Need help with franchise offseason

[bradusketch]

I need help with the offseason in franchise. I watched that moneyball guy's vid who's doing the A's so I thought I had a grip on offering contracts and all that, but I didn't. I'm probably going to reload to the end of regular season to try it again.

There are just so many guys! I started with the guys who were at least c potential and under 100k and offered them all contracts. I then moved to my core guys I didn't want to lose and offered them contracts. I then kinda worked back and forth, skimming the list and offering to guys who seemed important and relatively cheap.

I goofed on the arbitration and the qualifying offers thing, accidentally offered Valencia 15m for one year or whatever that ridiculousness was. He ended up signing elsewhere anyway.

I still was left with a bunch of D potential guys, guys over 35 or so, and guys who have no skill but want a half million or more. I didn't offer to any of those guys, but didn't quite know how to go about filling those gaps without tediously tracking how many free agents I needed to sign to replace them. So then I just set roster moves to auto figuring the computer would help fill the gaps for me, and what do I get? A bunch of alerts that we've signed all those overpriced guys! Should have seen that coming.

So what's the best way to navigate through it all? How do you guys decide which guys to resign and which to let go? One thing I did do is anyone I made an offer to, I didn't try to lowball them because I want their morale to be high.

I also picked up a couple free agents, nothing too major, mostly guys I thought would either be MLB depth or AAA guys that would get the callup if there's an injury. How deep should I go into the free agents? Do I need a certain number of guys on my roster? I know it's a 90 man so should I fill out the 90 with free agents if I don't offer to some guys?

For guys who seem overpriced, is it better to just sign them (maybe lowball offer) and trade them rather than to lose them outright?

Any other tips to the whole process? Thanks for any help

[90Bamagrad]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

My approach to tackling the off-season goes like this. 1st I never offer arbitration offers, because if you offer a contract they automatically get offered arbitration. I typically stay away from Qualified offers as well, I figure if they are not worth offering multi year deal then I can pass on 1 year multi million dollar offers.

The 1st day I go through an offer all players that are up for arbitration & qualified if I want to keep them and the young guys that are in the 80K range. Usually by day 3 I have locked up all the guys that I want to keep. As for the "C" and "D" I will offer the "C" and a "D" I look at age, position and can they help. If they don't met my need I let them walk. By the end of the 1st week I have everyone signed but the guys that can renewed. I will stay like this and look at the FA until the day comes up when everyone must by offered or they will be cut loose. Then on the renewals I offer 1 year at 30K, which nobody takes but allows me to hold them until the end of the off-season. About a week before Spring Training I go in and renew all my contracts.

When you are trying to get FA gotta remember the games looks at your renwal guys and thats why you get the "player x" can no longer be offered.

And thats what I do.

[dowie]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

My biggest gripe about the off-season pertains to signing free agents.

Since you can't do spring training invites, pretty much anyone you sign as a FA automatically goes onto your 40-man roster.

Is there a way to sign a FA and not have that happen? I am not referring to studs with OA ratings of 70+. It's more about those type of players who are nothing more than minor league depth.

[Unlucky 13]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

It took me YEARS to understand all of the offseason activities. The game does an extremely poor job of guiding you through the process. Even as someone who follows real life MLB 365 days a year, it was confusing for me.

One good thing that they have done in recent years is take away the need to worry about how much you pay the youngest guys in the minors. Just tell it that you want to resign them and it does, generally for 90k. Done. That is usually step one for me, relating to players.

After that, I almost always offer arbitration to any of my players who qualify. You can still then also offer them any kind of longer contract as well, but offering them arb guarantees that they will be on your team again the following season. There is no reason not to unless you have a guy who simply isn't very good and is easily replaceable. But even then, I'd offer him a one year contract and see if you can trade him.

After those are done, you're then left with two kinds of players.

A) True free agents, who are done with the arb process (guys who have been in the majors for 6+ years).

B) Guys who can be renewed (not yet elligible for arb) but who are on the 40 man roster.

For free agents, you can choose to offer them a qualifying offer, which if they accept, is a one year deal for big money. Its not something I generally end up doing. If you want to keep them, then once you go into the screen to offer them a contract, you'll see what they're asking for, and a wheel to the side showing how interested they are. You can mess around with it, and combine money with years to try and get them into the green zone where they are happy with the offer. However, there is never a guarantee that they'll accept ANY offer from you. All you can do is progress the offseason one day at a time and increase your offer if you want to, to try and persuade them.

For the guys who arent arb eligible on the 40, as long as you offer them SOMETHING, then the worst that will happen is you'll be able to renew them on the last day of the offseason calendar before ST starts. Don't go overboard! Paying these guys what they ask will drain your budget quickly. Always, always lowball them and see if they accept. Generally one or two years at a time.

If you have a guy who's in the last year before he's arb eligible, you can try to offer him a 5+ year deal that will reach into his FA years to guarantee him being under control into the future. There are of course risks and rewards to this, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you think he's going to end up as a highly rated guy.

[dowie]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

It took me YEARS to understand all of the offseason activities. The game does an extremely poor job of guiding you through the process. Even as someone who follows real life MLB 365 days a year, it was confusing for me.

One good thing that they have done in recent years is take away the need to worry about how much you pay the youngest guys in the minors. Just tell it that you want to resign them and it does, generally for 90k. Done. That is usually step one for me, relating to players.

After that, I almost always offer arbitration to any of my players who qualify. You can still then also offer them any kind of longer contract as well, but offering them arb guarantees that they will be on your team again the following season. There is no reason not to unless you have a guy who simply isn't very good and is easily replaceable. But even then, I'd offer him a one year contract and see if you can trade him.

After those are done, you're then left with two kinds of players.

A) True free agents, who are done with the arb process (guys who have been in the majors for 6+ years).

B) Guys who can be renewed (not yet elligible for arb) but who are on the 40 man roster.

For free agents, you can choose to offer them a qualifying offer, which if they accept, is a one year deal for big money. Its not something I generally end up doing. If you want to keep them, then once you go into the screen to offer them a contract, you'll see what they're asking for, and a wheel to the side showing how interested they are. You can mess around with it, and combine money with years to try and get them into the green zone where they are happy with the offer. However, there is never a guarantee that they'll accept ANY offer from you. All you can do is progress the offseason one day at a time and increase your offer if you want to, to try and persuade them.

For the guys who arent arb eligible on the 40, as long as you offer them SOMETHING, then the worst that will happen is you'll be able to renew them on the last day of the offseason calendar before ST starts. Don't go overboard! Paying these guys what they ask will drain your budget quickly. Always, always lowball them and see if they accept. Generally one or two years at a time.

If you have a guy who's in the last year before he's arb eligible, you can try to offer him a 5+ year deal that will reach into his FA years to guarantee him being under control into the future. There are of course risks and rewards to this, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you think he's going to end up as a highly rated guy.

Thanks for the in-depth analysis, BUT as far as signing any free agents go (even the ones with overall ratings well below 70) - why do they all automatically go onto your 40-man roster??

[EmpireWF]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

Thanks for the in-depth analysis, BUT as far as signing any free agents go (even the ones with overall ratings well below 70) - why do they all automatically go onto your 40-man roster??

Not sure it's auto, but just pass them through waivers and they won't take up a 40 man spot. In most cases, they'll go unclaimed.

[Unlucky 13]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

Thanks for the in-depth analysis, BUT as far as signing any free agents go (even the ones with overall ratings well below 70) - why do they all automatically go onto your 40-man roster??

I wish that there was a way to sign a player as a minor league free agent, as teams do in real life, but that doesn't seem to be in the game yet. One of the many improvements that I would like for franchise mode.

To the best of my knowledge, unless your 40 man is already full, any free agent that you sign will be automatically added to it. You can of course remove him once ST starts, but then you run the risk of him being claimed on waivers.

And if you do succeed on getting him through waivers and he spends the season in the minors, he would then absolutely be subject to the Rule 5 Draft the next offseason, so keep that in mind.

[adamj2281]

Re: Need help with franchise offseason

One thing I hope they add is an option to sign all of your non 40-man minor league players to a minor league contract at the onset of the offseason.

The issue is that the CPU teams will not automatically sign them, and therefore, you can't make trades involving prospects until late in the offseason.

I will typically sign all of the ones I know I'm going to keep at the start of the offseason prior to free agency. If I want to make a trade with the CPU early on, I sign their players for them (30 team control).