[Knightlionwave]

I'm kind of new to online leagues. I just joined a league, and there is one team that has been very successful in the recent past so I checked them out. They have the best player in the league, a SS with tremendous defense and 80's across the board hitting-wise. In the middle of an MVP season, he signed a contract that averages about $19M (top salary in the league is an outlier at $30M, then around $18-21M). Problem is, he had a $5M bonus for 500 PA's and a $10M bonus for winning the MVP. Kind of ridiculous to begin with, but this is a salary cap league with plenty of money left over every year. This guy will be paid $24-34M a year and only count against the cap for $19M. That was only the most egregious example. They have one pitcher that, at 27 and the highest rated SP and after winning 3 straight Cy Young's, signed a 4 year $40M deal. The second best 1B in the league signed a deal for $8M a year coming off three all-star selections. The combined effect is pretty large.

Sure, this is all "legal", but is this normal for online leagues? If it's standard operating procedure, I'll just go with it and work within the system, but I'd rather not play the game this way, so if most leagues shy away from this I'll look to join another one. Thanks for any advice.

[TribeFanInNC]

Yeah, I prefer leagues with no use of incentives to that type of use. I've seen worse incentives in deals before - at least that guy is in line to potentially win the MVP.

I would consider it exploitive, but not cheating. I don't really like to work in those confines either.

[Knightlionwave]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

Yeah, I prefer leagues with no use of incentives to that type of use. I've seen worse incentives in deals before - at least that guy is in line to potentially win the MVP.

I wouldn't be too concerned about that in a MLB-type league, but the way our league is set up everyone ends the season with tens of millions of dollars and then it goes back to $10M at the beginning of the next season. So whether or not he wins the MVP makes absolutely no difference to the team's finances, they still start the next season with $10M in the bank.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by Knightlionwave

Sure, this is all "legal", but is this normal for online leagues? If it's standard operating procedure, I'll just go with it and work within the system, but I'd rather not play the game this way, so if most leagues shy away from this I'll look to join another one. Thanks for any advice.

In my experience, almost all online leagues allow contract "incentives" and do not police them. (I actually only know of one league which does not allow them, unchecked.) This situation is easily "gamed" and nearly invalidates the whole system of using finances.

[phillosopherp]

I have seen a ton of leagues that limit in some way the use of incentives. I think that they are way too easily gamed, but at the same time even if you have limits placed it is difficult for a commish to police it. I would say that in a hard cap league that this is way gamey since it doesn't count against the cap, unless you are in a NFL type league where it is specifically spelled out that this is the way to go, or in a early league where they just haven't thought of this way to "get around the system" then I would probably not be interested in the league.


Of course if everything is awesome except for that then I guess you just decide to start with the incentive that are similar.

[kcroyalgm]

Contrary to what Satch says, I find that many on-line leagues have banned the use of incentives because of abuse. Other on-line leagues have set strict guidelines as to what is allowable for incentives. In either case, it becomes a policing issue for the commissioners to deal with it. Short of reviewing every FA or extension signing, there is no way to ensure compliance other than penalties if and when somebody notices an illegal contract.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by kcroyalgm

Contrary to what Satch says, I find that many on-line leagues have banned the use of incentives because of abuse. Other on-line leagues have set strict guidelines as to what is allowable for incentives.

Time for a poll?

Originally Posted by kcroyalgm

Short of reviewing every FA or extension signing, there is no way to ensure compliance other than penalties if and when somebody notices an illegal contract.

I'd expect a Commissioner to examine every contract.

[phillosopherp]

Originally Posted by satchel

Time for a poll?



I'd expect a Commissioner to examine every contract.

Wow that would be one hell of a job... glad I don't commish your league...

[Alan T]

I actually used to go through each transaction to ensure compliance of a no-incentive rule in my league as well. I can tell you.. that was not fun.

I found the proper solution to the problem was to just get players in the league who enjoy the league more than trying to cheese up some contracts and everyone has since pretty much cooled it on that entire thing. Thus we were able to drop the no-incentives rule and my life is better for it

[Raidergoo]

eMLB uses incentives but places limits on them. If the limits get broken, the contract gets voided, the player becomes a FA, and the team gets a multi-million dollar fine. I can only think of one bad contract in the last few seasons due to this. Even then, the league let the bad contract stand.

A team offered an extension to a pretty good player worth $30,000,000 if they won the MVP. It was a mistake, and was immediately reported to the commissioner. It was supposed to be a $3,000,000 bonus.

Oops.

Since incentives cannot be edited, it was allowed to stand with no real penalty other than the rest of the league knowing that this player would take home $30m if they voted for him as MVP. There's nothing quite like a Sword of Damocles worth $30m hanging over your head for a couple of seasons to ensure that all your contract incentives are properly handled.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by phillosopherp

Wow that would be one hell of a job... glad I don't commish your league...

I pity any Commissioner who doesn't have the love that makes him tend his league like a garden. This one knows every leaf.

[garlasco]

I am the owner in question, and I will answer these allegations.

The Player in question I signed to the contract that he was demanding (Length and average value). I added the bonuses to his contract because they are meaningless but it adds to my fantasy world. (since I already met his demands) He has had trouble staying healthy hence the $5M bonus to reach 500 Abs. The MVP bonus is just what it is. Knightlion, I would ask you to look over my other contracts, they are ALL legit. Some players are greedier than others. Some want very high contracts, others sign for less.

As for your 'lesser player' who signed a HIGHER average value, he signed a FREE AGENT contract. There were 4 teams who wanted his services badly and there was a bidding war for him (They ALL had cap room to burn). My player re-signed with the team who drafted him, who was coming off a World series win.

I have traded many VERY good players to stay under the cap.

I would ask that you learn a little about the league history before questioning my integrity. I have never cheated nor will I ever.

You were a good addition to the league and it saddens me that you are stepping down. We do this for fun. I wish you luck in your future leagues.

-Peter

[garlasco]

You also don't mention that to 'circumvent' the cap that I traded my #1 starter and my Closer away in the offseason and had my long time cy young veteran retire. Dropping me below the cap.

Also the player who had an MVP type season signed this contract in either April or May when he was far from putting up MVP numbers. The 3 previous seasons, he had minor injury problems and put up VERY GOOD but not great numbers.

Good luck in your future leagues.

[dcd111]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I actually used to go through each transaction to ensure compliance of a no-incentive rule in my league as well. I can tell you.. that was not fun.

...

Not 100% sure if this is correct (I've never been a commissioner for an online league), but it seems instead of checking individually in-game, a commissioner could periodically do a csv dump of "players_contracts" under Database tools. If you open the file in Excel there are columns that show all incentives included in player contracts. "players_contract_extensions" also has columns showing all incentives. Then you could sort highest to lowest by those columns, and reveal pretty quickly if any are in place, and then check the team and player ids associated with those records if there are.

Somebody could probably put a utility together to check for this pretty quickly, I would think. But I'm not that somebody, so I could be wrong.

[eMLBCommish]

See Raidergoo's comments. I'd love to have the ability to edit incentives in the Commish Editor. (PING: Markus)

I try to make sure I've seen every contract, especially since I now police the limits on performance bonuses (IE: Can't use 600 or 575 PA to meet goal, must use 500 PA, or you can't have your Closer get $5 million if he pitches 200 IP).

People do the darndest things.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

eMLB uses incentives but places limits on them. If the limits get broken, the contract gets voided, the player becomes a FA, and the team gets a multi-million dollar fine. I can only think of one bad contract in the last few seasons due to this. Even then, the league let the bad contract stand.

A team offered an extension to a pretty good player worth $30,000,000 if they won the MVP. It was a mistake, and was immediately reported to the commissioner. It was supposed to be a $3,000,000 bonus.

Oops.

Since incentives cannot be edited, it was allowed to stand with no real penalty other than the rest of the league knowing that this player would take home $30m if they voted for him as MVP. There's nothing quite like a Sword of Damocles worth $30m hanging over your head for a couple of seasons to ensure that all your contract incentives are properly handled.

Damn.

We had that happen in the GUBA, but not quite on that level. We had someone want to give an $800,000 incentive, but made it $8 million by accident. Despite his immediate admittance to making a mistake (and unfortunately doing this after a whole episode where several teams exploited the system and paid penalties), we dropped the hammer on him too, costing the team something like $15 million.