Suggestions: Player and Staff Contracts

[battists]

This suggestion thread is designed to collect suggestions for the next version of OOTP, on the following topic:

Player and Staff Contracts and Free Agency

Includes
- Things related to player contracts, incentives, clauses, and so forth.
- The same, for team personnel.
- Includes salary arbitration and free agency, and screens/reports related to these.

Excludes
- If it's "big picture" financial stuff, that should probably go in the front office finances thread.

Instructions
We will use this thread to collect suggestions on the above topic. Later on, we hope to present this information back to the community in a way that would allow you to vote and prioritize certain features.

If you would like to participate, here are the rules!

1. Only 1 suggestion per post.
2. Suggestions must be on-topic for the thread.
3. Constructive, non-inflammatory suggestions only.
4. No comments on others' suggestions are necessary. That means, we don't need 15 posts in the thread saying "Great idea!" or "I agree!"
5. Please don't link to other forum threads as your way of making suggestions. ("My suggestion can be found HERE.") If it's important enough to you that you want it in this thread, then it should be important enough to put it in the format I've asked for here!
6. You can certainly post suggestions that conflict with or build upon earlier suggestions.
7. Mockups are welcomed, they really help Markus see what you're interested in accomplishing.

Format for Suggestions

Suggestion
What is your suggestion? Be as specific as possible; include the screen you're talking about, if applicable.

Reason
Why do you think this is important? If this is to correct what you perceive as a problem in OOTP 2007, what is that problem? Be as specific as possible.

Priority
In your opinion, how important is this suggestion?
High (MUST have), Medium (should have), Low (nice to have))


Handy Cut-and-Paste Suggestion Form:

Suggestion


Reason


Priority


Thanks for participating!

Steve

[CBL-Commish]

Suggestion

Have an option for coach's contracts to have an infinitely repeating club option. They will only leave if fired.

Reason

There are many major league coaches who are basically tied to a franchise. For example, Elrod Hendricks was the Orioles' bullpen coach for 20-some years. That was his happy place. He had absolutely no desire to sell his services to the highest bidder. He would have taken $50k to coach for the Orioles forever. He would have been happy to have died in the Oriole Park bullpen. There is no way, aside from invoking commish/God mode, to model this behavior in OOTP.

Priority

Medium-low. Nice to have, better model of some real life coaches, but not crucial.

[Stu]

Suggestion
Make staff contracts negotiable

Reason
Staff should negotiate the same as players. Currently there is no rhyme or reason to which team staff sign with.

Priority
HIGH

[injury log]

Suggestion

In the Personnel screen, have an 'offer all minor league Coaches an extension' button, just like the 'Offer all minor league free agents minor league contract extensions' button. Coaches willing to renew would be renewed at their requested salary, with no need for approval from the gameplayer. A single news message could list all the coaches who have refused an extension.

Reason

Offering coaches extensions throughout an org'n is among the most tedious tasks in the game. Since coach salaries are predictable, it doesn't make any difference to me what salary a coach requests; I'll renew him regardless. For now, I play with coaches off to avoid the tedium of contract renewals.

Priority

High.

[injury log]

Suggestion

After using the 'Offer all minor league free agents a minor league contract extension', produce only a single email listing all of the players who have accepted the extension offer. Those refusing the offer could each reply individually.

Reason

I will often have upwards of 80 minor league free agents, and receiving 80 separate messages, almost all of which are identical, is somewhat annoying. I then need to scroll through all the messages to find who has refused an offer, and it is tedious deleting the messages.

Priority

Low/Medium.

[battists]

Suggestion
In the Free Agents screen, have a way to multi-select players and mass-offer minor league contracts. (Minor league only.)

Reason
Currently, for example after an expansion draft, you may have a huge number of openings in your minor leagues. It's tedious and time-consuming to offer 40 minor league contracts one at a time.

Priority
Medium

[ctorg]

Suggestion
Have a league setting to allow only 1-year contracts in a league

Reason
Independent minor leagues will often sign players to long-term deals, keeping them out of the majors for years when they would have done well there.

Priority
In your opinion, how important is this suggestion?
Medium-high (the game definitely needs to be able to deal with this somehow, even if it is by being able to sell the contract to a major league team or something).

[injury log]

This half-belongs in the contract forum, half in the Front Office forum...

Suggestion

Have some high-potential draftees request signing bonuses. Have most high-potential international signees request signing bonuses. At the beginning of each off-season, let the user set a budget for player contracts, draft signs, and international signs.

Reason

The game would be much more interesting if different financial strategies could be employed (e.g. allocating a lot of money to international signings, or to the draft, or to free agents), but at the moment the draft and international scouting cost nothing. By implementing bonuses only for draftees and international signs, they could still be awarded minor league contracts, but still incur some cost to the signing team. The draft would be much more interesting if there was, say, a slotting system for round 1, but if some players requested above slot, some below slot bonuses. There would be an interesting added realism if players fell in the draft because of bonus demands. To avoid complexity, I don't think many players should request any bonus at all in a given draft; it would, I think, make things more interesting if about fifty draftees (in a 30-team league) required some kind of bonus.

Priority

For me, high.

[Honolulu Blue]

Suggestion
I should have the ability to offer "take it or leave it" contracts to free agents, which are only effective if the player takes it immediately or the same day.

Reason
Sometimes I find myself in the position where I suffer an injury, I don't want to (or can't) call someone up, there are several suitably warm bodies able to occupy the space on my depth chart for a week or two, but I don't want to wait a day or two or three to have my offer accepted (or not).

Priority
Medium

[Geebob]

Originally Posted by CBL-Commish

Suggestion

Have an option for coach's contracts to have an infinitely repeating club option. They will only leave if fired.

...

Priority

Medium-low. Nice to have, better model of some real life coaches, but not crucial.

Absolutely!

...and...

Suggestion

Some managers should come with ready made staff. In some cases you get an excellent coach... in other cases you get an incompetent drinking buddy.

Reason

Baseball is a real big old boys network. These should start being built into the game.

Priority

Medium (very realistic, but might be a programming nightmare)

[Geebob]

Suggestion

Staff should be MUCH more reluctant to take the first job that comes along. There should be far more talented staff unemployed. (Joe Girardi anyone?)

Reason

Filling staff movement is very common and controversial. You should almost always have a "better" manager, pitching coach, etc. out there.

Priority


High. Staff contracts definitely need improvement in the next version.

[Le Grande Orange]

Suggestion

Allows players to conduct holdouts if they are unsatisfied with the contract being offered them by the ballclub.

Reason

When free agency is off and the reserve clause is in place, the holdout is the only tool players have to try and get a better contract out of a team. The team then has to balance the loss of that player's contribution to the team against the value of the contract the player was demanding, and the player has to balance the loss of income and possibly being permanently replaced by another player.

Priority

High.

When free agency and arbitration are off, holdouts need to happen on occasion so that good players have at least some bargaining power in preventing undervalued contracts.

[Mattymo]

Suggestion
I think personnel contracts should be more like player contracts, rather than just signing them for their "desired rate".

reason
Obviously players will take less money to go certain places than others, and have places they absolutely won't play. Coaches should have that same option in the game, as they do in real lief.

priority
medium

[Raidergoo]

Suggestion
Make staff signings feature fully functional for online leagues

Reason
It is broke.

Priority
High

[battists]

Suggestion
Have some sort of indicator on the free agent screen that tells you that you have already offered this player a contract. Currently, you can't tell that without switching over to the Pending Offers screen.

Along these lines, have another indicator if a player won't negotiate with you.

Alternately, these could be checkboxes, like this:

-Hide players who are already considering offers from me
-Hide players who will not consider offers from me

Reason
Saves you from clicking into a player's profile only to find they won't negotiate with you, or that you already have a pending offer.

Eliminates unnecessary clicking and simplifies the interface.

Priority
Medium

[battists]

Suggestion
Add view/filter options in the free agent screen to allow you to display the contract terms the player is seeking.

It would look just like the roster screen when you display salary info, just instead of salary terms, it would be what the player is seeking, like 2 / 2,500,000 / total 5,000,000.

Reason
Helpful in sifting through free agency, because you can more quickly target players. Eliminates unnecessary clicking.

Priority
Medium

[Hazza]

Suggestion:

Increase frequency of retiring players - > coaches/managers. (low)

Add in first and third base coaches (low)

Increase the number of coaches allowed per team, and make it flexible, like say Football Managerm, ie: "General coaches" (Low, may be a silly idea.)

Fix the "loopholes" in contracts, ie: 10mil a year plus 20mil for starting a game. That way the owner approves it, and the player accepts it. It's cheating. (Medium/High)

[injury log]

Suggestion

Fix free agent compensation. Now that the game generates draft pools bigger than the draft, perhaps it might be possible to implement sandwich rounds. In any case, I'd like it to be optional to protect the first half of the first round from compensation, and I'd like a 2nd round pick to be awarded if the 1st rounder is protected (or if the team has already given its 1st rounder away).

Reason

Compensation doesn't work very well. It can be better to lose a Type B than a Type A, because you're more likely to get compensation. If your team is bad, you can also sign Type As with no penalty. Many people don't use compensation because it is not implemented well.

Priority

High, for me.

[injury log]

This seems to be the most transaction-friendly thread...

Suggestion

Change waivers to be more like real life. In particular (from most important to least important):

1) outright waivers should be irrevocable in OOTP (they're revocable at present if the waived player has options remaining);

2) players who have been outrighted to the minors once previously in their career should have the option to become free agents every subsequent time they are outrighted (some players in OOTP should choose to become FAs, some should not, based on morale);

3) players with three years of MLB service should also have the choice to become a free agent if outrighted;

4) it should only be possible to try to waiver-trade a player once after the trade deadline in a given season; the waivers should be irrevocable the second time in the same season.

Reason

I find a number of unrealistic roster situations in OOTP; I have borderline major league players who are unhappy and who I continually demote or outright, and who in real life would jump at the chance to become free agents, but stay in my system for years in OOTP. It is also unrealistically easy to clear 40-man spots; the waivers used should always be irrevocable. This would be easier to understand for newer players- when you remove someone from the 40-man, he always goes through irrevocable waivers.

These suggestions would bring OOTP waiver rules more in line with real MLB rules, very well explained here (thanks to Zeyes for the link):

baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/08/death_taxes_and_1.php

Irrevocable waivers are already implemented in-game, so I'd think some of the changes suggested would be easy to implement. A 2-valued 'outright flag' (0 if the player has never been outrighted, 1 if he has) would probably be needed in each player's record to implement suggestion 2).

Priority

High, for me, for 1), 2) and 3); 4) isn't as important.

[Hazza]

Suggestion:

Have an option for "Allow forreign Free Agents to enter league via posting."
or something similar.

Like in real life.

Can run both ways, a player could message you looking to be posted etc etc.

Priority: Medium.