data they have this "nonexistent team abbreviation" stored that is keeping them from being displayed as bonafide free agents. I'm surprised this hasn't been fixed yet. The way I solved this was by doing a CSV roster export. The "phantom" FAs will show up on the CSV export as Free Agents. You can then cut and paste their names to the appropriate teams and do a CSV import of your roster file. The only downside of this is that a CSV import causes everyone on your teams to be placed in the minors. You'll need to run the Computer Manager on all teams so that people can get properly promoted and moved back to where they belong. This should really be in a FAQ somewhere - as I had to figure this all out on my own. I posted it somewhere else on the board... but this is a huge issue for those of us doing historical leagues with expansion. If you change the team name before you proceed to next season, the team history has the wrong abbreviation for that last year. If you wait until after proceeding to next season, you have the phantom rookie FA problem. Giant pain. Hope this helps... if you have problems with the CSV export/import - let me know.