Who are these mystery men?

[Waninski]

After performing a league-wide player search of third basemen in my MLB league (we're still in the year 2010), one 28-year-old stranger named "Santiago Martinez" caught my eye. He's rated 4.5 stars with the kind of blue offensive ratings you drool over. Strange thing is, he isn't with any team, doesn't show up in the list of free agents, and his player page doesn't include the option to offer him a contract. He isn't retired, and I don't have any international or feeder leagues set up. After doing a general player search of all positions, I notice other, similar "unsignable" players like this. So, who is this guy? And why, if his ratings are so awesome, can I not even offer him a contract?

[RchW]

I wonder if he is a duplicate of a player who is retired. It might explain the non-functionality.

[Kelric]

Do you have scouts turned off while accidentally leaving 'Create & maintain hidden players' turned on?

[Waninski]

Do you have scouts turned off while accidentally leaving 'Create & maintain hidden players' turned on?

Scouts are turned on. Create and maintain hidden players is also on. Should that be turned off?

[old timer]

I had this very same problem happen to me twice now for two different reasons. One cause, was not allowing foreigners into a league. Therefore, anyone from a different country couldn't be signed.

The other cause was more subtle and in fact was a bug/design flaw that is now claimed fixed for the upcoming version. Basically, it can happen if you ever had another major (or independent minor or international) league that you later deleted. I won't detail this problem unless this applies to you.

So to make a long story short, check your league settings. It's probably some setting in there that's preventing certain players from being signed. It might also help to look at the players that can't be signed and see if you can see something in common between them.

Hope this helps!

[Waninski]

Basically, it can happen if you ever had another major (or independent minor or international) league that you later deleted. I won't detail this problem unless this applies to you.

So to make a long story short, check your league settings. It's probably some setting in there that's preventing certain players from being signed.

All I can really say is that I've been playing with the standard settings the game came with for the '09 MLB start-up league. I haven't tweaked any settings. Nor do I have any other leagues beside MLB set up.

I notice that in the League Setup, I have "Allow Free Agents to leave League" selected. I don't know if that has anything to do with this, though, but I guess these could be other players playing in other leagues that I can't access, if that's even possible?

It might also help to look at the players that can't be signed and see if you can see something in common between them.

There doesn't seem to be any real common denominator other than they all seem to be veterans: 27, 28, 37, 38 years old, etc. I haven't been able to find any real prospects among these players. And they're all of different nationality. One is an American, one a Canadian, one Japanese.