*Free Agency Bidding Procedures*
Jan 24, 2015 19:12:18 GMT -5
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Jan 24, 2015 19:12:18 GMT -5
Free Agency will begin Sunday, January 25 at 12:00 pm ET. The starting ten free agents will be announced prior to this time by the commissioners.
New information for this year is in red.
Terms you should know:
Raw annual value: The per-year value of a contract offer before discounts are taken.
Discounts: Discounts are applied after the bidding for a free agent has ended. You do not need to worry about applying discounts when making your bid - just bid using Raw Annual Value and discounts will be applied after. Discounts are given for signing a hometown player, offering more years, and making the playoffs or winning the World Series the previous season.
Bidding:
Free agency will be an auction where you make bids by offering contracts to players. You win a player if nobody beats your offer for 24 hours.
The best offer will always be the one with the higher annual value unless two GMs offer the same annual value but for a different number of years - if raw annual value is equal the player will choose the offer with more years.
Each player will have a thread in the free agency section. There will be ten free agents being bid on at a time. Bidding will be done by replying to the thread with your offer. Your offer should include the number of years you are offering, the raw annual value of the offer, and the total value of the contract.
Each offer must be better than the previous offer - you must either offer the same raw annual value but for more years, or you must offer a higher raw annual value - see sample bidding (below). Once the bidding on a player reaches $2 million per year, subsequent bids must be at least $0.5 million per year higher unless they increase the length of the contract. Once the bidding on a player reaches $10 million, subsequent bids must be at least $1 million higher unless they increase the length of the contract.
Minimum offers for the primary round:
The minimum salary for a one-year contract is $400,000, or $0.4 million.
The minimum salary for a two-year contract is $2 million per year.
The minimum salary for a three-year contract is $3 million per year, and the minimum salary for a four-year contract is $4 million per year.
There is no longer any maximum salary for one-year and two-year offers. Instead, for one-year contracts that exceed $10 million, 50% of the amount by which the offer exceeds $10 million will be added to the offer after the completion of the bidding.
A one year, $11 million offer becomes $11.5 million ($11 million minus $10 million equals $1 million, 50% = $0.5 million).
A one year, $15 million offer becomes $17.5 million ($2.5 million is 50% of $5 million)
A one year, $20 million offer becomes $25 million ($5 million is 50% of $10 million)
Likewise, two year offers exceeding $20 million per year receive a penalty of 50% of the amount by which the offer exceeds $20 million.
(Two years, $25 million per year becomes $27.5 million per year).
This penalty is added after the bidding is complete but before other discounts are calculated and applied - to beat this bid, another GM need only beat the offered amount, not the amount after the penalty is added.
Discounts:
For a two year contract offer, you take 10% of the raw annual value of the contract as a discount after the bidding. Each additional year offered you will get to take off a 5% discount from the annual value of the salary after the bidding. Two year contracts will get a 10% discount on the annual value. Three year contracts get a 15% discount. Four year contracts get a 20% discount. So, if you win the bidding on a player by offering 4 years/40 million, or an annual value of $10 million, the player's contract becomes $8 million per year (20% off of $10 million). If it's an offer of 3 years/30 million, also an annual value of $10 million per year, then his contract becomes $8.5 million per year, (15% off of $10 million).
So, even though the winner is always the contract with the highest annual value (or equal annual value but more years), longer contracts do end up being cheaper because of the discounts.
In addition to discounts based on contract length, there are also hometown discounts (10%) given when you sign a player who finished the previous season with your team, and also discounts for offering players a chance to sign with a winning team - you will get a 5% discount the following offseason after making the playoffs or missing them but finishing with a top four record in your league and an additional 5% discount if you were the World Series champion or lost the World Series on a tiebreaker.
Opening New Free Agents:
Once a free agent is won, a new one may be opened so that there are ten free agents being bid on at a time. Anyone can open the bidding on the new free agent. If you notice that a free agent has been won (24 hours have passed since the last bid) but no one has opened a new free agent yet, you can be the one to do it. Create a new thread with the player's name, and post the player's name, position, and his most recent team before free agency (see the way Ruth is listed in the sample bidding below) - posting the player's age is no longer required as maximum contract amounts no longer exist. Assuming your thread is posted first, your player will be the new free agent. If someone else posted before you did though, you should delete your post so as to avoid confusion (the commissioners will delete any bidding threads that they notice were opened prematurely. There should never be more than ten free agents being bid on, so if at any point you notice that there are more than ten, please reply to the free agent that was opened last saying that the player was opened in error and should not be bid on). To open a player, you must also bid on him, so please post your bid as well.
Compensation:
You receive compensation if a player who finished the last season with your team (any player on whom you could have received a hometown discount) signs with another team for a raw annual value of $10 million or more. There will be a compensation round in between the first and second rounds of the June Draft, and the order of that round will be determined by the annual value of the contracts, from highest to lowest.
Eligible Players:
Players who are eligible for free agency include all of (and are limited to) the following:
1. Any players who have achieved one year of service time (over 130 ABs for hitters, over 50 IPs or over 25 games for pitchers) who are not on a roster. This includes players who have achieved six-years of service time and thus are no longer cost-controlled, players formerly signed as free agents whose contracts have expired, and cost-controlled players who have been non-tendered.
2. Any players who have not achieved a year of service who are or will be 24 or older on January 1 of that offseason. These "24+ year old rookies" may be bid on despite not having completed a year of service, and there is no maximum value for one or two year contracts. These are the same group of players as those non-rostered 24 year olds that were eligible to be taken in the Rule V Draft, with one important difference: they also include players who have not yet spent a year in the minors, including international free agents. However, if the player has not played professionally in USA baseball (majors or minors), then the player must have a professional contract with a US team in order to be bid on (you may not bid on an international free agent who has never played in the US until after he signs a contract officially). The commissioners reserve final judgment on whether the contract can be considered official. Commissioners also right to veto any player opened in this manner if it seems this rule is being used in an unforeseen way that could have an unintended impact on the game. THESE PLAYERS MAY NOT BE BID ON DURING SECONDARY FREE AGENCY.[/font]
Miscellaneous:
1) If you sign a free agent who has fewer than six years of service time to a deal that expires before the player accumulates six years of service time, that player may be kept until the completion of his sixth year of service at 50% of the annual salary of his original contract or at whatever salary he would otherwise earn on a cost-controlled schedule, whichever is higher.
2) If a player officially retires during the offseason while you have him signed to a long-term veteran contract, you are obligated to pay him for the following year, and nothing more. If the player officially retires during the regular season, you will be obligated to pay him for the remainder of the season and nothing more. You must inform the commissioner if you would like to apply to drop a contract for this reason, and he will use his discretion as to whether the retirement can be deemed official.
3) You may not withdraw bids once they have been made. Please do not delete your bids. Being caught doing this may result in a fine or probation.
4) You may not bid more money than you have available. If you have 50 million available and you have two bids for 20 million each that are still leading, and another player comes up who you want, the most you can bid is 10 million unless one of your other bids gets beaten. However, you can always cut minor leaguers for a little extra wiggle room, so if that same GM who had 50 million available also had 10 million in minor leaguers, they can bid up to an extra 10 million if they're willing to take that risk. The risk with that is that if they were to win all three free agents at 20 million, now they'd have to cut all of their minor leaguers in order to get back under cap. Teams can have 48 hours to try to make a trade before they cut minor leaguers, but at the end of 48 hours they will have to cut prospects immediately or face severe penalties to be determined by the commissioners. Since non-tendering can now be done at any time during the offseason, you may also count money tied up in non-tenderable players in your flexible cash.
Starting free agents will be randomly selected from a list of the most desirable free agents to be subjectively determined by the commissioners. If there are specific free agents that you want us to add to the pool before the random drawing that you think might not otherwise be on our radars, please message us their names and we will add them to the drawing so that there's a chance they get opened up. Starting free agents will be announced ~24 hours prior to the start of free agency.
New information for this year is in red.
Terms you should know:
Raw annual value: The per-year value of a contract offer before discounts are taken.
Discounts: Discounts are applied after the bidding for a free agent has ended. You do not need to worry about applying discounts when making your bid - just bid using Raw Annual Value and discounts will be applied after. Discounts are given for signing a hometown player, offering more years, and making the playoffs or winning the World Series the previous season.
Bidding:
Free agency will be an auction where you make bids by offering contracts to players. You win a player if nobody beats your offer for 24 hours.
The best offer will always be the one with the higher annual value unless two GMs offer the same annual value but for a different number of years - if raw annual value is equal the player will choose the offer with more years.
Each player will have a thread in the free agency section. There will be ten free agents being bid on at a time. Bidding will be done by replying to the thread with your offer. Your offer should include the number of years you are offering, the raw annual value of the offer, and the total value of the contract.
Each offer must be better than the previous offer - you must either offer the same raw annual value but for more years, or you must offer a higher raw annual value - see sample bidding (below). Once the bidding on a player reaches $2 million per year, subsequent bids must be at least $0.5 million per year higher unless they increase the length of the contract. Once the bidding on a player reaches $10 million, subsequent bids must be at least $1 million higher unless they increase the length of the contract.
Minimum offers for the primary round:
The minimum salary for a one-year contract is $400,000, or $0.4 million.
The minimum salary for a two-year contract is $2 million per year.
The minimum salary for a three-year contract is $3 million per year, and the minimum salary for a four-year contract is $4 million per year.
There is no longer any maximum salary for one-year and two-year offers. Instead, for one-year contracts that exceed $10 million, 50% of the amount by which the offer exceeds $10 million will be added to the offer after the completion of the bidding.
A one year, $11 million offer becomes $11.5 million ($11 million minus $10 million equals $1 million, 50% = $0.5 million).
A one year, $15 million offer becomes $17.5 million ($2.5 million is 50% of $5 million)
A one year, $20 million offer becomes $25 million ($5 million is 50% of $10 million)
Likewise, two year offers exceeding $20 million per year receive a penalty of 50% of the amount by which the offer exceeds $20 million.
(Two years, $25 million per year becomes $27.5 million per year).
This penalty is added after the bidding is complete but before other discounts are calculated and applied - to beat this bid, another GM need only beat the offered amount, not the amount after the penalty is added.
Discounts:
For a two year contract offer, you take 10% of the raw annual value of the contract as a discount after the bidding. Each additional year offered you will get to take off a 5% discount from the annual value of the salary after the bidding. Two year contracts will get a 10% discount on the annual value. Three year contracts get a 15% discount. Four year contracts get a 20% discount. So, if you win the bidding on a player by offering 4 years/40 million, or an annual value of $10 million, the player's contract becomes $8 million per year (20% off of $10 million). If it's an offer of 3 years/30 million, also an annual value of $10 million per year, then his contract becomes $8.5 million per year, (15% off of $10 million).
So, even though the winner is always the contract with the highest annual value (or equal annual value but more years), longer contracts do end up being cheaper because of the discounts.
In addition to discounts based on contract length, there are also hometown discounts (10%) given when you sign a player who finished the previous season with your team, and also discounts for offering players a chance to sign with a winning team - you will get a 5% discount the following offseason after making the playoffs or missing them but finishing with a top four record in your league and an additional 5% discount if you were the World Series champion or lost the World Series on a tiebreaker.
Opening New Free Agents:
Once a free agent is won, a new one may be opened so that there are ten free agents being bid on at a time. Anyone can open the bidding on the new free agent. If you notice that a free agent has been won (24 hours have passed since the last bid) but no one has opened a new free agent yet, you can be the one to do it. Create a new thread with the player's name, and post the player's name, position, and his most recent team before free agency (see the way Ruth is listed in the sample bidding below) - posting the player's age is no longer required as maximum contract amounts no longer exist. Assuming your thread is posted first, your player will be the new free agent. If someone else posted before you did though, you should delete your post so as to avoid confusion (the commissioners will delete any bidding threads that they notice were opened prematurely. There should never be more than ten free agents being bid on, so if at any point you notice that there are more than ten, please reply to the free agent that was opened last saying that the player was opened in error and should not be bid on). To open a player, you must also bid on him, so please post your bid as well.
Compensation:
You receive compensation if a player who finished the last season with your team (any player on whom you could have received a hometown discount) signs with another team for a raw annual value of $10 million or more. There will be a compensation round in between the first and second rounds of the June Draft, and the order of that round will be determined by the annual value of the contracts, from highest to lowest.
Eligible Players:
Players who are eligible for free agency include all of (and are limited to) the following:
1. Any players who have achieved one year of service time (over 130 ABs for hitters, over 50 IPs or over 25 games for pitchers) who are not on a roster. This includes players who have achieved six-years of service time and thus are no longer cost-controlled, players formerly signed as free agents whose contracts have expired, and cost-controlled players who have been non-tendered.
2. Any players who have not achieved a year of service who are or will be 24 or older on January 1 of that offseason. These "24+ year old rookies" may be bid on despite not having completed a year of service, and there is no maximum value for one or two year contracts. These are the same group of players as those non-rostered 24 year olds that were eligible to be taken in the Rule V Draft, with one important difference: they also include players who have not yet spent a year in the minors, including international free agents. However, if the player has not played professionally in USA baseball (majors or minors), then the player must have a professional contract with a US team in order to be bid on (you may not bid on an international free agent who has never played in the US until after he signs a contract officially). The commissioners reserve final judgment on whether the contract can be considered official. Commissioners also right to veto any player opened in this manner if it seems this rule is being used in an unforeseen way that could have an unintended impact on the game. THESE PLAYERS MAY NOT BE BID ON DURING SECONDARY FREE AGENCY.[/font]
Miscellaneous:
1) If you sign a free agent who has fewer than six years of service time to a deal that expires before the player accumulates six years of service time, that player may be kept until the completion of his sixth year of service at 50% of the annual salary of his original contract or at whatever salary he would otherwise earn on a cost-controlled schedule, whichever is higher.
2) If a player officially retires during the offseason while you have him signed to a long-term veteran contract, you are obligated to pay him for the following year, and nothing more. If the player officially retires during the regular season, you will be obligated to pay him for the remainder of the season and nothing more. You must inform the commissioner if you would like to apply to drop a contract for this reason, and he will use his discretion as to whether the retirement can be deemed official.
3) You may not withdraw bids once they have been made. Please do not delete your bids. Being caught doing this may result in a fine or probation.
4) You may not bid more money than you have available. If you have 50 million available and you have two bids for 20 million each that are still leading, and another player comes up who you want, the most you can bid is 10 million unless one of your other bids gets beaten. However, you can always cut minor leaguers for a little extra wiggle room, so if that same GM who had 50 million available also had 10 million in minor leaguers, they can bid up to an extra 10 million if they're willing to take that risk. The risk with that is that if they were to win all three free agents at 20 million, now they'd have to cut all of their minor leaguers in order to get back under cap. Teams can have 48 hours to try to make a trade before they cut minor leaguers, but at the end of 48 hours they will have to cut prospects immediately or face severe penalties to be determined by the commissioners. Since non-tendering can now be done at any time during the offseason, you may also count money tied up in non-tenderable players in your flexible cash.
Starting free agents will be randomly selected from a list of the most desirable free agents to be subjectively determined by the commissioners. If there are specific free agents that you want us to add to the pool before the random drawing that you think might not otherwise be on our radars, please message us their names and we will add them to the drawing so that there's a chance they get opened up. Starting free agents will be announced ~24 hours prior to the start of free agency.